The following are observations about the election from a libertarian point of view. They aren't necessarily sorted into one piece, but are a collection of thoughts. Expect a lack of flow and cohesion.
Clinton:
We can talk about Bill or Hillary, it doesn't matter as they seem to be interchangeable fun-house mirrors of each other. The system they've used to ride high seems to be turning against them since Trump secured the Republican nomination. As of this writing, Black Lives Matter has turned against Hillary. Bernie supporters have never hated the Clinton cartel more. The IRS has launched an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Then, there's that little Wikileaks thing that calls the legitimacy of her impending nomination into question. Julian Assange claims there's more leaks to come regarding the election.
Everything seems to be turning against them at once. We can't talk about this without talking about the Elite. The Elite needs a useful puppet, which Clinton is. This puppet also needs to keep the masses bewildered by perpetuating the myth of consent of the governed. Clinton no longer fits this bill, if she ever did. Should Team Clinton sit on the throne again, the myth that the elites rely on will be dispelled.
The Elite needs the myth maintained, and it hasn't been a good year for the elite.
Trump:
Trump could fit this bill, not necessarily because he is or isn't an insider. Elements of his beliefs may fly in the face of the status quo, but what few policy stances he's offered don't overtly threaten much of the elite agenda with the exception of a handful of core tenets. Where he deviates, there's an answer for that. The Elite are also short on alternatives.
Which puppet gets chosen?:
Consider who would be more useful at this stage in the game, of the two: The puppet with an irreparably tarnished reputation, despite her willingness to toe the line. Or, the alternative potential puppet that asserts "I'm a real boy", with his own thoughts and his own beliefs. This puppet deviates little, but where he does deviate he pivots unpredictably, sometimes putting on a show that the puppet master doesn't want on the stage.
The Elite would rather lose a few fingers than the entire hand. They'll lose fingers if Trump makes it to the White House. They'll lose a hand if Hillary does.
Libertarians for Trump:
When Trump is golden, he's golden. When he's not, he's the polar opposite of liberty. Libertarians have enough to applaud and condemn. Trump, when applying the Libertarian litmus test, is terrible for liberty. To borrow the line, "Support the master that will dole out less beatings", which I can't argue with. Which takes me to...
Libertarians for Trumpism:
Make lemonade from the lemons. Trumpism is a unique phenomenon tied to Trump, comparable only to Pat Buchanan's populism that was uniquely tied to Pat Buchanan, now only a residual of the alt-right and Libertarian circles. Trumpism too will evaporate when Trump is out of the game, and Trumpists will look for a new home - they won't find it in the progressive, liberal, or neoconservative camps. Many of these people have libertarian sympathies, having been supporters of Ron Paul in the last two election cycles (See: Alex Jones). They could be libertarian, or libertarian sympathizers in a few years. Murray Rothbard was right, education and outreach is how we will succeed. Libertarians for Trump could accomplish this - worst case scenario it doesn't, and Libertarians will be no worse off than we are now for the effort.
Libertarians for Johnson:
Talking about all of this, and Libertarian support, would be incomplete without mentioning Johnson. I've talked about Johnson a lot on this blog, I'll avoid reiterating. Johnson won't necessarily grow Libertarianism, but he could transform Libertarianism into Libertinism and Diet Statism. If the words out of Johnson's mouth are any indication, he's not a libertarian. Had Johnson said any of these things campaigning as a Democrat or a Republican, much of Johnson's libertarian voter base would have cried foul and called him a Statist. Giving Johnson a free pass because he's campaigning with an L next to his name is worse for Libertarianism than anything Libertarians for Trump could possibly do.
Summary:
Can we have Ron Paul back?
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Thursday, July 7, 2016
One Long Whimper
The thoughts in this writing aren't necessarily associated with Libertarian theory. They're social observations that some Libertarians, regardless of their home camp in the larger liberty movement, may be interested in. Libertines of the Liberty movement are likely to have objections to much of what I say. I'm not necessarily speaking against someone's rights, but I'm definitely observing the result.
The older I get, the wiser my elders sound. The more I communicate with my peers, the more I realize how little I understood before the discourse. The more I listen to what my peers have to say, the revelations get more interesting.
