Vanity And Vexation Of Spirit

And in between reading the headline news of the day, each one more horrifying than the next as in the age of Kali Yuga, well not all of them, somehow those verses and chapters from Ecclesiastes, some kind of words of wisdom from that great book The Bible came to mind, so much that I thought to post them on this blog in my religious fanaticism. And it seems to have something to with vanity, labor and toiling under the sun, for what? To leave ones labor, the fruits of ones labour to someone else? Or something like that. All is vanity and vexation of the spirit. Have a great Bible and more day in bloggerland.

Ecclesiastes 1

King James Version (KJV)

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

² Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
³ What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
⁴ One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
⁵ The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
⁶ The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
⁷ All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
⁸ All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
⁹ The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
¹⁰ Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
¹¹ There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
¹² I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
¹³ And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.
¹⁴ I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
¹⁵ That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
¹⁶ I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
¹⁷ And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
¹⁸ For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

Ecclesiastes 2

King James Version (KJV)

2 I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity.

² I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?
³ I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life.
⁴ I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards:
⁵ I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits:
⁶ I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees:
⁷ I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me:
⁸ I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts.
⁹ So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.
¹⁰ And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour.
¹¹ Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
¹² And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done.
¹³ Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness.
¹⁴ The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all.
¹⁵ Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity.
¹⁶ For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.
¹⁷ Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
¹⁸ Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
¹⁹ And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.
²⁰ Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun.
²¹ For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil.
²² For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?
²³ For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.
²⁴ There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.
²⁵ For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, more than I?
²⁶ For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Ecclesiastes 4

King James Version (KJV)

⁸ There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail.
⁹ Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.
¹⁰ For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.

Ecclesiastes 5

King James Version (KJV)

 ¹⁵ As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.
¹⁶ And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?
¹⁷ All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.
¹⁸ Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.
¹⁹ Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.
²⁰ For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart. 

Ecclesiastes 6

King James Version (KJV)

¹² For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun? 

Ecclesiastes 7

King James Version (KJV)

 ¹⁵ All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. 

Ecclesiastes 8

King James Version (KJV)

 ¹⁵ Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 9

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁰ Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
¹¹ I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Ecclesiastes 12

King James Version (KJV)

12 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

² While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:
³ In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,
⁴ And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;
⁵ Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:
⁶ Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
⁷ Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
⁸ Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.
⁹ And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.
¹⁰ The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.
¹¹ The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.
¹² And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
¹³ Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
¹⁴ For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. 

A WBAI Death Watch

Hey again bloggers or whoever could be reading this blagh. And I have been following the story of this WBAI headline that has made the light of day in the headline news the past few days with a WBAI, Pacifica Radio in New York City, Lays Off News Department, and Most On-Air Talent Village Voice article facebook post that led me to reading even more facebook pages such as Pissed - Off WBAI Workers, Save Kpfa, and Pacifica Foundation Radio and then to even listen to WBAI on the radio for what's the latest news drama. And if I must blagher say, the guy who wrote this The Excruciating Demise of WBAI article has said everything that I would have wanted to say and could not say in my wbai commentary as I have been following this story since it came to light. And if I must blogger say again, this guy seems to have summed up the latest WBAI radio drama up so well that I thought to repost his article on this blog in it's entirety as follows, because hey, it's less writing sometimes, I think. And what if anything does this have to do with a No Police State.

The Excruciating Demise of WBAI

By Doug Henwood

On August 9, WBAI, the listener-supported radio station, announced that it was laying off most of its paid staff. The only surprise in the announcement was that it took so long.

WBAI, one of five stations in the national Pacifica network, has been failing for years. Some of its problems are the familiar ones of “legacy” media, to use that annoying but fashionable term. But most of its problems were home grown. The programming was mostly unlistenable. Hosts who couldn’t talk very well yammered on about material they didn’t understand. Interviewers knew nothing about their interviewees. Health nuts flogged miracle cures and conspiracists spun elaborate theories. I recall turning on the morning drive time show and listening for 20 minutes to someone the host never identified—and, in all that time, I never got an idea of what the interview was supposed to be about.


It wasn’t always like this. I grew up listening to WBAI as a teenager in the late 1960s. Stranded in the desert of suburban New Jersey, it was thrilling to discover all the rich radical culture and politics happening just 20 miles from where I languished. But it wasn’t just a hippie outpost. There was plenty of high culture—radio plays, classical music festivals—mixed in with live coverage of the 1968 Paris riots and the explosion of Stonewall-era gay politics.

Starting in the 1970s, conflicts grew over the largely white, male, and “elitist” programming, conflicts that became so intense that the station went off the air for a month in 1976. But the station survived, and remained a fixture of the New York countercultural scene. (It makes a cameo appearance in Dean Friedman’s 1977 top 40 hit, “Ariel.”) Its complexion changed dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s, a transformation capped by the appointment of Samori Marksman, a sophisticated and charismatic Caribbean Marxist, as program director in 1994. Marksman had been a producer at the station since the late 1970s, and gave me my first radio break in 1987, interviewing me on his show right after the great stock market crash. He then promoted me to doing regular commentaries on his show, and then in 1995, gave me a weekly show of my own.

