Intelligence as the Counter Revolutionary, Part 2

Another valuable book is My Mind on Trial, written by Eugen Loebl, an official in Czechoslovakia during their communist period. By itself, this book is another reason why communist history should be studied: to be mentally prepared for interrogation.  It is Eugen’s testimony as to how he performed in his interrogation, describing in detail what he suffered.

Eugen’s psychological warfare began prior to arrest; a sudden order came from his superiors to write his biography in full (Leobl 33).  As soon as word of this went out, people avoided him, even getting out of previously made plans (Leobl 36).  Page 38 has Loebl making the classic, mistaken assumption that Solzhenitsyn reports in new suspects, that “they will set things straight and let you out” (Solz i12).  Loebl assumed that his superiors would realize that he was innocent.  That is not how communism works.

Me and Aldaris (p9): Complete and Total Failure

A couple of days passed before I heard from Aldaris again.  Honestly, I wasn't so sure it was a good idea to be around him anymore.  The guy's hilarious, but I would really rather not be at risk of strangulation or whatever when I'm on his ship.

Not much remarkable happened in the meantime.  I passed my math final, and somehow managed a B out of that class.  I'm just glad it's over.  Algebra/trig is not my friend, and I will never see it again.  I've always been jealous of people who can calculate things (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn could calculate latitude on a Soviet prison convoy), and it stinks that my mind is more geared toward boring things like alphabetizing books.  I guess I'll never be a Mythbuster.  So Jamie, Adam, none of your myths involve organizing books?

So while waiting on a call from two guys I will most probably never meet, I was just cleaning my house, and ironically working on a Starcraft choose your own adventure story, even though I'd just found out that fanfiction net guidelines don't allow CYOAs.  I just looked at it, and it's literally right there.  But I'm still working on it anyway, whenever I don't feel like slacking.  I don't know, maybe it'll get exposure someday.

"Bethany...."

There it goes.  I mentally made a note of where my survival bag was.  "Yes?"

"I admit my behavior earlier was perhaps....excessive." Aldaris went on.  "I would like to...apologize."

"Okay." I answered.  "How about now on I have a guarantee of my personal safety every time I'm on your ship?"

Intelligence as the Counter-Revolutionary, Part One

Hey y'all.  I wrote a lot of stuff I'm proud of in school, and I wanted to share some of it with you.  Honestly, too many people these days treat communism like a long-gone ancient people group; it's been defeated, and looking at it again isn't worth the effort unless you're very bored, or just a history nut.  However, it's not an ancient civilization we shall never see again, but an idea that has to be understood if we are to understand our history.  After all, most people alive today were alive before the fall of Soviet Russia.  China's still communist, and so is North Korea.  Other nations we don't think about probably are too.

But anyway, that's the purpose of my paper.  I wrote it to show that people should know what the heck happened in the twentieth century, or else we're going to repeat all the lessons we should have learned back then.

--

My studies in this field began five years ago, in a conversation with a friend.  At one point, she suddenly said, “If only we had given communism a chance…” and ended any potential confidence I might have had in the Canadian education system.  Perhaps in Canada, as it is in America, they claim that all ideas are equal, and no one has the right to say that someone else is wrong.  This is the death of the intellect.  If we are unable to point out anything as wrong, then it therefore follows that nothing is correct.  If there is no wrong or right, then there is no reason to think or to make choices, because one path is as good as another.  Communism has proved this untrue; it is a path that never should have been taken.

Why I Don't Believe in Global Warming

Hey y'all.  Just thought I'd muse over a thing for a bit.  People these days have their panties all up in a wad over the climate change bullcrap, and honestly, it's getting to the point where we've got to stop accepting something just because a newsman says it.

Has anyone ever read 1984 by George Orwell?  There's a part near the beginning that describes a news announcer saying that the chocolate ration is being reduced.  The very next day, it's announced that chocolate rations did not go down to their current number, but raised up to it.  That's pretty much how global warming has been throughout the past century.  People have been saying the earth is getting hotter, then we're going to have an ice age, then hotter, cold, and now back to hot.  My parents had various old books in our house as we grew up, and I remember reading in one that earth was in fact heading to another ice age.

Someone told me that science was correcting itself, but going back and forth is not correction.  You'd think we'd either get it after a couple of mistakes or else consider that the environmental evidence causing scientists to go back and forth is really evidence of something other than what we assume it is.  It's clear that more thought is needed to assess what the heck is going on with the earth's temperature.  After all, more pollution is produced by volcanoes than mankind, and more by cows than by cars (I'm not making that up, either).

Now, all these things you'd have to know a little history for, but they're not really the main reason I don't look twice at climate change.  It's just that everyone has been going crazy for it lately, "suggesting" that we adopt major economic and social changes based on minimal evidence that apparently has been confusing scientists for the past one hundred years.  Environmentalists put pressure through the media and through schools, insisting that anyone who isn't a believer in global warming is an irresponsible neo-conservative (and I would like to point out that "neo-conservative" has no real-world meaning, but is simply a word created to use specifically for slander).

