I wonder how this way of living has make you experience wars of believes. For example, have you confronted people that have challenge your way of eating because it is different than theirs? And if so, what have you learned?

How serendipitous!

I just read this article by Paul Craig Roberts (who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal) entitled Unplugging Americans From The Matrix [ [www.infowars.com] ].

Here is a small snippet from the very end of the article that applies here…

Ron Unz is an American hero, and a very courageous one. As George Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

It is an even more courageous act when no one wants to hear the truth. As Frantz Fanon said, “Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.”

Or as it is explained to Neo in the film, “The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”

Most of the people I know personally are not willing to be unplugged. I assume my readers are, so seize the opportunity to be further unplugged and read Ron Unz’s comparison of America and China.

Then do what you can to unplug others.

Peace and Love………John

John Thanks!

The wikipedia page about cognitive dissonance is GREAT!!! It puts things in a sky view perspective.

[en.wikipedia.org]

"Cognitive dissonance theory warns that people have a bias to seek consonance among their cognitions. According to Festinger, we engage in a process he termed "dissonance reduction", which he said could be achieved in one of three ways: lowering the importance of one of the discordant factors, adding consonant elements, or changing one of the dissonant factors."

In this case, people challenging our way of living are viewing us as discordant from their belief system. They may even try to save us

Another golden quote from wikipedia:

"Because it is often easier to make excuses or pass judgment than it is to change behavior or values, cognitive dissonance research contributes to the abundance of evidence in social psychology that humans are not always rational beings."

This article I just ran across references Aristotle, and relates to the 'wars of beliefs'

[opinion.financialpost.com]

From Panchito's Wikipedia link -

Cognitive disequilibrium is a closely related concept in the cognitive developmental theory of Jean Piaget: the inevitable conflicts of experiences between current beliefs and new information will lead to disequilibrium, which in turn motivates progress through the various stages of development.

John, I hope you know that 'infowars' is just another sharade put up by special agents. Faces like Alex Jones, David Icke and others are just actors in the Matrix. I hope you know that...

The truth is in the nature, and in the nature only.

Rab, where do you get your info on said "charade?" Curious...

From my head...it is all to obvious for me. If you follow these things, after a while all the roles are very clear.
It would take a lot of typing to explain. We live in a true Matrix, false reality. It is not just the food, every aspect of our lives is corrupted to the maximum. Long story.

I agree with you. The people you mentioned agree with you. I have sometimes wondered about some of the things I have heard from them lately (especially Jones) but Icke was saying this stuff over a decade ago. I remember the first time I read a book by him in 2001, right after 9/11. It took a while to fully understand how everything was being manipulated but now I hardly believe anything isn't!

It's not what you read, it's how you read it. Even amazing nuggets of truth can be gleaned by listening to Faux talking heads like Bill O'Reilly if you listen to an issue and notice 1) what is vehemently mocked/denied and 2) what is completely omitted.

I agree with Alex Jones more often than not, but he doesn't do much of anything to inspire hope (to say the least). But that's where raw food comes in. Getting your hands in the earth is the antidote to nearly everything, on every level. Mental, physical, emotional, social, societal, economic, planetary.

And if people don't want to believe that... well! So far (thank god), no one has forcibly stopped me from planting my garden, so, I don't mind if I do. When you live the lifestyle, you look like it, you become it, and there's not any room for argument.

But, yeah. People try to "save" me all the time. It reminds me of a hilarious bumper sticker on my friend's car... "God, please protect me from your followers." Not to knock anything about religion, other than that the close-mindedness that can happen when adhering too tightly to a belief system with no thoughts, analysis, or comprehension of your own. Prime stage for cognitive dissonance.

Oh, there are even raw foodists like that... but the biggest gap of frustrations can often be closed when you just try to understand where the person is coming from, vegan, acolyte, scientist, or, whatever.

Knowing when to turn the other cheek is also key. I regret not doing that today, jumping a knee-high fence on the way to work today... but that's ANOTHER story.

Have you ever had to deal with other people very different reality? How did you handle it? I think it helps if we step back from expectations, which is not easy. Sometimes our expectation is for people to be a certain way, and when we find they are not, we criticize. So when we criticize people, we are viewing people from our imagined expectations. But it can be very hard to let some of the expectations go. It is much easier to deal with them by changing the other people instead of us.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2012 01:18PM by Panchito.

The more you know the lonelier you get. There are people who I like very much but even with them I have to have patience as I don't agree with a lot they are saying. I have my own view of things, natural diet and a lot of others, and that makes it very hard to have conversations. Even open minded people can't really follow me. They understand my views and even agree, but five minutes later they go back to their usual way of thinking. It is inevitable.
I worked hard to analyze myself and understand the world...and the reward is that I alienated myself from most of the people.
I am a Christian but my understanding of Jesus became different from my church and the way I fast is different. I do believe that Jesus walked the Earth and did miracles but his whole story revolves around the 'garden' that we need to re-establish. He also never requested any rituals, just praying and renouncing sins...there are many things that I see in a different light now. For example, bread is very important in the Christian rituals and I don't eat bread at all and I have a very low opinion of it's nutritional benefit. To be honest, bread used to be better in early ages of Christianity as it was made from less refined flour, but it still was not the best food they had. Bread was the way to survive but not to thrive.
I have a good friend who brought his family up on a farm. You can walk with him in the street and he tells the story about every tree you see, he notices all the details and recognizes all trees. I love his stories about the nature. But, he also always had cattle and he also tells stories about processed food. I have to be patient and I always encourage his stories about fruit (I love those) and veggies and life on the farm in general.

