Astroturf v. Coke

See the point is this: if you have never previously heard of Coke Studio Pakistan, but you have heard of the latest James Bond movie 'Spectre,' then you ought to realise that the reason for this is that one of them is being actively promoted, and the other is not. Coke often backs broad social benefit things, but doesn't push them. And for good reason.

'Doctor' Madeleine Swann, in the new

SPECTRE movie

 

Some of the singers and musicians in the video clip in the last blogpost are 'not Muslim.' If you are a Christian or a secularist in Pakistan today, maybe, it isn't as safe as standing on the street corner in Chicago after dark... No wait, that doesn't work. lol.

 

The commercial end-game for Coke and for the Bond franchise is the same - making profits. Even so, over many years I have noticed that for all the consumer activism of various not-for-profit groups, and how these loudly bring to the public attention miscreant corporates, Coca Cola is almost never among those who one can genuinely say exploits their market position in surreptitious ways.

 

'Astroturfing' - the name given to marketing tactics that create a false impression of a widespread particular view, IE, a widely-held view about something, is not anything that can be applied to something like, say, the pre-release marketing for a film such as the up-coming James Bond 'Spectre.' However, and I say this in consideration of anyone who might read here and who is among one of the marginal or marginal-ish sex style individuals, however -, the immediate last Bond movie was heavily laden with astroturfing. There is no such agenda evident in the current pre-release marketing but you can see, there is pre-lease marketing going on.

Astroturf

'a playful outdoor use...' - as per the

marketing literature

 

Now I don't particularly view such a thing as sinister because it is really drawing a very long bow to relate the gay activism agenda with things like Zionist manipulation of world society - even though, that, at heart, is the idea that is floated about the gay agenda by those who are the most vehemently opposed to it. Which isn't to say pressure groups do not appropriate social movements for their own ends - but I am quite certain the gay agenda wasn't invented by Zionists or the ubiquitous Illuminati!

 

We are a long way from any of the big news agencies being actual disseminators of actual news events... Sadly. Reuters is close to being the old style news agency up to a point.

 

Is the situation dangerous to the private individual?

 

It is highly dangerous.

 

In my view, it is the single most risky thing going on in the world today and which can harm or kill you and severely disrupt your life even if it doesn't kill you.

 

But how do you pass a law against it? You can't. Therefore the logical conclusion of where we are headed and how we're going to get there is set in stone. All is not lost for the bright, though. Watch this space.

Real flowers are happening where I live right now,
being the Southern Hemisphere's Spring wildflower season

 

Now I know there are some here who are fans of Richard Dawkins, or may have, like me, been fans of his at one time in the past, but the question I have for the Professor is this:

 

'What stops you from lying to me?' 

 

Astroturfing is extraordinarily dangerous. And it does go on, and for mine, as soon as someone does it deliberately, it calls into question entirely, their standard of ethics.

 

 

 

 

Why I Drink Coke

Well, I drink Coke because I like it. Not the diet stuff or any 'sweetener'-laced rubbish. Just Coke. I like Cherry Coke too.

 

Coke every now and then make some good commercials, they used to do Christmas scenes too with their iconic Santa Claus drawings featured...

 

You know, nostalgia stuff for little rich white kids like me...

The gorgeous Zoe Viccaji - she
stands about six feet tall in heels.
She's the girl singer on the right in the
video clip below

 

Have I ever told you about how in Karakoram there is a redoubt high up a mountainside where these local shamanic guys do a ritual every year at the end of December where they smoke up a version of Northern Indian Juniper and cook red berries and drink this mulled berry wine drink? Well they do and they also have strange beliefs about elves and a guy dressed in red who flies through the sky and bestows gifts upon the good. This is a fact, by the way; there such a thing, such a group of people, and with these folkloric beliefs - though basically with no connection or previous contact with Europe as far as any ethnologist or anthropologist has ever discovered.

 

So what the hell do we all know about the world.

 

I'm sure you will easily find someone who will give you an adequately fucked up scientific explanation for it. That is why we murder people in the name of civilization and advanced modern politics and the IMF and the World Bank and the 'free world' and all of this other claptrap that regularly comes out of the mouths of so-called 'leaders.'

