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Sunday, 16 October 2011

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Counter-culture or counterfeit culture?

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.
- Marcus Garvey

Culture is all about the training, improvement, and refinement of: mind, morals, and taste. Thus, the sum total of the attainments and activities of a people, or race, including their implements, handicrafts, agriculture, economics, music, art, religious beliefs, traditions, language; all form a part of their culture. Too often, when we talk about our character, we don’t think about culture. But we human beings have evolved in the environment in which we find ourselves. For every one of us, wherever we were, the environment shaped us: it shaped our values; it shaped our bodies; it shaped our religion. A focus on culture is important to the adherents of counter-culture, counterfeit culture, and traditionalists.

It is said that a people without a culture exclusively their own will perish. Let us look at what has been done to our culture. The peoples of ancient Lanka were known to have been highly cultured - despite Ravana’s single act of indiscretion, for which he paid with his life. So much so, in comparison to present trends in our culture, I often wondered as to whether the ancient inhabitants of this land were a people with different genes, who inhabited this island paradise; and, left for some reason unknown to us as yet. Naturally, thereafter, a people possessing the genetic traits as exhibited by the present day citizens must have immigrated – perhaps with the advent of Vijaya, whose cultural ethos and conduct is best not discussed as a common courtesy to my brethren. And if, as is widely believed, Vijaya was the progenitor of the majority of present day Sri Lankans; and if our genes are derived from his; there is nothing surprising about our culture and conduct. It keeps to expectations.

Anything bogus, copied, faked, false, feigned, forged, fraudulent, imitation, phoney, pseudo, sham, simulated, spurious: is considered counterfeit. The best representation of counterfeit people that I can think of, are those found in politics. Because, it is through them and on account of them, through a devolving web of greed, self serving power and a departure from fundamental ethics, our culture has, over the last sixty years, become counterfeit culture. Nothing is real anymore. Not the food, which is a mix of the food of: the English, Dutch, Portuguese, Arabic, Italian, and all regions of the Indian sub-continent.

Not the language, which again is a mix of the earlier stated mixture. Not the money, which is not even worth as much as the counterfeit U.S. Dollar; and, certainly not the evening news that is doled out by our television stations, because; if, one is a government gazette, another is a book of fables, yet another is grandmother’s tales, and so on and so forth. And because nothing is real anymore, it’s not sustainable. That’s why all systems are headed for collapse, which is all too real, as many people are about to find out as time passes by. In the mean time, let me take a look at some of the counterfeit culture in which we all frustratingly find ourselves.

To me, it seems as though, it’s all about corporations, governments and institutions being in the business of counterfeiting something - faking something or pretending to create and pass on to us something of value when they really aren’t.

Let us take a look at some of the counterfeit culture that comes to my mind, which is predominant in our present day society. The worth of our money, internationally and locally, is like the value of counterfeit money. Our mainstream media is in the business of counterfeiting news.

The pharmaceutical industry is in the business of counterfeiting medicine. It is called Bio-piracy! They are stealing molecules from nature and then counterfeiting their own patented variations. Our schools, colleges, and universities are in the business of counterfeiting education - when a student leaves school, college or graduates from the university, he still knows virtually nothing about anything. Doctors are in the business of counterfeiting false medical authority. Lawyers are in the business of counterfeiting cases.

The mega-sized food corporations that manufacture and/or import food items are in the business of counterfeiting food. The global consumer product companies are in the business of manufacturing counterfeit consumer products such as “baby oil”, which is really a petroleum product. Social networks like Facebook are in the business of counterfeiting friends and friendship. Home builders are in the business of constructing counterfeit homes out of plywood, Styrofoam and sheetrock and many of these homes will not be standing in just 20 years. Local city councils are in the business of counterfeiting power. You simply have to obey all their idiotic rules and pay up all their exorbitant taxes, levies and charges; or be punished with more fines and charges! Private schools are in the business of counterfeiting school diplomas. Who needs to learn how to write, anyway? Mainstream historians are in the business of counterfeiting history - everything you were taught about history in school during your days, is a lie today. The globalist banksters (a pun on gangsters) are in the business of counterfeiting debt. You thought it was money, didn’t you? But it’s really just debt.

And yet, things that are ‘real’ are called fake: for instance, if you stamped your own gold coins - out of real gold; you will be raided and arrested by the police which will then announce that your GOLD coins were counterfeit! If you stitched your own Levies lookalike jeans, it would be called counterfeit and you may find yourself taken to courts.

When the alternative media – the guerrilla publishers - publishes real news that nobody else will publish, it’s called ‘fake’ or ‘unethical’ by the mainstream media. Real is fake, fake is real.

That’s how the world works today, folks. Things that are REAL - herbal medicine, gold coins, truthful journalism - are all called FAKE. Meanwhile, things that are FAKE - the money supply, pharmaceutical medicine, myths of our newly created history and justification of all else that is corrupt - are all called REAL. No wonder most people feel like their world has been turned upside down.

But there’s an easy way out: When you see someone from the house of the so called people’s representatives - the house of power - also known as the parliament, moving their lips and words are coming out, there’s no need trying to figure out whether what they’re saying is REAL or FAKE.

It’s all simpler than you think: If their lips are moving, then what they’re saying is REALLY FAKE, and you can leave it at that. What is delightfully amazing is that in order to reach the stage in which they can utter words that are really fake – they kill each other.

See you this day next week. Until then, keep thinking, keep laughing. Life is mostly about these two actions.

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