Power Inverted in the Modern Age
Minnesota as a test case in the study of power in the macro and the micro
I was very critical of the California State government in my last post. It is more than their water and fire policy, or lack thereof, it is that my own state of Minnesota, which is very liberal, has been modeling itself after California, with predictable results.
Probably most of my readers recall our creepy, pedo-vibe Governor, pathological liar Tim Walz, who Kamala Harris “selected” to be her Vice-Presidential running mate? Even as Walz is very sycophantic fond of Gavin Newsome, he has tried to outdo him. Tim Walz acted every bit the autocratic dictator during Covid, 2020-2022, assuming near absolute power, ruining many lives, seeming to get off on it. For this exercise in authoritarianism, Minnesotans (mostly city folk) rewarded him with triumvirate power in 2022, full control of the Minnesota House and Senate (no, I am not assuming that election was on the level.)
The first three things he did with that new power was: one, make Minnesota a trans refuge state, dedicated to shielding “trans” kids from their parents, even in the case of someone who is not the parent bringing the child to MN to be irrevocably maimed medically experimented on; two, making abortion legal in Minnesota, on-demand, at any time for any reason, even after the birth, if a doctor will agree to it; three, dedicating Minnesota to a 100% renewable energy standard by 2040 (currently they like to point out that 33% of electrical generation is renewable, but of course if they factered in the need of electricty in the supposed 100% renewable 2040, that number would probably be reduced to something closer to 3%, or 0.3%.)
He changed the Minnesota Flag too.
This video took place in Dec 2020. He had already closed schools, bars and restaurants since March. Despite his assurances in this video about opening up soon, he would maintain those restrictions until the following summer, more than a year in total. He maintained dictatorial power well into 2022.
And let’s not forget, in late 2021, Walz was all about the kids:
On November 3, 2021, Governor Tim Walz announced that the state will begin vaccinating children that week, after an extensive clinical trial and final CDC recommendations for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds.[119]
On November 9, 2021, Governor Tim Walz announced the open registration form to claim a $200 Visa gift card for Minnesota parents to their fully vaccinated 12- to 17-year-olds.[120]
On December 13, 2021, Governor Tim Walz announced Ben Truax of Rochester as the winner of the second $100,000 Minnesota college scholarship drawing for the 'Kids Deserve a Shot' campaign.
On January 11, 2022, Governor Tim Walz announced the launch of the next phase of the 'Kids Deserve a Shot' vaccine incentive program, the goal is to encourage Minnesota families to fully vaccinate their children aged 5 to 11 years old against COVID-19.[146] Governor Tim Walz also announced new measures to address severe staffing shortages threatening the health and safety of older Minnesotans and people with disabilities.[147]
On January 24, 2022, Governor Tim Walz announced that the registration form for parents to claim their $200 Visa gift card for immunizing their 5 to 11-year-old children was available. Minnesota families with children aged 5 to 11 who received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in January and February were eligible for a $200 gift card.[154]
I bring up this gross abuse of power, and the unscientific madness of it, in the context of a recent article in the Minnesota Star & Tribune (It used to be the Minneapolis Star & Tribune, but after 2020 they decided they would distance their name, if not their politics, from those toxic Minneapolis politics): Huge Data Centers Hungry For Power: Ten such projects are planned in Minnesota, amid clean energy transition; Sunday, Jan 12, 2025; Walker Orenstein.
Remember that bit about Walz dedicating MN to a 100% renewable energy standard by 2040. But a short interlude on the toxicity of the MN Star & Tribune….
In that data center article, we learn in the first paragraph, META, Facebook’s parent corp, is building the first of ten planned data centers in MN, in Rosemount, south Minneapolis/St Paul metro area. By the third paragraph we learn, these ten projects would require as much energy as all 2.3 million households in the state. In the fourth paragraph we learn that at existing usage, in the 15 state power grid, we should expect rolling blackouts this summer. In the sixth paragraph, we learn that Amelia Vohs, climate program director at MN Center for Environmental Advocacy, is big sad that reality these facilities could put the 2040 all-renewable goal at risk. But in the seventh paragraph, we are assured by “many state and local officials,” Minnesota will be showered with new carbon-free power infrastructure, construction jobs, tax revenue and lower electric bills for everybody.
