We need help to see through these confusing times, and zandtao will try to show how this can be the compassion of the path.
 Squirming John Oliver
zandtao watches few views on TV whether masqueraded as news or an individual's views; it is hard to be sure of any views or the integrity of any individual - how much has an individual has been compromised by wage-slavery? zandtao's years holding to socialism draws him to the humour of John Oliver although he is finding less and less identity with the overall liberal target-base as he follows his path especially since autonomy. But within the veil of left and right that has been fabricated globally compassion tends to go leftwards.
Humour arose for him in this prog on MAHA, but this time he was initially amused not by John's humour so much as his squirming as he tried to present some rightish MAHA veil to the conformed part of his leftish-base audience - allegiance has become so entrenched and conformed. Whilst zandtao wants to promote pathtivism he does not follow mainstream or even activism, it is only detached advice he is now able to offer. zandtao spent 5 years detoxifying his system through macrobiotics (mb) and never felt healthier until his underlying congenital heart condition started to kick in 10 years ago. During these years he began to understand the level of toxins that had built up in his body, and learnt that optimum detoxification provided best health.
Opt-detox
This optimum detoxification is not easy in the system-for-the-rich with the powers of BigFood and BigPharma affecting our bodies and BigOil affecting the environment. For those mb years zandtao cooked well, even ate raw some of the time, spent time sourcing organic, and was generally so much healthier. But opt-detox is across the board avoiding toxic lifestyles, many of which are not possible eg living in the countryside or by the sea, avoiding traffic toxins, avoiding toxic stress. zandtao chooses optimal because there can never be pure detox, for this reason zandtao accepted the toxic covid vaccination within the context of optimal toxic load. Vaccines are only useful above a certain %-threshold, if you choose against vaccination beware of the societal implications. Confusing times.
There are no doubts in zandtao's mind that generally our foods and diets are toxic; his mb healing has convinced him of that. Equally there are no doubts in his mind that some ongoing medicines prescribed by medical establishment can also be toxic. Yet these medicines can also be effective. It is confusing. zandtao avoids chemicals from medicine and chooses acupuncture for healing. This reduces his toxic load, and he now eats too much food with toxins in - due to old age and heart condition. Confusing!!
Back to John's squirming. Various people in the MAHA movement were advocating detox policies that John had previously advocated. Conflict and confusion for allegiances.
John's conclusion has right balance
However he concluded rightly even though he cannot fully grasp opt-detox because he has not practised such a detox food intake as mb. There is an anomaly within this MAHA movement and that is compassion. They want more people to eat healthily yet the government that has introduced MAHA is also a government of impoverishment and so much more. On the one hand there are policies that profit BigFood and BigPharma yet the government's health tactic is MAHA. zandtao has no doubt that the balance favours the corporations.
It is so confusing that impoverishment and MAHA are strategies of the same government yet there is far more accumulation coming from impoverishment than unfinanced health gains from MAHA. Somehow we have to be able to see the way things are, the way things balance out. But this is a view of tathata, and zandtao offers no proof - what's the point opposing views can always be financed (as with climate denial and more). People espeially activists have to learn to intuit the truth - to see the way things are and act on their intuition and act on what they see. Know for yourself, don't trust others.
zandtao associates the MAHA strategy with libertarianism Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, Dr Mercola, and now Casey Means - connected to Trump. Libertarianism sounds like free-thinking - close to the spiritual term of liberation (moksha), but the freedom behind libertarianism is sinister in the sense that it is financed by the system-for-the-rich; an essential aspect of the freeness of libertarianism is a strategy of freedom from regulation. As was said by one of the interviewees on John's prog regulation is needed to control BigFood and BigPharma, yet regulation is not wanted by BigOil and other resource-hungry BigCorporations that back the current US government. Financially massaging the intellectual egos that think they are special and know-it-all is a key strategy of libertarianism. What started as a relatively-small alternative approach has become financially viable as a central policy of an exploiting system-for-the-rich. Support these alternatives who know truth about health, deceive people that the government has a strategy against big business such as BigFood and BigPharma whilst at the same time delivering a "Big Beautiful bill" that benefits the rich. This MAHA strategy has two clear benefits. Firstly there is a net gain for the super-rich - a system-for-the-rich strategy. Secondly, confuse the people so they don't know where to turn. Confusing time that needs conviction to see through it.
Bottom-line of Accumulation
There is a constant throughout this confusion - increasing accumulation for the system-for-the-rich. Anti-vaxxers became a polarising strategy during covid, and many of these MAHA alternatives promoted anti-vaxxing. Fanning the flames of the anti-vaxxer dilemma is an important issue only in that the flames created division. The confusing times unites certain interests behind the divisive tactics.
Problem - proving vaccinations either way. History and science tend to support vaccination. Historically vaccines were not seen as BigPharma, now they are; who produced the vaccines that had apparent success in the past? BigPharma has always made huge profits out of vaccines; it appears that Covid was eventually dealt with - there is debate as to whether it was vaccine or natural immunity.
