I cannot remember a time in my life when I was not crazy about the Beatles. Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first record that I listened to as a young child and even today it reverberates with the sensibility of early consciousness.
"And as for the rabbit hole trope – well, I don't think we’re going down the rabbit hole at all. We’re climbing out of it into the light."
Yes! I call this the sequel to 1984. The party lost the trust of the masses. Look how they're trying to make us scared of war with China and Russia.... Meanwhile the oil and money still flows.
What a joke.
To use the Alice in Wonderland analogy, we were hallucinating in wonderland and now waking to real land which is much less insane.
Great stuff Chris. Strong and cogent and powerful. One point I'd add: Even if the Beatles stuff was original, the mechanisms by which authorities/covert actors co-opt and compromise ambitious artists are the same as those used for ambitious politicians/public figures. The talent and creativity is real, now as in the 60s. But we're realising, and you show, how much artists' ambition was and is instrumentalised by operatives who allow exposure on limited terms, to fulfil ambitions based on staying within parameters...
This is all pretty easily disproved just by listening to the music in context. Above all, if the Beatles didn't write those songs, who did? The managers of *genuinely* manufactured-by-svengali pop stars like Adam Faith were tearing their hair out in 1963-4 trying to find writers and producers who could create exciting modal mixture songs like the Beatles had done for an entire album (Hard Day's Night). Some of them turned to the Beatles themselves, e.g. Billy J Kramer, while others created dismal imitations - check out the first single Faith released following 'Please Please Me'. https://youtu.be/UVg1ARkO1i0?si=GAECcpdlD3N9ncBn
That’s an interesting point but I don't think that it disproves the theory. The popular music industry has always had professional songwriters and musicians working behind the front-of-house acts. It is just as likely that a new crop of talented writers and composers was responsible for the Beatles’ music as the band itself; more so, perhaps, given that the Beatles showed no of signs of being capable of writing and performing daringly imaginative music before they met George Martin and very quickly lost the ability to do so after they broke up.
“the Beatles showed no of signs of being capable of writing and performing daringly imaginative music before they met George Martin”
This just isn’t true though; and the thing with the Beatles is we have an abundance of primary and secondary sources to examine. There are thousands of books about them.
To take just one example… we have evidence that Lennon had written ‘I Call Your Name’ as early as April 1957. The song shows he already has an accomplished grasp of songwriting techniques, plus things that go beyond the basics such as the use of 7th chords and secondary dominants, and it's a bluesy melody over what is basically a music hall chord progression - so that’s a daring stylistic hybrid in one of his first songs. The second time he goes through the verse progression he swaps out the V for a IV chord towards the cadence, and II - IV used instead of II - V, which becomes a Beatle feature later on. (You can hear the striking chord in question at 0:33.-34) See here for a fuller explanation: https://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/icyn.shtml
Sure, it’s not as sophisticated as something like Strawberry Fields Forever, but this song was written a full *eight and a half years* before anything even on Rubber Soul! That’s just the journey of an artist maturing towards his peak. You could do the same for McCartney, who wrote ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ around 1956 when he was 14 and many people heard him perform it. Check out George Martin's work before he met the Beatles and you'll find... a few comedy records.
Not knowing who wrote the songs doesn't disprove that they weren't written by the Beatles.
The CIA ran Laurel Canyon, I'm sure they have no problem getting someone to agree to secrecy for their songwriting for the Beetles. Even if this hadn't involved a clandestine organization, even from a band standpoint they would want to have any additional writers uncredited to concentrate their super-stardom.
Anyone who could write songs like that would have been snapped up by the music industry. That’s the whole point. This entire argument is totally stupid.
If someone is talented and motivated by money the CIA and other clandestine orgs have plenty of it. There are many people who are willing to use their talents in secret for these organizations. These agencies can also offer things besides money, they have immense power and influence and can get you things you can't easily buy, and on the flip side, they can also apply pressure to you since they can also do whatever they want to you with impunity.
"certainly pre-dating the establishment of capitalism which is but a phasic expression of ruling class power and which will be replaced by a new paradigm in time."
Well said. This is one of the many things the 'legacy left' gets wrong. The ruling class is not permanently committed to capitalism. If a new form of feudalism better serves its interests, it will undertake that transformation of the system. The delusional 'left' seems to believe that the new system will be socialism/communism per Marx's predictions, somehow imagining that the ruling class of billionaire oligarchs will deliver socialism through the Great Reset. Or maybe they're siding with the ruling class purely out of self interest.
Spot on. And this gives ammo to the absurd claims being leveled by the "right" that Soros, Trudeau, Biden, Schwab are "socialists" or "communists." It IS more like a new version of feudalism, superseding all.
It's closer to communism or socialism than a free market, but it is different, they call it "stakeholder capitalism" really just an iteration on what we already have which can accurately be called corporatism or social democracy.
I'm a capitalist and hate communism and I still agree with that sentiment in quotations.
The ruling class rules, no matter the economic model, and what will come after Capitalism will most certainly be worse. Also we're already in a transitional period, very little about our current system is capitalism in it's even remotely pure form.
Is the real stupid left or what? So did Allen Dulles write Stg Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band? Or was it some Tavistock psychiatrist? And did they only write Beatles songs? Or did they do the Stones too, and the Kinks and Yes and Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan? Get real folks. The CIA probably thought up this crap to discredit their real conspiracies. No one can take you seriously after this.
Are you saying that teams of professional writers, composers and session musicians have never been used to create pop and rock records? Don’t know where Allen Dulles comes into it, though.
Why are people so quick to dismiss the possibility? Do they not realize the quantity and depth of intelligence penetration into the mass media OVERALL, like JOURNALISM dating back to the creation of all the major legacy media outlets? And not just non-fiction. The "Paris Review" was a CIA creation. Hollywood after WWII. The rock/folk scene was chickenfeed in comparison.
Dear Chris, are you now saying that there were complete teams from the deep state involved in creating The Beatles? I think you have been led down a real rabbit hole ... My point was, how special were The Beatles? They happened in a musical context. There were lots of bands making similar music, more sophisticated music even; the Beatles did not appear in a vacuum. And they evolved. Listen to Band on the Run! Are you saying that this was all the product of some conspiracy to corrupt the youth? Must have been some pretty talented writers, composers and session musicians all working for Tavistock and the CIA! It just isn't credible. And to what end?? Seems to me protests against the power elite erupted in the 1960s. It's not what they wanted to see happen. Now if you are talking about spreading drugs among the kids, something like that, that does make sense. Please let's all just enjoy The Beatles and target the real bad stuff that is going on!
explains in great detail? if you have read detailed biographies of the Beatles like I have you know how their music evolved - that's real details, not some speculations about songs they didn't perform - please answer my questions if you can - thank you
Alice- "If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"
Ironically, Lewis Carroll was probably Lennon's favourite author and you can hear clear echoes of his work in 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' and 'I am the Walrus'. Oh wait - news has just come in that Lewis Carroll's work was all written by the CIA, never mind.
Thank you. I didn't quite understand - if the Beatles were a ruling class operation then what was the aim of this operation and what did it achieve for the ruling class?
And also, it seems like you didn't take into account (at least you didn't mention it) that the Beatles started heavily consuming LSD from 1966 onwards, which might explain the elevated sophistication and creativity of their music from that point onwards (as compared to their 'straight and square' pre-1966 period), given how profoundly LSD can cleanse the doors perception and fundamentally open one's awareness to what was previously unconscious and inexpressed.
