It’s interesting to see how a new type of addiction develops. And how it evolves. Pinball machines were a physical prelude to the current online multi-billion dollar gaming business, which is played by approximately two-thirds of American people. It’s noteworthy to observe that among gamers, some display symptoms that are typically associated with addictive behavior.
Divide to conquer
The widespread use of computers and handheld devices prompted a major shift in people’s allocation of time to rely on the World Wide Web to conduct their personal and business activities. A swift change of behavior that is unprecedented in human history. A move that favors online dependence on an all-knowing, otherworldly source of interaction and influence. A transformation that is having an inconspicuous impact on the behavior of a captive audience.
Compulsive browsing makes individuals literally turn their backs on their physical environment. To ignore a world that is essential to human spiritual, emotional and economic well-being. An isolation that is a common trait among addicts suffering from drug abuse, alcoholism, sex addiction, money fixation/greed and compulsive gambling.
A Big Tech online dependency exposes a more pervasive and insidious condition among people who are hooked on the world-wide spying/spider web. A system that puts profits ahead of people by confining them into their sphere of influence: By spying on consumers’ buying habits to direct purchases and with data collection on searches to sway political action.
There is no consensus among mental health professionals that online video game fixation is an “impulsive control disorder” similar to other known addictions. Yet, online dependence displays similar symptoms like; fear, aloofness, loneliness, anxiety, depression, identity confusion and an individual’s alienation from their social environment. Users with these symptoms are trapped in a global containment, captive of an invisible sphere of influence.
Whereas global, from the word globe, implies a self-contained sphere with a well defined border. A globe embraces the totality of items within the confines of its circle. Hence, it is totalitarian by design. A globe is oblivious to reality that lies outside its perimeters. It separates and shields a monopolistic doctrine from the outer world/reality of an ever-expansive universe.
The more pernicious symptom of online confinement is the separation of individuals from their human physical environment, mostly family, friends, local associations and the grassroots economy. A cult-like power “that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action” that promotes a global corporate doctrine over the economy, culture and politics.
This fact merely underlines the point that “the medium is the message” because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. Marshall McLuhan
The Internet and the WWW have transcended traditional forms of communication. The web has ushered innovations and economic benefits unparalleled in human history. Unfortunately, Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as a universal tool for good has been altered by greedy billionaire who are intoxicated by the power of the world-wide spying/spider web has over the globe.
The Internet still has valuable qualities for all of us if we take the necessary precautions to protect ourselves from predatory indoctrination and control. Some steps should be taken to preserve our personal freedom, destiny and humanity.
Restore your privacy
Bypass the spying/spider web with email activism
Use a browser like Brave
Support your local grassroots economy, local small businesses and restaurants
Support independent journalism and podcasts
Use an open-source operating system for your personal use like Ubuntu, or Tails
Use privacy friendly email account like Protonmail.com
Support your local church, temple, mosque or synagogue or any other spiritual community:
Love your neighbor like yourself
If our politicians were really serious about controlling violence they should ask the movie industry to curb a gratuitous amount of killing in movies and videos that show an obscene disregard for the sacredness of human life.
And corporate media should focus their reporting on the tragic human casualties of war instead of promoting an unlimited supply of weapons that are responsible for the death of unimaginable number of soldiers and innocent civilians. A human tragedy that remains buried from public view. Human lives that are sacrificed at the altar of conquest and profits for global corporations.
The motto ‘In God We Trust’, does not relate to any specific religious denomination, but conveys ideals of a civil order linked to varied symbols on the US dollar. The implicit ‘Trust’ is about the economy that involves all citizens.
These dollars we routinely exchange everyday reflect an intrinsic confidence in the economy. Terms like ‘Annuit Coeptis’ stands as a covenant of ‘Trust’ of the people in the government and its institutions relying on Providence’s ongoing guidance in America’s undertakings.
Agnostics and atheists may find the idea of an American civil religion, or any mention of religion or deity, objectionable. The reason may be that the term religion has been associated with Christianity throughout the centuries. As described, the motto does not represent the God of the Bible. The deity on the dollar alludes to a political union and an economic reality, an attribute that reflects an invisible yet omnipresent dynamic that is hard to express in words except allegorically.
Whereas for Christian fundamentalists the description of a deity related to civil religion is likely to be considered heretical, even though the term ‘religion’ relates to a civic order and has a pagan origin. The sayings ‘give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God’ and ‘in the world but not of the world’ are appropriate considerations to be added here, in the sense that an individual’s faith is not altered by being involved in the economy. It might also be inferred that there is no violation of the separation of church and state since civil religion does not constitute a church.