 

Here - here is something Warren Buffett's company does that is actual leadership:

 

 

 

 

Packer Goes

So, as I have been saying, not enough people ever read this blog for it to pose much of a problem to anyone who wouldn't like their 'secrets' (hush!) out in the open. Reading stuff here is not, 'being in the open.'

I guess to some extent I stick things in like the slowly burning down house of James Packer, in order to show you that if I say something like stay away from here, or don't fall for this - that you will have enough circumspection and reason to step away from the danger zone - and it might save your life. We're really talking about things as dramatic as that.

You will recall, as far back as 2013, that I suggested there was a sophisticated plan being run by operators from foreign governments to 'take down' James Packer. I remember being very decisive about what was likely to happen in one of the related posts: 'take it to the bank.' Something like that...

http://oldmoneysavoirfaire.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/calling-andy-garcia.html

As you know now, reading this morning's newspapers over your morning coffee, Packer has just stepped down from the board of his casino and hotel group - Crown Resorts - as its Chairman.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/james-packer-steps-down-as-crown-chair-20150812-giy1ip.html

One of the things missing from the revelations made via the Snowden releases into the public arena, is any reference at all to NSA files related to active information about corporations, industry groups - be they the oil or the pharmaceutical groups or others of the same importance - but I assure you such things exist. These groups are also particularly nasty if it comes down to having to protect themselves over something that would really get the public's anger up - and there are a lot of those things. But they manage to keep them secret to a very large extent.

But if I thought there was something truly dangerous that you ought to be apprised of, I would most let you know here, and I would suggest that you took such a warning extremely seriously.

Should You Really Be Here

Do you remember that story that was promoted back in the late Eighties about some famous stock trader, some real Wall Street identity, who left his successful lifestyle behind to become a monk in some cloister where no one spoke much, or more or less, at all.

There's more than one of these stories around, and about than one single person; I believe this kind of thing has happened several times, if not exactly, many times.

I have never been able to comprehend what this was all about, other than to impute some kind of vague but otherwise likely to be underhanded motivation.

Should you be here -
yes, here's your place card

But then I was at this Indian restaurant the other night, and lo and behold there was this guru-type grandfather, grand-uncle figure at a nearby table, who was able to quote the Vedas liberally  - and I can do a bit of that myself, liberally, too, yes, but not in any genuine order or completeness!

And the young doctor nephew, an obvious professional, sporting a nice gold Rolex, innocently opined that it would be nice to be able to gain access to the exceptional medical knowledge in the Vedas, and dispense (pun, ha-ha) with all of the obscure philosophy and cosmology.

And of course I couldn't help myself but spout out something I heard from my family's Tamilian cooks back in the ancient past - a time pretty close to when Krisna himself walked the the earth among us.

Naturally, several bottles of Taltarni later, I had received another great lesson in the Upanishads from an esteemed guru, which basically pointed out that according to the Vedas, at least, the highest (level of) cities in the Underworld - Hell, as it were - possess even more beautiful buildings and surroundings and amenities than evident in Heaven. Here, the master architect Mahamaya, constructs the most amazing architecture for the Naga beings (humanoid cobras who cannot help themselves but to bite and poison anyone around them too long, even their own family and 'friendly' associates). Rakashasas live in opulent palaces, with many wives and consorts, more beautiful by far than any ordinary human females. Material abundance is easily obtained, and pleasure and satisfaction is definitely evident.

What is wealth?

But these places are totally without any form of spiritual dimension whatsoever. They have specious forms, but no genuine ones.

And that of course, begs in my mind - well, what on earth is the 'spiritual dimension' anyway, and what is its benefit?

Now I can't really tell you why this is the case, but again recently, and even now as well, I have cause to be associating with some um, to put it mildly, celebrated types. Celebrities, you might say. And the interesting thing is they are all well aware of the relationship challenges that exist among them, when they get together, each knowing how extraordinarily talented the other is, and how much of a good impression they all desire to make - yet all of them seeing the next one as some kind of a god, so to speak, and thus having unearthly, perhaps unrealistic standards. 