But when Marksman died suddenly in 1999, there was no one of any stature to succeed him. There began a decade of civil war within WBAI, with faction fighting faction. Charges of “racism” were lobbed constantly. A succession of managerial mediocrities drove the station into the ground. Excruciating stupidity was embraced in the name of populist programming. For several years in the mid-2000s, the station was run by a cabal of black nationalists of an antique and alienating sort. They were forced out by Pacifica central, only to be replaced by an even less distinguished (though not black nationalist) set of sub-mediocrities.

Through all this internal turmoil and on-air rot, the audience predictably dwindled to the point of becoming nearly immeasurable by the Arbitron surveys. Once a major presence in New York City politics and culture, it became utterly irrelevant. It didn’t even earn a mention in the NYPD’s intelligence files around the 2004 Republican convention, and it was irrelevant to Occupy Wall Street, which occurred blocks from its headquarters.

And since the station gets most of its income from listener contributions, cash flow shriveled. Fundraising marathons, which once took up a week or two every quarter, were lengthened, and featured ever-crazier premiums: 9/11 conspiracy videos, of course, but also things like DNA water, whatever that is. The remaining sane and solvent listeners turned away, making for longer, crazier fundraisers. Staff morale plummeted with all the infighting, crises, and endless fundraising, which eventually took up a third of every year.

I’d somehow managed to survive all the internal hostilities until 2010. I’d teased the interim program director—a fellow named Tony Bates, with no discernible talent other than promoting dubious conspiracy and quackery fundraising premiums on air—about “hawking merchandise,” and it annoyed him so much that he squeezed me out. Fortunately, Pacifica’s Berkeley flagship station, KPFA, had been picking up my show, and I continued doing it for them. I really like doing radio, and it was a relief to be delivered from all the madness that characterized WBAI during its decade-long death spiral.

From a distance, I continued to watch as the station approached the terminal phase. WBAI fell seriously behind on studio and transmitter rents, and earlier this year payroll checks started bouncing. Its studios—oddly located on Wall Street—were hammered by Sandy, which was close to a death blow. Driven out of its home, it’s been essentially couch surfing since.

Pacifica management had no choice but to move in and fire much of the paid staff, which was costing it $25,000 a week that the station didn’t have. The network has appointed Andrew Philips as interim program director at WBAI. Mr. Philips is a refugee from KPFA, where he was interim program director (there are a lot of “interim” managers at Pacifica, because the hiring process is so fraught with controversy), but was suspended for some alleged misconduct about which no one, including Mr. Phillips, has been fully informed, though it’s thought to involve charges of “racism.”

Mr. Philips, a lively and sharp-tongued Australian who was program director at WBAI from 1989 to 1994, has the unenviable task of trying to revive a near-corpse with almost no staff and an empty bank account. He figures he has six weeks to come up with a strategy. A generous beneficiary has offered studio and office space in Brooklyn, but it’s going to take money to build out the new digs.

For now, Mr. Phillips is importing programming from Pacifica’s California stations, most of it far better than anything that WBAI has managed to produce in more than 20 years. (Disclosure: he wants to bring my program back on the air.) Mr. Phillips ambitiously wants to go up against Don Imus and NPR and create vivid, listenable programming instead of the dismal fare the station had been serving. If he’s right, the station might survive. If not, well, the license could be sold for a lot of money. By a historical quirk, WBAI is on a commercial frequency, 99.5, rather than one of the noncommercial ones at the low end of the dial. That means that WBAI is worth more dead than alive, at least in monetary terms. God only knows what Pacifica would do with scores of millions of dollars, though.

Doug Henwood is the editor of Left Business Observer, a newsletter on economics and politics he founded in 1986, and host of “Behind the News,” a weekly radio show broadcast on KPFA, Berkeley. He is the author of Wall Street (Verso, 1997) and After the New Economy (New Press, 2004). He lives in Brooklyn.

Damn... It ain't 2012 yet!

And so here goes another one of those posts that was posted on this blog sometime a while ago in an attempt to maintain content for this blog and my other bog whenever blaghers block possible.

Damn... It ain't 2012 yet!

They tried to sell me out the day I was born… injecting me with disease thru vaccination…

Yet I survive.

They tried to mentally beat me into submission, telling me that asking questions was a bad behavior… prescribing Ritalin, holding back grades…

Yet I am stronger through the education of life after conquering their system

They tried to suppress my individuality, condemn my sexuality, sell my self-image to me as a damaged fallacy…

Yet I love me more the more I get to know.

They tried to bar me from my brothers… teaching us to kill each other not only with guns and violence- but indifference and resentment, hatred and lust.