In a cultural environment where anything goes, the use of words like religion or religious may inspire feeling of uneasiness. The reason might be that a great number of people believe that we live in a predominantly secular culture emancipated from any moral constraints or guidelines. This type of mindset promotes the perception that to submit to an ethical standard would infringe on an individual’s civil liberties. This uneasiness with civility and religion is oblivious to the fact that our contemporary world is dominated by celebrity cults that are partisan, sectarian, and divisive in scope.
At this point, some clarifications on the meaning of civil religion, and more specifically religion would be helpful.
Religion comes from the Roman religio. It relates to the proper rituals and ceremonies dedicated to the gods performed by mortals in order to maintain the beneficial order and prosperity of the citizens of Rome. Religion can be defined as that which removes or separates things and animals from the common use and transfers them to a special sphere through a meticulous execution of rituals and sacrifice. There is no religion without this separation.
Another well-known Roman concept that is closely related to religio is sacer, translated into sacred. Religio and sacer do not refer to a union between mortals and the gods, but to what ensures that they remain distinct. When a commander performs an act of devotio (devotion) in order to secure a military victory, he consecrates and devotes his life to the gods. By doing so, he belongs exclusively to them…
In practice, religio is foremost civic, and implicitly political. It reflects the power of the gods being the eternal representatives of power, order, continuity, and hierarchy embodied by the mortal rulers of Rome.
As a side note, the word ‘religion’ is not used in the Old Testament, and the few times the word appears, it relates to foreign belief systems considered heathen or pagan. It does not show up in the synoptic Gospels. The word is only used in later epistles influenced by the predominant Roman culture. What the Bible reveals is faith in the presence of the Almighty who communicates with individuals whom he sets apart to instruct, to lead, to prophesize, and govern God’s chosen people, making sure they abide with the covenant he made with them and the commandments he gave them.
The term civil religion comes from the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract.” Robert N. Bellah applied the title to the American political arena to outline the religious content of the inaugural speeches delivered by American presidents.
The idea of an American civil religion first came to Bellah’s attention with John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address on January 20, 1961. He noticed that his address was full of religious references to God and the nation, described in a very idyllic form. He also noticed that most of the past presidents’ inaugural speeches had the same type of references: a call for devotion to the nation described in its ideal form, where divine Providence plays a guiding role in shaping the destiny of the United States of America.
Except for the references that allude directly to a biblical God, Bellah observes that the content of most speeches do not advocate any particular religious creed. There is no specific mention of Jesus Christ, Yahweh, or Allah, since the purpose of the discourse is to form a consensus and represent the multicultural aspect of the society to which they are addressed.
Yet, Bellah notes that among the first presidents, many also use references to the Bible. Especially to suggest a connection between the New World and Israel, the Exodus, the Chosen People, the promised land, and the New Jerusalem. These analogies, in the context of a predominantly Christian background of the first presidents, were inevitable.
Although Bellah acknowledges the connections with Judeo-Christian tenets, he carefully dispels any suggestions that American civil religion has any Christian doctrinal content, or is a substitute for Christianity. He contends that civil religion has a different role than an institutional belief system, since it is specifically political. As such, it appeals to all of the people with their differing backgrounds. To Bellah, American civil religion is an understanding of the American experience in terms of a “transcendent ethical vision.” This interpretation of the universal and transcendental is only meaningful if made in relation to the origin and destiny of the US political model of freedom and democracy. Bellah further points out that the God of civil religion is a God of order and freedom rather than of love and forgiveness. It is a God mostly concerned with the history and destiny of the United States. American Civil Religion is civic. Its discourse is civil and eschews partisanship.
Civil religion has its holidays. Thanksgiving is a good example of a yearly ritual that has been celebrated throughout history by the American people to give thanks for a harvest of food shared with family and friends, and therefore a celebration that implicitly symbolizes the benefits provided by the economy. The celebration of the 4th of July is another important example…
The dollar displays symbols that convey cultural references from different sources. None of the symbols is singled out as more important than the other. They all contribute to a graphic makeup of the dollar. The most obvious disclosure of religion on the dollar is the word ‘God’ in the motto In God We Trust. As stated, this reference does not relate to any specific religion except for its monotheistic influence. However, the monotheism of the motto is not concerned with salvation, but with confidence in the role of money to act as a lubricant of the economy.