I can't say why, but commentary in Alternate Media seems to imply that there's a growing attention to the alleged Depopulation Agenda. The allegations stem from comments made by Bill and Melinda Gates, several eugenicists, John D. Rockefeller, environmental groups and an assortment of individuals that come from the enigmatic circle that has been dubbed the Elite. A belief in depopulation has been stated by members of this Elite, but what have they actually done? War and eugenics practices are hardly putting a dent into the population. Until recent epiphanies I'd never given much attention to this theory.
The Black Plague scoffs at the paltry sum of souls that have been culled by recent War and the machinery of Eugenics. Several sources give different numbers, percentages, or breakdowns of deaths in a particular region over a given period - but these are numbers that couldn't be achieved by a nuclear strike on several metro areas. Should the Warfare State or a practice of Eugenics choose to compete with the Black Plague in any significant way, such an action would completely and utterly destroy faith in the master. Faith is what they need to maintain strength in three main arenas: Government, Politics, and Finance.
The belief in the Depopulation theory also does not account for the truth that willfully shrinking a power base does not make for a strong Empire. We can assign dozens or hundreds of traits to the Elite, but the belief in their all encompassing Imperial Dynasty is chief among these traits and is the vehicle that makes their deeds possible.
I've seen no apparent evidence of a Depopulation in action, until a recent open forum of libertarians slightly derailed into a talk about an alleged depopulation agenda. If this is a goal of the elite, they cannot achieve these results immediately. As stated earlier, using an existing method in their toolbox will only undermine their authority to whoever is left - and may even harm themselves in the process.
In light of this, depopulation would have to be a process that becomes guided by trends. Trends aid in the overall make up of defining a culture. For much of prosperous segments in history, culture was defined by the Nuclear family: global population only increased.
Objectors may call my concerns unfounded as the population continues to increase. However, the birth rate declines with each new measurement. Equally alarming, global median age is at Sixty Seven. Agenda or not, it does not bode well for the longevity of the human race.
There are several things I'd attribute to this, it's impossible to talk about all of them without writing a very long book.
Children are considered State Assets first, sons and daughters of their parents last. Five days a week, six hours each day, our children go to learn about the world around them through the filter of a State agenda. Though the nuances of this agenda change ever so slightly every so many years, the core of the agenda remains the same: The State is your first loyalty. This agenda has undermined the nuclear family.
Bizarre expectations are pushed on our children. Young boys are expected to sit quietly for six hours listening, when these same young boys are more interested in doing. Give a young boy a set of Lego's for the first time - the instructions will become a distant memory in less than six seconds and he will rapidly start assembling these plastic bricks in a manner of his choosing, correcting irregularities as he finds them. I'd say much the same for young girls, but studies indicate that girls learn best from instruction and guidance instead of trial and error.
Boys that display masculinity are lectured and disciplined on the error of their ways. Children don't like getting in trouble. They rely on adults to coach them through the do's and do not's. The issue here, is that the do's that are perfectly acceptable for young boys have been transformed into do not's, and they run risk of "getting in trouble" just for being who and what they are. This has undermined the masculinity of males, and it's done at a very young age when habits for life are formed. As these same boys age into young men, asking a young woman on a date runs risk of being treated akin to sexual harassment.
Girls are taught that femininity isn't natural, it's conditioning that they must rebel from. I talk a lot about boys in the dynamic of this cultural aberration, but I think girls have it at least as bad if not worse even if only for the end result. Imagine being a young girl, and a trusted figure that's not a relative lectures you on the errors of the womanhood definition. Being a mother is undesirable and should be avoided. "Taking care of yourself" is male chauvinist code for being good looking. Abortions are a trendy right that you shouldn't have to pay for, and it's something to be celebrated. Consider that these manipulations, when they transition from idea to fruition, repel the innate magnetism of male interest. Then, the men are obviously the problem when these man-haters can't get dates.
In all of the above, a baseline of condition and conditioning has been set. This is a conditioning that begins when children step into State, or Statist education. The cultural constructs that developed naturally have been modified - not by markets or exchange of ideas, but by intervention on a captive audience. When we look at the above four points as a unified whole, all subjects are being taught behaviors that renders themselves illegitimate. The male is being feminized, the female is being made undesirable at best or masculine at worst. This is how we arrive at new descriptions: The Metrosexual male, the self hating male, and the Third Wave Feminist and perhaps more, each lacking in what a male or female would be interested in for the purposes of starting a family.
