Exploiting Bias for Global Control

How we see the world already determines how we’ll continue to see it—including how we see ourselves.

Please consider the following journey in a psychological context. It’s not about anyone being “right or wrong.” Instead, by relating mistakes I’ve made through biased thinking, I hope to encourage others to consider how our beliefs may influence our acceptance of inconvenient facts or allow others to taint our thoughts.

Prior to putting myself in a wheelchair, (via a spinal cord injury in 1997), I enjoyed a twenty-year career in the railroad industry in various problem-solving positions. After my accident, I studied Neuroscience to understand my condition. Eventually I became an amateur liaison between researchers and non-profit funding sources with the goal of promoting clinical trials for acute and chronic SCI.

In 2002, I questioned the medical worth of embryonic stem cells. My situation—disabled in a wheelchair, well-informed regarding research issues, and unconcerned with politics or religion—made me an attractive witness for moral opponents of ESCs and human cloning. Despite my worldview neutrality, I accepted invitations to voice my concerns because so many fates hung in the balance, including my dreams of walking, my wife’s quality of life, and the lives of billions through the future of healthcare. My activism led to my speaking before government committees, to the Press at the White House, in debate at the NY Academies of Science, on CNN, and on A.M. ‘talk radio’ as a White House surrogate spokesperson.

Much of my life between 2002 and 2006 involved corresponding with Conservative biotechnology advisers, including members of the President’s Council of Bioethics, congressional staffers, scientists, and international pro-life leaders. My participation in their discussions allowed me to glimpse how intelligent minds promote worldview agendas.

In 2004, Republicans won majorities in the House and Senate. Bush won a second term, and the BIO/Pharma stem cell agenda rolled onward—a situation much akin to our failure in 2010 to enact eco-reforms despite having a supposedly pro-green Democrat in the White House, a Democratic majority in Congress, and a catastrophe in the Gulf to serve as an eco-wake-up call.

Also in 2004, a strong majority of Catholic voters in California supported a pro-cloning ballot initiative [Prop. 71] despite its vehement condemnation by a Catholic Bishop…a crucial point that later revealed a key to our eco-stalemate: the readiness of politicians and social organizations to betray their purported values in response to corporate pressures, grass root defections, or effective PR (see Obama attacks China for fostering Green Energy and The Triumph of Climate Politics).

By March of 2005, I realized that only a paradigm shift in how the public perceived biotech issues might allow society to lay aside its worldview differences to consider why the biotech, pharmaceutical, non-profit, and basic research industries would lead us intentionally down primrose research paths. Mapping the financial stakes, i.e., “follow the money,” offered the only logical course.

Before the ’04’ elections, I too had allowed myself to be lulled into an “us vs. them” mentality by becoming so focused on my stem cell battles—along with unearthing scientific facts to support my contentions—that I ignored everything else, including extensive deregulation of off-shore drilling by the Bush Administration…actions that seeded the Gulf Disaster. The elections began to open my eyes.

The passage of CA Prop. 71 represented a crushing defeat to the Conservative stem cell coalition through grass root defections. Within weeks, my supposed allies backed a pro-cloning compromise (called ANT/OAR) to save face and retreat from the stem cells war. And yet, prior to the passage of Proposition 71, these same organizations had denounced ANT/OAR as morally unacceptable.

[In retrospect, I’m struck by disturbing similarities between the timing and possible motives behind the ANT/OAR proposal and ‘pro-green’ initiatives that sabotaged the Copenhagen Summit and blocked eco-reforms on the heels of the outrage in the Gulf.]

Over the next two years, I continued my activism but studied my allies to learn how human nature affects society through worldview bias. I came to consider a staggering possibility: The stem cells debates might be a colossal sham. Yes, rank & file members of both parties believed in their causes. However, I had cause to suspect that President Bush and Republican leaders worked behind the scenes to promote industry’s ES goals. I based my suspicions on the following points:

1. All of Bush’s appointees to the NIH, FDA, and Cabinet health-related positions were industry-approved advocates of ESCs/cloning.
2. Bush appointees to NIH made it their first and unstinting priority to prioritize ESC basic research over non-hematopoietic adult stem cell/cord blood R&D. For both of his terms (a situation that continues), adult stem cell and cord blood researchers were denied funding again and again when they sought to move to clinical trials that threatened the long-range goals of BIO and Pharma or the the world’s medical status quo.
3. A pro-life member of Bush’s Cabinet reportedly ordered the FDA to shut down an Atlanta cord blood clinic when he learned a cord blood treatment had begun to reverse the paralysis of a patient dying of ALS. (for more on this, see www.cures1st.blogspot.com.)
4. Those who ushered me around the country to testify to government committees (or to speak to Conservative groups) consistently tried to dissuade me from addressing the financial motives for society being pushed in the ESC/cloning directions—and yet without presenting the incentives for industry to steer publicly-funded Science away from practical paths to cures, my words fell on deaf ears regardless of my research facts.
5. I repeatedly urged Conservative leaders to publicly question 1) the medical practicality of ESCs & human cloning, and 2) industry motives for urging society to mortgage its medical future on cells specifically designed to not function safely in post-natal humans.  They refused, claiming that the public wouldn’t understand common sense explanations and that only by focusing on moral issues might they win the debates…a doomed strategy certain to deepen social mistrust by fueling the public’s impression that its sick and disabled might suffer or die for the religious beliefs of others.

Insinuation: the Ultimate Insult

Imagine being told that your character and spirit are pathetically weak, that your mind is too feeble to think for itself or resist the convictions of others. Now imagine this person further reveals his contempt for you by not insulting you with words directly but rather through smugness and non-verbal signals that express utter disregard for your intelligence, awareness, and integrity.

This is precisely what occurs whenever anyone tries to control our thoughts and actions through insinuation. For example: consider this video of presidential candidate Mitt Romney:

His theatrical arsenal of smirks, sneers, and comic pauses all suggest that anyone who takes climate change seriously (President Obama included), is a moron—and yet he says this without mentioning a single rational fact to support his facial theatrics. Likewise, he insinuates with his ‘promise’ to ‘help us and our families’ that Obama does not want to help American families—that anyone concerned over the state of our planet or its future is the enemy of the people.

This entire skit insinuates that Americans are too dumb, too selfish, or too psychologically weak to not fall for it… that Romney’s antics would sway American voters by feeding the “opiate of self-delusion” in those either addicted to his worldview rant or those in denial that six billion people can pollute a finite planet indefinitely without unleashing disastrous effects. Secure in his knowledge of human nature, he appears to have prepared this strategy in advance.

Sadly, a vast crowd cheers his antics wildly—snickering and applauding his every expression. Between Obama (or environmentalists) and the people Romney thrilled with his non-verbal skit, who was he really insulting, and who deserves his insults?

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James P. Kelly twice served as a surrogate stem cells spokesperson for the G.W. Bush White House. He ended six years of biotech activism in protest over Conservative plans to discredit the science of climate change. As a creative means of sharing the social, political, and psychological realities he glimpsed through his stem cells involvement, he wrote and recently published The Sibyl Reborn, a speculative adventure/urban fiction that reincarnates Cassandra, the cursed prophetess from the Fall of Troy, to battle the psychological roots of global warming.

The smirks of chauvinists, bigots, and con men — Elections2012

Before you choose America’s direction, please consider the following because it’s never too late until it’s too late.

In a stunningly fair report entitled CLIMATE OF DOUBT, Frontline recently revealed how well-funded organizations seeded doubt in the in the minds of Americans over the science of anthropogenic (human-caused) Global Warming. So successful were their efforts that U.S. Senators literally run for elevators rather than answer questions from reporters whose only interest lay in learning the truth.

Yes, human-caused global warming contributed substantially to Hurricane Sandy trashing New York and coastal New Jersey. It turned our western forests into tinder box catastrophes just waiting for a spark. It devastated an entire season of midwestern crops. It shattered temperature records across the country in June, only to shatter them again in July and August—all in 2012. In fact, August of 2012 represented the 330th consecutive month that average global temperature exceeded 20th Century norms. And yet, many Americans cling to the delusion that anthropogenic global warming is a “liberal hoax.” Why? It’s simple:

Humans believe what we want to believe regardless of facts (1,2).

Sounds simple, right. Not so! Consider this: those leading the public by telling us what we want to believe are as addicted to self-delusion as the rest of us.

For five+ years, I corresponded daily with national biotech policy advisers regarding America’s stem cell debates. I twice served as a surrogate spokesperson for the GW Bush White House. And yet, my biotech activism had nothing to do with religion, morals, or politics. Because I’m paralyzed and once studied Neuroscience extensively, I thought my contacts in Washington were on my side, i.e, that they meant to support basic and clinical research that offered practical hope for treatments and cures. I deluded myself.

