Sifting
can potentially cultivate a much more aware state of mind than, say,
mindless consuming and generalised believing. Hidden underneath all the
worthless misinformation that flows freely out to us everyday, are some
rare gems of truth. But you have to sift for them.
Sifting
about on the net, I’ve found myself drawn to some seemingly diverse
subjects such as nutrition, health, marijuana, hemp, consumerism,
capitalism, chaos theory, organics, censorship, drugs, doctors, warez,
hacking, advertising, corporations, chemicals, GE, computers, free
trade, and of course the USA and it’s uncontrolled world domination
fetish.
That’s
a wide range of subjects and I’m too lazy to get into all of it, so a
lot of the stuff on this site relates to health issues, as lately
I’ve been spending a lot of my time working on my health, and
researching diet and nutrition, But the thing I have found repeatedly,
is that once you start digging around, everything starts to follow a
similar pattern. Basically, it seems that if something is widely
reported, it is probably false, whether it’s about healthy food, or
terrorist attacks.
The
way these things tend to interlink, and the patterns they each repeat,
open up a clearer way of looking at things. An alternative perspective,
distilled through sifting. A bigger picture. There are many people on
the Internet who are trying to distribute quality information. But most
punters are not ready or willing to even consider it – they are too
thoroughly indoctrinated. So it stays submerged.
One
of my friends responded to this site with “I just maintain a state of
apathetic cynicism and avoid thinking about all this stuff” And that’s a
reasonable reaction, there’s no point getting stressed about it all.
But on the other hand, we are getting shafted and lied to so frequently
that it’s hard to just ignore it. And I think that right now there are
enough people becoming aware of what’s going on to start fighting back.
Knowledge
is power. For example, if enough people are aware of the real reasons
that America attacked Iraq, or of America’s history of world domination
and how taking over Iraq fits into that, or that the “war on terrorism”,
like the “war on drugs” is a complete scam, intended only to increase
America’s power, then maybe that will help to make the actions of the US
backfire on them.
Every
aware person is only a drop in the ocean, but every drop can help
dilute the tide of oppression that’s coming from the likes of the US
government, and the overbearing evil of multinationals such as Monsanto.
The Internet is still a place where the individual can fight back. Let’s keep it that way.
As
I find interesting new stuff, I’ll post some bits of it along the way,
and make a sort of documented sifting scrapbook. Siftings from the
sifterhood. As a rough guide, the text in red is generally stuff I have
slapped together myself, while the blue text is stuff I have shamelessly
ripped off wholesale from other sites and books, with as little editing
as possible.
I
am a firm believer in the motto “information wants to be free” Once
something is posted on the net it’s like tossing a bottle in the sea –
who knows where it will end up… So feel free to recycle anything on this
site – if it’s in red it may even be original and a credit to www.sift.co.nz
would be much appreciated. Wherever possible I have left in credits for
the sources of all the material I have ripped off, and that to me is
cool – I realise not everyone agrees with that, but as I am trying to
show on this website, there are generally two sides to most arguments.
(And the other side are generally a bunch of idiots!)
Much
of this site contains personal opinion. But I believe the factual
content is accurate. If you have clear evidence that would dispute or
add to any of the statements on this site, feel free to send it to me. I have just added a feedback page for responses to the site.
The
most popular page on this site has been the Coca-Cola one. It’s my
theory that is was getting the most hits because I had put the link to
it as “coke”. That’s now been changed to Coca-Cola, so if it becomes
less popular, I’ll take it as a sign that people really want to read
about drugs. That they want to read about Colombian drug dealers
hoovering up mountains of coke off glass top tables in expensive
nightclubs. Maybe they want to look at porn and read about coke. There’s
certainly some good sifting material in those subjects, so who knows…
People
keep paying me to do stuff for them. It takes time and interferes with
my sifting. Sometimes it’s a problem. Sometimes I just sift anyway, and
things I was going to do remain undone. This site still hasn’t got much
stuff on it yet…. But it’s on my list. It’s number 186. I’ll be back.