Conspiracies and Strangeness on the Earthship

Image: truthandaction

"To see what is in front of our nose needs a constant struggle"  George Orwell

"All the great events have been distorted, most of the important causes concealed...... If the history of England is ever written by one who has the knowledge and the courage, the world would be astonished"  Benjamin Disraeli, former British PM 1868, 1874 - 80

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly"  Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 - 43 BCE

Part One

'Ah, Pale Green Vortex - another conspiracy nut job.' I expect more than one innocent web surfer has stumbled upon these hollowed pages, skimmed a couple of articles, then moved hurriedly on, remembering to delete it from their browsing history.

Is Pale Green Vortex a conspiracy site? I can't say. Partly because I don't really know what 'conspiracy theory' means. It seems that the terms 'conspiracy theory' and 'conspiracy theorist' first came into widespread usage following the untimely death of President Kennedy. They were employed to describe anybody who dared question the official mainstream story of the incident. The terms served the purpose of suppressing any questioning of the narrative by depicting sceptics as odd, paranoid, likely messed up, and possibly dangerous (this is a conspiracy view, by the way). 'Conspiracy theorist' comes dripping with ad hominem connotations, aimed at marginalising the person who  questions what we are told 24/7 through the organs of officialdom, the mainstream media.

Pale Green Vortex isn't interested in fitting into other people's twisted categories of humans, human thought and behaviour. Personal investigation over recent years has, however, alerted us to three related truths. Firstly, that the narrative relentlessly pushed in the mainstream is frequently one-sided, very partial, or plain untrue. Believe nothing without checking it out. Secondly, that a lot more is often going on than people let on - or that most people know is going on. The populace is presented with a very surface layer of reality, that's all. Thirdly, that many events that are put down to coincidence, or as 'just happening', are anything but that. A lot more planning, premeditation, and organisation are involved than we are told. Not always, but frequently: major international events don't usually 'just happen'.

The notion that there are forces at work darker even than the Camerons and Merkels of this world may be difficult to stomach. But the model is actually out there is the world already, recognised and assented to by millions of people every week. It's mainstream - remember Orwell's quote above. Take James Bond, for example, and Doctor Who - it's the same old theme. Weird, quite nasty, things are happening  - people dropping dead in large numbers, getting strange diseases, mutating at the drop of a hat, this sort of thing. Our hero sees that there's something seriously wrong, even if everybody else remains oblivious to the reality, and steps in to check it out. Overcoming fearful armies that possess an array of deadly weapons, blasting past terrifying monsters with eyes all over the place, our great hero finally reaches the inner citadel, the secret room at the centre of the spaceship, or whatever. Breaking in, he finally comes face-to-face with the little, bald scary guy, who just happens to be Controller of the Universe.

The thing about the scary guy is that he doesn't quite look and behave the way we expect the Master of All to look and behave. And the other thing - most important - is that his existence is barely known or suspected by anyone else. The vicious armies, the psychopathic monsters are all, seen from this new perspective, nothing more than sad and unwitting victims of somebody else's game, pawns and puppets in a bigger agenda they are oblivious to.

People love this stuff, lap it up. Maybe there's a subliminal recognition of truth there. Reality served up as entertainment. As if confronting the truth directly is too painful, too incongruous with what we are led to believe. Instead, reality presented as pure escapism. Harmless fun, ridiculous fiction. Brilliant. In the meantime, apply the James Bond model to present-day world affairs. It works, down to the finest detail.

Part Two

I try to proceed from a foundation of 'intelligent intuition' - a sense of whether things feel congruous or not. Intuition can be a more reliable guide than reason alone, since the rational faculty so often puts itself at the service of the most irrational ideas, ideologies, feelings and prejudices. Reason can be used to justify anything. so I mostly look out for a sense of strangeness, listen out for things that don't sound quite right. This is my normal starting point.

Here's a case of high strangeness. It concerns a burning issue of today, the so-called migrant crisis or refugee crisis. During the course of this year, enormous numbers of people have entered Europe from Africa, the Near and Middle East, by boat over the Mediterranean or over land through the south-east of the continent. Some are from Syria, others not. Some are genuine refugees, escaping war-torn areas, others are not. Some have real passports, some have fake passports, some have nothing at all. Most of them have their origin in countries that are well-known as hotbeds and breeding grounds of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Nearly all pledge allegiance to a religion that is not top of the list for tolerance of other cultures and religions, or for encouraging multiculturalism on its home ground. Nevertheless, it has been pretty much open doors for these people, entering Europe without difficulty, being left free to march across the face of the continent to Germany, Sweden, wherever. Come on in; you are welcome.