I have many examples like this. I have learned things but I am only a former processed food addict, not a 'pure' person. Any frequent contact with people who are still on the 'SAD' diet causes bad influence on my habbits. I have to balance that and stay strong...not an easy task. My goal is to simplify my life and live in a close contact with nature. I am working on it.

Rab, do you mean that the more expectations you create of other people, the lonelier you get?

Loneliness is something you create by what you tell yourself (as feedback)

It is natural for a human to share thoughts and to look for people who are alike. It gets harder when there are few who are 'alike'.

I hear you Rab. But even if you live alone and isolated, you don't have to feel loneliness. It depends on what you tell yourself. If you receive the feedback that living alone is good, then life is good and happy. If you receive the feedback that living alone is not good, and you live alone, then life is bad.

True, Panchito. One has to be healed from 'standard expectations'. This process of healing is not instant. It takes time.

Rab, I’ve read just about everything negative about Alex Jones and in all honesty, I can’t help but think that Alex might have been the one who put it out there because every one of them are so lame it isn’t even funny. This does not mean that I am naïve and not aware of Provocateurs, Cointelpro, Psyops, etc., however, I can’t help but wonder if divide and conquer isn't a better strategy to the globalists than controlled opposition.

Speaking of controlled opposition, how many people know that Vladimir Lenin once said that “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” and how many people know that Paul was a Roman Agent and totally hijacked the Christian Religion changing the focus from how he lived to his Death? Try telling that to a diehard Christian and you can actually see their Frontal Lobe Shut Off [ [www.rawfoodsupport.com] ].

Anyway, back to Alex Jones - I’ve known about him for over a decade, but it wasn’t until about a year and a half ago that I started to follow him more closely and create a file on him, which is over 500 pages long and that does not include the dozen or so files I created as an offshoot from him. During this time I have heard Alex say many things that makes me think he might be an agent, but then, there are tons of things he says that makes me think he is the real deal. In fact, Alex just said something 3 days ago that I have never heard before regarding “Anger is a Gift” so if he is an agent, then he may very well be helping the “opposition” more than he is hurting it.

Peace and Love……….John

One of his main roles is to promote anger. Anger is a waste of energy if it is not followed by immediate satisfaction. It causes lethargy and despair.
The real solution is to heal the world.

<<<One of his main roles is to promote anger. >>>

I can sure see why someone might say that, especially if they don’t know what’s going on. I can also see why someone might say that if they don’t understand what Aristotle meant in Book III Chapter 7 in "Aristotle's Rhetoric." Interestingly, when I told Alex that he reminds me of this Chapter, he used this Chapter the very next day to do something that he had not done since he’s been on the radio for 16 years and this is when I knew Alex is the real deal.

<<<Anger is a waste of energy if it is not followed by immediate satisfaction. It causes lethargy and despair >>>

Obviously, when we say that “Anger is a Gift,” we are Not talking about a waste of energy that can lead to sadness, lethargy and despair. When I heard Alex say “Anger is a Gift” the other day, I understood what he meant and since I have never heard anyone call “Anger a Gift” before, I wanted to know who said it and how it was used, so I went a googling and this is what I found…see PS below. I found this article very helpful for me on my mission to wake up the masses because I know the real solution is for all of us to heal ourselves.

So, if your idea of healing the world is for all of us to heal ourselves, then we’re on the same page. I also know that Alex is just as delusional as all of the other so-called Conspiracy Theorists, including the Zeitgeist Movement and the Thrive Movement when it comes to going Upstream far enough to put an end to this needless suffering. Most Conspiracy Theorists think that the Solution is to Expose the Psychopaths who are Ruling the World and we both know that’s only a Downstream Solution, but we do need to work Downstream and do damage control, to undo all of the harm that they have done and to make sure they don’t get away with anything else. Likewise, the Zeitgeist Movement and the Thrive Movement are just as delusional thinking that a Resource Based Economy and getting rid of Corrupt Money, respectively, is the Solution.

So does Alex use Anger for a reason?

Yes, read Book III Chapter 7 in "Aristotle's Rhetoric"…see PPS below.

Peace and Love……….John

PS Here is that article I found several days ago about “Anger is a Gift”…

[regainingfreedom.com]
The Gift of Anger

Your anger is a gift.
Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against The Machine)

Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.
Malcolm X

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave!
Blade Runner (1982)

Slavery is a metaphor for a person who is not in control of their own life, but has their choices made for them. A man decides, a slave obeys.

The slave can have two internal responses to his situation. He can be sad, and passively accept it, but mourn inside, yearning for a better world. The outcome is no change. Emotion is directed inwards, leaving the outer world untouched. Not daring to express outrage, fear constrains the slave to internalise their problems.

