Hi, this is Gordon Phillips... thanks for visiting
All my adult life I've had the odd feeling that I was not completely a part of what was going on; that somehow I was traveling a path parallel to the main culture—a vantage point from which I could see things as an independent, objective Observer.
This intuition that I was "on to something" even as a young man led to a fascination with getting to the bottom of things and discovering the truth.
Ah yes, the truth. So slippery and so elusive.
"A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable." - Thomas Jefferson
And so subjective, I might add, that each of us has our own personal version of the truth that we trade with each other, like playing cards.
Or like the protagonist, Truman Burbank in the movie, The Truman Show, if a piece of lighting equipment fell into the street in front of you, would you simply shrug your shoulders and walk away?
In reality, only an eyewitness to history can know the truth. Everything else is hearsay.
And let's not forget that books are written by humans (so far, at least) which means that every book you have ever read reflects the bias of its author.
Insofar as history books are concerned, I know of no case where a book written by the loser went mainstream.
The best that any serious student of real history can do is to study a subject thoroughly, for many years, from many different perspectives, while doing his or her best to determine what actually happened.
For example, you could read Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by establishment hack historian and proven plagiarist, Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Or you could read The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, And An Unnecessary War by Thomas J. DiLorenzo and decide for yourself which book better passes the smell test.
Better still, read Lincoln Über Alles: Dictatorship Comes to America by John Avery Emison and learn how Herr Lincoln set into motion the downfall of the republic.
While in college I learned to read up to 1,000 words per minute with fairly high subject matter retention. For over 40 years now I've made it a point to read a minimum of 90 minutes a day.
I figure this comes to about 22,000 hours so far and has allowed me to consume an entire library of rare books on the most interesting subjects, some of which—given today's climate of near-fanatical political correctness—you'd probably want to read under the covers with a flashlight.
Taken as a totality, these countless conversations with some of the finest minds in history have taught me a great deal about how the world really works.
Five hundred years from now our world will be but a footnote in the history books of the future.
The challenge for anyone seriously engaged in understanding the world today (politically conflicted, in financial distress, rife with fraud and corruption) is to understand the history of our own life and times, as we're actually living through it.
There's a saying that if you've been at the poker table for thirty minutes and you haven't spotted the sucker yet, it's you.
History instructs us that things often don't work out too well when you:
• Trust schools to teach you about life.
• Trust teachers to teach you real history.
• Trust bankers to stabilize the economy.
• Trust your television to tell you the truth.
• Trust financial advisors to make you rich.
• Trust career politicians to take care of you.
• Trust doctors to keep you on this side of the grass.
• Trust experts when you can easily learn for yourself.
Which begs asking... who do you trust?
All my adult life I've had the odd feeling that I was not completely a part of what was going on; that somehow I was traveling a path parallel to the main culture—a vantage point from which I could see things as an independent, objective Observer.
This intuition that I was "on to something" even as a young man led to a fascination with getting to the bottom of things and discovering the truth.
Ah yes, the truth. So slippery and so elusive.
"A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable." - Thomas Jefferson
And so subjective, I might add, that each of us has our own personal version of the truth that we trade with each other, like playing cards.
- Who can really know the truth?
- Where does truth come from?
- Who gets to say what is actually true?
- Would you recognize truth if you stumbled over it?
Or like the protagonist, Truman Burbank in the movie, The Truman Show, if a piece of lighting equipment fell into the street in front of you, would you simply shrug your shoulders and walk away?
In reality, only an eyewitness to history can know the truth. Everything else is hearsay.
And let's not forget that books are written by humans (so far, at least) which means that every book you have ever read reflects the bias of its author.
Insofar as history books are concerned, I know of no case where a book written by the loser went mainstream.
The best that any serious student of real history can do is to study a subject thoroughly, for many years, from many different perspectives, while doing his or her best to determine what actually happened.
For example, you could read Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by establishment hack historian and proven plagiarist, Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Or you could read The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, And An Unnecessary War by Thomas J. DiLorenzo and decide for yourself which book better passes the smell test.
Better still, read Lincoln Über Alles: Dictatorship Comes to America by John Avery Emison and learn how Herr Lincoln set into motion the downfall of the republic.
While in college I learned to read up to 1,000 words per minute with fairly high subject matter retention. For over 40 years now I've made it a point to read a minimum of 90 minutes a day.
I figure this comes to about 22,000 hours so far and has allowed me to consume an entire library of rare books on the most interesting subjects, some of which—given today's climate of near-fanatical political correctness—you'd probably want to read under the covers with a flashlight.
Taken as a totality, these countless conversations with some of the finest minds in history have taught me a great deal about how the world really works.
Five hundred years from now our world will be but a footnote in the history books of the future.
The challenge for anyone seriously engaged in understanding the world today (politically conflicted, in financial distress, rife with fraud and corruption) is to understand the history of our own life and times, as we're actually living through it.
There's a saying that if you've been at the poker table for thirty minutes and you haven't spotted the sucker yet, it's you.
History instructs us that things often don't work out too well when you:
• Trust schools to teach you about life.
• Trust teachers to teach you real history.
• Trust bankers to stabilize the economy.
• Trust your television to tell you the truth.
• Trust financial advisors to make you rich.
• Trust career politicians to take care of you.
• Trust doctors to keep you on this side of the grass.
• Trust experts when you can easily learn for yourself.
Which begs asking... who do you trust?