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OCCUPATION For most of us, life is a continual succession of roles in which to lose ourselves, rather than confront ourselves and larger issues. We begin with duty and obeisance to a protector and provider, to whose stature we are compared as nothing. Thereafter, with proper molding, we begin formal schooling and submit control to another absolute authority. Such "proper" lessons also encourage unquestioned respect and servility to the larger authorities of a state or nation. We become the willing gears of an economic machine which succeeds or fails according to our level of willingness. As long as enough of us continue to work and produce goods and income for the State, the machine will continue to run. Leaders and other heads of State rely on the steady flow of such goods and income. Plans are made on such reliance, long-range forecasts envisioned and charted. It is presumed that the steady flow will continue forever ... as long as the people are happy. In governments less than honest with the people, it matters little if the people are really happy. The trick is to convince them they are happy ... that everything is okay. At the close of the second millennium, all the major media 2 combined to give a rosy impression that everything was okay. It was a necessary impression to foster, because many people had made many plans, high and low. And it's difficult to enjoy your caviar if someone's rocking the boat. So the mandate was firmly in place to continue the impression of calm. Keep the masses mollified ... that seemed to be the order of the day. Newscasters had earned their place in the media firmament, faces the people had come to know and trust. Their evening reports became accepted as gospel. Different folks had different favorites, of course, but each was equally admired as an honest reporter, one who told them all they needed to know. The same was true of print media. People read their favorite paper or reporter, confident they were privy to "all the news that's fit to print." Very few citizens were aware that there was another story behind the story being carefully spoonfed by the cherished media. This is not to imply that the media stars knew the truth of their circus. Most reporters loved their high-profile positions too much to venture far beyond the boundaries of the politically correct. And even if they dared to even try reporting the full story, warts and all (though it was their duty), such ambitious voice would be stilled by the God of the airwaves. That God was money. Big money. International finance and connections with major world banking concerns ... 3 computerized operations begun by the late William Casey (of CIA fame) which would PROMIS the U.S. government hidden access to worldwide banking transactions. Ostensibly, this was to track large cash movements by drug smugglers and terrorist operatives. The scent of Big Money has a tendency to attract any nose willing to inhale it. Bill Clinton, of course, does not inhale, so he says. Regardless of whether one accepts that naive claim, it is nonetheless clear that his nose has been quite busy. Way back in his governor days, Bill was well aware of all the traffic in and out of little Mena airport. He'd inherited a legacy from Reagan and Bush which used Barry Seal's plane to ferry weapons from Mena to Nicaraugua, and cocaine from there back to Mena and Florida and other places. There was so much "snow" on the go, it must have been blinding. It did, at least, blind at least three presidents to their oath of office and their duty to the country they pretended well to serve. Big Money. Blinding. With such an avalanche of crooked cash flowing into corrupted banks like the BCCI and others used by Clinton and cronies, it became important to maintain a high level of secrecy ... the art of lying with a straight face ... plausible deniability, as George Bush called it. After "laundering," these mountainous profits found their way into offshore banks and unnumbered accounts in Switzerland. 4 It has been variously reported by the Wall Street Journal, Media Bypass magazine and American Spectator magazine that Vince Foster, Counsel to the Clintons, may have been caught up in this web of international finance. Though exact details are yet to surface, it is rumored that Foster may have assisted Israel with State secrets, for which he was richly reimbursed. It is alleged that a sum of more than two million dollars lay in his unnumbered Swiss account. It is also said that other similar sums rested in other accounts belonging to various top officials of the U.S. government. Now, returning to that secret Promis software installed in banks worldwide ... a group of very talented "hackers" found a way into the system, it is said. They got into Foster's account, electronically, and, along with fortunes of other accounts for a grand total of around two billion dollars, wired that stupefying sum right back into the U.S. Treasury! Think about it, if yours was one of those illicit accounts ... who ya gonna call? Whether Foster sold State secrets to another country, or whether he knew too much about Bill and Hillary's secrets and personal finances ... someone killed Vince Foster. The number of people associated with the Clintons who've thus met untimely ends continues to grow. More than ten, less than sixty? No one knows. They were all suicides, of course. That's what the media darlings tell us. But could that possibly be true? All of them? Think about it. If even one such death was caused because of inconvenience 5 High crimes and misdemeanors. Felonies. Treachery. Obstruction of justice. Subversion of the ideals of this great land. That's what it amounts to, and more. And that's why you won't hear it on the national news ... yet. For, the international banking interests own the controlling share of the major media ... and many people in high places have the voting rights of secret wealth in that consortium ... and a vested interest to maintain the status quo