Feeling Manipulated
People feel manipulated, and the problem is that they are. But what people do not understand is the source of this manipulation; even the manipulators don't fully understand the source of manipulation - they just use it for their own benefit. Here is where the path can help because the path can identify the majority of manipulation as conditioning. It is confusing - what is manipulation? And what is conditioning?
zandtao has written a long zeersight concerning how to develop a practice to cope with conditioning and conformity. Part of conditioning is the natural process of survival, parents need to teach their children how to survive. Through education from parents and schools we learn organisational skills and other natural needs, we also learn that we have a duty to contribute to society - a natural duty. But sadly we also learn how to fit into the system-for-the-rich by accepting being wage-slaves, that is the manipulation. Where is the boundary between contributing to our humanity and becoming wage-slaves?
Difference between conditioning and manipulation
For most people conditioning and manipulation are all one, but for the path they are very different because when the path comes through we can see the good intention of survival that leads to natural duty - and we can also see the manipulation that comes from the system-for-the-rich. With path awareness comes clarity, comes the ability to see through both conditioning and manipulation, and benefit from following the path. Here's the rub. Once we become aware of our paths, we let go of the restrictions and get through the conditioning. Unfortunately the manipulation is man-made ie usually comes from the system-for-the-rich so we cannot let go of it; the path sees the difference - one is intended to be let go and the other is imposed. To see the source of this manipulation we must be able to see the difference between conditioning and manipulation, and that discernment comes from the path. Once we can be aware of the manipulations of the system-for-the-rich we can then work with others in unity to get rid of the source of manipulation and for all to follow the path naturally.
Here is another confusion. Many people are calling out manipulation but because this particular calling-out has not come from the path they are confusing conditioning and manipulation - calling it all one. This has been an intended aspect of the confusion strategy because egos choose to say I am not manipulated arrogantly.
Removing the restrictions of survival
An important aspect of survival conditioning is to build up self-esteem so that we have confidence to take jobs within the system-for-the-rich. But this self-esteem also builds up ego, creates separation, and makes it easy for us to be manipulated. There are 3 restrictions to the path - attachments to ego, dukkha and clinging/addiction. If our upbringing is successful then we build self-esteem, have attachment to ego yet we are able to survive in the system-for-the-rich through employment. This egoic self is manipulated but does not see the conditioning, this egoic self might begin to see through some of the combined conditioning and manipulation but does not see the distinction. The path discerns as it releases attachment but if there is no attempt to end conditioning and follow the path then how can this discernment be seen?
It is all confusing. zandtao suspects that the manipulators of the system-for-the-rich do not see the distinction either but continue with the manipulation on top of their own conditioning as manipulation benefits the accumulation. Unfortunately they do not benefit as people - they benefit financially, and perpetrate the system-for-the-rich that causes so much harm. They are conditioned into not seeing the harm because they benefit, that is their conditioning.
It is all confusing except for the path, follow the path and the confusion goes.
Delusive Veil
In the past the system-for-the-rich maintained a delusion that zandtao above called the veil. Their system was designed for their own accumulation but to maintain their control they offered an electoral democracy. This electoral democracy only arose when they could be sure that both parties would support the ongoing accumulation. There would tend to be an oscillation of electoral power in which through one party, the leftish, they let more of their profits go back to the people. It now appears that the system-for-the-rich is now just working for the bottom-line of accumulation. Much of the confusion is caused by the breaking down of this veil and the increased authoritarian moves towards increased accumulation alone - breakdown of the oscillating electoral strategy.
As the two-party system was only a chimera, a veil, in which neither party truly had power - that power lying behind the scenes through the influence of the system-for-the-rich, people are lost. When the system-for-the-rich took too much through the rightish party, electorally the people turned to the leftish and got something back - until the rich stopped giving promoting the rightish again. But with the authoritarian moves the system-for-the-rich is dispensing with this leftish-rightish delusion. The leftish are now doing nothing as a whole even though within the leftish parties there are good people who work compassionately. With the authoritarian moves there is nowhere for the people to turn; some good people cling to the old veil, other good people are turning to new electoral parties. But will this work as the electoral system only had limited power, the token power that was allocated by the system-for-the-rich?
The veil provided an opposition for many activists to work within. Other activists discussed idealisms that focussed on the system-for-the-rich itself calling for a peoples' system - they were always nullified by the system-for-the-rich sometimes violently.
Compassion not ditthi
In political terms all of the above is called analysis, but analysis is simply observations developed from viewpoint - a view - ditthi. It cannot be seen as truth - at best it can be called tathata but perhaps with some of the above details not tathata but simply a view. As stated above the truth lies in compassion - working compassionately with each other to build up community. Authoritarianism will withdraw finance from community programmes - keeping it within their accumulation, and there will be increased impoverishment. The compassion of the path needs to help these people. Previously bypassing allowed itself to follow their paths outside of conditioned society offering advice to seekers who sought them out. But with the increased accumulation of authoritarianism, compassion has a more urgent imperative to support the poor however they can. For seekers, following the path is the priority but with the clarity of the path comes the tathata that sees the increased impoverishment that needs the embodiment of all compassion.