Every Bush appointee to head the NIH, FDA, and Health and Human Services was an industry-approved advocate of embryonic stem cells and human cloning. While telling the country he opposed killing embryos on moral grounds, his meaningful actions consistently promoted the financial welfare of Pharma and BIO, i.e, the long-range commitment of vast resources toward highly problematic and impractical research [embryonic stem cells and human cloning] to entrench our medical status quo and safeguard over a trillion dollars annually in global pharmaceutical revenues. Why? Because the top ten American pharmaceuticals made more profits in 2003 than the other 490 corporations in Fortune 500 combined.

How could I have ever deluded myself into believing GW Bush or the GOP would oppose this financial colossus? In other words, what do you really think is behind the Conservative/GOP P.R. blitz to deny and distort the realities of global warming, climate change, and Man’s disastrous addictions to oil, coal, and gas?

This is your future and your life. Do not look away or turn off your objective mind (1,2). And please, do not delude yourself into believing that those who misled you intentionally by playing on your worldview beliefs or financial fears will give you what you want if you give them what they want. YOU are the market—the customers whose lives and incomes they need to bloat the coffers of the special interests they so faithfully serve.

Our time is critically short. I won’t try to sway you regarding the science of climate change in a blog post. You need to sleep, and the elections are tomorrow. Please, do this. Invest an hour of your life by watching CLIMATE OF DOUBT (3), or spend FOUR MINUTES (4) to watch a replay of Mitt Romney smirking in derisive triumph over our climatic future at the GOP convention. In my opinion, you’ll see the faces of fallible people who claim to be moralists—who even claim God as their banner—and yet who literally glow with smugness over exploiting the economic fears of Americans to hijack their future and imperil their lives.

I’m fifty-six years old, and I’ve seen these smirks before…on the faces of racists or chauvinists who reveled over the subservience of blacks or women in decades past…on the faces of hucksters who had deluded others and felt damned good over their psychological tricks…on winners who knew they’d won and why they won and knew in their hearts they didn’t deserve to win.

Where will America turn, and why will she turn there? I sincerely hope the environmental truths we’d rather not face but can’t escape will play a deciding role in how we vote…because America will never escape its dead-end energy paradigm and economic trap—to say nothing of reaching a sustainable future environmentally—as long as we willingly delude ourselves.

1. Westen D, Blagov PS, Harenski K, Kilts C, Hamann S., Neural bases of motivated reasoning Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 11/06;18(11):1947-58.

2.  Political bias affects brain activity MSNBC.com, Jan 24 2006

3.  John Hockenberry, Catherine Upin, Climate of Doubt, Frontline, October 2012

4. Mitt Romney, Climate Change, Hurricane Sandy, and the GOP convention, The ClimateSilence.org, Nov 2012

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James P. Kelly twice served as a surrogate stem cells spokesperson for the G.W. Bush White House. He ended six years of biotech activism in protest over Conservative plans to discredit the science of climate change. As a creative means of sharing the social, political, and psychological realities he glimpsed through his stem cells involvement, he wrote and recently published The Sibyl Reborn, a speculative adventure/urban fiction that reincarnates Cassandra, the cursed prophet from the Fall of Troy, to battle the psychological roots of global warming.

Romney vs Obama: the Grim Reality of Elections 2012

…a non-partisan view of our choices by a 2011 Waldo Canyon Fire evacuee

Becoming paralyzed led to my taking sides in stem cells after a lifetime of non-involvement in social or political issues. My five years of ‘pro-cures’ activism included daily interactions with national biotech policy advisers and twice serving as a surrogate spokesperson for the GW Bush White House. Sadly, this activism opened my eyes to the stark reality behind our pending elections: Americans and the world stand to lose regardless who wins. The only difference concerns how disastrous our loss will be.

I ended my biotech support for Bush and Conservatives for two reasons: 1) I realized their ‘apparent’ endorsement of scientifically valid research for producing cures was in fact a sham, and 2) they planned to re-enact this charade to divide Americans over clean energy, global warming, and climate changes like Hurricane Sandy, the pending “Frankenstorm.”