Not just their music, but it is very clear that their whole mannerism, dress etc, completely transformed once they consumed LSD, from 1966 onwards. So i think this is a very VERY significant factor that cannot be ignored.
And lastly, if this was a ruling class operation, then how is it possible that that video on youtube by Mike Williams that you linked to (that supposedly "exposes the truth") be allowed to stay online on the ruling class' main platform (youtube)? How is it possible that it is not censored/erased (like what the ruling class immediately do to numerous videos that actually expose the truth about their actual false flag operations)?
That fact that this video is freely available without any censorship (or even age restriction) on the main platform of the ruling class (youtube, which is under their full content control and where they censor very frequently) indicates to me that this video is not in the least threatening to the ruling class, and therefore probably not completely true or accurate
Behavioural change, the creation of a new national mythology/cult, encouragement of drug use, millions of minds in thrall to pop culture, the establishment of an industry still going strong today – plenty of positive outcomes for the ruling class.
I don't know about the LSD factor. Has acid ever made anyone a better artist? Lyrically, LSD might explain ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’ but how do you account for ‘Why Don’t We Do It in the road?’
That’s a good point about YouTube but the probation on dissenting material isn’t absolute and I think that in the cultural realm the censors are less stringent than they are with, say, covid.
I hear you, but that doesn't make much sense to me. The 60s "popular culture" of ordinary people saw a VERY radical and dramatic challenging of the capitalist-conservative ruling class, their war machine and their sickening life-destroying abusive conservative cultural dictates based on tne religious-conservative traditional values of HIERARCHY, DOMINATION through ABUSE AND TRAUMA inflicted by hierarchical anti-egalitarian psychologically-undeveloped conservative-religious tyranical bullies who revel in the POWER OVER others that is afforded to them by a sick social order which is based on conservative-religious ideology of HIERARCHY and Godless twisted AUTHORITARIAN 'MORALITY". It was by far the biggest uprising of ordinary people since WW2 until today. In some places it came very close to an actual revolution and removing the capitalist-conservative ruling class from power. In the United States during that time "popular culture" saw a sharp increase in the militancy and radical perspective of the Civil Rights Movement. In addition, ordinary people of "popular culture" were no longer accepting the hierarchal established order imposed by the ruling conservative class scum.
People were demanding that EVERYBODY (not just the right-wing capitalist conservative hierarchical upper class) should have a dignified standard of living and that NOBODY should live below the poverty line (which is a necessity according to capitalist thinking that must have multiple losers in order to have some "winners").
The movement against the ruling class' Vietnam war and war in general gained the support of the majority of the U.S. population, thanks in large part to "popular music" and large consumptuon of LSD, which opened people's eyes to the sick and violent conservative-capitalist psychology and their abusive militarized control over the people.
GIs were refusing to fight and kill the Viet Cong freedom fighters (which forced Nixon to withdraw troops from Vietnam).
LSD and "popular culture and music" played a huge part in that. To think the ruling would encourage that is insane.
There was a wave of wildcat labor strikes (strikes unauthorized by the official labor union, and hence not controlled by its conservative management-friendly leaders) of ordinary people no longer willing to take the abuse and exploitation of the capitalist-conservative ruling class. There was a radical spirit of rebellion in all major U.S. cities and beyond!
A lot of the radical revolutionary spirit of that time is very VERY intimately tied to what you disparagingly call "drug use" which is actually what opened numerous people's eyes to the profound illness and anti-human character of the Godless conservative-capitalist culture that has been imposed on the western world for centuries by the ruling class.
You seem to be unfamiliar with this (seeing how you lump it all together under the label 'drugs') but there is a profound huge difference between heroin, cocaine, amphetamimes, alcohol, cigarettes etc which are indeed horrible drugs, and between LSD, psilocybin mushroom, ayahuasca, iboga etc which are a gift of God and the highway into the heart and out of the massive capitalist-conservative economic-cultural control apparatus.
Not only are these latter "drugs" not a bad thing in the least but in my view they are essential in order to break free of ruling class control. To think that the ruling class might want to encourage their use (as you suggest) is insane in the extreme. If all of humanity actually took LSD that would be the end of the ruling class. Nobody would ever even consider supporting such capitalist-conaervative scum representitives of the ruling class like biden, trump, starmer, sunak, putin, macron, scholz etc and nobody would be fighting in their nationalist wars..
So i very strongly disagree that the ruling class would want to encourage any of that (LSD use and rebellious non-conforming revolutionary spirit). It makes zero sense.
In fact, the ruling class were scared shitless by the non-conformist revolutionary anti-capitalist anti-conservative spirit of the 60s and early 70s, and drastically changed their approach towards the working class becaues of it, and started implementing the brutal oppressive "get tough" hierarchical conservative policies from the late 70s onwards to "put the people in their place". Some of it is described here https://www.pdrboston.org/why-life-is-harder-now-than-the-60s
Now, don't get me wrong. I fully agree that a lot of the music that is attributed to the beatles was not theirs and was written for them and that the music industey used them as the pretty boys face on the cover. That's true. This practice was and is happening with around 95% of all bands at the time and continues to this day.
However, the fact that the music industry does that, does NOT mean that the ruling class wanted to introduce a defiant anti-hierarchical egalitarian revolutionary anti-capitalist anti-conservative popular culture that would challenge their authority and come very close to an actual revolution that would remove them from power (that would be insane and suicidal for the ruling class to do) but rather, that practice can just as easily be explained by the greed of the capitalist music industry who was and is always on the lookout to increase sales by creating new cultural icons, idols, celebrities etc by any means necessary (even if they don't play well)
PS. "Has acid ever made anyome a better artist?" I don't know what kind of bubble you live in, but none of the profound and amazing and genius music of the 60's and 70's (which is has nothing whatsoever to do with the garbage of music today) would have happened without LSD. For an artist, LSD can be one of the most direct avenues to the heart, to the God part within us, a direct avenue to profound artistic creation (music or otherwise)
PPS. What exactly is the problem with the song 'why don't we do it on tne road?' Musically it is a bad and unremarkable song, but it seems like you object to its content. What exactly is your problem with people making love in the car on road? Or are you suggesting that love-making should only happen between legally married people in church-sanctioned locations and only for the purpose of procreation (in order to rapidly increase human population, as the capitalists demand for their un-sane economic syatem that demands PERPETUAL EXPANSION and therefore constantly increasing human population who would consume more and more and more, as the capitalist economic model demands, and for reasons which i elaborate in my reply to Bella below)?
I dislike this below-mediocre song, but strongly support anything that challenges the abusive God-ignorant conservative-religious tyranical cultural dictates and bullying (that tyranical conservatives seek to impose in the name of being in possesion of "morality", while in reality what these arrogant conservative-religious abusers seek to impose is trauma-bonding and force "moral compliance" in order to soothe the fears and terrors of their traumatized love-less God-ignorant and violent mind).
The solution to the abuse of the psychopathic right-wing capitalist ruling class is NOT to return to the traditionalist abuse and control through trauma of traditional religious-conservative POISON, or back to the stupid blind short-sighted life-destroying murderous nationalist-religious-tribalism of "the good ol days" The solution is to go beyond BOTH these idiotic abusive God-ignorant life-destroying psychologically-immature paths.
