Beyond Politics or Religion

I am told when taking the MBTI test, that I am INFJ. As such I tend to be intuitive, introverted, idealist, and future minded. There are many versions of the test found online, but few stray from the boundaries established by the creators of the exam. I mention this to offer an idea of what kind of person I am. I don't live thinking, oh, since I am an INFJ I better do or not do this this. It simply offers a way to add context to all of my instincts and thought.

I have been sent numerous questions over the bare week at best of sharing this blog with others. My outlook here is to be open and perhaps help others enjoy what I write elsewhere by knowing me. So, here are a few of my answers to questions.

"When relaxing, what adult beverage and snack do you most enjoy and do you smoke? After all I saw you in a photo smoking a big one."

I have smoked cigars in the past. That might be true, but I never smoke a ton of them. I found I enjoyed the experience but I am also aware that my health is not so great that I am immune from side effects and direct effects from non-serious behaviors. As such, I am not having more of them. I have enjoyed Stoli on the rocks, Irish Whiskey, and Grainbelt Premium Beer. As I'm dealing with substantial health issues, the meds I take might interact with alcohol. I will never be dead from personal use of meds interaction. I can't say the physicians will always be in agreement on what I take. There might perhaps be an accident, knowing that people I once knew died of med interactions.

 "Why do you live in Minnesota if you hate cold weather and snow?"

My reason for loving Minnesota comes down to the populace, ideals, beauty and hope. For a place with such cold, to live here, I think the people are warm, bright and overall kind and creative. I don't really have a thyroid that works, so it might feel colder to me than others.

"Who would you vote for in 2028? And please be serious..." 

Winona LaDuke, Tulsi Gabbard, Jon Fetterman, Jesse Ventura, a reanimated Ross Perot. And those are serious choices, if I were to vote in 2028. I doubt I'll vote. I mentioned them in an article about 8 years ago too, and my views have not changed. (All but Fetterman who wasn't yet in national levels of government.)

"Do you see more war in the future?"

I believe that humans are violent. War is easier than hammering out problems and diplomacy. People who analyze international relations and Asia, all know that the Chinese playbook had aimed 2027 as the year they would retake Taiwan. However, both Trump telling allied nations, whether in NATO or SEATO that they need to take more responsibility for their own defense. When Biden and Pelosi changed American foreign policy by saying we would stand shoulder to shoulder defending Taiwan, it changed so much. It not only changed previous foreign policy plans, it reconfirmed to Taiwan uppermost, followed swiftly by South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines that a united front would isolate and stall offensive plans in China to act in aggression towards Taiwan, and had a chance to succeed.

"Why did America, if not you, vote for Trump?"

Americans are often said to envy wealth. Trump voters want wealth as well as wanting to abandon the social programs of the past, that they don't see as fair. But those who voted against Trump probably also envy wealth. Wealth can be a positive or negative as a driving force.

I know a man who was Democrat his entire life but voted twice for Trump. He told me how he had stopped seeing America as focusing on liberty and hope, and instead it was anti wealth now. For him, he thought it was America becoming like Europe, who he once respected, (he'd served in Europe to defend NATO against the Soviet threat) but now sees as a mix of people who wouldn't defend themselves, as well as anti capitalist. Or in other words, he said, why pay to send troops to a place with tons of money to defend people who wouldn't pick up a weapon and defend their own?

"Who are your favorite "fine" or "non-genre" artists?"

This is not a fair question. But I'll try. Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack and John William Waterhouse. But I've hundreds of fine artists I appreciate.

"Is it hard to review products when you've done it for 25 years? With nothing new under the sun, do you end up yawning and write to please the readers or is it heartfelt?" 

I never lie in a review, but that is a harder comment to explain because at the peak of publisher and creator awareness of me, there used to be so many good products and I had only so many pages I could write a week. I eventually decided to only focus on lifting others, rather than criticize everything. For one thing, I could never do better than 99% of them all, and it was insulting, in my mind, to act as if I knew better than another person's viewpoint being expressed in art.

"You are nucking futs to think Ezra Pound or Yukio Mishima were anything but assholes and fascists!"

Feel whatever you like about them, I've read too many of their works to feel as you just expressed. And it isn't that I forgive all the bad choices, dark beliefs, I just about never, however, cancel others. 

Ideas about what shape my outlook

I vote how I vote due to experiences in my life, wisdom or knowledge I've acquired, and beliefs that have framed my choices. Someone said a socially liberal but fiscal conservative person ends up de facto conservative. And that a social conservative is rarely a fiscal liberal, since they won't fund things they feel are wrong. As such, I'd argue that I am a centrist, as I don't impose my outlook on others, and that I am libertarian with a very small letter L to start, as being a centrist means there is no party that represents my outlook. I get people who demand to know my voting history, since I turned 18 in 1982 I've voted for approximately the same number of Democrats and Republicans. But for US President, slightly more Democrats than Republicans, and more 3rd party than either of the main parties. 