Social Media is the new "hanging out". Despite the term, it is not social or socializing; It's a shadow in the shape of socializing. This post too, is not the reader and I engaging each other in the same physical environment. The reader doesn't have the ability to grasp the tone of my voice to gauge for manners, sarcasm, sincerity, humor, concern or fury. The reader does not get to experience my body language, my facial expressions, my pauses for consideration, or my willingness to hear their rebuttal. Right now, you're "socializing" with a block of text credited to someone on the internet operating under a pseudonym, courtesy of Social Media.
This isn't a problem in isolation - it's a modern means to communicate to the entire world. This becomes a problem when this replaces social activity. Even when using a real name, there's an air of suspended reality: Nothing is physically taking place. You can throw an infantile tantrum on social media and there's nothing "real" about it. The reactions aren't real, the re-tweets aren't real, the thumbs up or thumbs down aren't real, the emoji aren't real. An opportunity was deprived to learn of the consequences of said tantrum. There was no sobering interjection from a peer to step in and deescalate the situation, there were no awkward stares. These are reactions to antisocial behavior that children begin learning at the age of two, perhaps now permanently delayed. Unfortunately, we can call this the new normal as social media users seem to get younger and younger, despite age restrictions in the Terms of Use (Gasp!). The results of social media replacing socializing have become more readily apparent since MySpace launched in 2003. These users are the new young adult, and they struggle to wrap their head around the basics of decent social discourse. Their primary method of communication is being emulated outside of Social Media. Facebook, IMGUR, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter are their chosen reality, "life" is their emulation. This has infantalized a generation, making them all the easier to cater to by means of coddling. As a result, there are new baselines for expectations of social interaction.
This is the new baseline for disagreement. This is how a point is defended. We can't expect these simpletons to use these undesirable social talents and their early conditioning to navigate the arena of finding a partner and starting a healthy, functioning family, or even getting so far as conceiving a child at all.
The Elite do not need a depopulation agenda, depopulation is happening regardless. Unless this is it.
The older I get, the wiser my elders sound. The more I communicate with my peers, the more I realize how little I understood before the discourse. The more I listen to what my peers have to say, the revelations get more interesting.
I can't say why, but commentary in Alternate Media seems to imply that there's a growing attention to the alleged Depopulation Agenda. The allegations stem from comments made by Bill and Melinda Gates, several eugenicists, John D. Rockefeller, environmental groups and an assortment of individuals that come from the enigmatic circle that has been dubbed the Elite. A belief in depopulation has been stated by members of this Elite, but what have they actually done? War and eugenics practices are hardly putting a dent into the population. Until recent epiphanies I'd never given much attention to this theory.
The Black Plague scoffs at the paltry sum of souls that have been culled by recent War and the machinery of Eugenics. Several sources give different numbers, percentages, or breakdowns of deaths in a particular region over a given period - but these are numbers that couldn't be achieved by a nuclear strike on several metro areas. Should the Warfare State or a practice of Eugenics choose to compete with the Black Plague in any significant way, such an action would completely and utterly destroy faith in the master. Faith is what they need to maintain strength in three main arenas: Government, Politics, and Finance.
The belief in the Depopulation theory also does not account for the truth that willfully shrinking a power base does not make for a strong Empire. We can assign dozens or hundreds of traits to the Elite, but the belief in their all encompassing Imperial Dynasty is chief among these traits and is the vehicle that makes their deeds possible.
I've seen no apparent evidence of a Depopulation in action, until a recent open forum of libertarians slightly derailed into a talk about an alleged depopulation agenda. If this is a goal of the elite, they cannot achieve these results immediately. As stated earlier, using an existing method in their toolbox will only undermine their authority to whoever is left - and may even harm themselves in the process.
In light of this, depopulation would have to be a process that becomes guided by trends. Trends aid in the overall make up of defining a culture. For much of prosperous segments in history, culture was defined by the Nuclear family: global population only increased.