So I find this strange, that people can just turn up at random, while western Europe is apparently at war with terrorism. Yet it passes without serious comment as to its 'rightness' in much of the mainstream media and in the utterings of the majority of politicians. That, too, requires some serious questioning. There have, in fact, been large demonstrations in several European countries protesting against the uncontrolled influx of migrants, but these gatherings have gone largely unreported in the mainstream. Funny, that.

At the same time should I, fully armed with my UK passport, wish to travel anywhere outside Britain, I shall be subjected to ever-more stringent controls and security checks: shoes off, bag search, pat down if I'm really lucky. You see, it makes no sense at all.

Here's another strange thing. How come ISIS (or ISIL, or IS. IS Cream?), which was completely unknown a few years ago, has turned into the most feared organisation in the western world so quickly? How is it able to hold the whole of Europe to ransom? Where does its money come from? Did they all work extra hours in Debenhams to fund their activities, their weapons? Isn't it all a bit,,,er... strange?

Then there's Syria itself, awash with a hotch-potch of rebel groups. Turkey aids rebel groups A,B, and G. The Saudis favour groups B,C,F, and G. The CIA covertly supports A,D, and E. Western governments indirectly help fund C,D, and F. It's a bit like shying at coconuts at the fairground: choose your target and have a go. And since rebels are known to quite easily change allegiance from one group to another, and that money and weapons are likely to flow freely as a consequence, the boast of various western governments that they support nice rebels while opposing nasty ones doesn't add up at all. We might almost start to wonder whether it's all a smokescreen, and that somebody stands to benefit from the chaos and confusion. Hey, shut up - that's conspiracy stuff.

The one consistent foreign agent appears to be Vladimir Putin, who at least says 'rebels are rebels, end of story.' And amidst the mess, everybody has conveniently forgotten there is a President of the country with as much legitimacy to go about his business as most of those in the nations all around him.

So it's all highly bizarre, taken on the surface level at least. You might end up feeling that there's more to all this than meets the casual eye. That there are forces, designs, at work that the BBC and Daily Telegraph, Cameron, Obama and the rest aren't very up front about. Maybe they don't know exist themselves.

One of the 'conspiracy' (read 'nuts', 'crazy' to the mainstream) notions relevant to the interrelated messes detailed above is that of 'white genocide'. Bit of an emotive term, that.  The story goes that there is a conscious, deliberate attempt to wipe out white, European cultures, and that the ideal of multiculturalism, pushed relentlessly despite the unfolding mess that it has spawned, is part of this programme of racial removal from the face of the planet. Crazy. Nuts. Lobotomy case.

I do not intend to present any opinion here. But I feel it is incumbent on any responsible individual, concerned about the state of human affairs today, to avoid knee-jerk reactions and at least check this kind of idea out. Don't try wikipedia, which is fine for births, marriages, and deaths, population sizes of cities, that kind of thing, but not fit for purpose otherwise.You need to go closer to the source; Red Ice, linked to from Pale Green Vortex, has little else nowadays. Some of the articles listed there are good, others moderate, others prejudiced trash; but it's up to the individual to discern. There's plenty of other stuff on the internet, easy to find if you only dare. 21st Century Wire is another news site worth looking at to get different angles on the global political game.

Another question - bit of a taboo, maybe slightly less so today - concerns the role, if any, of Zionist Jews in the current poisonous soup. Check it out. there's no need for immediate conclusions. Put it in your bag of possibilities and get on with your life. That's the method.