There IS an alternative to the false dichotomy that the ruling class present to us (telling us that our only two options are EITHER global capitalist corporate machine OR neo-fascist religious fundamentalism and nationalist tribalism). There is a much more sane and human-honoring and profoundly beneficial alternative than both. It can be seen in this brilliant piece that details the horror and immorality of both tje capitist and anti-egalitarian conservative hierarchical ideology https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/why-have-no-rich-and-no-poor? And here, which explains all aspects of the alternative https://www.pdrboston.org/egalitarianism
And here that shows the fundamental error in the capotalist-conservative economic and social thinking that preaches hierarchy and anti-egalitarianism as necessary. A much much better option than the horror of the two false-dichotomy options above (EITHER global capotalism OR traditional conservatism & nationalist-tribalism)
PPPS. To say nothing of how strongly John Lennon convinced people to object to every war that the ruling-class initiated and to their hierarchical oppressive economic order. Why would the ruling class promote such a thing?
The video being up doesn't at all discredit the argument, how many things do we know to be true that were said on youtube a few years ago and the videos were never taken down? Firstly, this is OLD NEWS, the ruling class doesn't very much about stuff that happened 64 years ago. They care about what they are trying to lie about in the moment, like how in 2021 there was intense censorship of covid discussion, particularly that it was made in a lab. They realize that censorship is a heavy handed tactic of last resort that can backfire, especially since people like you would seem to take the deletion of the video as proof the theory is true, which is counter productive. During covid they had to make excuses about why they were censoring, the lab leak was racist, and vaccine discussion was 'medical disinformation'. Not sure what excuse they could possibly come up with to censor this, but we can agree they could and would if they cared to.
To further exemplify the point: do you think the JFk assassination was not a conspiracy since there are videos about it on youtube?
Thank you. I carefully read the entire thing. I fully agree and am aware that most of popular culture is contrived and the beatles were just the pretty boys face that the capitaliat music industry put in the cover and that most of the music was written for them, but i very strongly disagree that it was done for the reasons she mentions. Please read in full my (second) reply above to Chris Rea (the one starting with the words "i hear you, but..") if you'd like to understand why i disagree.
In addition, it seems to me that the conservative values she currently learnt to hold (which in my experience - as someone who used to be a conservatove and hold these views - are profoundly destructive for the human spirit and in complete opposition to the nature of God and the human heart) cause her to interpret facts in a way that fits her ideological narrative. That immature ideology also causes her to make stuff up, for example when she claims, very confidently and arrogantly, that she knows what are the aims of the secretive ruling class (and lo and behold their aims just happen to be exactly anti-conservative, even though ALL EVIDENCE points to the ruling class being psychopathic capitalist-conservative control-freaks, and it has been so for hundreds of years. Again, see my reply above to Chris Rea for all the details).
There are also quite a few more fallacies in her piece, that resulted from her seeing everything through the religious-conservative glasses that she's wearing, glasses which distort her perception and make her arrive at a false interpretation of the facts and false (and highly destructive) conservative conclusions, but i won't go into everything here because that would require me to sit down and write a whole book right now.. but just take for example the abysmal horrible link that she provided for us in order to learn about the frankfurt achool. I actually studied the writings of the frankfurt school at great depth. These are profoundly wise philosophers and psychologists who had very deep insight into the human spirit (for example, what inclines a human being towards authoritarianism etc) and wrote highly complex books about it. And yet, what link does she give us in order to learn about the frankfurt school? She's linking to an incredibly low IQ fascist (who moved to thailand to f*ck young poor Thai girls who are desparate for money), who clearly never read a single book by the philosophers of the frankfurt scholl and doesn't have a clue what he is talking about and is inventing stuff out of his arse, as if this is what they said, and this low IQ fascist fool is who she's linking us to to learn about the frankfurt school!! Talk about the dumbing down of society.. just look what garbage she's linking to!!
The solution to the abuse of the psychopathic right-wing capitalist ruling class is NOT to return to the traditionalist hierarchy, abuse and control through trauma of traditional religious-conservative POISON (the "traditional values" she constantly extols, without giving any details about what those supposedly "wonderful" values are, becasue she knows the traditional conservative values hide profound abuse and domination behind innocent sounding words like 'family' and 'church', she knows that traditional religious-conservative values were all based on tyranical demand for blind obedience, violently-imposed hierarchy, domination, authoritarianism, abuse and control through trauma). The entire human history is the history of DOMINATION, HIERARCHY, ABUSE AND TRAUMA inflicted by hierarchical anti-egalitarian psychologically-undeveloped conservative-religious tyranical bullies who revel in the POWER OVER others that is afforded to them by a sick social order which is based on conservative-religious ideology of HIERARCHY and Godless twisted AUTHORITARIAN 'MORALITY". And today's religious-conservative fascist idiots demand we return to those "wonderful" traditional values..
This is, by the way, one of the most fundamental tenets of deceptive conservative-fascism - also talking about some supposedly wonderful mythical past that they will take us back to (make america great again' etc), and unfortunately their blind gullible followers are too historically-ignorant, unintelligent and easily emotionally-manipulated, and fall for this fascist-conservative trick again and again and again..
The solution to the right-wing global capitalist machine is also NOT to be found by going back to the stupid blind short-sighted life-destroying murderous nationalist-religious-tribalism of "the good ol days". Rather, the solution is to go beyond BOTH these childish idiotic God-ignorant life-destroying psychologically-immature abusive paths.
There IS an alternative to the false dichotomy that the ruling class present to us (telling us that our only two options are EITHER global capitalist corporate machine OR neo-fascist religious fundamentalism & nationalist tribalism). There is a much more sane and human-honoring and profoundly beneficial alternative than both. It can be seen in this brilliant piece that details the horror and immorality of BOTH faceless capitalist AND anti-egalitarian hierarchical conservative traditionalist ideologies https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/why-have-no-rich-and-no-poor?
And here that shows the fundamental error in the capotalist-conservative economic and social thinking that preaches hierarchy and anti-egalitarianism as necessary. A much much better option than the horror of the two false-dichotomy options above (EITHER global capitalism OR traditional conservatism & nationalist-tribalism)
PS. like all those who have fallen for tbe conservative-fascist ideology she also loves to scream about the 'depopulation agenda' in order to push people towards the POISON of right-wing conservative ideology. And yet, where is this so-called "population reduction"? Humanity has increased from 2 billion to 8 billion in less than 90 years!! (and we're projected to reach 11 billion before the end of this century). But conservatives scream about "Inadequate population growth"- The rate of population growth is "inadequate" for what, exactly? It is only "inadequate" from the perspective of a profoundly unintelligent, short-sighted, hierarchical, anti-egalitarian, love-less, life-destroying, un-sane, God-denying, capitalist psychopathic mentality and ideology that demands constant "growth". That's what the current rate of population increase is "inadequate" for.
I think it is very important to understand why psychologically-immature and love-denying capitalist upper class (and the well-intentioned but mislead conservatives who gullibly believe them and unquestioningly repeat their slogans) why they push for constant and rapid population growth. They do it because capitalism is organized around - and dependent upon - PERPETUAL EXPANSION. Meaning, ever increasing production and consumption of commodified goods. It is the only intrinsically expansionary economic system in human history (meaning, if it doesn't continually expand, it must inevitably have a crisis). That's why they need and depend on constant population increase. And now some of them are now sounding the alarm bells because they realize that this push for constant rapid "growth" is threatening the stability of the hierarchical capitalist system that they depend on for their wealth accumulation, for dominating humanity and for being elevated above others) . Some of the capitalists are now realizing that in order to maintain their power and domination over humanity they need to change course from the previous push for rapid population increase, and find other ways to profit off of humanity while still dominating humanity, without the rapid rate of population increase of the last century that threatens the stability of their hierarchical capitalist system.