Compassion not allegiance
Can there be a political direction when the system-for-the-rich is not supporting the veil? Promoting the leftish agenda will have yielded token improvement in the past. Is it worthwhile to spend time clinging to this token wealth? That is for the individual to judge whether they invest their compassion in the leftish delusion. Whilst there is still a vestige of the veil perhaps we do both - again that is a practical judgement for the seeker embodying their path.
Embodiment as grassroots activism?
Ultimately the path always needed to work within the community - the helping of embodiment. Whilst the system-for-the-rich gave back some of their accumulation through the leftish delusion people could work politically. But now the grassroots community is the priority, and bypassing which was never that productive is now counter-productive because of the change to authoritarianism. Once the seeker has sufficiently followed their path and has the level of clarity then their embodied compassion chooses to help the community. To counter the authoritarianism, zandtao suggests that paths choose to maintain a detached involvement in grassroots activism - a detached activism - the compassion of pathtivism.
It is important to see what is happening as a facet of the system-for-the-rich and its accumulation. They enact their authoritarianism through a particular narcissist in a particular country but these narcissists are only puppets for the system-for-the-rich. Now the system-for-the-rich is choosing authoritarianism, there will always be new narcissists. Authoritarianism is a strategy of the system-for-the-rich and not created by an individual who is the figurehead. The puppet will remain in power only as long as the puppet does the bidding of the system-for-the-rich.
We can observe authoritarianism as it develops, and because we want liberation we must be concerned as to how this phase of system-for-the-rich will affect paths. What we do as our embodiment arises from compassion, seekers-becoming-activists will choose their activist area. Now bypassing is not an option - not to be confused with temporary solitary development. The path is a way through the confusion - from awareness to awakening to purpose - consciously loving and evolving consciousness. Be detached from the confusing times, follow your path and bring your compassionate embodiment to the community.
Pattern
Warning - this also is bleak, perhaps bleaker than the first warning
Ever since Occupy there has been a pattern of investment in these confusing times. The internet became a prime target for investment, and with the quantity of investment now what was then right-wing extremism is now accepted as a norm. Those with conviction can hold to their compassion and can see that the change has been financed, conviction enables an individual to avoid being conditioned and conformed. It does not alter the way the investment of the system-for-the-rich has changed and is affecting the views of many people.
In the US their investment has a plan - Project 2025, and as activists we must read this plan. For zandtao this is a not-yet, and for this advice to have any future meaning that will have to happen. Meanwhile he must complete existing projects - reviewing zeer-consciousness and finishing the book on pathtivism.
But the way forward is two-fold:-
Learn what they are doing by studying Project 2025
Develop grassroots activism
Recently there has been a turning-point enabling the system-for-the-rich to bring in their paln of attack on the radical left. For grassroots activism this is a big problem. 9-11 heralded the war on terror but in practice it became the practice of anti-Islam. Whilst the violence and narrow idealism of the Revolutionary Left will be no loss as it has caused so much division, the real target of this turning-point is grassroots democracy. Grassroots activism will now be under threat, and to enable that activism we have to be pro-compassion, and dissociate from the Revolutionary Left. We will have to be clear. Within socialism there is some compassion as it is concerned with the 99%, but it has an authoritarian element that has led to its failure. And it has the revolution and revolutionary factions that have divided the grassroots. Pathtivism has to promote grassroots compassion before that activism will be lost in the purge of the turning-point.
zandtao questions whether the existing veil and delusion of left/right offers any hope. For the 2024 US election there was nothing for compassionate people with integrity to vote for, the policies of the Democratic-by-name-only party offered nothing and they stepped back to enable the takeover by authoritarianism. In the UK the left of their delusion has done nothing but eschew any vestige of support for grassroots action symbolised by Corbyn.
Support the grassroots
Activism needs to be in support of the grassroots rather than dissipated into erstwhile delusions. For the UK such activism can finally leave the delusion of the Labour party as it has been taken into its darkest establishment territory. But pathtivism needs to take the grassroots away from any violence promoting the compassion of the grassroots.
Beyond the support for grassroots activism it is bleak. The tactics of confusion has highlighted immigration, and Reform are uniting around anti-immigration. Reform does not offer jobs and with the bottom-line of accumulation increasing automation there are fewer jobs - as with US authoritarianism how can Reform bring jobs? At the same time we can hold to our compassion and see the hypocrisy of the Christian component of the system-for-the-rich. There are no Christian values in authoritarian policies, for this spate of demagogues Christianity is a tactic not a practice, and as with the jobs we must wait until caring Christians see that.
So pathtivism waits for the increasing bleakness whilst promoting grassroots action, and studies Project 2025 to understand the next step.
|
Books:-