‘We’ is a reference to the people of the United States of America. It is an implicit acknowledgment to the Preamble of the Constitution: We the People. ‘We’ is an abstract notion of plurality that suggests an underlying union defined as a mystical body; a dynamic interaction between ‘We,’ ‘Trust,’ and ‘God.’ These principles are intangible concepts that exist in essence even though they cannot be perceived by the senses. The ‘Trust in God’ does not relate to any specific religion but conveys ideals of a civil religious order outlined by the symbols on the dollar as a medium of exchange.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The motto embodies a mystical union of three separate principles: ‘We,’ ‘God,’ and ‘Trust.’ These notions displayed on the dollar are explicitly related to each other as the symbolic representation of the US economy.
I once was a dancer, I was young once like you
Though I know I don’t like it, jumped high as the sky
Had fire in my eyes and legs like a stallion
And I had a girl and I loved her
My best friend was her brother
We were on top of the mountain that summer
Thought we’d never be swallowed by the cracks
Fallen so far down
Like the rest of those clowns begging bus fare back
Swallowed by the cracks
Our pride worn down talking times gone by
Like everybody else swallowed by the cracks
We would never be swallowed by the cracks
We would talk through the night about what we would do
If we just could get started, I would choreograph
Eileen she would act while Steve was a writer
Then Stevie ran away and get bored
Eileen took a job in a store
Me, I became this drunken old whore
‘Cause you see we’d be swallowed by the cracks
Fallen so far down
Like the rest of those clowns begging bus fare back
Swallowed by the cracks our pride worn down
Talking times gone by like everybody else
Swallowed by the cracks, swallowed by the cracks
You see we’d be swallowed by the cracks
Maybe it ain’t over I can see it’s up to me
You only out when you stay out you stay out when you don’t
Believe we could drive around in circles getting nowhere
All night long getting drunk with strangers telling lies
And singing along with the jukebox baby
Swallowed by the cracks
A message from Dr. Robert Epstein, American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT)
Hi, Everyone,
Thanks to the expert efforts and hard work of our dedicated team of recruiters, I’m happy to report that we are have successfully been adding between 30 and 60 people a day to our nationwide panel of field agents – a politically-balanced group of registered voters – who are helping us monitor the content that Big Tech companies are sending to people in the US.
These are real American heroes, in my view. We’re now preserving Big Tech ephemeral content through their computers 24 hours a day, and yes, we’re finding strong evidence of bias, censorship, and indoctrination. We have so far recruited 11,152 field agents in all 50 states, and we preserved more than 38 million ephemeral experiences – content that is used to manipulate us and our children and that is normally lost forever.
And we’ve hit a new milestone! We have now reached our minimum goals for having representative samples of voters in 10 states, with an 11th coming soon! By having representative samples of registered voters in all 50 states, our data will be admissible as evidence in court proceedings, and our “Digital Shield” will make Google-and-the-Gang accountable to the public for the first time! And it’s about time!
Again, my sincere thanks to our dedicated staff, as well as to you, our followers and supporters for believing in our work. Without the monitoring we do and the basic research we conduct, Google-and-the-Gang would be able to continue their manipulations in complete secrecy, undermining the integrity of our elections and indoctrinating our precious children without anyone having a clue about what they’re doing.
Debbie W., Richmond, CA
Extremely Interesting Read. Deeply researched account of the symbols om the US dollar.
I’ve always been curious about the symbols on the one dollar bill and the little book explains them well. Highly recommend this read.
Peter O., Santa Fe, NM
Good and entertaining… This book is full of historical facts about the symbols on the dollar. You won’t be bored reading it. The author keeps delivering relevant info till the end. And once you’re done reading the book, you’ll never look at the dollar the same way again.
L. K. M., Seattle, WA
Great read! Extremely well researched writing of the history, symbols and makeup of the US currency.
After reading the book you will love the tender you exchange everyday. Highly recommend.
R. S., Santa Monica, CA
Well researched book on the symbols of our currency. Very interesting and revealing aspects behind the history of our currency.
Joanne A., Novato, CA
Everything you ever wanted to know about the one dollar bill. This book explains all the symbols on the one dollar. Who knew it was so detailed? Very interesting!
M.J.B., San Diego, CA
Great Read! Well researched, packed with interesting facts about the US dollar. Quick read.
Highly recommend.
Carl L., San Francisco, CA
If you’re curious as to how the symbols found on the US dollar came to be, look no further than
Michael Rizzotti’s well researched book. In addition to providing the reader with the history and context, the author expands on related subjects such as the Federal Reserve and the dollar’ s evolution to becoming the reserve currency of the world. All in all, a good, well written read.
Ricky I., Palm Desert, CA
Interesting and Detailed. A unique and well researched explanation and interpretation of the symbols we have all seen on ou US dollar. Mr. Rizzotti vividly introduces us to the history of the symbols; and quite interesting interpretations on how and or why these symbols were included on the dollar.
