Conundrums In Cognitive Dissonance (Part I)

The wages of CD...

Conundrums In Cognitive Dissonance ... 
Part I of II

by Alfred Lehmberg

Apart from new cyberspace?  My old circle of close friends—6 or 8 guys and their lovely, if formidable, wives (one of these wives was a Chief Warrant Officer 5 aviation officer who fought competitively in a couple of female division cage-fights... think of a Kill Bill Lucy Liu, to get close)—were military rated day/night all-weather aviators of considerable experience and expertise.  They were persons on and off active military duty.  They were all Republicans in a red state Alabama. Now, stolidly on their Trump Train, it seems I never knew them at all. Heavy sigh.

Not so much as an Independent!  How did I endure, but that sometimes (Pre-Trump) a shared experience transcended mere political considerations, eh?  I forgave them their psychopath's hypocritical politics. No more. They forgive me my unrepentant liberality. No more. I've become an enemy... and they?Apparent insentient monsters ok with racist fascism and a whites-only America.  

     Such was friendship among those who had trammeled the angry, if hallowed, halls of air, I suspect. It was once. Even through a GWB, it was. Once.

Back at the ufological ranch... Near every man-jack and swinging Richard of this collection of highly skilled persons had reported to me sincerely that they had witnessed weird lights in otherwise sundry momentous skies.  They don't object when I offered that what they were seeing may have been "Flying Saucers"... they didn't encourage me, mind... 

It remains.  They didn't object.  All those guys knew I have a considered interest in same and so had volunteered their sightings to me.  I felt honored, actually. That was then. This is now.

Still though, not so curiously, and contrarily, we rarely discussed those well admitted "sightings" in the full group.  If I brought it up, or if it came up?  There was always a concerted "group" effort to get the subject back to a more prosaic and comfortingly familiar.  All seemed to vie to be "the most scientifically reasonable" person in the room. "Graveyard whistling," for the benefit of group sensibility would be my guess.

No—the subject was more seriously broached and reports shared only when I'm caught alone... coming back from the latrine or caught alone at the bar... on the way out to the car at evening's end... the odd encounter.  Stealth and surreptitiousness seem to be required, n'est ce pas?  

Verily, in turn, these men inform me of others reporting the very highly strange to them.  Conservatively, even among these highly experienced aviators, First Kind Encounters seems more a common thing than not.

To put it lightly, reminding the reader, these are reluctant witnesses.  You'd think these career military people were trying to share with me that they were gay or crossdressers.  Consider: they were compelled to make their careful report, still, to someone frankly not laughing at them!

The stories recounted are invariably told in an embarrassed way with eyes decidedly to the ground or, alternatively, hollowly and unblinkingly regarding me. There was a furtive hope in their unblinking stare that I would take them at their inexplicable word... that here, in me, they might find a fellow who'd take receipt of their strange story and not bust their chops or question their sanity.  

...That they could tell someone at last—unload or unburden themselves to someone who might provide them with some small grasp regarding highly extraordinary occurrences they'd had obvious difficulty processing by themselves. Dissonance looms. 

These men are not cowards.  Did I mention they were decorated soldier aviators? They were pragmatic pilots.  Their wives, more hard-wired by genetics I suspect, were pragmatic, too, only more so.  Wives, and women in general I observe, provide ample encouragement for the aggregate pragmatism, I'm sure.  I know mine does.  I catch regular hell, eh? It's not entirely undeserved.

See?  All know the hard wages of having one's supervisor or superior officer gain knowledge of their subordinate's going "off the reservation" intellectually or exploring too far "down the twitchy rabbit hole."  Careers are destroyed.  Promotions dry up.  Advanced training evaporates.  Confidence is compromised... Advancement is curtailed... Friends laugh...  Friends laugh, reader!   
Hey!  I'm about a half million dollars down in lost wages, myself. Speaking with some experience, I report that reasonable persons are significantly wounded in this struggle for a more validated existentiality. I say true.

Fitting in at any cost?  It has that greater imperative, even if an unethical, irrelevant, and unsatisfying one... a soul destroying one.  Pity.

To forestall these back-stepping and unjust sociological hazards to having your world turned upside down, many persons experience our foreshadowed cognitive dissonance (1).  They intellectually react to the stress of not being able to accept what their—usually trustworthy—senses are reporting to them, and make the imperatives of those contrary reports either go away...(not see what's there) or change them over into something that is acceptable to them.  Imagine an oyster reacting to a grain of sand in its mantel by creating a pearl around the disturbance. 