Now the Vedas go into this kind of thing, and whilst explicitly, the Vedas say that in the Underworld's wealthiest cities, cannabis is plied by the maidens there, as well as other drugs, explicitly they also say no drugs are involved in Heaven - but - there is some other concoction, whose ingredients are itemized in Hindu sacred texts but these vary from region to region in the Subcontinent. This 'other' concoction makes the imbibers intoxicated, without which they would not be able to withstand the charisma of all the other members in their close proximity. Further, this concoction cures any disease and illness and prolongs life eternally.

Three things I know for sure:

When you live in a noisy world, and the sounds are just noise, silence becomes like a drug;

When you see that money and riches become empty of emotion, the pursuers of money then become like obsessed and mindless people;

And the third thing is a great secret.

A secret concoction

But I am not doubtful now that intelligent people leave Wall Street for a quieter place. And whilst I personally find the liqueur Chartreuse quite an odd tasting thing, it is in fact - and therefore to be remembered for this - not a beverage, but a medicine. It has the power to make you live forever... 

Ah, but you will need the spiritual dimension to comprehend this fact about it, and so, employ it in the correct way. 

Juxtaposition

A Latin word, from 'iuxta' and 'iungo.' 'Near' and 'joined.'

The juxtaposition of 'beauty.'

Different from the commonplace and fallacious 'argument by association' that we see all too many people in the popular media indulge themselves in, and - dare I say - politicians do it too.

A juxtaposition quickly shows up two contrasting things because of their very nearness, which allows the mind to perceive in one scan, the contrasting qualities.

Two things may at the same time be 'beautiful,' but yet in totally different ways, which I suppose underscores the need to always be careful when using the word 'beauty' and to make sure people are sharing the same definitions when discussing anything in terms of its 'beauty.'

Tom Carson's Serrat Shiraz wins
'Wine Of The Year.'

Today the Australian Wine Expert James Halliday declared his 2015/6 Australian Wine Of The Year, giving it to a Yarra Valley (Victoria) boutique wine - Tom Carson's Serrat Shiraz Viognier, a wine going for the retail price of $40 Australian per bottle, compared with the wine which ran second, the Penfolds Hermitage, at $900 a bottle. 

Some time ago I talked about another Yarra Valley label - the Yarra Ridge Late Harvest Semillon - which I may have said along the lines, something like 'that you would be hard pressed to get anything from France in the modern era anywhere near as good at fifty times the price.'

Or something extreme like that.

Tom Carson is an expert winemaker who took out the Jimmy Watson Gold Medal (for wines) when it was first ever run. But Carson is a tiny, virtually hobby winemaker and his Shiraz Viognier hardly runs to 200 bottles per vintage. 

In a world today where you can visually 'see' that all of the huge prestige and luxury product brand owners are dying a quick death across the whole globe - Louis Vuitton made a colossal mistake going after the Japanese luxury buyer (there isn't one), and thereby alienating the China luxury market, and in any case, the China market hit its own wall just now, and the Germans have no idea about luxury anyway in spite of their sense of quality control - in all practical reality none of the new money billionaires have a single clue about luxury and beauty and quality. That's just a fact. And the pricing tells the tale of the tape in that regard.

You will buy superb luxury for $40.

And you needn't seek out specifically, Tom Carson's products either, necessarily. The Hunter Valley in New South Wales possesses as good wine products. And it is a fact that the oldest still-being-made Port Wine in the world is in South Australia and it is easily one of the most luxurious wines in the world. 

And modern can be beautiful too -
but you have to have a mind to 'get' it.

People, of course, seek to make money by buying something at a relatively low price and then selling it for a much higher price when the market realizes the quality of the item, whatever it is. But the market might never do that for you, even when you buy something of great intrinsic substance. It used to be the case, that the 'financialization' of something - an asset - eliminated the 'aficionado' aspect wherein only those in the know be aware of the true value of a particular 'aficionado' type of thing; information became mobile and fluid and dispersed, and the dollar denominator was easy to grasp as the reflector of something's actual worth.

But when you give money out to idiots, it changes all of that. And we go back to the secretive, whispered, aficionado world of wealth and luxury. Beauty is 'in the eye of the beholder,' but not the intelligent owner - there, it has a standard to meet.