Having said that, I am going to make a few tentative suggestions which, if adopted, might help bring a bit more sense and humanity into these subjects. Firstly, that the world stops feeling sorry for the Jews. If I look around, I feel they are doing very well for themselves, thank you. By the same token, I propose that people of Germany abandon the attitude of eternal guilt and atonement for the sins of the past. Most people alive today weren't even born when World War Two ended. These are outdated attitudes that continue to be promoted by those who stand to benefit from them (hey, that's a conspiracy view if ever I heard one). Time to move on. Maybe it's also time to stop blaming the former imperial powers of Europe for all the woes of Africa. I am aware that many nations of Africa continue to be fleeced, manipulated, blackmailed by global financial institutions, but the time comes when personal, or at least national, responsibility needs to come to the fore. Most African nations were granted independence half a century ago, plenty of time to do something. Yet many continue to live at a level of conflict, division, and general viciousness that the imperial nations could not have dreamed of. It's time to go Zen: look at the present, live in the present. Anything else is a self-indulgent luxury we cannot afford.

And that, folks, is it for now.......





                        

A Few Demons Revisited

Part One

Mountains, the natural world in general, may enthuse and inspire. They can do many different things. They are certainly not essentially 'nice' or 'benign'. If anything, nature manifests a complete indifference to the cares, worries, and tribulations of humanity. It may or may not have a wider programme at work. But it comes dancing in all manner of moods and guises; some of which may be to our liking, others less so.

I go to the mountains; nowadays it is tantamount to a personal need. But not all mountains or mountain places are the same. Some appear designed to evoke happiness, relaxation, uplift. Some have little 'atmosphere' about them, to me, while others knock me over with something or other. And others still have a supernatural quality about them that is not obviously benevolent. It may be hostile, or may exude love in the toughest of disguises, enough to provoke mental breakdown.

Find Ullapool on a map of Scotland - a little fishing port on the north-west coast - then trend south eastwards for a number of miles. The first sizeable mountains you will come across will be the cluster referred to in the mountain books as the Beinn Dearg group.

During the first years of my living in Scotland I made several expeditions into the Beinn Dearg group. On one occasion I went in late winter. It was a glorious morning, the landscape resplendent in Highland sun. Then I turned a corner into a dark, awe-ful valley of the shadow of death. Ground still frozen hard, no rays of sun penetrating, bearing down on me with heavy oppressiveness. I was relieved to get out of that place. On another occasion I visited following a particularly harsh winter. After squelching across a seemingly endless stretch of peat bog, rendered especially squelchy by the ample snowmelt, I almost stumbled over the freshly dead body of an adult female deer. Her eyes still bright, wide open, she had given up the unequal fight against cold and malnourishment. I sat beside her body, spontaneously chanting some mantra (what else do you do?) before walking sombrely on. On yet another occasion I set off to climb Beinn Dearg itself. I had spied previously a graceful, airy ridge that would provide a far more exciting route of ascent than the path normally taken by mortals. However, once on the ridge, I found it to consist of enormous angular boulders, an almost impossible nightmare to traverse. Stumbling and struggling, trying not to twist knees or ankles, I considered it one of the least pleasant mountain ascents of my life.

Then came the end of May 2009. A friend of mine was keen to do a slightly adventurous multi-peak walk, including some rough and rather remote terrain. Was I interested? The question was rhetorical....

The first hill was fairly grassy, but from there we descended into a wild and lonely gap, crossing the outflow from a lochan in remarkable surroundings. From there it was a steep and rocky climb up a pathless ridge onto the summit of arguably the finest of the Beinn Dearg peaks, that of Cona' Mheall. The trip thus far had taken longer than anticipated. It was already late afternoon, and we still had the descent to do, along a narrow ridge, then down the steep, blunt end, whence it would be two hours across the moor to return to the road. It was while we were walking along the airy ridge that I had a freak accident. The bow in one of my bootlaces got caught in an eye on the other boot. This meant that, when I went to stride forward, one foot failed to move ahead. At the same time, momentum plunged the upper part  of my body forwards, then quickly down towards and onto the rock beneath me. I have never hit the ground with such force in my life. I fortunately got my right hand in front of me just before I smashed onto the rocks, otherwise my skull might well have been splintered into pieces. As it was, my wrist was unmoveable, various fingers refused to do what they normally do, and the lower arm didn't yield very pleasant sensations at all.