It won't matter, reader, if this errant acceptability is a falsehood.  Would that the aforementioned resultant pearl had any lasting value, am I right?  It does not.  It powders easily 'twixt thumb and forefinger and exudes toxic fumes provoking madness!  Still, perception, errant or no, is the reality.

Example:

While on active duty many years ago, well before I'd developed any substantive interest in the ufological, I'd had a raucous barbecue at my Fort Rucker, Alabama home one weekend evening. There were five or six joyous couples in carrier-landing-rowdy "CAV-songs" attendance, plus a few guests some of these had brought along with them. All were highly experienced attack and utility branch military aviators plus their wives or girlfriends.  This was a singularly *high-toned* bunch.

I was standing away from the group with two other men, one Tom Boucher, an AH-64 (Apache) instructor pilot, and a, name forgotten, fixed-wing "driver" I didn't know... but a rare Army candidate for the Astronaut Program. The sun had just gone down and dusk was washing out to the encroaching blackness of inevitable night.

There was a lull in the blustery conversation. One of the men looked up and said, "That's weird..."

He was pointing at the sky with his beer hand.  We all looked up to see a decidedly out of the ordinary... black, one unit by five (or so) *strip*, or rectangle, about as wide as a little fingernail held at arm's length, and flying through the air diagonally with its airfoil about 40 degrees from its direction of travel!  It was flying about as fast as a small propeller-driven plane!

We were incredulous, our jaws decidedly slackened! As the strange object flew, one of the men remarked that it had very peculiar "position lights." These lights (seven or eight of them) were white flashing strobes running weirdly from wing-tip, down the strange diagonal, to the opposite wing-tip, and then back again like a Pong ball...

There is no aircraft that does that, reader. ...Looks like that. ...Flies like that. ...Has an array of lights operating like that.  ...Flouts aviation conventions like that... There was no evidence of the required red and green "port" and "starboards," and no flashing anti-collision light... No sound... We'd have heard it.

 "Well — it's got to be something..." someone said... it may have even been me, and, with that... ...the object was abruptly forgotten! All three of us returned to the party and the consumption of massive quantities.

"...Ships and shoes... and sealing wax..."

            ...Ex-squeeze me?

Yes. Confronted with the exceptionally bizarre... more distracting beer was called for, and the party continued into the usual drunken mini-brawl for which Army rotary-wing aviators USED to be famous last century... Let me just say here that alcohol precludes the perception of UFOs reader... not the ludicrous inverse.

I didn't remember this occurrence again for almost a decade. ...Was reminded of it only by seeing a similar object in California after I had developed an interest in UFOs upon leaving the Army.

That aforementioned incident occurred at a rubber-powered model airplane flying meet in Northern California up around Anderson. I attended with my late father after I'd retired from the service in 92.  Dozens of us watched a UFO fly by... five times, over a period of a few hours, with fewer and fewer people looking up to watch it traverse with each succeeding pass that it very queerly made!  What's up with that?

There were twenty-five of us, or so, on that Sunday late afternoon to evening... flying model airplanes. It was a scene right out of the fifties.  A smatter of the aforementioned models flown were gas powered, but few of these were flying.  It was rubber powered models folks were flying, generally.  Very quiet.

The evening was très pastoral—no alcohol or drugs.  Club charter; it kept the insurance down. A very gentle breeze was blowing, and far away from city or town, it was as quiet as country can be.  We were indeed the only people for miles around.  The ladies had fixed finger food and old men flew their childhood dreams.  The sky was blue and crystal clear... so sharp it seemed to shine and gleam...

I saw it because I'd developed a subsequent interest in UFOs alluded to previously, and so was, idly, watching the sky.  Verily, if you look, reader, you see.

Next issue:  more Cognitive Dissonance in action, presumptions, assumptions, and resource consumptions, unwelcome distractions, and a hypnotism of insidious inverse: "seeing what's not there" contrasted with "not seeing what is there to be seen"

(1) Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon referring to the stress incurred as a result of 'discrepancy' between what you already know or believe to be true... and some new information or compelling new interpretation of that old information throwing all your certainty into question.  Perceiving startling new evidence that 'black' is really 'white' on any level you care to name.  Good is evil?  Bad, good? Remains the question begs to be asked.

...The Skies Admit Your Truth...