Thing is, all this pressure and attention arouses the suspicion of my logic.  People over time have been freaking out over every little thing.  Diet Coke causes cancer, cell phones cause cancer, genetically modified food will kill us all, Y2K will screw up computers, killer bees are taking over America, etc.  I realize that all of these things have different sources, but I've been hearing them for so long with so little evidence (my brother actually disproved Y2K on our home computer years before it happened), that I can't be bothered to care anymore.  I simply don't don't give a flying rat crap anymore.

The news is ridden with things that are bad or horrible, or things that we should watch out for.  You know what?  I don't want to live in a culture of fear, or a culture where I have to be suspicious of every person, place, and business.  I know people who live this way, and it makes them intolerable to be around.  So now the natural consequence of this is that I simply cannot believe anything the media says, simply because it has failed to be accurate so many times before, and even when it is accurate, it does not produce healthy attitudes in people.

Environmentalists, if you want people to take you seriously, then stop it with all this "the sky is falling" nonsense.  If you say that people should recycle to save resources or not litter so we can have good parks, that's cool.  Personal responsibility is a good attitude to have.  But if you keep on with this idea that the whole world is doomed if we don't all buy electric cars, I simply can't take you seriously.  It's not that conservatives, independents, and unfooled liberals hate the environment, it's just gotten to the point where you've abandoned responsibility and care for the earth for the sake of just being able to condemn your political enemies for not being exactly like you.

What really pisses me off is that people contribute millions of dollars to environmental groups, never knowing that real and evident problems need their attention.  Sex trafficking is a horrible thing that effects every country in the world, and that anyone should be angry at me for preferring to donate to rescuing girls than some species of owl is not only despicable, but just plain evil.

Me and Aldaris (p8): Day 1 of Starcraft

I hate math.  Well, not basic math.  Any math involved in accounting isn't that bad.  I'm just talking about algebra/trig.  Maybe if I had a different teacher I would like the class better, but judging from how the mess I'd made on the kitchen table with all my study books and notes, probably not.

"Unnggh...."

I slammed my head into my hands.  Why was this so frustrating?  Was it really that hard to figure out the compound interest formula?  I knew the formula by heart, so why was solving for "t" so hard?  A little bit of my brain, somewhere right near the back, mentioned that I probably should have been paying attention in class instead of reading The Gulag Archipelago.  Of course, I had few regrets.  Surely reading the misadventures of Georgi Tenno was more important than higher math that I know for a fact I will never use in life.  I'll probably be quoting Gulag for the next sixty years.

"Buh, math, you are my enemy!" I wailed, breaking out into song.  "How much I hate you!  I wish I could make you suffer in just the way you torment me!"

Wa-blam.  Head into the table in surrendering exasperation.  I seriously needed more coffee.

"...I take it you are occupied."

A Different Hat

Hey y'all.  This is an essay I wrote for english class, and the teacher thought it was good.  I am working on other blogs right now, but hopefully this can be a sufficient placeholder for the time being.

--

I was an obedient child, quiet and unwaveringly contemplative.  Young life may not seem the stuff of intellectual dwelling, but I was endlessly fascinated by anything, be it an image in a math book, a strange picture on the wall with a miniature copy of the same picture on the side, and the behavior of my teachers, which seemed to me as alien as anything else.

Personality Environment Type: the Open Seas

Hey y'all.  Here's another environment type blog.  Yeah, I'm still alive, just been working on finals and whatnot, but I'm about to have a week off from school, so I plan on getting a lot of writing done in the meantime.

So let's go over the next personality type.  It's time for the high seas!

Open seas types:
- Thrive on exhiliration
- Are not able to handle restrictive authority
- Love exploring; constantly in motion
- Have trouble settling down
- Have a farsighted mentality
- Are firmly independent. 
- Don't dwell on things

Projection

Hey y'all.  So most all people are in one degree or another affected by projection.  Now, I may be misusing this psychology term (anyone can feel free to correct me on it), but I've noticed that many times people will project their opinions on others, expecting that everyone else is motivated by the same things they are.

This is usually innocent.  As every child develops, they never guess that other people don't think they way they do.  It just never occurs to them until some point when they get older, when they find someone who has an extremely different opinion from theirs.

This doesn't necessarily just go away when a person grows up, however.  In fact, it's the source of much conflict.  For example, a person may be offended by a behavior in another person because they assume that the other person meant to offend them -- that activity is what the first person would have done only if he wanted to offend somebody, and thus he thinks everyone who does it is trying to be offensive.