Grass roots opponents of embryonic research and human cloning opposed both on moral grounds. Bush vetoed embryonic stem cell initiatives to generate good PR with Conservative Christians. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical and biotech agendas determined every Bush appointee to head the FDA, NIH, and Health and Human Services. All were embryonic stem cell advocates whose actions ensured the courses of Science and Medicine would safeguard over a trillion dollars annually in pharmaceutical and medical revenues for decades to come—monies reaped from human suffering.

The strategy is simple: Tell the public what it wants to believe to promote social division, i.e., that vast, world-shaping issues such as global warming are matters of worldview opinion, that Americans can eat their cake and drive it too, that whatever happens—including ‘natural’ disasters like the Frankenstorm, nationwide droughts, or forest fires that chased tens of thousands from their homes—it’s not our fault. Why? A nation divided will never challenge financial paradigms that betray the present to exploit the future.

My behind-the-scenes exposure to national policy-making taught me that both sides of our political leadership can be on the same side of lucrative issues, industry’s side, while playing worldview games to lure voters into deluding themselves.

To puppet masters who control our politicians, our lives, and our future, very few issues matter. Big Coal, Pharma, BIO, Big Oil, Energy, International Banking, and agro-giants such as Monsanto care about markets and profits. Abortion, gay rights, education, social welfare, our quality of life, and our financial security serve as battle cries to incite and divide us while seducing voters to embrace industry goals and party platforms.

At the top, GOP and Democrat leaders stand ready to betray us. We like to believe this isn’t so—that someone is on our side. They count on us to believing it, and as long as we do, no one will be on our side…including ourselves.  But this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t vote. The truth is quite the reverse.

Between Romney and Obama, one more clearly belongs to powerful special interests…financial entities whose motives lie in blocking the changes our planet and children need us to make. In my opinion, the best Americans can hope for in “Elections 2012” is to not gift wrap our children’s future to Big Oil, Coal, and Pharma. Whether we do or not depends on us having to the courage to face realities we’d rather deny, ignore, or rationalize into psychologically convenient spins.

We need to admit who stands ready and eager to sell us out.

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J. Perry Kelly recently published a speculative adventure on Kindle, The Sibyl Reborn, which uses plot and premise to entertain readers while exploring the psychological roots of social control, political deceptions, and climate change.

Climate Change: it isn’t me & it isn’t you…

…It’s us.

We can evade reality but not the consequences of evading it. ~ Ayn Rand

Right off the bat…I’m paralyzed because I chose to be paralyzed by choosing to drive when I knew I was falling asleep. Dumb doesn’t get any dumber.

The above point is crucial because I’m totally guilty of the psychological quirk I’m about to relate…and I’ve suffered for it greatly and caused my wife to suffer.

The night before the Waldo Canyon Fire flared to life in Colorado, I sat in Manitou Springs with a respected friend discussing climate change—never guessing that the following night a computerized voice on 911 would order my wife and I to leave our home at 2 a.m., or that we’d spend the next forty-eight hours camped out in my friend’s living room.

My friend questions Man’s role in causing climate change. I believe we’re guilty as Hell for wrecking our climatic balance through carbon emissions. I believe this so strongly that I’ve spent years crafting a soft sci fi/paranormal thriller that weaves its plot around the psychology of climate change denial. (“The Sibyl Reborn,” a novel)

My friend accuses me of being obsessed with fighting climate change. He’s right. My pre-injury railroad career involved avoiding railway disasters. As a railroad dispatcher, I assumed I should do whatever it took to avoid derailments, hazmat spills, or railway crossing collisions. I feel the same about doing nothing as our live-for-today-denial devastates the future for our children and our children’s children.

I discovered firsthand what can happen when we deny realities we’d rather not face—whether due to ambition, convenience, worldview beliefs or pride. The consequences of rationalizing reality to fit wants or beliefs can prove catastrophic and permanent.

Consider the Waldo Canyon Fire

Forget for a moment that global warming contributed greatly toward turning our forests into powder-keg infernos just waiting for a match, a lightning bolt, or a carelessly discarded cigarette.  Consider only those who fled their homes and possessions and those who stayed behind and died.

At one point in Colorado this week, 32,000 people abandoned their homes immediately despite knowing they could lose lifetimes of memories and work.  And yet they left. I suggest the inseparable futures of our planet and species might be glimpsed by comparing our response to immediate perils—like a wildfire raging out of control—against our non-response to climate change, a far greater and more permanent danger that set the stage for the Waldo Inferno–a runaway blaze from which 32,000 Coloradans instinctively ran.