Objectors may call my concerns unfounded as the population continues to increase. However, the birth rate declines with each new measurement. Equally alarming, global median age is at Sixty Seven. Agenda or not, it does not bode well for the longevity of the human race.
There are several things I'd attribute to this, it's impossible to talk about all of them without writing a very long book.
Children are considered State Assets first, sons and daughters of their parents last. Five days a week, six hours each day, our children go to learn about the world around them through the filter of a State agenda. Though the nuances of this agenda change ever so slightly every so many years, the core of the agenda remains the same: The State is your first loyalty. This agenda has undermined the nuclear family.
Bizarre expectations are pushed on our children. Young boys are expected to sit quietly for six hours listening, when these same young boys are more interested in doing. Give a young boy a set of Lego's for the first time - the instructions will become a distant memory in less than six seconds and he will rapidly start assembling these plastic bricks in a manner of his choosing, correcting irregularities as he finds them. I'd say much the same for young girls, but studies indicate that girls learn best from instruction and guidance instead of trial and error.
Boys that display masculinity are lectured and disciplined on the error of their ways. Children don't like getting in trouble. They rely on adults to coach them through the do's and do not's. The issue here, is that the do's that are perfectly acceptable for young boys have been transformed into do not's, and they run risk of "getting in trouble" just for being who and what they are. This has undermined the masculinity of males, and it's done at a very young age when habits for life are formed. As these same boys age into young men, asking a young woman on a date runs risk of being treated akin to sexual harassment.
Girls are taught that femininity isn't natural, it's conditioning that they must rebel from. I talk a lot about boys in the dynamic of this cultural aberration, but I think girls have it at least as bad if not worse even if only for the end result. Imagine being a young girl, and a trusted figure that's not a relative lectures you on the errors of the womanhood definition. Being a mother is undesirable and should be avoided. "Taking care of yourself" is male chauvinist code for being good looking. Abortions are a trendy right that you shouldn't have to pay for, and it's something to be celebrated. Consider that these manipulations, when they transition from idea to fruition, repel the innate magnetism of male interest. Then, the men are obviously the problem when these man-haters can't get dates.
In all of the above, a baseline of condition and conditioning has been set. This is a conditioning that begins when children step into State, or Statist education. The cultural constructs that developed naturally have been modified - not by markets or exchange of ideas, but by intervention on a captive audience. When we look at the above four points as a unified whole, all subjects are being taught behaviors that renders themselves illegitimate. The male is being feminized, the female is being made undesirable at best or masculine at worst. This is how we arrive at new descriptions: The Metrosexual male, the self hating male, and the Third Wave Feminist and perhaps more, each lacking in what a male or female would be interested in for the purposes of starting a family.
Social Media is the new "hanging out". Despite the term, it is not social or socializing; It's a shadow in the shape of socializing. This post too, is not the reader and I engaging each other in the same physical environment. The reader doesn't have the ability to grasp the tone of my voice to gauge for manners, sarcasm, sincerity, humor, concern or fury. The reader does not get to experience my body language, my facial expressions, my pauses for consideration, or my willingness to hear their rebuttal. Right now, you're "socializing" with a block of text credited to someone on the internet operating under a pseudonym, courtesy of Social Media.
This isn't a problem in isolation - it's a modern means to communicate to the entire world. This becomes a problem when this replaces social activity. Even when using a real name, there's an air of suspended reality: Nothing is physically taking place. You can throw an infantile tantrum on social media and there's nothing "real" about it. The reactions aren't real, the re-tweets aren't real, the thumbs up or thumbs down aren't real, the emoji aren't real. An opportunity was deprived to learn of the consequences of said tantrum. There was no sobering interjection from a peer to step in and deescalate the situation, there were no awkward stares. These are reactions to antisocial behavior that children begin learning at the age of two, perhaps now permanently delayed. Unfortunately, we can call this the new normal as social media users seem to get younger and younger, despite age restrictions in the Terms of Use (Gasp!). The results of social media replacing socializing have become more readily apparent since MySpace launched in 2003. These users are the new young adult, and they struggle to wrap their head around the basics of decent social discourse. Their primary method of communication is being emulated outside of Social Media. Facebook, IMGUR, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter are their chosen reality, "life" is their emulation. This has infantalized a generation, making them all the easier to cater to by means of coddling. As a result, there are new baselines for expectations of social interaction.
