by Not Sure
15 June 2025
The most profound utterances become platitudes if repeated often enough to an indifferent audience. Pearls before swine. Pearls made up 75% of the Persian Gulf’s total exports at the end of the 19th century.
About a week ago, I read an article from Fortune magazine entitled, “AI could unleash ‘deep societal upheavals’ that many elites are ignoring, Palantir CEO Alex Karp warns”. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t save that article at the time, and sadly, neither did the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Alex Karp used an expression that was not understood by the reporter and so the original article quoted Karp as saying, “Those of us in tech cannot have a tin year to what this is going to mean for the average person.” I thought this was funny and reported it to my brother who said, “I guess that’s an idiom that has fallen out of fashion. Maybe the young reporter never heard that.” The article has now been corrected to read tin ear.
Idiom fashions come and go, and I wonder if some future translation of the Christian bible will ever admonish the reader not to cast their barrels of oil before swine?
***
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
So wrote Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Smith (secretary and future son-in-law of John Adams), regarding Shays’ Rebellion in Western Massachusetts when armed citizens rose up to protest the state government’s efforts to collect taxes on individuals and their trades. Four thousand men joined in this rebellion, six died (and three more from the state and private militia who fought the rebels), dozens were wounded, many were arrested, and two were executed.
***
Compare this to how Alan Watt spoke of taxation as slavery and the apathy of the taxed slaves (that’s us) to this condition in his talk from December 22, 2019:
“Trump-Trump-Trump the Boys are Marching,
Will or Won't We Hit Iran,
Resurrect WMD, Fuzzy Photos let us See,
Then Send Us All the Refugees You Can.”
© Alan Watt Dec. 22, 2019
“Slavery can take many forms.
Again, don’t be deceived by terminology. Slavery, remember, was being used, you’re being used as an animal by those who own you by using your labor to do whatever work that they the owners wanted done. And that’s why they couldn’t tax labor for a long time. They always wanted it, were chomping at the bit. Because after all, and they had meetings, I remember even getting the papers on it, the meetings that they had about slavery in the 1800s. The Rothschild family were involved in drafting up a very clever plan. And this isn’t conspiracy, you can actually find it, where they advised America, the slaveowners of America, and they weren’t all in the South by the way, as you well know, hopefully. But they advised them, it’s far better if you could introduce the taxation form from and get money from the work of everybody. That way you won’t have to feed the slaves. And when slaves get old you have to keep them and feed them, otherwise the rest of the slaves might just have had enough and overthrow you. You see?
But it’s astonishing, as I say, labor couldn’t be tax for a long, long, time. Because you are either free or you were a bondsman, you were held, under debt, you see. And even tax that they claimed you owed was then considered as debt if you didn’t pay it off. Fascinating stories to it all. But again, everybody pays it today. Why? Because you’re afraid. You’re afraid, and as long as you’re earning enough to get by, and you’ve got lots of entertainment and so on, you tend to put these things to the side. Oh well, you know, what else can we do, yada yada ya…? And no one wants to stick their head up and say, well stop paying your taxes. [Alan chuckles.] And you know how far you’ll get with that anyway.
But we’re all slaves. Of course, we’re slaves.
***
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve read or heard the tree of liberty quote, I might just have enough money to pay this year’s taxes. It has lost its gravity and now it’s a platitude, a trite, empty little nothing. What gave it meaning was its truth. Liberty (freedom) is bought at the price of bloodshed. It cannot be negotiated or bargained for, and someone else’s blood won’t do. YOU must be willing to die for YOUR freedom. Two American states put it up front, in their state motto. Texas got Friendship. Sad.
Massachusetts — By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty
New Hampshire — Live free or die
In the movie Idiocracy, the military seeks out an average man and an average woman to cryogenically secure for the future. The average man is an enlisted soldier, and the average woman is a prostitute. The chosen ‘average soldier’ is sought out by a superior officer where he ‘works’ in a basement, guarding records that no one wants, happy to spend his days watching movies, undisturbed. This soldier, who eventually will be known as Not Sure, tells the officer that he understood the quote, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way” and he had gotten out of the way down there in the records’ basement. To which the officer angrily retorted, “You’re supposed to lead!” That quote is often attributed to Thomas Paine, called an American Founding Father by some, and a revolutionary tool of the Freemasonic cabal by others. General George S. Patton egomaniacally captured a truer essence when he said, “We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”
Who can lead others to freedom when the concept no longer grips us, does not inform our every move? Who can rally people behind a word that has lost its meaning? Despite being muzzled to shop for food, barred from congregating in your churches, mandated to jab or be jobless, most people still think they’re free. Alan Watt occasionally mentioned the United States of America as a place where some people remembered what freedom was, and might, from time to time, demand their rights. This is all but over. Party politics, left-right division, generations of saluting the flag, and sending our sons off to die for agendas we do not understand has dulled our wits to the point of idiocy.