here on the ground around the masses. Keep 'em happy. Keep 'em producing. Keep that money flowing in to run the Ship of State. Keep 'em occupied. And we are occupied. Not only in the role of a job, we are also occupied by the myriad other roles which consume a life in hours, years, or identity. The countless other little labels we're often compelled to wear: friend, lover, relation, partner, member, player, co-worker, cohort, conspirator, etc. Through all these and other designations, one common tie unites: we allow ourselves to be occupied by such roles for most of our lives, consumed by the attention required and conceding our consciousness to commitments we often don't prefer. We are a culture of "belongers," quickly allying ourselves with the person, party, platform or profession we've been led to believe is proper. And it is not without a certain sense of power when, confronted by 6 more than one choice for our attention, we graciously condescend to the courting of one and imperially renounce the other ... caught up in the sense of our own utility. Those are the "good" times, the years of our undeniable attraction. When they are finally gone and we are finally alone, at the ebb of our all-consuming social commitments, we feel an emotional dichotomy: relieved, on the one hand, to be free of such continual occupation of our time and our selves; and betrayed, on the other, to be so free -- bereft of a once-full social life and the "life-preservers" who had once kept our heads afloat in seas of uncertainty. We move through our steady, structured lives, content with a succession of roles arranged to occupy our conscious moments. Many roles we do not prefer, but feel compelled to perform them anyway, as necessary tasks: the unbearable job which pays, however, bearable money; the stifling relationship which still feels better than none at all .... Whatever the role and our feelings about it, we nonetheless allow it to occupy our time -- one role to the next -- like so many pearls in the pattern of our days, neat and structured, comfortably arranged. Beyond family and household concerns, there is little time left to consider deeper issues; and even those rare moments are encroached upon by reminders of the mundane. The "family" role, if allowed, can occupy the entire day. An entire life. 7 In the "job" role, with its own set of parameters for interaction, new personas are often necessary. The authority figure at home is now less supreme. A new pecking order exists. Whether the major pecker is a person or corporate idol, the diminution is the same. And, like the role one attends in a family, the job role occupies much more than time. As with all roles, whether one feels fully committed, willing and dedicated or not, is of slight consequence. One is still going through the motions of the role, putting in time, putting in life. Extraneous thoughts, images of substance, can rarely be fully apprehended. They are commonly more annoyance than inspiration, for they occur in the midst of a "role" to which we've already sworn loyalty. All such brilliant ideas and insights will have to wait, for, at the moment, we're "occupied." And they will wait for ever. For never. We sell our souls, generations on, for tomorrows that are comfortably remote. As long as we can submerge ourselves into overlapping roles which nicely fill our time, we don't have to consider really making a difference. Our satisfaction is just as rewarding, we convince, even if we suppress all urges of greatness, genius, or nobility. After all -- we do make a nice cornbread, don't we, or quota for the day? Unfortunately, that comfortable philosophy may soon be sorely tested. Oh, sure, it's been good enough all these years. All these generations. 8 But it may not be adequate for too much longer. These are pivotal times. The lazy past could excuse all manner of social sloth and innumerable excesses. We shoved everything under the rug. Then, in order not to address the mounting problem ... we just moved. But we are in the corner, now, and there is no place left to go. Our consuming debt to ourselves as human beings falls due with greater finality. It is not enough, any more, to fill our time with various roles and ignore true feelings. It is not enough to play so many parts, though we may play them well, and leave the stage at the end of the day with a feeling of empty accomplishment. There is something inside, whether a soul or greater calling, which has been denied and benumbed. Yet it is hungry. And it must be fed. It cries out for truth, for justice, for what is right. It stirs in each of us, and begs accommodation. Because of other pressing concerns throughout the always busy days, we've not been too accommodating. But the signs of imposing change press more ominously upon and all around us. Something is coming, we suspect. Something is about to happen. Maybe not something good. Certain futurists ot intuitives feel it will be monumental. Geographical. That both U.S. coasts will suffer dramatic restructuring and east will be separated from west by a major new waterway. Soon. By 2002, maybe. Whether such changes occur, now or later, one thing is eminently clear: weather patterns have been rather quirky, lately ... earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, droughts, impossible winters .... 9 Can we imagine it will all go away and never happen at all, whatever "it" is? Only a fool whould cherish such naive hope. Can we just be a little better in our daily roles, smile a little more, would that do it? Not enough, it would appear. We need a new vigilance, a new interest in what's going on around us. We cannot be satisfied, any more, just to have our every waking moment occupied by countless roles which obviate creative thinking. Nor can we longer be content with blind belief in the media, for the TV, newspaper and most other sources do not provide all needed information. They simply generate a constant blur of images and newsbites aimed at ensuring a certain status quo ... occupation. |