It seems that these few capitalists that realized that are still not the majority, and that the logic that guided the global capitalist economic system in the last few centuries - that demanded rapid population increase - still has a lot of momentum and vested interested behind it (hence the sentence "inadequate population growth" that those vested capitalist interests are pushing)
One other thing that i think is crucial to understand is that under the global capitalist economic system, the purpose of the ever increasing production and consumption (and thus the need for constant population growth) is NOT primarily to meet human needs, but rather to extract and accumulate profit. This is the overriding objective of this anti-life capitalist system.
To sustain the process of perpetually increasing surplus accumulation, Capital requires an ever increasing quantity of inputs (labor and nature), and requires that these inputs be obtained as cheaply as possible.
This introduces constant pressure by the short-sighted heartless hierarchical anti-egalitarian God-denying right-wing capitalists to depress real wages and to attack environmental, health, child labour and worker protections whenever they possibly can (in the absence of countering political forces). The result is a profoundly unintelligent and destructive capitalist system that, left to itself (to its own logic), AUTOMATICALLY generates exploitation of human beings, domination of some (the most cunning) over others, and poisoning, pollution, over-expolitation, breakdown, decimation and toxicity of the delicate life-giving earth systems that we depend on for existing.
That is why they must have constantly expanding human population.
One could easily argue the opposite theory with the Beatles. Inspiration and congruence are mysterious factors, and your need to explain everything in terms of what is or can be known is almost tragically reductive. But the very fact that you admit that you now don’t believe anything at all in the first instance, until you can PROVE it is “true” is not only just as biased as simply swallowing everything without question, it is also quite a sad way to live your life. May I suggest that you don’t take everything quite so seriously? Isn’t life for living and enjoying in its craziness and mystery and unknowability, rather than obsessively checking everything? You probably already know that everything we think is de facto a “hoax”, since all that we see is an interpretation of “reality”; our egos are constructs, etc etc. Epistemology and metaphysics find that nothing can really be known, but if you pursue these lines of enquiry they become invigorating and liberating rather than a cause of complaint and worry. I suggest you put Rubber Soul onto your turntable, sit back, switch off and enjoy the music, which I think you’ll find is the point of The Beatles, or even ‘The Beatles’. Wood, meet Trees!
Surely if a person chooses to question everything that is that person's right to do so. Your comment that such a choice is 'quite a sad way to live your life' is judgemental. I agree that one should try to enjoy one's life for what it is but surely one should be allowed to enjoy it in whatever way one chooses: if being serious and questioning everything is what one chooses, so be it!
Yes John of course you are right. I certainly should have said, in my opinion it is a sad way to live one’s life. A balance of caution and devil-may-care may be ideal and hard to achieve, but to put every single thing through a sieve of doubt seems somewhat life-denying, in my opinion. In the long run, we are all dead. I vote for at least some eating drinking and being merry …
Thanks for the kind advice Artep, I will now turn off my mind, relax and float downstream! Life is indeed mysterious and beautiful, and so is Beatles music. I don't see how enquiring into the material basis of the Beatles phenomenon diminishes one’s aesthetic apprehension of the art. It’s great music. It just wasn't made by the Beatles.
Living or believing in delusions (lies, myths) is certainly an easy way life. (Ignorance is bliss). Most people, as Chris Rea has mentioned, are content to have someone else do the thinking for them and never strive to enquire as to the reality of it. In other words, they are neither curious not passionate about finding out the Truth about what they believe in. And when the are confronted by someone who wants to awaken them from their delusion with factual Truth, they react with contempt, rather than relief and appreciation for being delivered from lies. They say absurd things such as looking for and finding Truth as a 'sad way of life' and believing in lies as 'enjoying life'. How tragically twisted the human mind becomes as a result of brainwashing!
I stand by my opinion that not believing *anything* you’re told is just as sad as believing *everything* you’re told. You’re still in the same frame, reacting to it all. Move on up, free yourself from such dualistic thinking. “Truth”, if it’s anything, has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. You’re short-changing yourselves. I watched the COVID debacle with amazement, as the seesaw of government policy was mirrored in every movement by the Truthers. Steer clear of it all, is my advice. Your reaction just adds energy and momentum to what you claim to hate. Disclaimer: all of the above is just MY OPINION
It seems pretty clear he has reached the point he has BASED ON his experiences of and perceptions in the real world. He says so; it wasn't until 2020 this really happened. He did not "not believe in anything" until that point.
How do you propose to steer clear of it all when government policies are having an enormously detrimental impact on your life as they did for many during covid? The ruling class would absolutely love for everyone to not react and just ignore what they are doing to us.
Yes you are right, I don’t normally express myself so unkindly, I should have said I felt he seemed to be living quite a sad life, which I think is fair. I did genuinely mean that I thought it would be helpful to not need to question everything, to be suspicious of everything, to be more trusting, more open, etc.
I'm a visiting right leaning person, and I have to say, on the right leaning substacks I subscribe to, (like Old Glory Club and Conundrum Cluster for instance) the comments are good faith and generally positive, when critical they have no venom and discussions are respectful.
On the left when you say things in your article people disagree with you get treated with a lot of passive aggression, ad homs, rude sarcasm and feigned sympathy.
Nothing about OPs post indicates he's sad and miserable, questioning things, especially things like narratives pushed by the government or the true nature of pop stars is simply a result of pattern recognition and learning from your mistakes.
Arguing that understanding the world to be darker than you once thought it makes you sad, so you shouldn't do it, is nakedly an argument for willful ignorance. With strong mental fortitude, you can process the world around you brutally honestly and not become depressed or deranged because of it.
Yes, it's now almost, "False until proven otherwise." Also note "Official Stories," by Liam Scheff. (He includes taking on "Shakespeare," among other things, in the way you wrote about the Beatles. ) Interesting how both MacGowan and Scheff died very young of "natural causes." I believe James Corbett likes to use the term "conspiracy realist."
Alice-"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"
Great article: incisive, insightful and superbly written. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your lovely comment.
"And as for the rabbit hole trope – well, I don't think we’re going down the rabbit hole at all. We’re climbing out of it into the light."
Yes! I call this the sequel to 1984. The party lost the trust of the masses. Look how they're trying to make us scared of war with China and Russia.... Meanwhile the oil and money still flows.
What a joke.
To use the Alice in Wonderland analogy, we were hallucinating in wonderland and now waking to real land which is much less insane.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/the-milgram-experiment-and-how-we
Thanks Rob. ‘Hallucinating in Wonderland’ would be a great title for a book about the last (at least) four years!
Great stuff Chris. Strong and cogent and powerful. One point I'd add: Even if the Beatles stuff was original, the mechanisms by which authorities/covert actors co-opt and compromise ambitious artists are the same as those used for ambitious politicians/public figures. The talent and creativity is real, now as in the 60s. But we're realising, and you show, how much artists' ambition was and is instrumentalised by operatives who allow exposure on limited terms, to fulfil ambitions based on staying within parameters...
Yes, whether it co-opts original talent or creates a simulacrum of talent, the house always wins!