This is the new baseline for disagreement. This is how a point is defended. We can't expect these simpletons to use these undesirable social talents and their early conditioning to navigate the arena of finding a partner and starting a healthy, functioning family, or even getting so far as conceiving a child at all.
The Elite do not need a depopulation agenda, depopulation is happening regardless. Unless this is it.
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Mud into Clay
Brexit and Gary Johnson have done things to challenge my outlook on voting, campaigns, and elections. Particularly, when it comes to the choice of participation, or how to participate. I hold an aversion to participation for a number of reasons, but as a result of these two topics I'm questioning how effective this tactic is when it comes to moving the discussion and action toward liberty.
Brexit:
It all comes back to Rothbard, as it always does. Murray had it right, our victories aren't necessarily in the results of elections. After all, nothing says that Brexit will actually happen. It's still waiting for a line up of rubber stamps and statist bureaucracies before the idea becomes tangible: In this process, there are multiple means to halt this from happening. We can't rely on the State to give liberty any approval.
While I'd be delighted to see the vote transferred to action tonight, tomorrow or in two months, in the grand scheme this isn't as important to me as seeing Sixteen Million people say "No, goodbye". A war of ideas was won, reminiscent of the Rothbard method of education and persuasion. I don't insist these same Sixteen Million people are libertarians, but this same group chose to remove a very large apparatus of control from their day to day governance. Two weeks ago this was the stuff of imagination, now it's what's put a smile on my face for over a week!
What followed was sections of the Bremain camp wanting to secede from the United Kingdom. As of this writing, there are movements in Northern Ireland, Scotland and London emboldened by the vote to further decentralize the UK. Though their motives are blatantly unlibertarian, Libertarians can still take heart. Freedom of Association and Secession aren't relegated to the dark corners of political discourse anymore. These aren't limited to the planks of Libertarian theory, these are now very human issues.
Don't take my word for it. Even California, socialist utopia of the west, boasts a small but budding secession movement that's since been emboldened by Brexit. No longer can the talking heads insist that secession and decentralization are the movements of racists, xenophobes, or fringe elements - lest they spite the poster children that comprise their power base.
The Elite has been painted into a corner as a result of Brexit. Even Obama has to use alternative language to maintain credibility in the conversation. A quote, from an interview on NPR:
Right, wrong, or otherwise isn't the point of this writing and citation. The State felt compelled to use anti-state language in an anti Global Elite context to keep it's place at the round table. The elders among us may correct me, but I can't recall a moment in recent history where this has happened.
The poltergeist of Lincolnism has been pointed out in the Haunted House of political discourse. The exorcist has been notified and may be on his way.
Gary Johnson:
I'll avoid restating what I've said already about the Libertarian that wasn't, you can read it here. But the rise of Johnson as the face of Libertarianism for the past two election cycles has me questioning my arm chair stance. Since I wrote my critique, Johnson only seems to get worse.
Kristol is interested in supporting Johnson.*
That's interesting. I'd wager this has more to do with #NeverTrump than it does with favoring Johnson or Libertarianism, and likely motivated by supporting Hillary without overtly saying so. Despite this, when has Kristol ever given a second thought to Libertarians? This says more about Johnson than it does anything else. Anything that makes the likes of Kristol feel safe likely does little for liberty.
If the Libertarian Town Hall is any indication, Johnson would be right at home campaigning as a centrist Republican or Democrat.*
All of this, in the post Ron Paul age. Disappointing is an understatement.
Conclusion:
While I obviously can't speak for everyone and I'm certain there was a presence, where was the Libertarian Wing of the Libertarian Party? Rightfully so, there's an aversion to participating in this process. The very nature of Democratic action is a violation of the non aggression principle.
But like Ron Paul, we don't have to become part of the game as a stakeholder in the outcome. Education and changing the conversation are infinitely more important. Even if Johnson was the Libertarian Savant, putting libertarian application into an existing apparatus of Statism is likely to yield little for liberty. Avoiding the Statist's chosen arena seems to do even less.
