I suppose most of us have seen this video by now.

(Click here to view.)

The general reaction of line-level sane people when viewing the act of this meltdown of a man is “Why…he’s CRAZY!!!”

Let me propose another explanation.

Demonic possession.

Now before all you rationalists reach disgustedly for your computer mice…please consider a few things.

Contemporary physics has pretty well proven that the construct that we “sane” people consent take as reality is simply an ad hoc mass agreement among a working majority. In any society.

“A cigar is just a cigar” holds true only if you agree to overlook the plain facts of its sub-atomic composition, its poisonous content, its phallic symbolism, etc. And one society’s demonic possession is another society’s schizophrenia. Or alien takeover. Whatever floats that society’s boat of common consent.

Read on.

THINK, people.

Look at the faces of the men and women now in power in the United States.

And then look at those in active opposition to that power.

Do you not SEE the difference? Can you not hear it in their very voices?

I can.

Consider a new paradigm in terms of fighting these people.

Consider the statements of the most seriously successful opponents of what is going on here in the United States. (For the sake of brevity, I will include only three out of thousands.)

Osama bin Laden:

God Almighty says: “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject faith fight in the cause of evil.”

So fight ye against the friends of Satan: feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan.

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah:

Our hostility to the Great Satan is absolute.

And Hugo Chavez at the UN.

Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it. Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, “Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.” [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.]

—snip—

I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house. The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.

And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here. [crosses himself]

And it smells of sulfur still today.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday’s statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: “The Devil’s Recipe.”

As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.

The world parent’s statement — cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.

They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that’s their democratic model. It’s the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that’s imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.

What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.

What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?

The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I’m quoting, “Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom.”

Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother — he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there’s an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.

The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It’s not that we are extremists. It’s that the world is waking up. It’s waking up all over. And people are standing up.

I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.

Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.

Chavez…the most westernized and modernized of our enemies but apparently simultaneously a believing Christian…actually manages to combine reference to the old beliefs with citing one of the most rationalist thinkers in history (Noam Chomsky) and quite clearly calling out the true name of American international policy, white supremacy-based imperialism. Plus…he manages to mention l’il ol’ Alfred Hitchcock as well!!! No mean feat, when you think about it.

I have made this point on the left blogosphere before, but I will try to make it again here.

I am a follower of a group of people who do not EVER use words like “god” or “devil”. Hell…they don’t even like using a word to identify themselves. They are people who only deal with methods and approaches to a certain kind of awakening. Nothing more; nothing less.

As far as I am concerned, EVERYTHING is just a metaphor.

You, me, that chair in the corner…

Simply a group agreement, a set of conventions that we call “reality.”

For some millions of years, there have been people who have understood this idea. Many of them. The best and brightest among us, as far as I can see. And inevitably, when they get to a point where they want to communicate certain ideas, they use the aid of super-human images of one kind or another.

Now, here I am. No spirits are talking to me, no aliens, no NUTHIN’ as far as I know except other human beings. Other human beings  both living and also preserved in their writings. Until very recently, THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A SUCCESSFUL, ONGOING SOCIETY OR CULTURE THAT DID NOT HAVE AT ITS VERY ROOT THE IDEA OF “SOMETHING HIGHER.”

Has this all been a rhetorical trick? Is it some sort of reality to which most of us are not vouchsafed? Damned if I know. Everyone who has ever told me anything useful about ANY goddamned thing has been flesh and blood. I’ve made sure. I touched ’em. Some of them were damned mysterious, but they ate, shat and bled just like the rest of us.

There used to be a popular song during Prohibition about the French and alcohol. The French and pleasure in general. “50 Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong.”

Yup.

How many billions…TRILLIONS… over the history of mankind have accepted on one level or another the idea that there is more going on here than meets the eye?

Who here thinks that Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. were deluded  fools?

Who here disputes Will Shakespeare?

HORATIO: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

HAMLET: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
  There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
  Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Shakespeare-Hamlet, Act I, scene V

Yup.

Bet on it.

I find a disturbing anti-“religious” bias endemic here in Left Blogovia.

Do not mistake the right-wing fundamentalism we see here in the U.S. for “religion.” Or the largely devolved forms of Roman Catholicism or Judaism that we often see in this so-called “First World.” They are in reality political systems. OR the Taliban-like Granny No-Nos in power in certain parts of the Islamic world.

Look instead to the heroic Catholics of South and Central America. The Protestant and Jewish workers who go into real helping arts like medicine, real education and the care of the truly disadvantaged of ALL types.

And do not discount the devotion or intelligence of the Sufi-influenced Islamic fighters who are at present busily tearing us a brand new asshole in the Middle East, either.

It is quite apparent that they are doing SOMETHING right. How is this apparent?  Because they are quite obviously winning, and winning against all “rational” odds. Plus…I see plain evidence of Sufi influences in what I read from people like bin Laden.

All atheists/agnostics are not geniuses.

And all religious people are not fools, either.

Disregard this idea at your own peril.

OUR own peril.

What are you drinking? The cup or the water?

Look to the water.

Matthew 7:15-16:

“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?”

You will know the true prophets by their fruits as well.

If of course you do not make the mistake of ignoring ALL who try to tread a certain path because some of them are not the real deal.

‘Nuf said.

I hope.

Later…

AG