Sometimes it's not what you're looking at, it's what's watching you...

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Bottom line? You're* unconvincing, authoritarian, and use flat thinking! What you call your "bearing facts" ASSUMES your views are valid, Jack, and assumptions are, then, what they WOULD be—that ass that's made of you and me.
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Your "proclamation with a sneer" betrays the tap root of your fear, that non-admitted holes abound within the premise you propound. Your errant premise, its inculcation, provides for utter degradation, while you distract us from our wounds... that you discount and then impugn.
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Conspiracy's a monster you would hide or call impostor, but if power and control are there, then there are those who'd TAKE that dare! I'm not your strict "believer," friend, so I won't pay your freight—comprende'?
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Too, I won't buy what YOU sell, either; you're "Danish fish." I need a breather.
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See, you prosecute your "tick-turds" gladly, spin the facts and dervish madly—convince us all that what we're seeing CANNOT be what we're believing. Though there is *more* than what you offer, volunteer, propose, or proffer, and I must call your smirking bluff! I'm quite fed up. I've had enough!
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You don't make the slightest dent in what I'm seeing we must spend... to do real work and NOT pretend... but YOU won't even LOOK! Get bent!
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In its place your whistled catcalls, errant hooting, mocking pratfalls, your "cheap shot" shooting, faux support and profits made you don't report...
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See it's you who keeps the lie alive! You fake the truth—you have contrived—and you have stained a strained credulity casting your aspersions (..!.) truly! A living lie is what you use to keep an edge—that you abuse—and all to keep us on your meter, paying levies. You foul creature!
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Frankly, you're a toxic boor, a cad who should be shown one's door. You embarrass education, you're reproduction's abdication—you won't call a spade a spade; we'd live outside the lines you've made.
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You sell a soulless, useless brew of sharp derision—glad abuse. Too, what does obfuscation do but compliment your sad excuse! All your aims are systematic, inculcated—autocratic; the status quo is what you've had to keep *your* treasures close at hand.
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Consider Gingrich bopping pages, but while critiquing Clinton? Nation! *Mourning* "death of all morality," he slides it IN... ...why won't you see? Hypocrisy in leaps and bounds, banal pretense so unprofound.
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It's YOU, like this, with UFO's! You KNOW that something "flies" and "glows," yet, you find *ways*—pretend it's final ... blow your smoke and make denials. Interpret facts as you would have them, proclaim soft *facts* to keep us guessing—add some shred or bit of truth to sell agendas you intrude.
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Soon it is that you're found out, and then we'll see what you're about. We will find what you have hidden—take Tesla out of his derision, read the books that Hancock writes as textbooks that just might be right!
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We would open "hanger doors," we would search your "hallowed" floors, we would see what's been so secret, you've abused your privilege—SEE it! Mysteries interred in churches. Histories bereft of searches. All that's lost and what we'd covet, hidden in "the master's" pocket. We all know how that must end. Piano wire? Well, that depends...
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We would open wide the shades that keep us stupid, scared—betrayed. We'd expose those unelected scabrous thugs now undetected—living more fulfilling lives, we'd soar and cleave from what's despised!
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You will come to know you're through, your time's run out and leaving you... ...to stew in juices you once used to torment those who you'd abused. I'm glad to say you'll suffer shame, and more when you're then shown your blame.
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Plain it is, you better start (to break it loose) or come apart. Do it now, you filthy stealthy, aging *bad* news isn't healthy.
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Come clean now and save yourself the slings of *fortune* talked about. I'm betting you'll procrastinate, and do "too little" much "too late." There's little hope you see some light, and do your part to put things right...
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So I await your glad demise, then watch our starry, starry skies. They, at least, admit some truth: that time and space are monstrous, HUGE, and all that is imagined happens—plus the lot that's not... imagined.

• lehmberg2002@gmail.com
• www.AlienView.net

*You know who you are.

Liberal Be

Liberal Be...

Be a liberal.  Most are anyway, actually.  One has to read just a little bit... and from moderate textbooks, to see how factual that really is.  

True enough, it is only as a result of individual liberality campaigned for and evolving down through the centuries that we, as I have written many times before, are not, STILL... the ignorant serfs of a tedious redux of the medieval ages, tilling three field rotations from thankless dawn to depressing dusk... gratefully giving up our comely daughters for the sport of our landed manor lord and his degenerate sons Uday and Qusay.  Consider, Newt Gingrich is a classical liberal even as he is, also, an unheralded daughter *sporter*.  Hypocrite in other words?