My views just don't easily find a home in parties. Frankly I am moving towards only voting for local and state elections, as my disappointment in the major national choices leads me to want a system with more choices due to the limits of all or nothing two party choices. As a person with political science degrees some feel I must have deeper outlooks to voting. I might, but not for my degrees. I focused upon international relations, and was as bored as I was angry about the American political system.

Choices are often argued as being held by the individual, but I've not chosen my own existence. I was born as a result of rape. My mother didn't get a choice. But how many people get to choose existence? How many humans are a result of purpose? The point I am making, is that there are arguments about why we exist. Are we a miracle? Are we an accident? Does our life reflect miracle or train wreck? 

Who am I? In a course of study some of the class argued that a baby became human only after being wanted and born in healthy form. I was not by purpose. One of the students said, I don't even think adoption makes people into being human. The birth mother needs to have decided to have a child, however they were conceived? I said I am a child of rape, so you are arguing that I am not human? She immediately turned beet red, and said, I am saying you don't get to choose the label of what you are. A number of other students in the course started calling her names. I said stop that. We all have an ability to communicate freely, we are in America, freedom of speech should run through our veins. Do I believe in abortion as a right? I don't think society can forbid things that are moral choices, or they turn the concept into an act of rebellion against the rule makers. By leaving it as an individual choice, whether it is moral or not, is found in the heart of those who chose that act. 

It occurred to me, in the period following 2020 that people of one view were not allowed freedom of speech. Someone said, my body my choice, and someone else said, in all areas except vaccine mandates. I am not a scientist, so I can't define the concept of herd immunity. As a confirmed non conformist *my wife certifies this statement* I did still get the vaccine. However, it wasn't an act of obedience nor obeisance. I was of the mind, based upon all the doctors I was seeing, that I'd not get my necessary surgery if I had not received the vaccine. My G/P doctor confirmed this. I had had a broken neck since a traumatic fall in February 2019. I walked around with an uncorrected neck break, was in a near fatal car accident, and by virtue of having no correction, by the time I had life saving neck surgery, I had two shoulders that were messed up. I had to get one surgery at least, or my neck surgery wouldn't have mattered much. I had shoulder surgery, but only post vaccine. 

I am not saying anything about the vaccine itself. Nor even am I considering policy. I don't really know what herd immunity truly is. If it is a goal, they ought to have explained it better. The way it was forced upon people was I think was a mistake. Forcing conformity is tyranny without the best explanation. I did have to get my surgery, so there was no choice for me. I could have avoided making the choice, but the pain then was worse than now, and I would have lost my mind in the meantime. Maybe I didn't have a choice, or I made a compromise between my own body sovereignty and the suffering of pain.

I do think we are all upon a journey to find the truth. Some have lower standards of success. But I know, it isn't an easy thing to find the greater truth. We might all have opinions, and experiences, but regardless of that, not all ideas are equal. Not all choices are good ones.

Image by Jeffrey Catherine Jones©

How to Escape the System

Howdy, I am Alex Ness. Technically I think it is B. Alexander Ness since I've gone by Alex since marriage around 1988. My wife gave me the courage, since, over the years I had despised my first name, didn't identify with it, and people mocked it, I chose Alex since my grandfather was Alexander Hamiliton Wells. I was named for him. 

I am writing because I have other blogs to focus, and needed one to speak to my life and outlooks. But my outlooks can certainly be found in my poetry. And my views on culture can be seen in what media I prefer. My poetry is 6000 deep in entries. My Poplitiko blog inherited a life from Popthought a site hacked by Chinese hackers in 2008. It focused on popular media. 

Adopted at birth, due to horrific circumstances. I am straight in orientation, male in gender, ethnic Viking, with Slovene traces, Greek, Polish traces, and Novgorodian Russian and Balt for the rest. I was content not knowing my ethnic percentages but my wife's outlook was aimed at becoming able to name ancestors. I find too much focus upon the origins appears to be racial preference, and even more, it might become idolatry. I am composed of flesh that neutral of politics and beliefs, and my racial origins are mental information, and perhaps misled. 

In other words, My adoptive mother was a 100% pure German, as were most of the family she came from. But that was full of information and views that were far less specific after a point, and as she was able to speak some Yiddish, it has a question mark for me.

My biological past for my adopted life suggested German, Swedish and 25% undetermined. But I had some experiences healthwise that suggested Jewish, and the biological records speak to a likely Jewish link. But in 2017 my entry upon ancestry shows: No Austrian or German, Slovenian and Western Polish both are often seen as being Germanic. For about 4%. I have Swedish in me around 50%. 35% Norwegian, 1% Danish, and 1% Finn. The truth here is that my beautiful, bright, genius, wife perceived something in meeting my birth family, that she thought my ethnicity was considerably different. In University was asked if I was part Japanese. Those questioning were both Japanese themselves. So, really, my DNA background is DNA hash, with tragedy in the past. I was implanted in my mother's womb, through rape, and said to be rape with numerous male participants. So, the concept of my having a distant father who might claim me, was a fantasy believed in people who couldn't accept my original beginnings.

