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Wednesday, April 18, 2018

No one Listened to Cassandra

'What could possibly go wrong', said very few when making their plans, especially those plans to make things go so well. 'The best laid plans of mice and men oft gang aglay' reminded Robbie Burns, and who listens to a Scotsman?  Poor Cassandra, Princess of Troy, was not believed or even listened to when she warned that it was not going to turn out well. To the dungeons with her, just like warners today are sent to the jails.

"The Greeks are coming": now, "the Muslims are coming. Both. "You will all die".

Not that many these days even remember the gal; not the millenials who take their ancient history only when presented by a hunky actor who writes her out of the best scenes (older portrayals do better); not even by those who have paid megabucks for a degree in Wimmins Studies. You would at least think they might have paid some attention to her tale of woe.
Ah, ah! Oh, oh, the agony! Once more the dreadful ordeal [ponos] of true prophecy whirls and distracts me with its ill-boding onset. Do you see them there—sitting before the house—young creatures like phantoms of dreams? Children, they seem, slaughtered by their own kindred, their hands full of the meat of their own flesh; they are clear to my sight, holding their vitals and their inward parts—piteous burden!
This is the Kassandra that tradition gives us and is foremost in our minds: a half-mad character, hysterical, helpless to escape her doom, shaken, seeing visions of horrific things no one else sees. But by crikey, Emilia Fox as Cassandra works beautifully. In the scene below, Cassandra tries to warn about Troy's  fall. In greek mythology, Apollo grant to her the gift of prophecy. But when she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her.

We try to plan ahea...d. Generally we make a real pig's ear of it. Few of us have the gift of foresight and most often narcissistic belief in the superiority of our 'self' renders us blind to the 'unforeseen'.  We are ignorant, despite coming so far.

Several Cassandras (not female) gathered in the bar to outdo one another in the prognostication bizzo. Not one told me that one of the barrels in the cellars would spring a leak and I would put my back out manhandling it. Ah well. It came to pass and I shall pass over that.

The scene was set by Walt Williams. He looked back at looking forward for us.
How Ignorant We Are
Here's a question for you: In 1950, would it have been possible for anyone to know all of the goods and services that we would have at our disposal 50 years later? For example, who would have thought that we'd have cellphones, Bluetooth technology, small powerful computers, LASIK and airplanes with 525-passenger seating capacity?
This list could be extended to include thousands of goods and services that could not have been thought of in 1950.

In the face of this gross human ignorance, who should be in control of precursor goods and services? 
Seeing as it's impossible for anyone to predict the future, {apart from Cassandra} any kind of governmental regulation should be extremely light-handed, so as not to sabotage technological advancement.
Compounding our ignorance is the fact that..... 
much of what we think we know is not true
Scientometrics is the study of measuring and analyzing science, technology and innovation. It holds that many of the "facts" you know have a half-life of about 50 years. Let's look at a few examples.
You probably learned that Pluto is a planet. But since August 2006, Pluto has been considered a dwarf planet. It's just another object in the Kuiper belt.
Because dinosaurs were seen as members of the class Reptilia, they were thought to be coldblooded. But recent research suggests that dinosaurs were fast-metabolizing endotherms whose activities were unconstrained by temperature.
Years ago, experts argued that increased K-12 spending and lower pupil-teacher ratios would boost students' academic performance. It turned out that some of the worst academic performance has been at schools spending the most money and having the smallest class sizes. Washington, D.C., spends more than $29,000 per student every year, and the teacher-student ratio is 1-to-13; however, its students are among the nation's poorest-performing pupils.
At one time, astronomers considered the size limit for a star to be 150 times the mass of our sun. But recently, a star (R136a1) was discovered that is 265 times the mass of our sun and had a birth weight that was 320 times that of our sun.
If you graduated from medical school in 1950, about half of what you learned is either wrong or outdated. 
For an interesting story on all this, check out Reason magazine. Ignorance can be devastating. Say that you recently purchased a house. Was it the best deal you could have gotten? Was there some other house within your budget that would have needed fewer extensive repairs 10 years later and had more likable neighbors and a better and safer environment for your children? What about the person you married? Was there another person available to you who would have made for a more pleasing and compatible spouse?
Though these are important questions, the most intelligent answer you can give to all of them is: 
"I don't know." 
If you don't know, who should be in charge of making those decisions? Would you delegate the responsibility to Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, Ben Carson or some other national or state official?
You might say, "Stop it, Williams! Congressmen and other public officials are not making such monumental decisions affecting my life." 
Try this. Suppose you are a 22-year-old healthy person. Rather than be forced to spend $3,000 a year for health insurance and have $7,000 deducted from your salary for Social Security, you'd prefer investing that money to buy equipment to start a landscaping business. Which would be the best use of the $10,000 you earned — purchasing health insurance and paying into Social Security or starting up a landscaping business? More importantly, who would be better able to make that decision — you or members of the United States Congress?
The bottom line is that ignorance is omnipresent. 
The worst kind of ignorance is not knowing just how ignorant we are. That leads to the devastating pretense of knowledge that's part and parcel of the vision of intellectual elites and politicians.
He is right of course, but no-one is going to abandon making plans and decisions, despite the very strong liklihood that we will be wrong. And shown to be wrong soon enough.

