Priority Test

Many of my online friends i’ve never seen, but i know – most of them are not successful. They did not make career, they do not have much money, they are not “VIPs”, they don’t belong to the ruling class of the HaveMores, they are simple humans.

Actually, each and every of my friends is a NIP – a not important person. One of them even choosed his moniker according to that: He called himself “Nemo”.

Another friend of mine has to stand poor health care conditions because of lack of money, so it seems as if lack of money and success is a flaw, the “reward” for being not able to become rich and influential.

But i know it better. Because both are much too proud and hot-tempered to be able to lick boots – and if you are not rich by birth, you have to lick boots, at least every now and then. (And if you are rich? Then beware of being called “Laura”.) Never heard a business men grumble about clients? Do you really believe he will dare to be honest? You can bet, he will do exactly that: lick boots.

So you may understand, why Nemo can’t be successful – too honest and too proud.

Another friend of mine tries to work fulltime while nursing her mother, the next friend took the graveyard shift to care for his little son, suffering from asthma – because the graveyard shift means more money and more time just to be a good dad. Not the perfect employee! The perfect employee offers 24/7 availability to his boss, always in stand-by mode, even at night or in holidays reachable by mobile equipment. Can you imagine a careerist going to the zoo with his little son, always talking to clients? Or reading from Harry Potter? One sentence – ring, ring, ring, blablabla – next sentence – ring, ring, ring, blablabla – next sentence – ring, ring, ring, blablabla – next sentence. Very sexy. I guess, that’s the best strategy to convince your child to learn to read.

Then there is this friend from Eastern Germany: All the world around him crumbled away after the Fall of the Wall, but he didn’t give up. He opened a music store, but then the Internet came and all his world crumbled away, but he didn’t give up, opened an art supply store and now learns all about the Internet. He has seen better times, but he doesn’t moan and he doesn’t whine, he doesn’t beg and he doesn’t plead, he just rolls up his sleeves and gets to work – and enjoys it to do a good job. For him, money would be great, but success is more than just licking the right boots, it’s about effective work and effort, satisfied clients, efficient software or good quality of products and services.

Able to survive great changes in life – on his own, not by daddy and his money, not by the “right” husband or wife, not by mighty sponsers, only by his own energy, creativity and endurance. “The journey is the reward”, he says.

NIPs.

All of my friends are “not important persons”, they got nothing for free, could never fail without having to pay the price. None of them were pampered and protected from reality by the mercy of Daddies Dollars – but they are able to pass the ultimate priority test.

None of them would push away a mother and her child to get the last place on a Titanic lifeboat, none of them will have to understand that the shroud has no pockets and mourn about wrong decisions...

in the face of the ultimate judge, the one who treats all alike, the one who will never be bribable, the one, who can never be doubted:

Death.

(Tsk, tsk, tsk, your own one, George, not the death of others just because spoiled kids love to push buttons! And believe me, George – your death will come, nothing will save you, not even the money of Daddy.)

Death. The own Death.

The perfect priority test: Only the true values survive the face of the Grim Reaper.

Land of the Dead

The still-living in the vicinity have fled to the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a feudal-like government has taken over. Bordered on two sides by two rivers and on the other by an electric barricade, the city has become a sanctuary against the undead threat. Fiddler's Green, the center of this fortress city, is where the rich and powerful live in luxury while the rest of humanity live in poverty around them. Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), a tyrannical businessman, rules with an iron fist and overwhelming firepower.
From Wikipedia

Even so i can’t stand bloody scenes like that, i watched the movie until the end (admittedly not without zapping through different channels sometimes – i don’t like watching chimps eating one another and i don’t like humans doing it, even when they are disguised as zombies).

But despite of that – it was such a realistic movie!

Even in times, when death knocks at the door of humankind – they can’t do anything else than grab, grab, grab.

The zombies of the movie were everywhere – only this one little “sanctuary” seemed to be left on the whole wide world to protect life.

But the inhabitants didn’t care – they played their games of money and power and prostitution and consume, as if nothing had happened, while the zombies came nearer and nearer, eating each person alive whom they could catch.

I watched the “tyrannical businessman” truly believing that he could escape doomsday with colored green paper, watched the soldiers killing other humans for that colored green paper...

and couldn’t stop thinking, if they can’t understand, that colored green paper is just as much worth as the society of humans printing that paper. I watched them bargaining about green paper and couldn’t stop thinking, if they can’t see that only humans decide the value of that paper...

Without humans – no value.

And in that movie, nearly no humans were left – and the rich man wanted to flee with his money from the seemingly last place near and far where humans could live. To be clear: From the last place means, that there were no other places where humans lived.

So who should take his money to serve him?

But because the "tyrannical businessman” was played by Dennis Hopper, i couldn’t help myself to think that this movie is a true parable, because in the end, the businessman died in fire while the colored green paper rains from heaven (or at least from the ceiling).

Zombies...

Living Dead...

People looking as if they live but not caring about family, about future, about friends and foe – just about themselves at that very moment they exist...

People barricading themselves behind walls of stone and soldiers and money – Brazil, Littleton, neighborhood of New Orleans...

Just like the Bushs, Olins, Scaifes, Coors’, Bradleys and Kochs trampling on Mother Earth and their fellow humans for colored green paper...

not able to see the end – the end, Friedrich Nietzsche saw so clearly: The LAST MAN.

Dennis Hoppers’ “Paul Kaufmann” (the german word for “dealer”) – the man too stupid to understand that colored green papier is worth nothing without humans taking it.

A truly realistic movie.

The Augian Stables

The election is over...

and despite of reports about diverse manipulations (18,000 votes in U.S. House race may be lost), despite the use of massive electronic voting, other nations start to “scrap” (Dutch government scraps plans to use voting computers in 35 cities including Amsterdam, Dutch citizens group cracks Nedap's voting computer)...

the American People were strong enough to show their will.

Despite the fact, that the Media is still owned by the HaveMores, that courts are willing footmen of the executive branch instead of objectively auditing it, that the networks of power are still fully functional, running smoothly and efficiently to get the last bit of money and power for the puppeteers behind the politics...

the wind of change may turn.

The job is tough – the Augian stables of corruption, greed and blatant misuse of power have to be perfectly cleaned and and disinfected as long as the wave of the election is powerful enough to stand tall against those networks of power, which are now as sure as death and taxes already rearranging according to the latest events.

But there are some signs that it could be done:
Democrats Aim to Save Inquiry on Work in Iraq

some hopeful news about the future of elections:
Youth turnout in election biggest in 20 years

And – great news for the freedom of speech:
Democrat Sweep Good News For Net Neutrality

Moment of Truth

They took absolute power.

They re-invented war as tool just for their fun and profits.

They declared ownership of Space.

They were used to use torture and big lies.

They redirected the stream of taxes into their own accounts.

They bought judges and bullied MPs.

They changed the “Fourth Estate” to “For The State”.

They...

are only the tip of the iceberg.

You can’t change a mighty democracy just with a few men – you need much money, many persons and a lot of time, a crazy lot of time and money and men, infecting the whole organism.

"It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis, 1935
book review by Joe Keohane
[The leaders] most formidable task, convincing Americans to renounce bedrock democratic principles, was already accomplished well before he took power. It was just waiting for its moment.

So...

are they beatable?

And what if they are? What if true investigations would start uncovering the Tangled Webs They Wove?

Can they dare to lose power?

It’s November, the 5^th.

Waiting...

for the Moment of Truth.