I am a Christian, but not Catholic or Protestant. Politically I am just like that as I vote 3rd party mostly all. But I've become determined to only vote for local elections, since I believe the typical 2 parties, Democrat and GOP are two sides of the very same coin.  I am an American, adopted, born in the early 1960s, and I grew up in Wisconsin, despite being born in Minnesota. 

We attended a Methodist church growing up, but I liked the structure of Lutheranism, all the while I had some mutual respect for the rituals of Catholicism. I think Protestantism is a disease, no, not the churches, but the constant disagreements leading to a new church and division, almost made a lie of the words of Christ and early leaders. Deal with division within, and fix things from the inside, and make the whole body stronger, and more united. That is, we are different, but every time we get the Hell out of a relationship due to differences, it makes life more isolated. I differ from other Christians in many ways. I think God is perfect, therefore he doesn't create people that the "He" hates. I think if people live morally, God will love them in return.

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Intersex, in orientation are often called sinful. I think sin is an active behavior. Therefore, existence is not, in itself, sinful. If I am attracted to men, but kill them, that would make me sinful. The attraction is nothing but a distraction. However, what people read in the Bible says one should not sleep with a woman as one does with a man. I realize it is out of the range of thought for many to make such a comment. But I see it as behavior and not being. And therefore, I see the verse is being about sexual opportunism. If one likes adult males, and there are no males so they choose others, it is acting outside of their being.

At a time when it is supposedly easier to connect, we have split into so many small versions of family or group. By beliefs, by hates, by thoughts, by ignorance... and for me, all I ever wanted was friends I could learn from. My life has fallen from grace so often, I am trying to just learn to survive. And the friends I have who are real friends, they are all there because somehow they find in me enough to give them hope for more, and I find in them grace, knowledge, love, and hope. Glenn Gregg and Pat Wingo in grade school. Sharon Hildebrandt was the girl I chased during my brother's little league games. I never caught her but I wouldn't have anything to do if I did, for years she was my perception of beauty. Then Todd, Todd, and Brendan taught me about how to rise above the empty life I was living. I learned how to be a seeker of knowledge. I was bright but unsophisticated. They helped me find reasons to grow intelligent. Theresa Meier was my sought glorious beauty. She was smart, we liked the same music, and we were actual friends. Never saw her since graduation.

I attended a number of colleges, then joined the Air Force. I meant by doing such to pay for the rest of my education. They found past mental illness and ongoing depression to be reasons to separate me from service. It was my attempt to overcome, and it failed, ingloriously.

I graduated first from University Minnesota-Duluth, with degrees in History and Political Science, and near degrees in both Journalism and English but aimed at Poetry. Ancient History and Asia formed my areas of interest, but rather than focus on one area, when in graduate school at NDSU in Fargo, ND, I expanded my areas of study. Ancient Rome and Greece have always been of interest to me, as well as Japan and Asia, but my desire to understand the world outside of my homeland, led me to dig deep in Russian history. My adoptive brother read all the time, and with him I imitated his life activity lessons, and evoked his actions by reading my first book 30 Seconds over Tokyo. I collect many books, mostly about history, poetry, military events, political memoirs, at one time from all sorts of different brands of politics. It ended when I read one by a former president who lied, or was a propagandist for a view that is historically and absolutely wrong. 

My taste in music is relatively open. And I will explore this more soon.

I realize that my views might disappoint some people, after writing online for 25 years, I haven't truly spoken about my political views. I spoke about politics, but never from my own outlooks. It came from a life view formed by vastly different male influences, with a father two steps left of Ted Kennedy, and a number of father figures who mentored me, from center right outlooks. My father in law was a CEO so, his assumption of my views were that I was what my adoptive father believed, but I am left in only about health care. I am centrist most in every other fashion. I have no trust in the rehabilitative promises of the left oriented US justice system. I believe that 20 or 30 year sentences for murder, serial rape, child murder, child rape, and so much more is a joke. I've been told that I am left in my outlooks, but it doesn't move me to have anti rich or anti inheritance. I think the more and longer people are given benefits the longer we believe we are due them.

My sole illustration features a mass escape attempt, for the Gladiators, they seek to be freed, and by so fleeing their imprisonment and attain their freedom.  I do too, but have nothing like their courage to do so.

There is no point of it all. But I am losing the ability to write long articles or chapters, as life has made my brain, a beautiful thing, but rather forgetful. As I had a shitload of concussions in life, and I am not one of the kids who'd do dirt bike jumps, or various activities. I preferred my room, where my lego, ho-scale train track, and Airfix mini men would battle on a daily basis. Without bullies out there to beat the shit out of me.