Be a liberal. For your money, through your lens, drawn through your filters...?  That just means one has some small courage, a sense of raw history, a reasonable intelligence, a degree of empathy for fellow humans, a dash of imagination, an unceasing self-education, a respect for Earth, and a progressive attitude toward a future bearing down on all of us like an accelerating freight train.  ...Sooner catch that train than have it run you down?

Be a liberal.  Believe an individual should not have the religious sensibilities of another legislated to him, imposed on her, or persecuting either of them.  Don't accept that one should be compelled to validate another's faith at the point of a sword or the withholding of a paycheck.  Do believe in the absolute necessity... for a separation of Church from State; be offended and revolted by even the merest suspicion of theocracy.  Vociferously refuse to be swayed by Gods some have produced themselves to do their all too contrived and convenient bidding?

Be a liberal. See the steady erosion of individual rights and freedoms occurring now as a clear and present danger to the unfettered individuality actually empowering a healthy America and contributes to her creative productivity, her effortless grace, and her cutting edge style.  Perceive these erosions plainly all around you; all are effused with the wretched stench of creeping totalitarianism growing stronger with each passing day, and be very fearful for your own freedom and quality of life... and for the freedoms/qualities of your children and those around you.  Tyranny's rose will never smell as sweet as such?

Be a liberal. Find it problematical that we continue, environmentally, to defecate in our beds and push it down with our abused and disrespected feet. The continued thoughtless, complacent, irresponsible, and smothering overpopulation born of squalorous ignorance, airily encouraged by socially retarded religi-oids and other pathological politicos (et al), is obviously not consistent with our species traveling an upwardly respectful path to individual enlightenment and personal satisfaction.  Verily, the number of paths to God must likely be as infinite as ~She~ is supposed to be?

Be a liberal.  Be naturally resistant (by design) to fatuous spins, preconceived notions, bait and switch sensibilities, duplicitous euphemisms, or conveniently biased cants. Anything the likes of FOX news.  Resent the manipulating lowest-common-denominator approach of a non-elected leadership, its lap-dog *mainstream* media, and its fraudulent and failing system of *education* more interested in producing credulously docile employees (...and their insentient masters) than it is in encouraging critically thinking individuals. Be outraged that Education becomes a euphemism for DE-education and UN-education?  

Be a liberal.  Be worried about a justice system with its tiller swung so far and so hard to the reactionary and religious *right* that our ship of state crashes on the harsh hard rocks of inevitable lost freedoms and easy tyrannies.  Freedom of and freedom from one religion or another is a cornerstone of real social and spiritual advancement (...and quality individuals...), or history teaches us ~nothing~ at all.  History, it seems, may be taught in a manner that teaches nothing, by design?

Be a liberal.  Be convinced that the 'reflective' authoritative trumps the 'reflexive' authoritarian, ~always~. Believe the lesser 'authoritarian' should be pointedly discouraged because it hobbles the contribution of the greater 'authoritative'.  Be aware that because persons used to officious 'authoritarians' take a follow-on 'authoritative' approach for ~weakness~, in reflex, the preferable authoritative's better job becomes a magnitude more difficult to accomplish.  My experience was that this is as true in combat as it is in the classroom?

Be a liberal.  Mourn the elevation of untested and too convenient faith (over a hard-won renaissance rationality...) as a return to the "Dark Ages" that the former brand of thinking readily facilitates.  Every step one takes back into real history proves, only, that it gets more repressive and restrictive decade by oppressive prior-decade.  A return to 1950 is only on the ~way~ to being as bad as it was in 1350... ...and the Earth's two *greatest* religions, Christianity and Islam, would gleefully take us back, respectively, ~exactly~ there to those points in time.  Send them back yourself where you can if you can?

Be a liberal.  Understand that what gets unilaterally mashed down over 'there' only pops up over 'here'... just meaner for the unjust and disrespectful effort and attention.   Feel "reactionary reflex" is decidedly ~not~ superior to "reflective rationality."  Don't believe that dissent is always disloyalty.  Don't believe that divergence is always discontinuity.  Don't believe that diversity is cultural disaster.  In fact, feel more accurately that culture is made more enduring, more fully-featured, and more creative with the fervent ~embrace~ of these things?