Never mind there is no such thing as carbon-free infrastructure. Or that it was promised, electricity would too cheap to meter, when they started building nuclear facilities. Or that both our nuclear facilities, 25 miles equidistant from downtown Minneapolis, on either side, on the Mississippi, are both about 25 years past their original pull date, while no other facilities are planned, and there is no plan for what to do with 70 years of piling up, spent fuel rods. No where in the article is there any real discussion about electrical storage needs, when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, which is about 75% of the time. The fact that these facilities will need enormous amounts of water for cooling in the summer, is alluded to but not described in any detail; these companies like Minnesota for the (pliant? easily manipulated? unscientific?) culture, winter cold and summer water - this great white north of 15,000 lakes. No where is it mentioned that electrical vehicles do not work worth a damn in Minnesota winters, or that it is wicked expensive to heat a Minnesota house with electricity. No where in the article is it suggested your brain has to be broken to believe anything about this plan.
Yeah, about that last bit….
I forgot to mention, one of the reasons these data companies are drawn to Minnesota is the current $100 million in tax breaks Minnesota offers for renewable energy projects. I imagine that will end up well exceeding a billion. They won’t have to pay much of anything in taxes……tax revenue is going to increase! Like magic! Also, Xcel is building a solar “farm” north of the Twin Cities, one of the largest in the nation, but that will only provide enough energy to power 150,000 homes, except when you factor in heating the house and fueling their automobiles, it will probably be more like 20,000 or less. Though again, what storage? There is no meaningful storage, and no sign of any, on anything like the timeline required.
It is all fake and ghay virtue signaling. And brain brokenness.
Spiritual, Personal Power
Now, as is my wont (one of the reasons there are so few of you readers), I bring all this up not to convince you about what you probably already know about clown world modern America, but to bring this back to spiritual growth and personal power.
Paracelsus said something to the effect, cures pile up the closer one comes to death. All this talk about renewable energy, or drill baby drill, in the macro, is a lot like the elderly person who takes two dozen supplements a day. All that effort is unlikely to put off to any measurable degree, that final reckoning.
Notwithstanding how much hydrocarbon energy there might be under Greenland, or the poles, or the state of nuclear tech, modernity as we have known it, in the West in particular, the denizens of the West, are going crazy in part because of how unsustainable the life we have grown accustomed to is, everybody knows that unconsciously, but hardly anyone is willing to let go of the idea of eternal progress.
It think we also spend about 4-6 trillion in America on health care. It is not just that we are chronically ill, it is that most Americans are about the quick, easy fix, regardless of efficacy.
So, the discussion and really, fantastical thinking about Power in the macro - hydrocarbon fuels, electricity, nuclear - is in part, a way to forget about Power in the personal sense, in the micro, specifically, power of the self, not just food that becomes energy and the body, not merely the electricity the body generates, but power over the self.
One form of power in the personal sense is the ability to discern between truth and that which is false.
The god Mercury, or Hermes, was the god of Wisdom, Understanding, Logic, Reason, Knowledge and the Word. As the messenger of the gods he was also the intercessor, transferring knowledge to and from both. He was the patron of the intellectual pursuit, the creative pursuit, but also of the grift and the scam. (I say “was” only in the sense that hardly anyone calls out to him anymore.)
To be in possession of a greater understanding than others gives you potential power over them. That is power one can abuse; it is also power one can use to better oneself, to make the world around you better. It is also the power to pierce through the sludge, and good-gods, in this modern age, are we ever swamped with deleterious muck, grift from those who (supposedly) have a greater knowledge than most of us, the experts, the officials, the credentialed, the scientist, the politician (see walz.)
It is not merely the ability to see falsehood in others, it is the ability to recognize that in the self.
The left in this country, not exclusively at all, but primarily, is incapable of seeing it’s own falsehood, projecting that falsehood instead on the other, anyone who questions them. The LA Fires are Climate Change, renewable energy is green, the covid vaccines saved the day, a man can become a woman, everybody who disagrees with us is a fascist…..