General Patton understood. They herd sheep, they drive cattle, and they lead people. If you can be herded, driven, or too easily led, then your basic survival instinct has been destroyed.
Here’s the rest of two lines from Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee.”
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin', don't mean nothin', honey, if it ain't free
It’s just a bluesy love song but it captures something essential about ‘freedom’. Nothing left to lose. When you’ve lost all illusions that you are free, that elections work, that your leaders give a damn, then you have nothing left to lose. That’s freedom. It’s worth dying for.
***
Back to Alan Watt’ talk:
“You gotta start thinking about things. And stop just following people.
Counterintelligence.
Counter, counter, counter, you counter the intelligence by ridiculing it eventually. And when you see something that's absolutely ridiculous being promoted by someone, and that person is promoted by others, you've got to say wait a minute, these people must see what’s going on here. Of course, they see what's going on. There's very little out there today that's genuine. Very little. Honestly. Absolutely. And other folk who are put out of the picture altogether, completely, financially and so on. That's generally how they get you out of the way. And the dirty tricks that go on you would not believe behind-the-scenes. Because people really want to believe they're free. They truly want to believe that.”
***
It is never easy to sort out Intelligence from Counterintelligence. You can laugh about Royal Lizard People, but counterintelligence is a science, and it is constructed in such a way that you’ll be lost there forever. You will scream and stamp your foot. “Everything will be revealed once we prove the Earth is…once we demonstrate there was never a v…or a nuc…or a moon lan…the CIA killed…”
Alan laid it out here. People have itchy ears, and counterintelligence is happy to scratch those itchy ears forever and ever. Amen.
Someone mentioned a talking head to me yesterday and I wasn’t familiar with them. I did a bit of listening. The body of work will amaze and entertain, and the researcher makes sure to state his qualifications up front. “I seem to have an innate B.S. detector.” And he’s off and running with some iron-clad facts and a used car salesman’s recall of alchemy and metallurgy. His fast patter emphatically told me what the symbol of Mercury represented,
but to me, it looks a little bit like Baphomet, the gnostic idol the Knights Templar were accused of worshipping. Then my mind wandered off to the cult of Saturn and I looked up the symbol of Saturn. We’re told we get the name Saturn from the Roman god of agriculture, and the symbol represents a sickle for harvesting, but when I look at it, I see male genitalia and a pregnant woman -- a hermaphrodite -- and very much worthy of making a cult out of, if you’re bent that way.
Two things occurred to me. Looking at alchemical symbolism we do well to remember what Alan Watt said about astrology. Anyone can make a constellation. People made these up to relate their stories, their ideas about creation, their myths. I’m as happy to see Saturn as a hermaphrodite as I am to see it as a farmer’s sickle. The second thing is much more important. Who cares? As Alan said in this talk, “Because the ones at the top mean business, you know, the teeth are showing and the glove is off, the velvet glove is off the fist, the iron fist.” That iron fist is preparing for their next devastating lead hook. This one might knock you to the ground. Will you be saved because you figured out all the hoaxes, know the true shape of Earth, practice alchemy in your kitchen?
Here’s an updated translation of the itchy ears idea.
Timothy 2:2-4
2Be ready to spread the word whether or not the time is right. Point out errors, warn people, and encourage them. Be very patient when you teach.
3 A time will come when people will not listen to accurate teachings. Instead, they will follow their own desires and surround themselves with teachers who tell them what they want to hear. 4 People will refuse to listen to the truth and turn to myths.
This is just another way to think about counterintelligence -- teachers who will tell you what you want to hear. Forever.
Back to freedom, this time from another angle. During Operation Covid, so many talking heads, (and I’m sure many of them were quite sincere), started their talk or interview with Ephesians 6:12. Here it is from the King James Version:
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
They were letting you know that they thought this Operation was being orchestrated by something that wasn’t human.
Most of them neglected to follow with verses 14-20, which is the soldier’s kit.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
19 And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,
20 For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
It really doesn’t matter what you think about Timothy 2:2-4 or Ephesians 6:12-20, (which has that preamble about obeying your parents and honoring your mother and father.) Maybe you’re agnostic, or downright hostile to the book as a source for finding anything useful. Truth is truth:
Properly kitted, the slave (ambassador in bonds) speaks boldly, as he ought.
© Not Sure
Thank you. Very thought provoking and well written.
Excellent article. Thank you. Yes Alan was the man, erudite and profoundly insightful. In addition, in so many instances Alan was prescient. May he rest in peace - 🙏🙏