Be a liberal!  Lament and resist the shrinkage of the middle class, the expanding poor, and the concentrations of the sociopathic rich.   Grieve for a loss of respect, due process, curtailed self-expression, and a discounted individuality.   Bemoan the new intolerance, refute the reasons for WAR that never stops, and wholly loathe this new *validation* for "black and white worldviews" which sorely limit our aggregate ability to intellectually "soar and cleave" in the tradition of an unfettered Giordano Bruno. Reach exceeds grasp, or there is no heaven, the poets say?

Be a liberal.  Believe that there should be more marriage... and less discrimination, disrespect, demonization, and derision in its regard...

Be a liberal.  Tell your fellows that you're a liberal, up front, and with no small trepidation in this threatening climate... (but with no ~hesitancy~, either).  It is a sorely needed testimony in these trying times that the concept of liberalism is ~not~ dead, ~remains~ in the sensibility of a majority of persons in this western hemisphere (there are more of us than them), and has, decidedly, ~not~ surrendered to the officious and intellectually constipated ultra-neoconservative regressives ... neocons, full-blown fascists anymore... who prosecute their disingenuous and deceitful agendas on a scared, hapless, and credulous populace they manipulate, coerce, and betray!  

These neoconservatives, promoters of an egregiously dire past, would ~return~ us all to those times the rest of us thought long and thankfully over... by any means available to them. ...AGAIN we are relegated to toiling the three-field rotations on land we can't own under the salacious manor lord alluded to in the first paragraph. 

Remain to remind your fellows that when folks wake up to the manipulations of these monsters of privileged end-time sensibility and "rapture worship", the liberal will still be here (even if in re-education camps at Guantánamo) to provide a pattern by which they might return to the unavoidable future they would seem to, so complacently, deny.

Be a liberal.  Remain.  Endure.  Carry on.  Be sense and sensibility. Be of reasonable rationality. Insist on the only future worth living.  

The alternative is to have the sons of Rich men riding down from the Manor House to make their cruel sport with the daughters of SERFS!  

No... Demand the better and more progressive future.

ÆL

The New McCarthyism?

It was just a little while ago... in moons (?), oh... sixty-eight... I promised that I'd let you know if I got stung by *fate*.
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Most will not remember then... a statement that I'd made—that I was unmolested (to that point) I wrote to say. I'd suffered no indignity. My future still looked bright. I sucked up new ideas and was changing "dark" to "light"...
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I was still a kind of hero—a veteran of the war. I was still an honored student of the kind that none deplore. I was aimed to be of service in a real world way. So, how is it I don't find work where fewer still would stay.
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Call it age discrimination (?), or more simply, "I don't fit," forgetting the predictions... I'm "a natural."—that's no sh**. Too, I would think outside the box (and just a *tad*, at that); I'd be interested in learning ... though it turns a white cat black...

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Learning changes ones *convictions* to a plethora of choices that will bloom before ones eyes like desert flowers! Learning smashes the foundations that one finds were not so solid when one tests them with the edge of learning's power!

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...Learning changes the appearance some might otherwise project where their shadows were deprived of rising light... Learning tallies the unfairness of a culture tiered with classes so unjust or arbitrary—without right!

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The GI Bill's a *bad* thing, folks. I'm living proof of that. I studied real history as a grownup (that's a fact), and I discovered *small* details, had I but KNOWN... ...back "when"? Well, things would be MUCH different than they, otherwise, had been!
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I'd have never joined the Army. I'd have stayed away from war. I'd have seen new ports to issues where, before, they had *two* doors. "Either/Or" would have small meaning; there'd be a plethora of choice... where rights are more important and the *least* command more voice!
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I'd have never laughed at "nigger" jokes, or judged the girls flown by...as barbi-dolls an industry hard sells to you and I. I wouldn't train for teaching ...would have sought some other way (...there was NOWHERE an acceptance; they wouldn't HAVE me anyway...).
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And how am I that far off beam? Can someone with some BALLS please tell me what, specifically... what ailed them—one and all?
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Where am I too far afield? What MUST one, there, pretend? Where are my expressions just so grievous they offend? My expressions are all lawful, and my ethics are discerning. I have tested MY convictions, friend, and continue testing. Learning!
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Are UFOs the reason? Is it comment that I make? Does your conscience rather scare you, so you burn me at the stake? Do I seem an errant cannon—seen as "trouble" folks don't need? Then I suggest they check their *tools* they've used to make me bleed!
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I'm exactly what they *asked* for, those who set the "program" up! But this pogrom of rejection... disrespect? I'd had ENOUGH! I've always been of service, and I've done the dirty work... work that many had avoided with their duties dodged and shirked!
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I continued sacrificing when I thought the cause was just. I'd continue contribution, but *elitists* broke the trust. I'd educate the children who would come up after me! See, I'd teach them the importance of the facts that keep them FREE!!!
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...But I won't follow party lines to lie and misdirect, or pretty up its *picture* for the scuts who lack respect!

