How to Recognize a Globalist Agenda When it Slaps You in the Face

The nomination and awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama has been met around the world with expressions of disbelief, confusion and incredulity. Rightly so. After all, how can the figurehead (I hesitate to say leader) of the world's biggest arsenal of nucler weapons, world's largest and most complex military, world's most beliggerent country which not only overtly invades sovereign nations on flimsy pretexts, but covertly supports bloody coups and insurgencies elsewhere, be even mentioned in the same sentence as the word 'peace'?

The Nobel Peace Prize, as most of you know, originated from the last will and testament of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite. Although dynamite was not used on battlefields during his lifetime, he knew that it would be, and was so appalled by this that in mitigation he called for the establishment of a prize that should go to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

Despite the fact that Obama was nominated for this prize less than two weeks into his term, there is one glaring point that should have disqualified him immediately. He has increased the amount of troops in Afghanistan, and has authorised the use of drones to fire rockets into villages in Pakistan, killing people who had no idea of what is even going on. This creep into Pakistan is a spreading of the fiery part of America's global war on terror (WW3). There goes "reduction of standing armies" and "fraternity between nations".

To be fair, Obama himself said that he did not think he had done enough to deserve the award, or to be in the company of the transformative figures who had won it before him, though he did not have the conscience to decline the prize, as Le Duc Tho did in 1973. His Cairo address marked a shift in America's attitude to the Arab world, at least rhetorically. The same can be said of the disapproving murmurings about Israel's Apartheid style treatment of Palestinians and Nazi Liebensraum style expansionism. Talk. And talk is cheap. Iraq is still hell, Guantanamo is still open, the atmosphere is still the USA's gaseous garbage dump, poor people in America are still denied healthcare. More proof that campaign promises are the poorest kind of promise. Symbols say more than talk. Take a look at the presidential seal of the United States. The star of David made up of thirteen stars hovers above an eagle grasping a thirteen leaved olive branch in one claw and thirteen arrows in the other. The Cairo address may have appeased some Arabs and Muslims, but most of them know which star this bird is following and that its not going to let go of those arrows any time soon.

So who decided to award this warlord the world's heretofore most respected peace prize? Nominations are only accepted from previous prize winners, a very small section of the world's intellectual elite, and the world's political elite. The committee is comprised of five people, all of them members of the Norwegian parliament. The chairperson is Thorbjørn Jagland, also secretary general of the Council of Europe. Although not a member of the EU, Norway is a member of the European Economic Area and complies with many EU policies and stipulations for this reason.

This is just a rough sketch of the visible power structure of who decides where the prize goes, but take a step back , and try to describe this whole idea of war-spreader-gets-peace-maker-prize in one word...

... That's right. Orwellian. And Orwell's famous maxim from 1984 immediately springs to mind:

"WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"

And you are watching Big Brother. Do we need a bigger wake up call than this to show us that there is a globalist agenda at work here, conflating archetypes and attempting to subvert our very ideas of what peace, freedom and strength mean? That the war of terror is a war on Terra, the very consciousness of our planet and the basis of our remaining sense of human unity? That these would-be world controllers not only control our parliaments, media, industry and 'healthcare', but also seek to control our minds?

I think they've dropped the ball on this one though. Awarding Obama the Nobel Prize for Peace is a step too far. They've jumped the gun. Too many people are standing up and saying "WHAT!?" and the hits on David Icke, Michael Tsarion, Drunvalo Melchizedek and Credo Mutwa's websites just keep soaring.

Are you buying the lie?

Fire in Peacetime

A fire burns off dry reeds in a wetland near Praia do Tofo. This fire lasted for three days and though the flames reached the height of a three storey building at times, no one seemed too perturbed by it, least of all the people living in grass huts right next to the wetland. A mild onshore wind kept it going but also stopped it from getting too close to any buildings. No attempts at firefighting were made at all.

