Every time there's a mass shooting in America with an AR-15, high-level Democrats line up to proclaim that those weapons should only ever be used to kill impoverished foreigners.

The latest example of this ongoing phenomenon was Illinois Senator and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth telling the press that a recording from the Highland Park shooting which killed seven people and wounded dozens more reminded her of her combat experience during that horrific invasion, saying the US needs to do better within its own borders.

"I just listened to the sound of that gunfire from one of the videos that was captured," Duckworth said. "And let me tell you that the last time I heard a weapon with that capacity firing that rapidly on a Fourth of July was Iraq, it was not the United States of America. We can and we should and we will do better."

Reading by Tim Foley.

Democrats Love Saying That AR-15s Should Only Be Used On Foreigners

Boris Johnson resigning would only be interesting in an alternate universe where there was some remote chance that he won't be replaced by another depraved sociopath.

Reading by Tim Foley.

UK To Swap Out Top Sociopath For A Different Sociopath

And then one day we just couldn't anymore.
Couldn't keep up the maintenance on our shouldn'ts and shoulds.
Couldn't pay the contractors to keep building our skyscrapers of spin.
Could no longer hold up the weight of a world made of lies
and so we let it splatter on the floor
and sprout night orchids.

And that was when the Forgotten Ones rushed in.
No longer staved off by propaganda and pain,
no longer contained by our cages made of mind,
they set to work with sharp claws and great mandibles of ivory
slicing away the steel bands wrapped around our soft hearts
and cutting the bolts on the door of the old grandmother magic.

And they taught us— no!
They reminded us
how to walk on this earth as they walk.
How to step with a pregnant tenderness
in communion with the planet.
How to grow our hair long so it makes love with the wind
and listens for the whispers that are too quiet for our ears.
How to work with the land not in dominion but in friendship
and to extract the thorns of dogma and punditry from our flesh
and to vomit up the madness of millennia of civilization.

And we forgot our old stories of separateness and shame,
our minds now too life-sized and world-shaped for falsehood.
And we strode in companionship with the Forgotten Ones back to Eden,
untamed beings in an untamed world.
Untamed beings in an untamed world.

_____________________

_____________________

_____________________

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Forgotten Ones

And what's interesting is that underneath all the babbling propaganda stories about what's happening in our world, humanity is indeed showing signs that we are collectively slipping out of our old relationship with mental narrative. It's happening in the usual sloppy, awkward, two-steps-forward-one-step-back shamble which has always marked all of human progress, but it's happening.

It's happening in the way people are moving away from religion as we collectively discover that those ancient narratives which so long transfixed our ancestors are not necessary or helpful for finding meaning, morality and fulfillment in our lives, and as we collectively notice that doctrines about eternal reward for obedience and eternal damnation for disobedience sound made-up.

It's happening with the rise of cryptocurrencies as people figure out that money is made up and we can change the rules whenever we want. Money is nothing more than an agreed-upon story that's only as true as we all continue to pretend it is, a collective narrative that we can collectively rewrite at any time.

It's happening as people figure out that a romantic relationship doesn't need to look the way they've looked throughout most of our recorded history; that it's only narrative which says one man and one woman must love and have sex with only each other throughout their lives, or even throughout their relationship. That those rules have only ever been made of empty narrative fluff and can be replaced with an entirely different set of guidelines.

It's happening as people figure out how much narrative overlays things like gender and sexuality, that there's nothing inscribed upon the fabric of reality which prescribes our longstanding models of men and women and what their roles are and how their sexualities should express. Rearranging societal narratives that deeply entrenched in our culture is causing a lot of chaos and confusion, and the arguments it's bringing up are very upsetting for a lot of people, but it's gradually working itself out as people pick through the narratives and sort out fact from story.

Indeed each issue I'm describing here has brought in its own set of quandaries, challenges, bad faith actors and abuses that had previously been avoided under the old models, but it's not like the old models have been free of those things either. And as we all discuss, argue, push and pull and muddle our way through these obstacles with each other, we are collectively sinking into the real important insight which underlies all those more superficial areas of contention: that our society is made of narrative, and we can change the rules whenever we want.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Humanity Is Learning That The Rules Are All Made Up And Can Be Re-Written At Any Time

This civilization is the set of the Truman Show, and we are all Truman.

Reading by Tim Foley.

We've Been Lied To Our Whole Lives About Everything That Matters

https://stbbforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1150&sid=3c82bc2aa0b898f0e4c9526b7cc4ac03

(NON_ENTRY)7 And A Big Big Love-For Pharoah Sanders (STBB#813)

Lecture of Life on Laze

Morning Yoga Background Music for Calm, Pt. 17

Readings of all Caitlin Johnstone's articles, usually by her co-writer Tim Foley.