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That's disrespect in sullen schools where one is disallowed, prejudged without due process, without benefit of doubt.
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That's disrespect to heroize, or paint the *rosy* pictures. That's disrespect to numb young minds with arbitrary strictures!
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That's disrespect to drug them when we won't afford the time... to nurture possibility that is each and every mind!!
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We' re TOO damn *free* to disrespect, manipulate, or charm, then stuff them into cannons... later? Push them into harm!!!
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This is what's perceived beyond... ...this blade of persecution which I seemingly must suffer for... "audacious elocution"? Though, I sense a grand conspiracy that hides within the system, and it's all about glad dollars and their senseless acquisition!
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I perceive manipulations of a hapless "working class"... that is trained to all its ignorance and contrived to mock their past. I can see the rape and plunder of the many by the few, and it's all done in the *interests* of that clueless me and you.
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Consider, Johnny Ford is such a man who pays the *price*. He's the guy who rots in jail for some*toothpaste* "nuked and spiked"! He's surely railroaded by convicted crooks, galore; these couldn't stand *attention* brought a'knocking to their door!

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Now Ford is persecuted 'cause he opened up his mouth, FORGET his whole contention might be soaked and stuffed with doubt! John was, YES, torpedoed, for a crime he didn't do. He had no free expression; nor do I, and nor do you.
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...And If I'm across that "line not crossed," than I have news for you. You set the bar too LOW, my friend; there's more in this to view! I was in your bosom and I lived the life decreed. I believed a life of service was the better Nation's need!
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I'll now perform that service as a function of critique, and I'll better serve this Nation than apologists would seek. Our Nation is the new Rome and it should not be adored; adoration's too forgiving, and there's stuff we can't ignore. So, I am NOT the problem that you'd like to think I am? But I'd expose a problem 'cause I find I give a damn!
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And I want you to remember what must seem to slip your mind (those who persecute me, sullenly, for my consciousness despised): You will only make me meaner, and there're others meaner still. Dismiss us at your peril; we're impossible to kill.

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You would paint me as an enemy when I've always fought for you? It's this nation's BEST ideals that I fight for! I say true!
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· lehmberg2002@gmail.com
· http://www.alienview.net/

Informing Consent

Informing Consent 

by Alfred Lehmberg

Flying Saucers And Science—A Scientist Investigates The Mysteries Of UFOs by Stanton Friedman -- A Commentary

For the whole of my ufological life, actually, I've appreciated Stanton T. Friedman. A decided high point in it was an occasion for Stanton to introduce me to "Aztec 1948" expert Scott Ramsey in Charleston, West Virginia, years ago, as "one of the good guys."  I suspect I have a valid justification to feel so honored.

See, from the beginning, with regard to UFOs and expert method, Friedman has unstintingly prosecuted only top drawer professional behavior and best practice. This is even during the rare and obligatory ufological "turf war" deemed necessary—if unfortunate—in times past.  Remains: he's played by the agreed upon "Queensbury Rules" where others have not. ...And it's him making justified bank for the effort, reader, contenders in smoking ruin. I say true.

Found in arrears? All my recall signifies he will mea culpa and clearly indicate "no contest." This means that caught in rare error he backs the "fup" off, reader! That won't be happening; however, when a reasoned and reasoning science is ever on his side or believes he holds the higher ethical ground.  Prepare, then, to have your loins successfully ungirded.  That's got to hurt, eh?

On reflection, I'm hard pressed to recall even that single instance of Friedman being caught "wrong" and provoking the remembrance alluded to above. Maybe he could give me an example... he would, you see.

An unapologetic world trekking lecturer's lecturer, it remains that there is a lot vituperation extended from his conflicted critics and other "noisy negativists."  Frankly, these are "persons who don't do their homework," who are "apologist ufologists," assorted skeptical ideologues (to be kind!), liars, cheats, intellectual thieves, and obligatory betrayers... calling a spade a spade, eh? 