The true magician is one who recognizes in the self that which is true and that which is false, and makes a conscious choice. The sorcerer chooses the false, and uses his or her power to abuse others, to take advantage. Most of our so-called elite in America are practicing a kind of sorcery, aka black magic. We have been overwhelmed with that the last four years especially.
How does one cultivate power over the self? There are many ways. One is to consider the symbolism of the cards, of the Magician.
His hat is the lemniscate, the 8, the sign of infinity. He holds the caduceus of Hermes upright, his right hand pointing down, drawing energy from above, down below into the earth. To his right are red roses, the color of his jacket, symbolizing the desire for knowledge and understanding. In many cards there is also the white lily, symbolizing purity of the intellect. The crown in the white shield is Kether, the Source of the power of existence. On the table are the four elements:
Coins - Earth - Sensation
Swords - Air - Thought
Wands - Fire - Intuition
Cups - Water - Emotions
The magician is the master of the the elements, using the elements to create, taking the energy of above, channeling through these elements to achieve ones goals and intentions. The magician imagines the outcome, sets the intention, uses his or her will to do whatever it takes to achieve the vision.
From John Michael Greer’s Paths of Wisdom, Cabala in the Golden Dawn Tradition:
Love is the active form of unity, and unity is the source of creation, the channel by which Force enters Form to bring the world into being…For the Cabalistic magician, love and power cannot be seen as two separate things. like…ethical action as a source of power, this is likely to sound like a pretty platitude in the cynical climate of the present. It is not. There is no power higher than love, no strength stronger, no protection more enduring - and this is true, in the most practical sense, in every aspect of magical training and work.
Conclusion
As NS Lyons said in his most recent piece on those who are colonizing America
The total absence of genuine love in the project of replacist globalism can help us see the reality of its opposite: that the animating force of nationalism, which we see burgeoning anew today, is not hatred of otherness but the love of one’s own. And that the way out of the replacist nightmare is for us indeed to be found in love: love of people, past, place, and particularity.
Those who rule America arguably have more power than anyone in the history of the world, as America is the greatest empire ever known. It is hard to imagine a hierarchy less worthy of that power. Here in Minnesota, the supposedly most powerful man in the state is Tim Walz. I’m sure there are more wretched, unworthy creatures in the state, but I cannot think of one to surpass our governor.
Power in this country has been about manipulating the managerial, technocratic system, manipulating people. Tim Walz, as much of a dolt and a cuck as he appears, is a master manipulator, or he was when he was just the governor of this jab damaged state, until he was in the international spotlight, and he started tripping over his many lies.
This inversion of power has seriously damaged the ability of most people to judge truth from falsehood. Arguably, the last election is a sign that more people are conscious of the inversion of power and the falsehood of our leadership class. Covid policy seriously damaged the power of our elite to manipulate us.
I am engaged in cultivating a sense of power in my readers: personal power, power over the self, to achieve your plans, goals and dreams. Because America desperately needs more of it’s citizens to cultivate personal power, to chose their destiny, to stop being manipulated by our faux betters, to take power away from the current faux elite, that America might become something of a more honestly powerful country, encouraging the cultivation of personal power in it’s citizens.
Those of us living in FL probably can't really appreciate just how stultifying being under Covid dictates must have been, even with the many explanations from out of state writers such as yourself. Early on there was a period when I wore a mask but really wondered if I should bother - but accepted a certain amount of social pressure to conform until we had had our "miracle" shots in Dec. 2020 and Mar. 2021. After that there should not have been any point - or less than before the shots, anyway.
I do remember one time early in the pandemic we were returning from out of state on I-95 and were supposed to queue up in some long line for a check of our FL citizenship or an assessment of where nonFloridians might be staying (ie., quarantining). Somehow we managed to miss the sign to queue up and then just sailed on by the long backed up line of cars, waved ahead by some construction guy in an orange vest. [We did have FL plates, but only on the rear of the car.]
Then again, after over 30 years here, we are wusses who can't stand weather any cooler than 68 degrees, so we applaud you hardy Northerners for your stamina and fortitude - physical, social, and political.
I was traveling in and out of my formerly home state of MN for large chunks of time during Covid. It was like everyone was under a dark spell. Now, they just seem resigned.