Note to author: Are you THE Chris Rea, ie the musician? (I'm surprised no one's asked this yet!)
This is all pretty easily disproved just by listening to the music in context. Above all, if the Beatles didn't write those songs, who did? The managers of *genuinely* manufactured-by-svengali pop stars like Adam Faith were tearing their hair out in 1963-4 trying to find writers and producers who could create exciting modal mixture songs like the Beatles had done for an entire album (Hard Day's Night). Some of them turned to the Beatles themselves, e.g. Billy J Kramer, while others created dismal imitations - check out the first single Faith released following 'Please Please Me'. https://youtu.be/UVg1ARkO1i0?si=GAECcpdlD3N9ncBn
That’s an interesting point but I don't think that it disproves the theory. The popular music industry has always had professional songwriters and musicians working behind the front-of-house acts. It is just as likely that a new crop of talented writers and composers was responsible for the Beatles’ music as the band itself; more so, perhaps, given that the Beatles showed no of signs of being capable of writing and performing daringly imaginative music before they met George Martin and very quickly lost the ability to do so after they broke up.
“the Beatles showed no of signs of being capable of writing and performing daringly imaginative music before they met George Martin”
This just isn’t true though; and the thing with the Beatles is we have an abundance of primary and secondary sources to examine. There are thousands of books about them.
To take just one example… we have evidence that Lennon had written ‘I Call Your Name’ as early as April 1957. The song shows he already has an accomplished grasp of songwriting techniques, plus things that go beyond the basics such as the use of 7th chords and secondary dominants, and it's a bluesy melody over what is basically a music hall chord progression - so that’s a daring stylistic hybrid in one of his first songs. The second time he goes through the verse progression he swaps out the V for a IV chord towards the cadence, and II - IV used instead of II - V, which becomes a Beatle feature later on. (You can hear the striking chord in question at 0:33.-34) See here for a fuller explanation: https://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/icyn.shtml
Sure, it’s not as sophisticated as something like Strawberry Fields Forever, but this song was written a full *eight and a half years* before anything even on Rubber Soul! That’s just the journey of an artist maturing towards his peak. You could do the same for McCartney, who wrote ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ around 1956 when he was 14 and many people heard him perform it. Check out George Martin's work before he met the Beatles and you'll find... a few comedy records.
Not knowing who wrote the songs doesn't disprove that they weren't written by the Beatles.
The CIA ran Laurel Canyon, I'm sure they have no problem getting someone to agree to secrecy for their songwriting for the Beetles. Even if this hadn't involved a clandestine organization, even from a band standpoint they would want to have any additional writers uncredited to concentrate their super-stardom.
Anyone who could write songs like that would have been snapped up by the music industry. That’s the whole point. This entire argument is totally stupid.
If someone is talented and motivated by money the CIA and other clandestine orgs have plenty of it. There are many people who are willing to use their talents in secret for these organizations. These agencies can also offer things besides money, they have immense power and influence and can get you things you can't easily buy, and on the flip side, they can also apply pressure to you since they can also do whatever they want to you with impunity.
Masterful. Thanks Chris.
Thanks Rusere, that's very kind of you.
A good article. I enjoyed reading it. Thank you.
Thank you Emma
"certainly pre-dating the establishment of capitalism which is but a phasic expression of ruling class power and which will be replaced by a new paradigm in time."
Well said. This is one of the many things the 'legacy left' gets wrong. The ruling class is not permanently committed to capitalism. If a new form of feudalism better serves its interests, it will undertake that transformation of the system. The delusional 'left' seems to believe that the new system will be socialism/communism per Marx's predictions, somehow imagining that the ruling class of billionaire oligarchs will deliver socialism through the Great Reset. Or maybe they're siding with the ruling class purely out of self interest.
Spot on. And this gives ammo to the absurd claims being leveled by the "right" that Soros, Trudeau, Biden, Schwab are "socialists" or "communists." It IS more like a new version of feudalism, superseding all.
It's closer to communism or socialism than a free market, but it is different, they call it "stakeholder capitalism" really just an iteration on what we already have which can accurately be called corporatism or social democracy.
I'm a capitalist and hate communism and I still agree with that sentiment in quotations.
The ruling class rules, no matter the economic model, and what will come after Capitalism will most certainly be worse. Also we're already in a transitional period, very little about our current system is capitalism in it's even remotely pure form.
It's true. If you play the Frog chorus backwards you can clearly hear 'take the jab, take the jab...'
Is the real stupid left or what? So did Allen Dulles write Stg Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band? Or was it some Tavistock psychiatrist? And did they only write Beatles songs? Or did they do the Stones too, and the Kinks and Yes and Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan? Get real folks. The CIA probably thought up this crap to discredit their real conspiracies. No one can take you seriously after this.
Are you saying that teams of professional writers, composers and session musicians have never been used to create pop and rock records? Don’t know where Allen Dulles comes into it, though.
Why are people so quick to dismiss the possibility? Do they not realize the quantity and depth of intelligence penetration into the mass media OVERALL, like JOURNALISM dating back to the creation of all the major legacy media outlets? And not just non-fiction. The "Paris Review" was a CIA creation. Hollywood after WWII. The rock/folk scene was chickenfeed in comparison.
Dear Chris, are you now saying that there were complete teams from the deep state involved in creating The Beatles? I think you have been led down a real rabbit hole ... My point was, how special were The Beatles? They happened in a musical context. There were lots of bands making similar music, more sophisticated music even; the Beatles did not appear in a vacuum. And they evolved. Listen to Band on the Run! Are you saying that this was all the product of some conspiracy to corrupt the youth? Must have been some pretty talented writers, composers and session musicians all working for Tavistock and the CIA! It just isn't credible. And to what end?? Seems to me protests against the power elite erupted in the 1960s. It's not what they wanted to see happen. Now if you are talking about spreading drugs among the kids, something like that, that does make sense. Please let's all just enjoy The Beatles and target the real bad stuff that is going on!
Chris explains it in great detail if you care to read the article with an understanding mind and not with a reacting mind. It's all in there.
explains in great detail? if you have read detailed biographies of the Beatles like I have you know how their music evolved - that's real details, not some speculations about songs they didn't perform - please answer my questions if you can - thank you
If their biographies were forged, then they're no good. If you'd like comprehensive debunking of the Beatles myth, please refer to https://miriaf.co.uk/off-the-beaten-track-the-most-unpopular-conspiracy-theory/
The Truth should be more important than the narratives we believe in.
Such hostility, your parents should have named you Karen instead of Karel.
This article cannot be serious
Alice- "If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"
Alice in the Wonderland
(Not a children's book)
Ironically, Lewis Carroll was probably Lennon's favourite author and you can hear clear echoes of his work in 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' and 'I am the Walrus'. Oh wait - news has just come in that Lewis Carroll's work was all written by the CIA, never mind.
Yes, John Lennon who was murdered.
Thank you. I didn't quite understand - if the Beatles were a ruling class operation then what was the aim of this operation and what did it achieve for the ruling class?
And also, it seems like you didn't take into account (at least you didn't mention it) that the Beatles started heavily consuming LSD from 1966 onwards, which might explain the elevated sophistication and creativity of their music from that point onwards (as compared to their 'straight and square' pre-1966 period), given how profoundly LSD can cleanse the doors perception and fundamentally open one's awareness to what was previously unconscious and inexpressed.
