The Illusions

A few years back I was teaching a class in information technology at a local college,
when for whatever reason, we decided to talk about life related to technology. I, being a product
of the fifties, reared in the sixties, on my own with my wife raising a family in the seventies, I
could now see the illusions of life in the faces of the students, separate from reality. As a
freelance writer and researcher of politics, history, religious studies, and the everlasting and
annoying freedom of speech issue, using several different techniques and approaches to analysis
and research, I find a majority of what we are taught and were taught are illusions in context.
By nature, I’ve always considered myself conservative with right leaning tendencies, but
the distance between Mars and Earth separates me from the likes of a Rush Limbaugh. One
might wonder what all this has to do with teaching an information technology class at a local
college. Well, being the unfailing analyst that I’ve been since fourth grade, where I was
diligently taught by the best educator of all time, Mrs. Armstrong, to read between the lines for
the truth, the thought of what young students believe today is an illusion (in terms of technology
of course) and what is reality entered our discussion thanks to me invoking it. This wasn’t the
first time I invoked such a discussion and I have paid the price before (fired) for doing so, but I
didn’t care, I still don’t care, and I still teach part-time.
Since the insertion of a socialist doctrine into the education system known as the Hall-
Dennis report of 1968, the system has failed three school generations. Teachers did not fail the
system, socialist ideology destroyed it. In the past fifteen years, attempts have been made to
resurrect it only to achieve dire consequences. Cheating is the new mantra using technology. I
won’t say which university, I won’t say what department, I won’t even say what city, I will say
be careful of any new buildings you walk into.
In my analysis of historical events, political norms, and religious dogma, I occasionally
draw on the works of a few well known, but forgotten philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,
and occasionally Aquinas. Much of their philosophy centered on being, forms, the soul, matter,
honor among men, GOD, living a good life as opposed to evil, and the pursuit of happiness
obtained only by living a good life and death. Money would not equate happiness, nor would
wars equate good.
In my analysis of political power, one illusion of interest is that people seeking to sit on
the thrones of a country, do not do so for the common good of its citizens. An individual seeking
elective power is well intended in the beginning, however, by the time their good intentions
reach the heart of power in parliaments or congresses those intentions have died a quiet death.
Instead, reality sets in very quickly; the heart of power is not in parliaments or congresses.
Unfortunately, people cower rather than believe external powers run their lives, and the business
conducted by elective representatives are excuses, not for the common good, because the truth (a
concept) is not to be known even by them. This is not to infer representatives lie, it is to say they
play by the rules of the game, and that game does not include the common good of public
masses.
In my many years of historical analysis the dates and historical periods are relative, but
the context of many events have been called into question over the last two centuries by scholars
and historians alike, and rightfully so. It is this questioning which has given a different light to
North American democracy and its relationship to the rest of the world. It further explains the
injustices (the illusion being just) of our North American society. One such injustice is the one
we face now. When the measure of man is bound to paper (money), skin color, even dress,
rather than the moral of a nation, one might conclude everything has been lost. The thought that
anything is good is all that is evil. All of man is failed when the entrenched ideal of leaders is
that war and money are good. A leader never confronts an enemy, instead, he/she imagines an
enemy relevant to their own minds. And the only relevancy of a leader is to keep a public
fearful. That fear allows the corrupt of society to be rewarded by the concept that greed is good.
The greatest illusion of all times and the one holding the most weight and power are
religions. Religions are mere forms of fascism. Interestingly enough, the ongoing development
of technology century after century allows human beings to break down microcosms to the
structure of man (DNA). But religions cannot be broken down, simply because a concept cannot
be broken down; it can only have conceptual alternatives. The Great Philosophers’ beat to death
the premise of soul, God (Aquinas) and final death of the body. Religions have themselves died
at the corporate hands that run them, yet to be expunged from earth. And as long as religions
hold dear the unequalled power they contain they will grow not diminish. It is not for me to say
GOD does not exist; it is to say GOD does not exist according to any religious entity. Few
disagree, I have conversed with on this topic that any and all war, poverty, and despair is based
on misconstrued religious contexts, as if people in these situations must pray their way out or be
damned. Religions accept no blame, but blame all else and see all else as evil, therefore, their
ideals cannot be misconstrued but by those who do not accept any religious concept as fact.
Take the concepts of money, corporatization, churches and religions for instance, tie the four into
one timeless instance, then the greatest threat and evil to mankind is created. Tie this concept to
politics, corporations, money, the public and military industrial complexes, the end result is
destruction, annihilation, deception and the conceptual nature of greed; then the possibility of
defining the worlds miniscule power structure is within reach.
Again, from my own analysis, I have no doubt individuals would like to hold real power
(another concept) other than a conceived collective power they hold in one vote. We look to
heroes to attain ground we cannot attain ourselves, described as our inadequacies for not being
able to do so ourselves. We find solace in these heroes who come from all walks of life. We do
not find any solace in truth seekers, we do not refer to these people as heroes, instead we greet
them some skepticism. We claim to protect whistleblowers, yet when they blow the whistle we
have no idea what personal undertaking they have acquired, or what the consequences of their
action will bring upon them in the end. The presses give them print for a few days until it’s over
and then discard. We have a fear of accepting the truth; we deny truth because it hurts; we feel
stupid if we accept the truth. There are many heroes in my conscious from war veterans to sports
heroes, but I have several intellectuals I call heroes because no one else will. My fourth grade
teacher, Mrs. Armstrong, was an intellectual hero but never referred to as one.
Prior to 1929, the First Gilded Age, The Roaring Twenties, ten per cent down ($1000.00)
would buy you $10,000.00 worth of painted stock. Painted, meaning manipulated. Roger
Babson, an economist, was never called a hero; he was hated, hated for telling the truth loud and
clear about an impending stock crash, the crash of ’29. I do not recall ever hearing Ferdinand
Pecora called a hero. Named after him, the Pecora Commission, unearthed the crimes committed
by financiers causing the 1929 Stock Market Crash. Bring this entirely forward to 2009, the
Second Gilded Age now past, and a man by the name of Harry Markopolos, who singlehandedly
dogged Wall Street criminals as a SEC regulator since 1999 uncovering dozens of ongoing
scams that would eventually cause the current crash. Harry stood front and center explaining to
the powers that be for eight years what was happening, but nobody wanted to listen. The reason
they would not listen was intentional. Today, at several ongoing Congressional Hearings, after
the crimes have been committed, all the money is gone, the criminals are richer, and the taxpayer
is on the hook for decades to come, they’re listening to Harry now.
 Last but not least among the great illusions of our time, yet another concept, but worth
analyzing is “free speech.’ If we believe free speech to be an inherent human right-why does
speech land so many exercising such a right in trouble, like myself for example? It is not
speaking freely that lands people in trouble; it’s the law of the land, the corporate law of the land.
It is the external powers away from parliaments and congresses who decide those laws and how
they are written. These powers turn the debate away from free speech to a debate about the right
to offend. It is human nature not to want to offend, therefore, the simple idea of free speech
deteriorates into nothingness. Free speech took on a new look in the ’70’s known as speaking
“political correct.’ In time it waned and graduated to racism speech. Today, the debate is still
about the right to offend, not free speech. Some believe free speech and the right to offend are
one in the same. And they are not one in the same. To refer to a group of people of being part of
an oligarchy is offensive. To ask the question: “Does an oligarchy exist in North America?” is
not offensive. Free speech is an illusion. To conclude, that our lives are illusions of our own
making are not far wrong.

Thank you,
Harley James Collison
info@wordstowidom.ca