by Jim Weyand

I couldn't resist a "strange link" of my own in this section. The following ramblings will have little format or direction and be no more than "thinking out loud" sessions. Please do not assume that I actually know what I'm talking about.

3/28/99    First I want to comment on the "paranoid" links and the dozens like them I looked at before picking my favorites. I don't know which is more fantastic, the possibility that some of these conspiracies could be true or the fact that people obsess about these things to the point where any half-truths get lost under layers of self indulgent dogma. Let's pick on the white supremacy groups for a moment about this. At the risk of stereo-typing all these groups, basically they believe that the human gene pool is being contaminated, the United States is being over-run by non-whites, and that our government (as well as others) is involved in this and plan to use the situation (pending race war / anarchy) to instill a new "order" on mankind. Well, first of all I can't presume to understand the processes and correct direction of human evolution, so who's to say if the gene pool is "contaminated" or merely "homogenized". Assuming a manifest destiny for any race is a green light for extermination. History repeats this over and over, most recently with what we did to the native American Indians, slavery, and what the Germans did to the Jews. Really, to me "manifest destiny" is little more than "majority rules". Consider this irony : The American Indians were more or less exterminated, even though they welcomed us here, because they were considered savages since they could not or would not jump on the 'techno-train of progress'. The irony here is that it's this very way of thinking that keeps us prideful and set in our own ways religiously, politically and so on. And so for that reason then, is it ultimately our own manifest destiny to succumb to a "righter" force as well because of our stubborn idealisms? Is the real destiny here accelerated evolution of the species as a whole through selective extinction ? Put simply one could say 'what goes around comes around', but it's more like 'what goes around just keeps going around'. If selective extinction really is the best way to accelerate evolution then shouldn't we embrace a more 'lemming-like' mentality instead of waging war with our dominators? I should hope not. Bottom line is, if this process is in fact the quickest way to move the human race along, then all humanity must accept that any sense of right-ness we have is an illusion since the very mind-set that perpetuates manifest destiny is the same mind-set that eventually sends us the way of the dinosaur. Personally, I do not buy into any of this. To me racism and cultural pride are merely a cover-up for territorialism, or good old-fashioned greed. When we take something that does not belong to us we fear more of losing it the same way. And for any race, is it too much to want a good life with good things for your family? Certainly not. Freedom, prosperity & happiness should be elemental to any family in any country. Then why is the good life spread so thin, causing one group to take it from another group only to have it taken from them by another group? I think the territorialism & greed here does not spawn from the ethnic masses like so many hate groups would like to think, but from within these ethnic groups and the people who use their cultural legacy to further their own monetary, military, political or religious agendas. And so long as the masses keep marking their territories and remain 'race-prideful', humanity will remain segregated while big government becomes bigger, big business becomes richer, big religion becomes more corporate, dictators become more ruthless, organized crime becomes more powerful, and people become more & more controlled by their fraternalistic allegiances. Unfortunately, these things and that ever-elusive group known as 'they' are not tangible elements that can be dealt with in real-time. So what we end up with is cross burnings, allegiances to Hitler, preachy pep rallies and parades, and an obsessive uneasiness with the fear of being outnumbered. But it's not about numbers anymore, it's about the powers that be and how those numbers and their attached prejudices are being manipulated to enhance goals far more reaching than any racist considerations. Which brings us back to 'half-truths under layers of dogma'. First, is the human gene pool contaminated? Well, I think of the human race (and all life for that matter) as a single yet exponential genetic time-line. So can a single pool of water contaminate itself? No, it can only become stagnant. Second, are the white races being over-run by non-whites? Most definitely they are, just read population statistics. However, remember the Indians. They were in a NO-WIN situation. They could wage war early on destroying any chance at all of gaining white support for addressing the real issue at the time, (again, manipulation of the masses by big government and big business), or they could wait until it's too late and they were so far outnumbered that it became genocide not war. I can only hope we've learned something from that time, although I have no solution to offer other than I know hate- monger groups are NOT the answer. Third, is the government using all this in some grander scheme? Again, how many half-truths does it take to screw in a light bulb? Certainly there are individuals or groups of individuals within specific and diverse sectors of every aspect of government from the military to the Mafia that have hidden agendas, but the big scare for me doesn't come from some singular covert-style secret society, but from the collective direction of global society in general. Everyday decisions made not out of malice but out of process and protocol, from generals and politicians on down to the guy who buys a pair of shoes not knowing they were made by slave labor. By a billion people who believe in a coming apocalyptic world power that will enslave us all. Since time is fluid and constantly being altered drastically by even the most insignificant actions of every living thing, I personally do not believe in prophecy. I do believe though, that the collective belief in prophecy can manifest that prophecy into being. The story of Jesus is a good example. He knew of Judas' betrayal at the last supper and could have headed for the hills instead of waiting in the garden to be arrested. King Pilot and King Herod begged for something, ANYTHING that would allow them to spare his life. In fact I think he could've gotten out of that whole mess at any time, but it was his belief in the prophecy that allowed the prophecy to fulfill itself, and the world has not been the same since. For most of us, our prophecies fulfill themselves not by trying to force its fulfillment through radicalism, but by sheer coincidence, or because it was the most likely outcome of the events in motion, or because enough people believe it and subconsciously contribute to it in a nearly infinite number of invisibly subtle ways. So... is it our manifest destiny to play out testimonial historical events over and over through some collective subliminal prophecy? So long as all we have is half-truths, the other half may very well be subliminal. After all, how many layers of that self-indulgent dogma are actually created by the individual ? Hence the epitome of the old cliche' "a LITTLE knowledge is a dangerous thing".

•  TRAIL OF TEARS