We abandoned our homes because we knew in the bedrock of our souls that a wildfire cares nothing about whether we believe it exists, whether we stay in its path, or whether we take too long to make up our minds.

I don’t know why an elderly couple failed to leave their upscale home in time to stay alive. I suspect their deaths were a tragic mistake. Perhaps they told themselves this disaster wouldn’t touch their lives. Perhaps the fear of losing their home paralyzed their ability to act. Possibly they believed they had more time for making up their minds or taking action. I don’t know why they died; I only wish they hadn’t—that whatever decisions led to their loss had been decided otherwise because the effects of some decisions—whether we make them or not—can never be undone.

Your common sense surely tells you why running from the above wildfire was the only rational course for those who stood in its path. Likewise, I’m sure you can see the difference between our response to wildfires and our non-response to climate change:

One reality is vast, certain, and merciless, inescapable through denial, and immediate. The other is vast, certain, and merciless, inescapable through denial, and immediate for some while only pending in the certain futures of others—a future they refuse to face, accept responsibility for causing, or take actions toward lessening for themselves or others.

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Twice a surrogate stem cells spokesperson for the GW Bush White House, J. Perry Kelly—author of The Sibyl Reborn—ended his association with the political right over its distortion of global warming for short-sighted political gain and industry profits.

Waldo Canyon Fire: The Paralysis of Fear

The photo on the right was taken this morning (6-26) from behind the Miramont Castle in Manitou Springs.

Sadly, so many cling to the delusion that disasters like this are “acts of Nature” or “acts of God” when in fact if not for Nature—in the form of a favorable and highly unusual wind—our town might already be toast. Nature and God did not warm our planet, turn our forests into dry kindling, cause Colorado to experience 100+ degree temperatures in mid-June at 6,200 ft above sea level, or cause the present southwestern drought that’s predicted to last for 95 years.

I was among 11,000 Americans who were ordered to evacuate their homes in the dead of night due to this regional incident. I fled in a wheelchair through dark and deserted streets while the skyline over my shoulder glowed like Hell released on Earth. Surely others have lost far more than than personal comfort or peace of mind over the worsening effects of man’s values on its planet. Surely all will eventually suffer if we continue to ignore such warnings.

If the above sounds ‘negative’ and bitter. It is. I returned home yesterday morning while clinging to a vain belief our danger was over. The vista this picture captures exposed my delusion as so much smoke…and maybe that’s an understanding that needs to be shared.

J. Perry Kelly

author of “The Sibyl Reborn” (pending Kindle release)

Ps. It occurs to me the fact I’m paralyzed—without a job or car and living on a sub-poverty income—allows me to look beyond America’s economic ‘needs’ to face atmospheric realities of fossil fuel usage on climate change. I say this because most of the conveniences, distractions, and gadgets we consider vital ‘needs’ (toys and distractions I can’t afford) are in fact ‘wants’ that seduce us to embrace denials we want to believe while failing to value Nature. If so, I apologize for stating my thoughts so bluntly. After all, had I not paralyzed myself by falling asleep while driving, I too might deny Man’s role in climate change, or its place in the present crisis.

Whether the earth remains a viable eco-sphere or we’re chased from our homes by threats of fire, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, or Fukushima-like fallouts represent real-life needs—prerequisites for quality of life and possibly survival. The above photo reflects this reality. It’s one the fortunate can choose to deny today but not escape.

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Twice a surrogate stem cells spokesperson for the GW Bush White House, J. Perry Kelly ended his association with the political right over its distortion of global warming for short-sighted political gain and fiscal profits.

Rethink the world

The Vampire, Edvard Munch

Global monetary distribution links the earnings and actions of the world’s richest 1% to mankind’s current energy and economic crisis. As a snapshot illustration, the Koch brothers, billionaire energy magnates, have spent more money than 99% of the human species will make in entire lifetimes—fifty million dollars-—to discredit the science of climate change and squash clean energy initiatives.

Consider too our most powerful industries—social forces that determine the course and priorities of medical research, the health of the planet, and the fates of billions of lives both living and yet unborn.

The world’s top ten pharmaceuticals made more profits in 2003 than the other 490 corporations in “Fortune 500” combined. Pharma uses its gluttonous profits to fund the world’s largest and arguably most influential lobbying organization to ensure laws and regulations remain friendly to Pharma while further stuffing their coffers. And yet, monies pharmaceuticals suck from U.S. households [for ‘me too’ drugs that leech off human suffering while curing almost nothing] pale in comparison to energy costs.

