Midsummer just happened. Now's the point to pause for a bit. This week's post will not be an essay. It will instead be a series of reflections on events, most of them recent, and relevant conclusions drawn from them. Consider this an Administration post if you must, but I intend for this to be more introspection than commentary or argumentation.
I do take advantage of the fact that this 'blog is at Blogger, and therefore tied into Google's analytics mechanisms, when I check to see how things work in terms of reach and audience. To no one's surprise, most of the audience is from the United States. It's the #2 and following entries that are telling: Russia, Ukraine, Australia, United Kingdom, Ireland, Bulgaria, Germany, Malaysia. I conclude from this that my weekday and Saturday posts, where I link to the works of others that I find relevant to this 'blog and seek to promote it by presenting it to you, greatly influence this result. Max Igan is out of Australia, Thomas Sheridan is out of Ireland, I curate a significant amount of stuff originating from RT (out of Russia) or addressing Russia and Ukraine, and most of the traffic comes in from a Google or Networkedblogs source. In addition, a lot of what I curate focuses on an Anglophonic audience, and assumes an American perspective- which could explain the negligible Canadian audience, despite being right next door.
Going forward, I will continue this 'blog. This is something of a passion project, so I'm not likely to close up shop anytime soon; therefore, I want to see its influence spread. I already have Twitter and Facebook linked into this 'blog, so posts automatically send out Tweets and Facebook posts. Additional reach, therefore, means resuming links posted in my personal journal and cultivating more people to add Empires to their Blog Roll; it could also mean establishing pages for Empires at Facebook and Google Plus (and I much prefer G+ over Facebook), but that's something I want to keep in reserve. If these stats persist into the Autumn, and there is neither a drop off nor an increase, then I will reconsider- especially if I commit to transitioning into the addition of an audio podcast version of this 'blog.
Some time ago, The Lip ended Buzzsaw. Tyrel Ventura and Tabitha Wallace got cut loose and are now doing something else; the interesting thing is that Sean Stone is still there, and Buzzsaw is revived with him alone doing the interviews that he did previously. When the cancellation occurred, I already had some suspicions that there was a problem; Tyrel and Tabitha focused on verifiable, real-world issues and criminality of a conspiratorial sort while Sean veered into the whackado. Now that Sean alone is there, the whackado is damn near all that's left and I find this to hurt Buzzsaw's credibility greatly.
Until I see a shift away from the whackado, I will no longer post or embed anything from Buzzsaw in this venue; the common man can act usefully to oppose attempts to screw over Net Neutrality, impose bullshit agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, analyze information secreted out of the Bilderberg Group's meetings (and those of similar groups)- the whacky stuff that folks like Icke are infamous for, regardless of validity, cannot be effectively acted upon by you readers. I want to see Empire fall; regardless of the realms beyond Man's sense-perceptions, the real fight is here in the physical world of everyday life and all talk of philosophy and the mind--while important--is impotent and meaningless without action out in the physical. As Mark Passio points out, it is not enough to clean out the crap between your ears; freedom in the world depends upon free minds taking action in the physical world. Talk of aliens, demons, etc. that does not contribute to the translation of freedom from the mind to the physical is--at best--useless entertainment; I will not give it a venue here.
Finally: As part of my own efforts, I am about to start the draft phase for my third novel. Unlike the first two I wrote (neither of which are published; be grateful, for they are that bad), I've spent far more time working out the crafty bits of structure, outline, etc. this time than previously. One of the goals of this novel is to show, in literary terms, what Empire is and how it works. I plan to finish the first draft before the Autumn, and by the end of the year I plan to have something I am ready to either finish for self-publication or find an agent and go the traditional route; due to some connections, the latter is not entirely a pipe dream (mostly, but not entirely; it's like making a roll of the dice with a slight edge in your favor). This is one way that I aim to translate freedom in my mind to freedom in this world; if this novel succeeds, then I will have a series ready to go. It turns out that I am very good with words, so then I will use this to advance my goals.
And that is enough for now. Empire must fall.
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