Not just their music, but it is very clear that their whole mannerism, dress etc, completely transformed once they consumed LSD, from 1966 onwards. So i think this is a very VERY significant factor that cannot be ignored.
And lastly, if this was a ruling class operation, then how is it possible that that video on youtube by Mike Williams that you linked to (that supposedly "exposes the truth") be allowed to stay online on the ruling class' main platform (youtube)? How is it possible that it is not censored/erased (like what the ruling class immediately do to numerous videos that actually expose the truth about their actual false flag operations)?
That fact that this video is freely available without any censorship (or even age restriction) on the main platform of the ruling class (youtube, which is under their full content control and where they censor very frequently) indicates to me that this video is not in the least threatening to the ruling class, and therefore probably not completely true or accurate
Behavioural change, the creation of a new national mythology/cult, encouragement of drug use, millions of minds in thrall to pop culture, the establishment of an industry still going strong today – plenty of positive outcomes for the ruling class.
I don't know about the LSD factor. Has acid ever made anyone a better artist? Lyrically, LSD might explain ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’ but how do you account for ‘Why Don’t We Do It in the road?’
That’s a good point about YouTube but the probation on dissenting material isn’t absolute and I think that in the cultural realm the censors are less stringent than they are with, say, covid.
I hear you, but that doesn't make much sense to me. The 60s "popular culture" of ordinary people saw a VERY radical and dramatic challenging of the capitalist-conservative ruling class, their war machine and their sickening life-destroying abusive conservative cultural dictates based on tne religious-conservative traditional values of HIERARCHY, DOMINATION through ABUSE AND TRAUMA inflicted by hierarchical anti-egalitarian psychologically-undeveloped conservative-religious tyranical bullies who revel in the POWER OVER others that is afforded to them by a sick social order which is based on conservative-religious ideology of HIERARCHY and Godless twisted AUTHORITARIAN 'MORALITY". It was by far the biggest uprising of ordinary people since WW2 until today. In some places it came very close to an actual revolution and removing the capitalist-conservative ruling class from power. In the United States during that time "popular culture" saw a sharp increase in the militancy and radical perspective of the Civil Rights Movement. In addition, ordinary people of "popular culture" were no longer accepting the hierarchal established order imposed by the ruling conservative class scum.
People were demanding that EVERYBODY (not just the right-wing capitalist conservative hierarchical upper class) should have a dignified standard of living and that NOBODY should live below the poverty line (which is a necessity according to capitalist thinking that must have multiple losers in order to have some "winners").
The movement against the ruling class' Vietnam war and war in general gained the support of the majority of the U.S. population, thanks in large part to "popular music" and large consumptuon of LSD, which opened people's eyes to the sick and violent conservative-capitalist psychology and their abusive militarized control over the people.
GIs were refusing to fight and kill the Viet Cong freedom fighters (which forced Nixon to withdraw troops from Vietnam).
LSD and "popular culture and music" played a huge part in that. To think the ruling would encourage that is insane.
There was a wave of wildcat labor strikes (strikes unauthorized by the official labor union, and hence not controlled by its conservative management-friendly leaders) of ordinary people no longer willing to take the abuse and exploitation of the capitalist-conservative ruling class. There was a radical spirit of rebellion in all major U.S. cities and beyond!
A lot of the radical revolutionary spirit of that time is very VERY intimately tied to what you disparagingly call "drug use" which is actually what opened numerous people's eyes to the profound illness and anti-human character of the Godless conservative-capitalist culture that has been imposed on the western world for centuries by the ruling class.
You seem to be unfamiliar with this (seeing how you lump it all together under the label 'drugs') but there is a profound huge difference between heroin, cocaine, amphetamimes, alcohol, cigarettes etc which are indeed horrible drugs, and between LSD, psilocybin mushroom, ayahuasca, iboga etc which are a gift of God and the highway into the heart and out of the massive capitalist-conservative economic-cultural control apparatus.
Not only are these latter "drugs" not a bad thing in the least but in my view they are essential in order to break free of ruling class control. To think that the ruling class might want to encourage their use (as you suggest) is insane in the extreme. If all of humanity actually took LSD that would be the end of the ruling class. Nobody would ever even consider supporting such capitalist-conaervative scum representitives of the ruling class like biden, trump, starmer, sunak, putin, macron, scholz etc and nobody would be fighting in their nationalist wars..
So i very strongly disagree that the ruling class would want to encourage any of that (LSD use and rebellious non-conforming revolutionary spirit). It makes zero sense.
In fact, the ruling class were scared shitless by the non-conformist revolutionary anti-capitalist anti-conservative spirit of the 60s and early 70s, and drastically changed their approach towards the working class becaues of it, and started implementing the brutal oppressive "get tough" hierarchical conservative policies from the late 70s onwards to "put the people in their place". Some of it is described here https://www.pdrboston.org/why-life-is-harder-now-than-the-60s
Now, don't get me wrong. I fully agree that a lot of the music that is attributed to the beatles was not theirs and was written for them and that the music industey used them as the pretty boys face on the cover. That's true. This practice was and is happening with around 95% of all bands at the time and continues to this day.
However, the fact that the music industry does that, does NOT mean that the ruling class wanted to introduce a defiant anti-hierarchical egalitarian revolutionary anti-capitalist anti-conservative popular culture that would challenge their authority and come very close to an actual revolution that would remove them from power (that would be insane and suicidal for the ruling class to do) but rather, that practice can just as easily be explained by the greed of the capitalist music industry who was and is always on the lookout to increase sales by creating new cultural icons, idols, celebrities etc by any means necessary (even if they don't play well)
PS. "Has acid ever made anyome a better artist?" I don't know what kind of bubble you live in, but none of the profound and amazing and genius music of the 60's and 70's (which is has nothing whatsoever to do with the garbage of music today) would have happened without LSD. For an artist, LSD can be one of the most direct avenues to the heart, to the God part within us, a direct avenue to profound artistic creation (music or otherwise)
PPS. What exactly is the problem with the song 'why don't we do it on tne road?' Musically it is a bad and unremarkable song, but it seems like you object to its content. What exactly is your problem with people making love in the car on road? Or are you suggesting that love-making should only happen between legally married people in church-sanctioned locations and only for the purpose of procreation (in order to rapidly increase human population, as the capitalists demand for their un-sane economic syatem that demands PERPETUAL EXPANSION and therefore constantly increasing human population who would consume more and more and more, as the capitalist economic model demands, and for reasons which i elaborate in my reply to Bella below)?
I dislike this below-mediocre song, but strongly support anything that challenges the abusive God-ignorant conservative-religious tyranical cultural dictates and bullying (that tyranical conservatives seek to impose in the name of being in possesion of "morality", while in reality what these arrogant conservative-religious abusers seek to impose is trauma-bonding and force "moral compliance" in order to soothe the fears and terrors of their traumatized love-less God-ignorant and violent mind).
The solution to the abuse of the psychopathic right-wing capitalist ruling class is NOT to return to the traditionalist abuse and control through trauma of traditional religious-conservative POISON, or back to the stupid blind short-sighted life-destroying murderous nationalist-religious-tribalism of "the good ol days" The solution is to go beyond BOTH these idiotic abusive God-ignorant life-destroying psychologically-immature paths.