Americans Spend More on Gas

In other words, the world’s current economic paradigm hinges on 1) maintaining the medical status quo through the continued prevalence of illness, disability, and disease, and 2) fossil fuel and nuclear industries that feed off dwindling resources that toxify the environment, seed ill-health, and wreck our planet’s climate. Both paradigms represent dead-end financial traps for individual households, national economies, and possibly human civilization—like any parasitic relationship when the parasite overruns the host—and yet both ‘make’ gobs of money for the richest 1% at the cost of spiraling hardships for everyone else.

Albert Einstein called Man’s present way of seeing its relationship to nature, reality and the environment an “optical delusion of consciousness” that must ultimately doom our species. To grasp this relationship in its most basic essence, follow the money.

Before it’s too late…

…rethink the world!

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Twice a surrogate stem cells spokesperson for the GW Bush White House, J. Perry Kelly ended his association with the political right over its gross distortion of global warming for short-sighted political gain and fiscal profits.

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Acclimatize this!

In the movie “The Matrix,” Trinity says to Neo while his fate teeters on the edge of a knife:

“Because you have been down there, Neo, you know that road, you know exactly where it ends. And I know that’s not where you want to be.”

Neo chose to take her advice and turn aside; I took the road and crashed.

In May of 1997, I hiked with my wife to the summit of Mnt. Shavano in Central Colorado—a grueling but beautiful climb that expressed our love for mountains, nature, and outdoor sports. A month later, I lay in a Montana hospital, paralyzed for life because I let comfort and ego entice me down a road that Neo had the sense to avoid.

In 2004, scientists at Emory University used functional MRIs to discover a disturbing fact: Regardless of intelligence, profession, or worldview beliefs, humans tend to interpret reality to support their egos, ambitions, convenience or bias. Don’t I know it!

While driving across Montana, I knew I needed a cup of coffee or a nap. Instead, I bought a smoothie because I wanted a smoothie and kept driving because I wanted to drive. Ten minutes later, I fell asleep, rolled my pick-up into a gulch, and crushed my spinal cord. Regarding global warming, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says don’t worry, keep your hands on the wheel and your foot on the gas.

“Populations can acclimatize to warmer climates,” they say, “via a range of behavior, physiological, and technical adaptations.”

In other words, don’t speak out against Federal and industry plans to expand fossil fuel usage. Don’t demand a sustainable future loudly, persistently, and now.

When I came out of a coma to discover I was paralyzed, impotent, eight-five percent deaf, blind in one eye, and diagnosed as brain damaged, my therapists insisted my life was not trashed; it was merely ‘changed.’  With an attitude adjustment and a few behavioral, physiological, and technical adaptations [they said], I’d be back on my feet—in a manner of speaking—and loving my ‘new’ existence.

Not quite.

Speaking for myself, I’d count myself lucky to trade every second of the past fourteen years and those to come for one more hike with my wife up steep mountain trails or another chance to make love with her as Nature intended. For me—because some mistakes can never be undone—my future is written regarding so many things I once treasured…things that others take for granted or treat with contempt.

Imagine the rage I’d feel if my therapists had encouraged me before my accident to ignore my danger to promote their careers…because this is precisely what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is doing by writing off your future to safeguard their continued profits.

What technical, behavioral, or physiological adaptations will allow you to escape months of sweltering heat when only the wealthy can afford air conditioning? What attitude adjustments will make your days bearable when America’s live-for-today denial leads to poverty and wars through global resource exhaustion—when climate extremes make hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, floods, tornadoes, famine, disease and death our ‘new’ way of life?

What right does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have to set future quality-of-life standards for all mankind under any pretext?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Big Oil and Mining, and their political allies tell themselves what they need to believe to promote their egos, wealth and social control. They spin their self-delusions to exploit the public’s willingness to deceive itself to avoid inconvenience or change.

Don’t let them do it. They’re whispering for you to drive down that road, and we both know where it ends. Only you can free your mind by escaping the matrix of ego.

http://bit.ly/jaahMd

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Twice a surrogate stem cells spokesperson for the GW Bush White House, J. Perry Kelly ended his association with the political right over its distortion of global warming for short-sighted political gain and fiscal profits.

Selene, Me, and Lord V

Sadly, Lord-V died in 2012 and we miss him still. He was a magnificent cat and a wonderful family member and friend.