Mozambique

This past year has been a tough one, especially for my partner Megan, who had to deal with the culture shock of the diminished freedom of inner city Cape Town after the freedom and safety of two years in Japan. We lived, and she worked and studied, in Woodstock, South Africa's oldest suburb and one of its most notorious for gangs and associated crime. After eleven months of living in high security contexts and street life reminiscent of downtown Detroit, the dirt and depravity of the area had put an unnecessary strain on our relationship. We needed a holiday, and with a bit of gentle persuasion from Megan, I arranged for us to spend three weeks in Mozambique. I had been there before in 2004 and piqued her curiosity with my stories.

We took the train from Cape Town to Durban and only found out on the first morning that it was a two day trip, rather than overnight as we had expected. We hunkered down for another 24 hours, grateful that we had access to a dining car. We stayed with my parents in Durban for a few days and then took the Panthera Azul coach to Maputo via Swaziland, where a customs official on the Mozambican side was bribed to abandon the search he had embarked upon for that very purpose. Despite our best efforts to avoid it, we were swindled by the taxi operator who took us to our first point of call, Fatima's Rest Backpackers in Maputo. It was election day on our arrival, so nothing was open, meaning we had no chance of changing money. We went for a walk in town and came across an agitated group of people. Two policemen had stopped three South African travellers who had just arrived and demanded to see their passports, which they didn't have. They refused to accompany them on the short walk to the backpackers to fetch them and threatened them with arrest. After showing the cops our passports, we said we would fetch the travellers' ones for them. I went to Fatima's and told the receptionist what had happened. "Those bloody cops!" he exclaimed and marched out to give them an earful. They duly abandoned their harrassment of the travellers. From Fatima's we had to get up at dawn the next morning to take the chapas (minibus) taxi to Tofo. We had to wait for several hours in a throng of people and vehicles for it to fill up with passengers before we could depart. One of the things I was happy to see on the arduous and uncomfortable journey was the field before the bridge over the Limpopo on the way into Xai-Xai had been cleared of landmines and was now under cultivation. After several hours of bone-jarring journeying, we were dropped off at Fatima's in Tofo, relieved to be done with all the driving and happy to complete the last kilometre of the journey on foot. We finally made it to Bamboozi, the lodge I had booked at and were shown to our hut. It was made almost entirely out of natural materials and was better than I expected, with electricity, beds and mosquito nets. We made our way up to the bar to be shocked by the prices. They were about double South African prices, close to quadruple the prices I paid the last time I was in Mozambique, four years ago. This may have something to do with the fact that this country has experienced an incredibly high growth rate since it was a bit of a Zimbabwe case in the nineties, having suffered two long debilitating wars which only ended with the collapse of Apartheid and the drying up of South African funding for the right wing terrorist organiztion, RENAMO. Several zeros have been knocked off the Metacais which also seems to have propelled the currency to its present value.

Mozambique has been run by FRELIMO, a socialist party, since independence from the Portuguese. The colonialists' language is still the official language, a unifying factor for the many different tribal and language groups which inhabit the country. The ruling party is a kind of benign kleptocracy, if you'll excuse the oxymoron. Mozambique has a functioning democracy and FRELIMO is always voted back into power, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the style of government is distinctly African, running on favours, gifts and commissions, a system known to hoodwinked westerners as "corruption". The lodges had to pay a kind of tithe to the government through a convoluted process of compulsory donations.


Tofo itself is a small seaside village which derives most of its income from, and even owes its existence to, tourism. The centre of the village is the marketplace, close to the main beach, usually a quiet tropical idyll, but come mid December, a noisy playground for drunk Gautengers on jetskis and quadbikes. Luckily we escaped the worst of it by going home before most of them arrived.

Our typical day was waking up with the sun at around 6am then walking into the village for coffee and to buy food for breakfast at the market. We'd then take it back and prepare it in the most rudimentary kithen I've ever used. There were two pots and a broken plate... that was about all the cookware. A blackened gas stove, a dodgy sink and a fridge we christened the 'Black Hole' for its inability to store food, were the only amenities. We bought a knife at the market which we had for a while but then that was stolen too. I blame backpackers for this rampant kleptomania, since the locals would have had a hard time hiding all the stuff.