I recently encountered this behavior at work.  I had this book on Noam Chomsky I was going to read, and I was explaining to one of my managers that Chomsky is a liar and manipulator of history.  She didn't know anything about him, and didn't particularly care to learn more.  She's an immensely practical person, and she doesn't feel the study of philosophy and history will help her in her personal life.  She's the sort of person that would like to live on a farm, free from ideological entanglements as she raises her chickens.

So when I spoke to her about philosophers, she claimed that all of them were in it for money.  She said this quite firmly, surprising me.  As a highly theoretical person, I know for a fact that many of the people that use and misuse ideology aren't always interested in money.  The guy who created Scientology is (he even admitted it!), but there are still plenty of philosophers out there who speak in order to influence (Karl Marx), to create a more efficient society (Confucius), or simply just to rant their hearts away (me -- not that I can really be compared to the bigwigs).  Besides, it's always faulty to assume that all people of a type are the same.

Now, in one sense, my manager's projection is a good thing -- it protects her from stupidity, in that she will not listen to someone who she sees is only in it for cash.  It's also a bad thing, because if she continues in this belief, she will not learn to understand how ideas change the world.  It may very well be that her purpose in life is to be practical, and thus she doesn't really need to understand too much.  Still, knowledge is a good thing, and having an understanding of how the world works could help her understand people.

So yeah, this is just a quick blog to let you know I'm not dead, and since I have this next week off of school, I'll be able to get more writing done.  Hopefully I can get through all those top ten favorite character videos and get that blog going.

Me and Aldaris (p7): Downtime Conspiracy

I really like my house.  It's just about the awesomest place to live ever, if you're a writer type.  Or a recluse in general.  Eh, or maybe a semi-recluse.  The whole thing is surrounded by trees and bushes, and even though it's pretty close to some stores and the bank, nobody who doesn't know it's there would ever see it.  You can just barely see the little dirt road stuck there in a small gap between two of the trees.  My neighbors on both sides have fences, and there's some woods in the back.  That leaves me with a nice little enclave, all grassy with some embedded stone steps leading to the front door.

The house isn't very big, but that's alright, since I live alone.  Good thing, too, or I'd have to explain to a roomie/spouse/parent where I've been the past few hours.  Writing all of this may have taken a few chapters, but it really didn't last that long as an overall adventure.  I spent more time walking back to my house than I did running about with Aldaris and Cheonha.  I had to walk all that way with a suitcase full of foreign money, so you can imagine how relieved I felt when I finally made it to my little yellow tower with the sloping roof.

Yeah, the house is this odd shade of faded yellow, almost a brown.  It's cool, because I wouldn't like it if it were normal.  I call it a tower because there's literally three rooms to it, and two floors.  The bottom is an open area, both kitchen and living room, and it feels even more open since the back door has huge plate glass windows with sliding doors leading out to the back patio (a simple plank platform).  Up the stairs is my bedroom and the one bathroom in the house, which is the only thing I don't like about it, because visitors have to go past my room to get there.  Maybe I'll put up some partitions or something.

For now, though, the place is my writer's paradise, and I escape from the steadily falling night.  I barely have the energy to shut the door behind me before flopping down on the floor.  I should really get a couch at some point.  All that's in there, other than the major kitchen appliances on the far wall, is a table and chair set that my parents gave me.  Oh, and some pillows I snuck from Mom and Dad's so that my nephews have somewhere to sit when they come over and play video games.  I'm pretty sure they don't mind.

I really shouldn't have been surprised when I woke up on the floor some hours later.  My body is set to get up around six thirty, so that's the time I was greeted with when I lifted my head off the scratchy carpet to look at the wall.

"Nuggh..." I mutter, picking myself up.  "'S food time."

Beware of Nice Guys

Hey y'all.  So I was musing over things things, and I've realized that there's nothing so misleading as a nice guy.  They can be the cause of so much heartache and trouble, and most of the time they don't even realize it.  Notedly, this is a thing that every girl technically has to learn for herself, but there's an old saying that goes you should learn from other people's mistakes rather than your own.  So here's some advice that younger women should be aware of.  Probably older women know this already or have matured to the point where they behave as if they're aware. 

The advice is this: guard your heart around nice guys.  Imagine yourself, a young lady looking for love, and through one circumstance or another, you find yourself talking to a nice guy.  Not just any nice guy, but a sweet dude who not only is smart, but also is very good at listening and considering your opinions, making you feel smart and respected (Hint to men: this is how to be attractive). 

Naturally, you fall head over heels for this gentle intellectual.  Then, a bit later, as you are obsessively watching this man while trying make sure he doesn't notice, you catch him talking to another young lady.  And he's being just as nice to her, being entirely respectful and uninsulting.  You realize with horror that this man wasn't attracted to you at all, but simply is the sort of person that converses considerately.  He's a nice guy.  You might be suspicious that the other girl is attracting his attention, but overall you're aware it's just the guy's way of talking.  And you feel heartbroken.