 

Needless Desperation by a City Council

Manitou’s mayor and city council offer a billionaire decades in tax breaks in return for nothing.

In my recent guest commentary in Pikes Peak Bulletin, Manitou and The Cog: Confusing “Want” with “Need,” I focused on why Manitou Springs has readily available financial options that nullify ongoing claims that it faces a ‘budget crisis’ due to the continued closure of the Cog Railroad. According to the city, this purported crisis stems from its loss of tax revenue while the Cog remains closed. To encourage the Cog’s owner to invest in the Cog and reopen it, the city has offered him various tax incentives plans that—depending on the plan—will either cap the Cog’s excise taxes due each year for fifty years or cap them for twenty-five years and then offer a reduced tax rate based on ticket sales for the second twenty-five years.

It’s my belief that any such plans aimed at encouraging the Cog to reopen are wholly unneeded and would therefore squander future city revenues needlessly. Here’s why:

The Cog’s current owner is reportedly considering whether to invest one-hundred million dollars in rebuilding the Cog, upgrading its equipment, and possibly building a new visitor center on the summit of Pikes Peak. Under the original incentive package, which the city council endorsed in June, the city would cap the Cog’s annual excise taxes, regardless of Cog revenues, beginning at $500K in 2019 and increasing by 1% for the next fifty years. A revised plan would limit this cap to 25 years but thereafter reduce the Cog’s tax burden by lowering its excise tax rate for the first 350K tickets sold annually between years 25 to 50.

The current excise tax rate is 5%. Thus, in order for the Cog to save a penny from either plan at its outset, the Cog would need to make more than $10M in annual revenues. In this light, consider the following:

• The Cog’s owner must expect to make considerably more than $10M annually in Cog revenues else why would he want these concessions?
• I suspect the Cog’s owner intends to make far more than $10M in profits annually from the Cog—not revenues—for the simple reason that if he invests 90-to-100 million dollars in the Cog, he’ll want to recoup his investment in a reasonably short and definite time span [and begin making actual profits] or the investment would make little sense.   
• The above contention is further supported by the nature of the proposed incentives: if their purpose is to help the Cog stay ‘in the black’ after it reopens, it would make better sense for the city to waive the Cog’s first $500K of excise taxes annually and begin taxing Cog revenues over $10M. [Note: I don’t suggest the city do this.’] That the Cog agreed to the original plan, which leaves its revenues over $10M untaxed, tells us what its owner expects to make re revenues and profits.
• Regardless of how much the Cog makes, the City’s 5% excise tax would represent 1/20th of its revenues. As stated above, should the Cog make $10M per year through selling 357,142 tickets at $28 per ticket, this would generate $500K in taxes with or without the incentive agreement. Obviously, anything close to this tax amount, either over or under, can hardly factor into any serious prognosis for recouping a $100M investment. 
• Should the Cog raise ticket prices to $70 per ticket and increase its ridership through added parking and more trains by another 60 thousand riders per season, its revenues would soar to $29.2M. Of this, the City’s excise tax without the tax break would be $1.46M. However, under both incentive plans, the Cog would pay $500K in excise taxes initially while keeping $960,000 via its tax break. Here again, considering the Cog’s savings would be less than 1% of the proposed $100M investment, the incentives would hardly represent ‘deal makers’ or ‘deal breakers’ re whether the Cog invests or reopens.

Cog owner billionaire Philip Anschutz will reopen the Cog or not based solely on his expected profits and return on investment. While the tax amounts I’ve cited might be significant to Manitou’s budget whether capped or not, they must be hugely insignificant in context to recouping a hundred million dollar investment. Moreover, should no such investment be needed to reopen the Cog, no pretext would purportedly exist for capping its taxes. Nonetheless, should Mr. Anschutz choose to reopen, he’ll happily keep any tax dollars that Manitou adds to his coffers needlessly. 

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Manitou Springs resident James Kelly once worked for Cog owner Philip Anschutz as an employee of the Union Pacific Railroad. A railroader of 20+ years, James worked for Conrail, the Southern Pacific, the Union Pacific, and Montana Rail Link [MRL]. His positions included locomotive electrician, signalman, train dispatcher, and lastly—before a 1997 spinal cord injury ended his rail career—James served as Interim Assistant Transportation Manager for MRL’s Midwest acquisition, the I&M RR, which linked rail traffic in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri.

