“Where is it written that the United States will last forever?” -Chalmers Johnson

“What power Rome slowly built, an unarmed traitor instantly overthrew.”  -Claudian (CE 365 - ~408)

I love the concept of differentiating between America and America^TM.  This is clearly demonstrated in Culture Jam: How to reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge - and Why We Must by Kalle Lasn.  It’s a very good read, amazingly patriotic, and here’s an excerpt:

“Act Four of the story of America is about breaking the media-consumer trance.  It’s about taking the TM out of America^TM.  It’s about putting corporations back in the box and revoking many of the constitutional rights we have granted them over the past two hundred years.  It’s about calling these subordinate entities to heel.

“The goal of this workshop is to spark a dramatic personal mind-shift that will change the way you relate to corporations.  Once you’ve experienced this shift, you’ll feel ashamed for having been so docile and subservient for so long.  Your days will be charged with a new sense of autonomy and mission.  You’ll derive immense pleasure from tussling with corporations, putting them in their place.  You’ll train yourself to always take the position of power, to be mindful of the fact that you are a human being and the corporation is merely a legal construct your species thought up.

And further on…

“Two generations of chronic overconsumption, decadence and denial have weakened America^TM.  American cool is now every bit as vulnernable as the Soviet Utopia was ten years ago.  A revolution couldn’t happen there but it did.  It can’t happen here, but it will.  This is a momentous occasion and we shouldn’t doubt or fear, but celebrate.  In the dawn of this new millennium, one dream is ending and another is being born.

“And I can’t think of anything much cooler than that.”

I’d also add that governments are also legal entities.  A government is a contract between peoples on how they choose for themselves to be governed.  In the United State’s case, that contract is the constitution.  I ask all the citizens reading: are you choosing the way you are currently being governed?  Are those in power operating within and fulfilling their contract with you according to the boundaries outlined by the Constitution?

I is surely obvious, but I prologued with Culture Jam because if you’re new to Polycogs, you might mistake the next section for something less than American.  I assure you it is not.  Instead I hope to demonstrate some bad behaviors that lead to a known failed state and some bad behaviors we are participating in that seem to be a repeat of a lesson taught.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that we have the gift of choice on how to move forward.

If you’ve already absorbed conceptual frameworks listed above, then check out my favorite Yoda-Human (meant with the utmost respect): Professor Chalmers Johnson. He draws some astonishing parallels between Rome and the United States:

 

 

But what about this seeming repetition of history?

I have recently been investing a great deal of energy into researching Terrence McKenna’s work on what he has called Timewave Zero or Novelty Theory.

Why?  Well Terrence offers a unique way of looking at reality and I think there’s definitely some goodness to be extracted there.  He also beat me to the punch on my notion that we’re not necessarily in a Big Bang but instead we’re in a Big Suck, and that time actually works backwards as much as forwards (even though we usually only experience it moving in one forward-like direction).  These two concepts track with the consistent turning of common sense on its head (the earth isn’t flat, the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth, and space isn’t separate from time nor is it “empty”).  I’ll expand on these ideas at some point in the future, but for now examine some of Terrence’s thinking on why we seem to be experiencing historical events over again.

Unless you’ve gotten a good dose of the following memetic medicine: Chaos Theory, Fractals, Complexity, Emergence, Neuroscience, Evolution, General Relativity, Special Relativity, Terrence will probably come off looking quite non-sane.  In fact, he’ll be really easy to dismiss otherwise.  Don’t buy into the hype…enter with an open mind.

 

 

The most fascinating thing that I’d like to point out from McKenna’s work is the idea that time will allow fractal resonances via historical, present, and future events – meaning that similar events will appear to spiral closer and closer together on the timeline.  History will continue to “repeat” and loop in smaller and smaller cycles.  In chaos theory, this type of temporal patterning is called a strange attractor.  McKenna suggests that the endpoint of this pattern will continue until the year 2012.

Terrance could be speaking literally or metaphorically (I suspect he would say both and neither).  Either way, I think most people will agree, there is something going on with time and it does seem to reflect itself in an odd way. The similarity between Rome and the US are striking.

Tags: chaos, complexity, constitution, emergence, McKenna, strange attractor, Timewave Zero