Still, this aforementioned vituperation is handily dismissed with citation and then calmly endured. Dogs and spots, you know. Another metaphor: a gentleman's gentleman, a sober butler of the ufological; Mr. Wayne's Alfred, if you will, but we're stretching.

The vituperations directed at him, on reflection, are explained by the fact that he has managed to stay "cutting edge" and "relevantly contributing" with regards to UFOs... for decades! These aforementioned vituperating others find they are decidedly "out" of "contribution" of late, themselves, never had a relevant "leg" to stand on at the start, or are crass intellectual cowards on fire with what must be base envy of the greenest and most gravid of jealousies, jealousies provoked by covetousness and the outrage of scurvy snakes with their stones abruptly overturned!  They were so comfortable.

The preceding precisely explains, I suspect, a lot of vituperative angst on the issues extant. Remains, Friedman makes a regular substantive contribution.

See, when one takes on an "Alienview" as Stanton Friedman frankly has, contrives to avoid having a canted dog in the investigative hunt, and then weighs the evidence or rebuttal of same?  Well, one makes short work of even serious criticism and is ever the only one left standing on the debating field scratching themselves, distractedly. Friedman has crushed his detractors and seen them driven before him; he has heard, thews rippling and debate dripping gore, the lamentations of their fanboys.  There's some portraiture!

Friedman looks marvelously unruffled standing there, too, shrugging as if to say, "Next," but noisome and uninformed nay-sayers lay crushed and broken at his feet like shattered little dolls moaning pitifully and gnashing their tiny brittle teeth. Such is so.

When antagonists lack the rationality and good sense to avoid engaging him on national radio and television, has he ever lost a debate? I don't believe so. I recall aftermaths of hair, teeth, and eyeballs not Friedman's.

See, Friedman is a scientist, a real scientist, so... "back off," eh?

Though seriously, he is the type of scientist to follow data even when ax-grinding "others" pretend not to know that the real process of science actually precludes them from throwing out the data ticking them off!  Yes, these discard Data not fitting their preconceived world view. True, they discount Data not conforming to their outdated "conventional wisdom." It's what "reductionists" do.

Further on, they deride Data not currying favor with their psychopathically reptilian "corpocracies."  Finally, they dismiss Data not pandering uselessly to their corrupted mainstream.  Stanton Friedman gives consistent notice to this corrupted, duplicitous, and niggardly mal-science, decisively!

Consider.  The latter "science" just described is the science of uninformed and moneyed mountebanks like a smirking Dr. Shirmer. It is the inappropriately mal-Occamed science of vapid company popinjays like Dr. Nickell, Dr. McGaha, and Dr. Shostak.  It is the misleading and so falsely conceived science of bubble-gumming sneerer Bill Nye* the ironic "Science Guy"... or anyone else Larry King trotted out on his periodic Friday night UFO show for "Balance." 

The blissfully ignorant Ben Bova, too, a late Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Carl Sagan, it would appear... ...demonstrably uninformed!  Don't bother them with facts, boys and girls!  These are "minds" made up!

No, the preceding does not promote real science, reader.  They arrogantly mope a ready travesty of same, at best, or at worst, work against it in spirit and practice.  What hope of real progression, there?

Stanton Friedman, on the other hand, is a scientist practicing science as science is meant to be practiced: out of the wholly reductionist box, with due diligence, and with facts at the spring-loaded ready, pursuant to following the data wherever it goes!  The smart, brave, and progressive Friedman won't have it any other way!

To wit: Friedman has written an illuminating book describing these iterated suspicious failures of "mainstream" science, its scientists, and its assorted commentators or spokes-puppies.  It is called Flying Saucers And Science—A Scientist Investigates The Mysteries Of UFOs (Career Press Inc, 2008).  Friedman's is a key read, folks!

See, in this extremely cogent, organised, objective, constructive, comprehensive, flexible, acceptable, specific, and thoughtful economic masterwork, all the "noisy negativists," "apologist ufologists," obstinate skeptics, errant critics, uninformed commentators, boastful "experts," conflicted dis-info specialists, government shills, and pompous character assassinators bumping fractious gums for years... are decidedly put paid, in spades, for their scrofulously sullen inflexibility—invalidated themselves as they would pretend to invalidate—with intelligence, appropriate humility, and decided flair. 

Gloves no longer remotely justified should come off with all of the preceding persons, reader, and do.