There IS an alternative to the false dichotomy that the ruling class present to us (telling us that our only two options are EITHER global capitalist corporate machine OR neo-fascist religious fundamentalism and nationalist tribalism). There is a much more sane and human-honoring and profoundly beneficial alternative than both. It can be seen in this brilliant piece that details the horror and immorality of both tje capitist and anti-egalitarian conservative hierarchical ideology https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/why-have-no-rich-and-no-poor? And here, which explains all aspects of the alternative https://www.pdrboston.org/egalitarianism
And in these two brilliant pieces that clarify common misconceptions https://newdemocracyworld.org/culture/human_nature_print.html
And here that shows the fundamental error in the capotalist-conservative economic and social thinking that preaches hierarchy and anti-egalitarianism as necessary. A much much better option than the horror of the two false-dichotomy options above (EITHER global capotalism OR traditional conservatism & nationalist-tribalism)
https://www.pdrboston.org/no-inequality-is-not-better
PPPS. To say nothing of how strongly John Lennon convinced people to object to every war that the ruling-class initiated and to their hierarchical oppressive economic order. Why would the ruling class promote such a thing?
The video being up doesn't at all discredit the argument, how many things do we know to be true that were said on youtube a few years ago and the videos were never taken down? Firstly, this is OLD NEWS, the ruling class doesn't very much about stuff that happened 64 years ago. They care about what they are trying to lie about in the moment, like how in 2021 there was intense censorship of covid discussion, particularly that it was made in a lab. They realize that censorship is a heavy handed tactic of last resort that can backfire, especially since people like you would seem to take the deletion of the video as proof the theory is true, which is counter productive. During covid they had to make excuses about why they were censoring, the lab leak was racist, and vaccine discussion was 'medical disinformation'. Not sure what excuse they could possibly come up with to censor this, but we can agree they could and would if they cared to.
To further exemplify the point: do you think the JFk assassination was not a conspiracy since there are videos about it on youtube?
See the comprehensive debunking of the Beatles' myth refer to:
https://miriaf.co.uk/off-the-beaten-track-the-most-unpopular-conspiracy-theory/
Thank you. I carefully read the entire thing. I fully agree and am aware that most of popular culture is contrived and the beatles were just the pretty boys face that the capitaliat music industry put in the cover and that most of the music was written for them, but i very strongly disagree that it was done for the reasons she mentions. Please read in full my (second) reply above to Chris Rea (the one starting with the words "i hear you, but..") if you'd like to understand why i disagree.
In addition, it seems to me that the conservative values she currently learnt to hold (which in my experience - as someone who used to be a conservatove and hold these views - are profoundly destructive for the human spirit and in complete opposition to the nature of God and the human heart) cause her to interpret facts in a way that fits her ideological narrative. That immature ideology also causes her to make stuff up, for example when she claims, very confidently and arrogantly, that she knows what are the aims of the secretive ruling class (and lo and behold their aims just happen to be exactly anti-conservative, even though ALL EVIDENCE points to the ruling class being psychopathic capitalist-conservative control-freaks, and it has been so for hundreds of years. Again, see my reply above to Chris Rea for all the details).
There are also quite a few more fallacies in her piece, that resulted from her seeing everything through the religious-conservative glasses that she's wearing, glasses which distort her perception and make her arrive at a false interpretation of the facts and false (and highly destructive) conservative conclusions, but i won't go into everything here because that would require me to sit down and write a whole book right now.. but just take for example the abysmal horrible link that she provided for us in order to learn about the frankfurt achool. I actually studied the writings of the frankfurt school at great depth. These are profoundly wise philosophers and psychologists who had very deep insight into the human spirit (for example, what inclines a human being towards authoritarianism etc) and wrote highly complex books about it. And yet, what link does she give us in order to learn about the frankfurt school? She's linking to an incredibly low IQ fascist (who moved to thailand to f*ck young poor Thai girls who are desparate for money), who clearly never read a single book by the philosophers of the frankfurt scholl and doesn't have a clue what he is talking about and is inventing stuff out of his arse, as if this is what they said, and this low IQ fascist fool is who she's linking us to to learn about the frankfurt school!! Talk about the dumbing down of society.. just look what garbage she's linking to!!
The solution to the abuse of the psychopathic right-wing capitalist ruling class is NOT to return to the traditionalist hierarchy, abuse and control through trauma of traditional religious-conservative POISON (the "traditional values" she constantly extols, without giving any details about what those supposedly "wonderful" values are, becasue she knows the traditional conservative values hide profound abuse and domination behind innocent sounding words like 'family' and 'church', she knows that traditional religious-conservative values were all based on tyranical demand for blind obedience, violently-imposed hierarchy, domination, authoritarianism, abuse and control through trauma). The entire human history is the history of DOMINATION, HIERARCHY, ABUSE AND TRAUMA inflicted by hierarchical anti-egalitarian psychologically-undeveloped conservative-religious tyranical bullies who revel in the POWER OVER others that is afforded to them by a sick social order which is based on conservative-religious ideology of HIERARCHY and Godless twisted AUTHORITARIAN 'MORALITY". And today's religious-conservative fascist idiots demand we return to those "wonderful" traditional values..
This is, by the way, one of the most fundamental tenets of deceptive conservative-fascism - also talking about some supposedly wonderful mythical past that they will take us back to (make america great again' etc), and unfortunately their blind gullible followers are too historically-ignorant, unintelligent and easily emotionally-manipulated, and fall for this fascist-conservative trick again and again and again..
The solution to the right-wing global capitalist machine is also NOT to be found by going back to the stupid blind short-sighted life-destroying murderous nationalist-religious-tribalism of "the good ol days". Rather, the solution is to go beyond BOTH these childish idiotic God-ignorant life-destroying psychologically-immature abusive paths.
There IS an alternative to the false dichotomy that the ruling class present to us (telling us that our only two options are EITHER global capitalist corporate machine OR neo-fascist religious fundamentalism & nationalist tribalism). There is a much more sane and human-honoring and profoundly beneficial alternative than both. It can be seen in this brilliant piece that details the horror and immorality of BOTH faceless capitalist AND anti-egalitarian hierarchical conservative traditionalist ideologies https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/why-have-no-rich-and-no-poor?
And here, which explains all aspects of the alternative https://www.pdrboston.org/egalitarianism
And in these two brilliant pieces that clarify common misconceptions https://newdemocracyworld.org/culture/human_nature_print.html
And here that shows the fundamental error in the capotalist-conservative economic and social thinking that preaches hierarchy and anti-egalitarianism as necessary. A much much better option than the horror of the two false-dichotomy options above (EITHER global capitalism OR traditional conservatism & nationalist-tribalism)
https://www.pdrboston.org/no-inequality-is-not-better
PS. like all those who have fallen for tbe conservative-fascist ideology she also loves to scream about the 'depopulation agenda' in order to push people towards the POISON of right-wing conservative ideology. And yet, where is this so-called "population reduction"? Humanity has increased from 2 billion to 8 billion in less than 90 years!! (and we're projected to reach 11 billion before the end of this century). But conservatives scream about "Inadequate population growth"- The rate of population growth is "inadequate" for what, exactly? It is only "inadequate" from the perspective of a profoundly unintelligent, short-sighted, hierarchical, anti-egalitarian, love-less, life-destroying, un-sane, God-denying, capitalist psychopathic mentality and ideology that demands constant "growth". That's what the current rate of population increase is "inadequate" for.