Yet, I love them more than ever with every atrocity and victory- because I understand.

They tried to blame my people for our current state, knowing that the corruption of this system is the real issue…

Yet, I still admire the resilience of a spirit in the smile of Harlem, Tuskegee, Atlanta, Africa that just won’t die…

They tried to teach me to fear and hate white people…

They tried to mask the Latino community as inferior…

They tried to de-sexualize Asians…

They tried to paint Indians as nerdy and un-cool…

They tried to paint Middle Easterns as terrorist…

They tried to de-humanize African’s as impoverished ignoramuses

They tried to say that African American’s were no good.

Yet when I look at the various array of beautiful friends and lovers that I embrace from ALL of these cultures, none of these stigmas reign true.

They tried to kill is with Polio, then poison us with cancer thru its vaccine

They killed over 150 black men with Syphilis, experimenting its affects 40 years after a “cure” was found

They are taking new born babies not even 12 hours old and administering “vaccine” shots to them with drugs that the FDA has tried to ban from animal vaccines…coincidentally autism in new borns is skyrocketing.

They are producing a new influenza virus every year, then selling shots to us

They are releasing air borne germs thru pollution

They are poisoning our foods with hormones

They are lacing our vitamins with drugs

They are taking our troops and using them as human guinea pigs- shooting them up with inoculations of drugs with unknown side affects; holding them up in VA hospitals using them as human experiments for their sick, graduated 6^th grade science project agendas…

They injected gay men in NYC and San Francisco as well as black people in Africa with a Hepatitis B “vaccine” in the late 70’s that killed the same monkeys that they tested it on who supposedly started the spread of “AIDS” in NYC, San Francisco, and Africa in the mid 80’s.

There is nothing new under the sun

History only repeats itself

There is no issue without resolve… There is no disease without cure as sure as there is gravity.

There is man made law…

There is chemical war fare

This AIDS is a lie

This HIV is a lie

There is no virus… there is propaganda and fear.

There are people too emotional to look at logic with common sense and see the truth.

There are people willing themselves to die because they BELIVE they are going to die, thus giving up on life.

There is masonry and illuminati, and all types of other crazy shit.

There are gangsters… the real ones wearing lab coats and goggles, three piece business suits swearing “Justice For All” while standing on certain peoples shoulders… Piggy back riding injustice all the way to the bank…

Swearing “Justice For All” on The Bible, promoting perjury while condemning dishonesty when that is what this whole system is built on.

The greed of man is amazing… The lust for these worldly possessions profuse.

Don’t they know that none of it means anything?

There are misunderstandings

There is mind manipulation.

There is evil… so much of it that I sometimes feel overwhelmed.

Yet, I do not despair…

Not when I see you smile.

Not when I see you laugh.

Not when I see you loving each other.

Not when I see you sharing.

I will not despair…

Because any force dumb enough to think it can con the God in us is a fool so supreme that the joke is already on them.

The wicked is laughable… They have no power.

Don’t they know we are unbreakable?

Don’t they know that we will not be used for their agenda?

Don’t they know that it is time to get it together?

When there is Haiti and Chile, 911, and Katrina- not even within a full decade span of each other?

It has arrived…

It is already unraveling… and the information is too easy to access.

They monitor text and facebook messages, listen to our cell phone calls… They know your ip address, look out for key words, trace everything you google, have copies of all of your emails… Mapquest registers your whereabouts, hopstop traces your steps… Bank account and credit transactions from online ordered services logged and reported… not to mention that we already post our inner most thoughts and feelings all over social networking sites.

Your whole life is LITERALLY in the palm of your hand via Blackberry and Iphone from which you obtained off of your social security number… Hope you don’t lose it…  

There is no more mystery… no privacy.

Yet it means nothing because we’re all talking about the same things.

Yet it means nothing because it’s still relative… viral technology works both ways. We can be monitored, yet…

Internet fucked up your crooked music and entertainment industry

Your television is becoming obsolete, your movies are hawked for free…

Your agendas are being ignored… independence is being born due to the lack of control that can be implemented…

We can’t all be controlled… and we are no longer oppressed by LACK OF EDUCATION

Networks share information… and people are making love without shame or fear, experimenting with the highs of life on their own will, people are eating better, people are not ashamed to be weird, gay, artistic, confused…

People okay with not being okay…

Not looking for the answers in…

You.

We don’t need your cures.

People are okay with being… PEOPLE.

Don’t they know it has arrived?

When we ALL know that our votes don’t count…

When we all know that there is no iron fist, there are no records…

Just fear in the injustice of man…

Don’t they know that it isn’t real?

Do you know that it isn’t real?

The only real thing is love.

Do what you want and love as hard as you can, and please READ AND EDUCATE YOURSELVES… this life is too short and the world as we know it is ending.

b.