See, people can get too comfortable with predictability and investiture and let that desire for security bleed over, inappropriately, into their professional lives and their personal practice.  They cheat intellectually, fudge a peer review, publish falsehoods, sometimes, as noted above. They don't consider who has to play so they can play, to a degree.

I'm going out of my way to be civil, here, reader.

Too, the badly played rank and file, vulnerable to fear and made fearful by those just described "criticized"... not because a fear is valid or not (those knowing—suspiciously—won't let us know) but because they like it right where they are, catbirds in their well-appointed seats, thank you, and so ignoring potentials in the aggregate intellectual profit to disclosure... only perceiving their personal loss of power, prestige, and control—valid or no!

Your garden variety rank and file human "bean" on the abused left half of the Bell curve and employed in their service, deserves more consideration than that, actually, than to be mere cannon fodder in unjust wars, assets to be liquefied when the man on the hill comes up a little short, retirements and pensions to be gutted and devalued, or individuals to be sold out and disrespected like they were expendable fools and dishonored dolts.  I perceive that Stanton Friedman believes such is so. UFOs, allowed, are enlightenment.

...Which is something else Friedman makes clear in this volume, reader!  Individuals need complete information, of needs, to make informed decisions regarding their informed consent.  Do individuals have access to appropriate information regarding UFOs so as to be able to give an informed consent in their regard?

Well, if the "mainstream" attitude to information as it pertains to UFOs is remotely similar to similar informations gained by the individual regarding Government, Institution, Church, Medical community, Foundation, or Agency... the answer must be a booming NO!

Does Friedman believe that aggregate humanity is rewarded—in the aggregate—with more forthcoming "official" info about UFOs?  I perceive he does.

Does Friedman believe that aggregate humanity "can handle the truth" about this decided "other," perhaps visiting us in ships not of our manufacture?  I perceive he does.

Does Friedman have a cogent plan for how that "truth" about UFOs and their occupant accouterments might be "disclosed" so as to provoke the minimum amount of social kafuffle?  Consulted, yes he does, reader. 

That solution, simply stated, is drawn from the experiences of our own human history!  These proffered solutions pertain to "mainstream" adjustments which become required, reader, as once new—now old—ideas involving race, gender, sexual preference, and creed are conceptualized and implemented.  Friedman points out that human beings are ever their own solution and that "ET (?)" is just a previously undiscovered people, across a presently impassable river, on the ultimate and final frontier!    

In closing his final chapter regarding why our attention to UFOs matters, Friedman asks:  "Can we not step back and see ourselves as our visitors see us?"  No equivocation there!

The very essence of the individual taking the Alien View, Friedman points out same in the one book anyone really needs to read about UFOs.  Friedman reports that the conjectured ephemeral occupants of UFOs have abundant and effuse reason to be exceptionally careful in their approach to us.  We might have the sense and humility to feel the same way... and in not a little shame. Shame, reader!

Charming "monkeys making mouth noises" able individually, perhaps, to make beautiful things or to have an intrinsic beauty, in groups they are, or can be, egregiously monstrous and coldly reptilian... insentient, generally.  If Friedman can understand that, then the presumably "advanced" ET —EP, CT, ED, or TT et al, don't quibble— may have similar "understanding."

Let me tell you something else I got between the lines of Friedman's state of the art look at a bona fide Science and its genuine investigation of UFOs.  There is, he hints at throughout the compelling read, another substantive reason to get this ufological "dentist's office visit" behind us.  See, we can do anything if we do it together.  That sounds trite, I know. Remains; however, true.

Consider, its reality is excitingly and astonishingly powerful!  Advantaging ourselves with the fact that sorrow is lessened in company while joy is increased in same, we push ourselves into an expanded reality—jumping to one whole new energy level of consciousness that is by definition expanded!  We need to do this!  We have to do this.  The future is this.

Stanton Friedman believes perhaps, I would not presume, but that we'd be well served to gird our own cognitive loins and perceptual cockles—make appropriate disclosure our "task at hand."  ...Be at last what we were born to be: a reflective humanity achieving the stars.

Friedman's book, reader, gives salient hints to a path accomplishing exactly that.

That's enough.  Read on.

*Apart from his tediously unconstructive attitude regarding UFOs, Nye can be spot on regarding other subjects like climate science and energy production. I am loath to add him here, but he will atone for his ufological treachery. [g].

"No Free Degrees... thank you."