In the early evening, we scrambled across the ups and downs of the rocky ridge, then began the precarious descent. Steep, stony, slippery, it required the use of hands for security. Ouch,ouch, ouch. I moved gingerly, painfully, but we eventually reached the bottom of the ridge. All along, the surrounding scenery was magnificent in the extreme, seeming to add to the gravitas of the situation. Once off the rocks, we were dismayed to find no trace of a path. Though this route appears in the definitive guidebook to such exploits, it seemed that we were the first humans to actually ever do it. By now the light was fading, and we were pretty exhausted. Still, nothing to do but to walk, stop for three minutes for a rest, then walk some more. Light faded, and we reached the car.

The following day at Accident and Emergency, I was told that, amazingly, I had no fractures. The consultant seemed slightly disappointed. The fact that I am a pretty lightweight version of human made all the difference - less impact on hitting the ground. Still, I was in pain and discomfort, restricted by a splint-like thing on my lower arm, for weeks.

After that, I decided to give the Beinn Dearg group a miss. There are plenty of other mountains around, which seem to bode well rather than ill. Until September of this year, that is.....

Part Two

I felt strong, well, changed since the Cona' Mheall mishap, and the perverse idea manifested within my mind to revisit the Beinn Dearg group. Thus it was that I set off up a long, slowly rising glen, first through forest then across open hillside, on a day that was far gloomier than the weather forecasts had predicted. Cloud hung over the mountain tops, refusing to disperse. I had actually passed this way many years previously, on a walk that I didn't even bother recounting above. But it was a day when I had been beaten back by strong winds and horizontal hard hail and sleet cutting my face raw. On that occasion I had found the glen bland, devoid of real interest. Today, however, it appeared in a more enticing guise. Waterfalls and rockpools punctuated the water tumbling down the glen; rocks and high cliffs marked the upper parts, conveying a sense of quiet awe to the place.

I climbed the steep end wall of the glen, to emerge on a high, lochan-studded plateau which serves as a kind of crossroads, with Munro-sized mountains to the left, to the right, and straight ahead. On my right, the summit cliffs of Beinn Dearg disappeared into thick, grey cloud, still displaying sizeable accumulations of snow left over from the spring (and this in September! Global warming, my friends...). Instead, my attention turned to my left, to a mountain I had not visited before. Up I went, soon on the flat but rocky peak, with a view over monochrome grey hills, glens, and sea lochs beyond. The ridge continued to another unvisited hill, but I looked back. There, appearing like an uninviting pile of scree from this direction, was Cona' Mheall. It had not been my conscious intention to climb Cona' Mheall, but suddenly the urge took me over, irresistible. I had to revisit the scene of my accident.

The route to Cona 'Mheall was longer - and took more time and effort - than I expected. I wondered whether I was doing the right thing, with this spontaneous add-on to the day. I climbed rapidly up a rough rocky path, to clamber over boulders at the top and finally emerge on the familar ridge of Cona 'Mheall. I gazed all round. My heart missed a beat or three, my stomach churned, It is indeed a magnificent place, a surreal spot in which to have a freak accident. 3000 feet up, and hours of walking from the nearest habitation. The funny thing is that I was able to pinpoint the precise spot on the ridge where the accident had occurred those six years ago. It is as if even mild trauma leaves a deep imprint in the mind. I wandered around the place, silently nodding my head. Then I went off down the ridge a way, to take it all in, and to let go of the trauma still lingering from the events of 2009. I spent a while at the summit, reviewing our trip of that day. What a marvellous landscape we had passed through. The only change is that, on that day, no wind farms were visible from our route; today, no less than five could be seen from the two peaks that I visited. Even the newly-built obscenities of low-grade humanity could not detract greatly from the magnificence of the location, however.

I retraced my steps to the scene of the accident once more, then headed downhill, across bog and rock, towards the plateau. At one point I was aware of being watched, and looked up to see an enermous mountain goat standing on a boulder scrutinizing my moves. While deer tend to watch with dreamy eyes, with an alert yet languid attention, the mountain goat seemed focussed, ready for action, not to be messed with. I moved swiftly on.

I felt that a freedom had been released in my mind following the revisit to the ridge of Cona' Mheall. There are times when demons of the past need to be revisited in order to free their grip, however subtle and unrecognised, on ones consciousness. I felt happy, relieved even, to have encountered once more the spirits of Cona' Mheall, and the Beinn Dearg group, and to find that they are not necessarily out to get me. Maybe I'll be back next year.....