But a person making their own decisions will at least have the consequences sheeted back to them and not onto the rest of us.

Unfortunately with Troy, the launching of a thousand ships over a pretty face was a decision taken at 'the highest levels' of the day and the consequences fell on all within sight and sound.  Things have not changed. Those who are not following their father's footsteps onto a Regal throne somewhere still manage to get voted into positions of power somehow that would make an ancient King turn green. (With envy, not environmentally). They can launch cruise missiles these days. 

And they can have a terrible consequence for whole populations who had no part in the decision.

Take the current consequences of Mutter Merkle's rash and entirely blind decision to invite armies to invade. "Come in", she said. "Ve heff vays of taking good care of you". 

Funny how things change and remain the same. Troy was in modern Turkey. The Greeks were never going to 'fit in' well in Troy and neither are the 'refugees' flooding in from Turkey into modern Greece - and onward into the heart of Europe.

We had Cassandras shouting the warning way back. One such, back in 2011, some seven years of bad luck ago, warned of the terrible things that were going to happen. Pat Condell was and remains alarmed.

But does anyone listen?



But many could see what was happening and what was going to happen. Many would not.

A lady piped up. She called herself Helluminati.
How did we come this far? How is it possible, that in the name of religion and belief, that benefits only violence, we have abandoned our civilized laws and regulations? How is it possible, that we suddenly feel the need to protect and help those who want to destroy us? Why do we have special treatment for those who want human rights, yet fail to deliver those human rights to others? Why is it needed to bring an aggressive and horrific culture to well developed and civilized society, when those 2 can NEVER exist in harmony? As I see, we have Europe, where: 
1.Speaking truth is considered criminal act 
2. Where rape is called "cultural enrichment". 
3. Where criminals of other race, ethnicity or religion go unpunished. 
4 Where you are racist, when your opinion differs from what politicians say. 
5. Where criminals and religious fanatics are prioritized over hardworking law abiding citizens. 
6. Where democracy is non-existent. 
7. Where laws are changes to fit outsiders. 
8. Where violence and aggression is considered "cultural right"
And she is just looking over her shoulder at the consequences we see all around us. 

The powers that be, the new Kings (and Queens, Chancellors, Presidents etc) with ships and egos, cruise missiles and sad, mad, bad hearts can read, if they wish. They can read the words of the enemy writ in bold and flowery squiggles. Their plans are all laid out in the Koran and associated 'unholy' scripts.

But let David Woods tell of that. He takes France as an example of what is not only happening but will get worse and worse.

What can possibly go wrong?

One's only sardonic smile is raised by the knowledge that the Islamic's plans can gang aglay too.

We Hope.

But we Christian folk have an assurance that includes Hope.

So a more authentic smile can be raised. We can pray for a racing certainty for a change.

I shall drink to that.

Shall I pull a few for you too?

Pax


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