I think it is very important to understand why psychologically-immature and love-denying capitalist upper class (and the well-intentioned but mislead conservatives who gullibly believe them and unquestioningly repeat their slogans) why they push for constant and rapid population growth. They do it because capitalism is organized around - and dependent upon - PERPETUAL EXPANSION. Meaning, ever increasing production and consumption of commodified goods. It is the only intrinsically expansionary economic system in human history (meaning, if it doesn't continually expand, it must inevitably have a crisis). That's why they need and depend on constant population increase. And now some of them are now sounding the alarm bells because they realize that this push for constant rapid "growth" is threatening the stability of the hierarchical capitalist system that they depend on for their wealth accumulation, for dominating humanity and for being elevated above others) . Some of the capitalists are now realizing that in order to maintain their power and domination over humanity they need to change course from the previous push for rapid population increase, and find other ways to profit off of humanity while still dominating humanity, without the rapid rate of population increase of the last century that threatens the stability of their hierarchical capitalist system.
It seems that these few capitalists that realized that are still not the majority, and that the logic that guided the global capitalist economic system in the last few centuries - that demanded rapid population increase - still has a lot of momentum and vested interested behind it (hence the sentence "inadequate population growth" that those vested capitalist interests are pushing)
One other thing that i think is crucial to understand is that under the global capitalist economic system, the purpose of the ever increasing production and consumption (and thus the need for constant population growth) is NOT primarily to meet human needs, but rather to extract and accumulate profit. This is the overriding objective of this anti-life capitalist system.
To sustain the process of perpetually increasing surplus accumulation, Capital requires an ever increasing quantity of inputs (labor and nature), and requires that these inputs be obtained as cheaply as possible.
This introduces constant pressure by the short-sighted heartless hierarchical anti-egalitarian God-denying right-wing capitalists to depress real wages and to attack environmental, health, child labour and worker protections whenever they possibly can (in the absence of countering political forces). The result is a profoundly unintelligent and destructive capitalist system that, left to itself (to its own logic), AUTOMATICALLY generates exploitation of human beings, domination of some (the most cunning) over others, and poisoning, pollution, over-expolitation, breakdown, decimation and toxicity of the delicate life-giving earth systems that we depend on for existing.
That is why they must have constantly expanding human population.
One could easily argue the opposite theory with the Beatles. Inspiration and congruence are mysterious factors, and your need to explain everything in terms of what is or can be known is almost tragically reductive. But the very fact that you admit that you now don’t believe anything at all in the first instance, until you can PROVE it is “true” is not only just as biased as simply swallowing everything without question, it is also quite a sad way to live your life. May I suggest that you don’t take everything quite so seriously? Isn’t life for living and enjoying in its craziness and mystery and unknowability, rather than obsessively checking everything? You probably already know that everything we think is de facto a “hoax”, since all that we see is an interpretation of “reality”; our egos are constructs, etc etc. Epistemology and metaphysics find that nothing can really be known, but if you pursue these lines of enquiry they become invigorating and liberating rather than a cause of complaint and worry. I suggest you put Rubber Soul onto your turntable, sit back, switch off and enjoy the music, which I think you’ll find is the point of The Beatles, or even ‘The Beatles’. Wood, meet Trees!
Surely if a person chooses to question everything that is that person's right to do so. Your comment that such a choice is 'quite a sad way to live your life' is judgemental. I agree that one should try to enjoy one's life for what it is but surely one should be allowed to enjoy it in whatever way one chooses: if being serious and questioning everything is what one chooses, so be it!
Yes John of course you are right. I certainly should have said, in my opinion it is a sad way to live one’s life. A balance of caution and devil-may-care may be ideal and hard to achieve, but to put every single thing through a sieve of doubt seems somewhat life-denying, in my opinion. In the long run, we are all dead. I vote for at least some eating drinking and being merry …
You can have a realistic perspective on the world, which logically included skepticism of rampant lies and propaganda, and still drink and be merry.
Thanks for the kind advice Artep, I will now turn off my mind, relax and float downstream! Life is indeed mysterious and beautiful, and so is Beatles music. I don't see how enquiring into the material basis of the Beatles phenomenon diminishes one’s aesthetic apprehension of the art. It’s great music. It just wasn't made by the Beatles.
Well said! Brilliant! Very Lucid and articulate.
Living or believing in delusions (lies, myths) is certainly an easy way life. (Ignorance is bliss). Most people, as Chris Rea has mentioned, are content to have someone else do the thinking for them and never strive to enquire as to the reality of it. In other words, they are neither curious not passionate about finding out the Truth about what they believe in. And when the are confronted by someone who wants to awaken them from their delusion with factual Truth, they react with contempt, rather than relief and appreciation for being delivered from lies. They say absurd things such as looking for and finding Truth as a 'sad way of life' and believing in lies as 'enjoying life'. How tragically twisted the human mind becomes as a result of brainwashing!
I stand by my opinion that not believing *anything* you’re told is just as sad as believing *everything* you’re told. You’re still in the same frame, reacting to it all. Move on up, free yourself from such dualistic thinking. “Truth”, if it’s anything, has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. You’re short-changing yourselves. I watched the COVID debacle with amazement, as the seesaw of government policy was mirrored in every movement by the Truthers. Steer clear of it all, is my advice. Your reaction just adds energy and momentum to what you claim to hate. Disclaimer: all of the above is just MY OPINION
It seems pretty clear he has reached the point he has BASED ON his experiences of and perceptions in the real world. He says so; it wasn't until 2020 this really happened. He did not "not believe in anything" until that point.
How do you propose to steer clear of it all when government policies are having an enormously detrimental impact on your life as they did for many during covid? The ruling class would absolutely love for everyone to not react and just ignore what they are doing to us.
Yes you are right, I don’t normally express myself so unkindly, I should have said I felt he seemed to be living quite a sad life, which I think is fair. I did genuinely mean that I thought it would be helpful to not need to question everything, to be suspicious of everything, to be more trusting, more open, etc.
I'm a visiting right leaning person, and I have to say, on the right leaning substacks I subscribe to, (like Old Glory Club and Conundrum Cluster for instance) the comments are good faith and generally positive, when critical they have no venom and discussions are respectful.
On the left when you say things in your article people disagree with you get treated with a lot of passive aggression, ad homs, rude sarcasm and feigned sympathy.
Nothing about OPs post indicates he's sad and miserable, questioning things, especially things like narratives pushed by the government or the true nature of pop stars is simply a result of pattern recognition and learning from your mistakes.
Arguing that understanding the world to be darker than you once thought it makes you sad, so you shouldn't do it, is nakedly an argument for willful ignorance. With strong mental fortitude, you can process the world around you brutally honestly and not become depressed or deranged because of it.
Yes, it's now almost, "False until proven otherwise." Also note "Official Stories," by Liam Scheff. (He includes taking on "Shakespeare," among other things, in the way you wrote about the Beatles. ) Interesting how both MacGowan and Scheff died very young of "natural causes." I believe James Corbett likes to use the term "conspiracy realist."
MK ULTRA PROJECT : The CIA, Tavistock Institute, and the Global "Intelligence-Police Gestapo" State https://www.turkishnews.com/en/content/2017/11/07/mk-ultra-project-the-cia-tavistock-institute-and-the-global-intelligence-police-gestapo-state/
"Ain't No Rock And Roll" by Five Times August - OUT NOW
https://rumble.com/v3nptyg-aint-no-rock-and-roll-by-five-times-august-out-now.html
Alice-"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"
In Alice in Wonderland
(Warning: Not a book for children)