The other response is anger. Anger means directing emotional energy outwards, towards making positive change. Anger is forceful non-acceptance of the status quo. It mobilises and catalyses individual resources towards change. Anger overcomes the constraints of fear, resulting in action.

The slave is not allowed to be angry. That is the prerogative of the slave’s master. The slave is too fearful to show any anger to the master.

Anger in our world has a bad name, but as Zack de la Rocha said, it is a gift. A gift is something that is meant to benefit us. Anger is a gift when it is used in a focused, directed way to cut through the irrelevant and the bureaucratic, and cut to the root of a problem. Anger is the antidote to constraints. Anger doesn’t try to work within the system, it does not aim for incremental change, it does not settle for less. Anger takes what it wants.

Unfocused anger on the other hand benefits no-one. The person who is angry at the world but does not focus that anger on changing the central problem at hand is useless, a danger to themselves and innocent bystanders. The person who goes down the street smashing shop windows achieves no beneficial change in their own life. The person who explodes when someone changes lane in front of them is not solving a problem. The spouse who gets angry at a perceived slight causes puzzlement, not change. Like Don Quixote, the person with unfocused anger simply attacks windmills, not real enemies.

Focused, relevant anger is owned. It is not a wild impulse. It is not something that we disavow responsibility for. We don’t blame emotions or other circumstances. Focused anger is not like a broadaxe that is wildly flung about, but more like a powerful laser that cuts straight through to the core of the enemy. As Musashi said, think only of cutting. This means setting aside irrelevance, and being singleminded in pursuit of the goal.

The random, angry, inarticulate mob is easily disbursed. In Roman times, the mob was readily placated with bread and circuses. In our modern society, anger is controlled through handouts, drugs and television – anything to keep people as victims – irrelevant, placid and powerless. They must not think for themselves as this will focus their minds on the problem at hand – they will realise that they are controlled. They must not become angry as this is likely to become unfocused violence. At no time should they become both angry and focused, as this is the worst possible threat to the status quo.

How can anger be focused to achieve results? It is focused when anger and rationality are combined. This combination of fire and ice is the defining characteristic of those who are a threat to the status quo, and those who are able to write their own ticket in life.

Rationality is chosen when a person accepts that actions have consequences, and owns those consequences, and acts consistently to achieve the required consequences. Anger comes from having clear internal standards, which are not compromised, and by comparing actions against them, and feeling strongly enough about the discrepancy to arouse emotion and action.

The person who is fearful, or sedated by habitual inaction won’t ever get angry enough to change anything. They are scared of doing so. They will simply become sad, internalising the pain, treasuring it like it is something precious. Yet another victim. The person who is angry, and rational enough to understand the reason for the anger will be focused on the necessary change. Which will you be?
[regainingfreedom.com]

PPS Here is Book III Chapter 7 in "Aristotle's Rhetoric" preceded by those points relative to this discussion…

To express emotion, you will employ the language of anger in speaking of outrage; the language of disgust and discreet reluctance to utter a word when speaking of impiety or foulness;

Book III - Chapter 7

Your language will be appropriate if it expresses emotion and character, and if it corresponds to its subject. "Correspondence to subject" means that we must neither speak casually about weighty matters, nor solemnly about trivial ones; nor must we add ornamental epithets to commonplace nouns, or the effect will be comic, as in the works of Cleophon, who can use phrases as absurd as "O queenly fig-tree." To express emotion, you will employ the language of anger in speaking of outrage; the language of disgust and discreet reluctance to utter a word when speaking of impiety or foulness; the language of exultation for a tale of glory, and that of humiliation for a tale of pity and so in all other cases.

This aptness of language is one thing that makes people believe in the truth of your story: their minds draw the false conclusion that you are to be trusted from the fact that others behave as you do when things are as you describe them; and therefore they take your story to be true, whether it is so or not. Besides, an emotional speaker always makes his audience feel with him, even when there is nothing in his arguments; which is why many speakers try to overwhelm their audience by mere noise.

Furthermore, this way of proving your story by displaying these signs of its genuineness expresses your personal character. Each class of men, each type of disposition, will have its own appropriate way of letting the truth appear. Under "class" I include differences of age, as boy, man, or old man; of sex, as man or woman; of nationality, as Spartan or Thessalian. By "dispositions" I here mean those dispositions only which determine the character of a man's for it is not every disposition that does this. If, then, a speaker uses the very words which are in keeping with a particular disposition, he will reproduce the corresponding character; for a rustic and an educated man will not say the same things nor speak in the same way. Again, some impression is made upon an audience by a device which speech-writers employ to nauseous excess, when they say "Who does not know this?" or "It is known to everybody." The hearer is ashamed of his ignorance, and agrees with the speaker, so as to have a share of the knowledge that everybody else possesses.

Interesting post. My opinion of Alex Jones is still the same. I don't have time to research him or to elaborate. To me, he is a typical fake 'freedom fighter', agent. It is just too obvious. Again, no intention on my part to prove my opinion, sorry. He is the same as Icke, Ventura (ugly long haired one) etc. I can't even watch them for 3 mins., it is so tiresome.