 

When Worldviews Collide at 12,000 feet

For 3,200 years, since the Fall of Troy, the name Cassandra has stood for common sense thwarted by willful denial. What if she lived today and again battled her ancient bane…not to save Troy from invading Greeks but rather her species from itself and her planet from her species?

In the audio excerpts that follow [from cli fi urban fantasy “The Sibyl Reborn”] Cassandra and her younger sister both speak English, but neither grasps the other’s language.

Siblings on a Collision Course

When Worldviews Collide at 12,000 Feet The Sibyl Reborn

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Twice a surrogate “pro-cures” spokesperson for the White House re stem cells, J. Perry Kelly ended his association with worldview groups and their political allies over their blatant distortion of global warming. Having witnessed the psychology of social control firsthand, he spent four years crafting “The Sibyl Reborn,” a cli-fi psychological thriller that unearths the forgotten roots of Man’s ancient curse.   

Scientists Discover Extinction Trait

Recently, I was privileged to join Radio Ecoshock host Alex Smith to discuss my reasons for wrapping the entangled plots of “The Sibyl Reborn,” my cli fi psychological thriller, around a single aspect of human psychology, which scientists at Emory University claim is “universal” regardless of I.Q., profession, or worldview beliefs. As a former surrogate stem cells spokesperson for the GW Bush White House, I watched in helpless frustration as others [including my former social allies] used this aspect of our psyches to confuse, divide, and control the public to entrench our medical status quo—possibly for decades. Today, it’s steering the courses of so called ‘debates’ concerning climate change and global warming. Through them, it may be dooming the futures of Man and Earth. This aspect of our nature concerns how our brains respond when confronted with realities that conflict with our egos, ambitions, convenience, or beliefs. Researchers at Emory describe this phenomena thus: (1)

“We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during [objective] reasoning,” said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology. “What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts.

“Essentially, it appears as if [test subjects] twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.

“The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified,” said Westen, “and the person can learn very little from new data. Everyone from executives and judges to scientists and politicians may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret ‘the facts’.”

In “The Sibyl Reborn,” I call this phenomena “The Taint” and portray it as the cause of Man’s quarantine on Earth by its parent race. Think of it. In the depths of time on a far-off world…a humanoid species whose most powerful industries profit through plundering its finite natural resources or polluting its air, water, and soil…and this species had a “universal” tendency to believe what it wanted to believe—to ignore, deny, or distort its reality regardless of facts. Consider this scenario as affecting an alien culture long ago on a distant planet; their subsequent extinction seems understandable, inevitable, and possibly just. Apply it to here, now, and us?

Nah! That’s crazy! Couldn’t happen!

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Twice a surrogate ‘stem cells’ spokesperson for the GW Bush White House, J. Perry Kelly ended his association with the political right over its distortion of global warming. Having witness the psychology of social control firsthand, he spent four years crafting “The Sibyl Reborn,” a cli-fi psychological thriller.        

Colorado Flooding, Fukushima, Psychology & Climate Change

Because my recent interview with host Chris Geo [on “Truth Frequency Radio”] touched on a variety of subjects, including the recent flooding in Colorado, the precarious crisis at Fukushima, and worldview division as a tool for social control, I’ve posted the following to provide listeners with reasons for my concerns:

where: Truth Frequency Radio with host Chris Geo,

when: 6pm EST., 9/22/13

Flooding in Colorado

• http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/opinion/10250/inside-colorado-deluge
• http://www.texassharon.com/2013/09/15/is-there-a-media-blackout-on-the-fracking-flood-disaster-in-colorado/?fb_action_ids=620871041267356&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

Meltdown in Fukushima

• http://abcnews.go.com/International/japans-nuclear-migraine-ending-disaster-fukushima/story?id=20226885&singlePage=true
• http://www.bobtuskin.com/2013/09/15/fukushima-update-radchick-tuskin-9-9-2013/

The Psychology of Bias as a Powerful Tool for Social Control

• http://psychsystems.net/Publications/2006/1.%20neural%20basis%20of%20motivated%20reasoning_Westen_jrnl%20of%20cog%20neuro%202006.pdf
• http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11009379/#.UjImOMYSVGE
• http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Ourselves-Psychology-Experiments-ebook/dp/B00AMTLIV4

The Sibyl Reborn

New cover (by cover-artist Amber Shah) for “The Sibyl Reborn.”