Unfortunately, due to the ridiculous prices and the impotence of American Express travellers cheques, we were unable to experience any of the ocean tours or scuba diving on offer, so the only sealife I saw was a gamefish that streaked underneath me when I was surfing one day. The area is famous for whalesharks, which I saw last time I went, and turtles, manta rays and dolphins. The wildlife tasted good tough. Our favourute dish was grilled barracuda.

Altogether, we stayed just under three weeks at Tofo and in that time found out which were the best beers and how much one should pay for them without getting ripped off. We learned how to get rid of the legions of little boys who tried persistently to sell bracelets made out of seashells and beads (Mimicking their sales lines and saying we weren't from Gauteng usually worked). We found the best place for coffee and breakfast when we were doing well with our budgeting (The Waterworks surf and coffee shop), made a few friends and received an offer for a job in Japan over the internet at the village's only internet cafe. It was a happy ending to the Southern African chapter of our international journey together and a great place to rest before we started the next chapter; in Shikoku, Japan, where I am writing this from!

The San Clan Burn

This was the centrepiece of AfrikaBurn, a sculptural representation of a San rock painting representing community and unity of intent through its many heads and many legs running in the same direction. This burn, the equivalent of Black Rock City's "Man", happened on the Saturday night and was preceded by the release of several floating lanterns which rose steadilty into the empty, starry desert sky.

Afrikaburn

After months of indecision, I was finally convinced by two of my housemates to make the trip with them to Afrika Burn, the festival in the Karoo semi desert inspired by Burning Man in the United States. I hurried to the shops to buy four pockets of oranges, since we were on our way to a cashless society, a gift economy in which everyone contributes and everyone benefits, I decided that oranges and goji berries would comprise my contribution. I had been put off by the high entrance fee and the vast amount of fuel needed to cover the distance from Cape Town to Tankwa Karoo, but once I had reconciled myself to paying for these, I was happy and eager to experience life in a cashless society, if even only for a few days.
Our first glimpse of this grand social experiment, in its second South African incarnation, was from a few kilometres away as we made it over the top of a ridge. It looked like a sci-fi moon base from far away. A great white dome and a red tower presided over smaller structures, which revealed themselves as art installations, tents and vehicles as we got closer. A light aircraft circled overhead and came in to land at the adjacent airstrip just after we arrived at the gate. Here I met Monique, someone who I knew from my Anthropology class at university, and was surprised to find out that the event (or invent, as the organisers would prefer to call it) was her brainchild. She had abandoned her Masters to focus on last year’s project. “What else would you do with an Anthropology degree?” she asked, half smiling.
We entered and made our way round the Binnekring (inner circle) street to the large red tower, which turned out to be a giant post box, about three stories high. This was Burning Mail, the theme camp we were involved with. Anyone could write a postcard at Burning Mail and have it sent for free to anywhere in the world, including within the festival. I did a stint there, answering the phone, which was linked by a direct line to a London telephone booth standing by itself in the desert within the Binnekrig. Most of the callers asked for jokes and I ended up having to come up with my own because the joke references we had been provided with for the purpose were generally pretty bad and dirty.
I set off to explore the other theme camps and found camp Vuvuzela, just after dark. Huge lights made out of hundreds of cooldrink bottles illuminated the windswept dancefloor as revellers grooved to Eastern European beats spun by the famous Toby Two Shoes. The area was intermittently warmed and lit by sudden jets of fire emanating from five meter high vuvuzelas (loud trumpets associated with South African football).
In the distance, the massive white dome, which I learned was called The Wish, eerily shone in the soft coloured lights that faded on and off around it. The Wish was constructed out of wooden circles within circles, a magnificent reinterpretation of the classic Buckminster Fuller spheroid buildings. Over the course of the weekend, it was a trance party venue, a jungle gym, a wedding chapel and a fornicatorium. As far as I know, it was the only flammable work of art that was not burned.
The most spectacular burn was that of San Clan, a towering multi-headed and multi-legged statue representing the interdependence of humanity and the spirit of uBuntu. Most of the population of Tankwa town, the name of the temporary town that was itself the festival, turned out to see it. A mobile sound rig arrived to lend some beats and party atmosphere, and the art cars shuttled people from various other places on the Binnekring. I got a ride on the back trailer of an interlink towed by a tractor. There were about eighty litres of Sangria on board, and although it was free and well advertised, the benefactors were having a hard time giving it all away. About an hour before the San Clan was lit, a dreadlocked team was wandering around The Wish with a tray of psychedelic hash brownies, and the spectacle of the San Clan going up proved to be the event that sent many partaking participants over the edge.
One popular theme tent was the Desert Rose, a free cocktail bar. It had a kind of Mexican Dia de los Muertos theme, playing cowboy tunes to the dusty rabble rousers on the covered dance ground. Skulls, cacti, saloon doors and strings of chilli lights accentuated the theme. Between the Rose and Burning Mail was a green army tent amidst a laager of RVs called M*A*S*H*E*D. These guys from the UK had an old flatbed truck done up like a field ambulance and it made excursions from time to time with their band, including a full drum kit, mics, amps etc, playing beer fuelled punk rock to whoever they drove past. We received our first gift of the event from them; a large pot of rice and a large pot of mince, which a man in a surgeon’s uniform donated because they had overestimated how hungry they were. Further round the Binnekring was the information tent, which had photos from the previous year as well as an array of coloured pens which could be used to write or draw in the spaces between the photos. On the other side of the Binnekring was Camp Partycipation which consisted of a chill area with free food and a large sound rig playing psytrance, accompanied by musicians or the similarly inspired on a collection of musical instruments on the periphery of their dance ground. One of the members of Partycipation lent me an article on how DNA could be altered with special laser technology. I felt that the information itself was a valuable gift. I left him a pile of goji berries.
Arbi and Patel’s corner store was nearby, offering the kinds of goodies one would expect to find at a corner store, but all for free. Customers were encouraged to leave gifts on the table to maintain the quantity of the inventory, while having the quality in constant flux. Next door to Arbi and Patel’s was a chai and roti shop, a welcome stop for the desert-weary wanderer. I noticed that near the end of the party everyone seemed to have oranges, and fewer and fewer people were accepting them from me. This was not really a problem (Mark made orange juice when we got home) because the nature of a gift economy is that the gifts are unconditional, as opposed to a barter economy, which is still an economy of exchange. I was able to keep myself well fed and entertained by virtue of other peoples’ philanthropy. Some had special touches to contribute, like Polaroid photos and little crystals.
I had experienced a society of abundance, and I kept in mind that it was only possible because the participants were predominantly from well endowed sectors of the economy; in other words, you have to be rich to live in a cashless society, as things stand, and you can only do so for a few days a year. But the amazing thing is that despite this unfortunate exclusivity, those of us who were able to, found a place out of time. Along with the cash went many other cultural imputations, leaving behind a more joyously giving, gracefully receiving and enthusiastically participating breed of human, living for, creating and being in the moment.

The Trip Continues

I have just finished a long holiday. I lived and worked in a foreign land for two whole years and this equipped me to spend every day for the next few months almost exactly as I pleased. I am happy I was able to do that, but its over now. I read, surfed and hung out with friends. I bought a car and lost it two days later. I joined a band but we never really got that serious about our music. My girlfriend arrived from the United States. This is when things started to get interesting. This is the first country she has been in where it really is as dangerous as people say it is. Bearing witness to the difficult adjustments she had to make has been a valuable learning experience.

I now find myself in a small apartment in a security complex, driving to work just before rush hour starts and coming home just after it ends. My dreadlocked previous self would be horrified. This is just a phase, though, like any other. I have changed and I continue to change. I am happy to say that I still have the same friends. I just have to wait longer to see them. Life goes through cycles of contraction and expansion. We all grow older and wiser, some faster than others. The trick is to get wiser faster and older slower.

Berg en Dal by Starlight

Berg en Dal Night
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull

I lived here! (and may again).