The results of both Brexit and the Libertarian nomination are challenging to my non-participation stance. If we'd like to effect the conversation, taking one step back out of the discourse doesn't help our cause. It gives the State a chance to take two steps forward. Which it did, the faces of liberty are Johnson and Weld. Did a non participation stance yield this result?
If ever there was a moment to inject unfiltered ideas of liberty into the conversation, it was this election cycle. Nuts to me for not participating. Maybe I'm off base, and I'd welcome some criticism to tell me why.
*Credit for these citations rests with Robert Wenzel and Justin Raimondo. Thanks to you both!
Brexit:
It all comes back to Rothbard, as it always does. Murray had it right, our victories aren't necessarily in the results of elections. After all, nothing says that Brexit will actually happen. It's still waiting for a line up of rubber stamps and statist bureaucracies before the idea becomes tangible: In this process, there are multiple means to halt this from happening. We can't rely on the State to give liberty any approval.
While I'd be delighted to see the vote transferred to action tonight, tomorrow or in two months, in the grand scheme this isn't as important to me as seeing Sixteen Million people say "No, goodbye". A war of ideas was won, reminiscent of the Rothbard method of education and persuasion. I don't insist these same Sixteen Million people are libertarians, but this same group chose to remove a very large apparatus of control from their day to day governance. Two weeks ago this was the stuff of imagination, now it's what's put a smile on my face for over a week!
What followed was sections of the Bremain camp wanting to secede from the United Kingdom. As of this writing, there are movements in Northern Ireland, Scotland and London emboldened by the vote to further decentralize the UK. Though their motives are blatantly unlibertarian, Libertarians can still take heart. Freedom of Association and Secession aren't relegated to the dark corners of political discourse anymore. These aren't limited to the planks of Libertarian theory, these are now very human issues.
Don't take my word for it. Even California, socialist utopia of the west, boasts a small but budding secession movement that's since been emboldened by Brexit. No longer can the talking heads insist that secession and decentralization are the movements of racists, xenophobes, or fringe elements - lest they spite the poster children that comprise their power base.
The Elite has been painted into a corner as a result of Brexit. Even Obama has to use alternative language to maintain credibility in the conversation. A quote, from an interview on NPR:
"Mr. Trump embodies global elites and has taken full advantage of it his entire life," the president said. "So, he's hardly a spokesperson, a legitimate spokesperson, for a populist surge of working-class people on either side of the Atlantic."
Right, wrong, or otherwise isn't the point of this writing and citation. The State felt compelled to use anti-state language in an anti Global Elite context to keep it's place at the round table. The elders among us may correct me, but I can't recall a moment in recent history where this has happened.
The poltergeist of Lincolnism has been pointed out in the Haunted House of political discourse. The exorcist has been notified and may be on his way.
Gary Johnson:
I'll avoid restating what I've said already about the Libertarian that wasn't, you can read it here. But the rise of Johnson as the face of Libertarianism for the past two election cycles has me questioning my arm chair stance. Since I wrote my critique, Johnson only seems to get worse.
Kristol is interested in supporting Johnson.*
That's interesting. I'd wager this has more to do with #NeverTrump than it does with favoring Johnson or Libertarianism, and likely motivated by supporting Hillary without overtly saying so. Despite this, when has Kristol ever given a second thought to Libertarians? This says more about Johnson than it does anything else. Anything that makes the likes of Kristol feel safe likely does little for liberty.
If the Libertarian Town Hall is any indication, Johnson would be right at home campaigning as a centrist Republican or Democrat.*
All of this, in the post Ron Paul age. Disappointing is an understatement.
Conclusion:
While I obviously can't speak for everyone and I'm certain there was a presence, where was the Libertarian Wing of the Libertarian Party? Rightfully so, there's an aversion to participating in this process. The very nature of Democratic action is a violation of the non aggression principle.
But like Ron Paul, we don't have to become part of the game as a stakeholder in the outcome. Education and changing the conversation are infinitely more important. Even if Johnson was the Libertarian Savant, putting libertarian application into an existing apparatus of Statism is likely to yield little for liberty. Avoiding the Statist's chosen arena seems to do even less.
The results of both Brexit and the Libertarian nomination are challenging to my non-participation stance. If we'd like to effect the conversation, taking one step back out of the discourse doesn't help our cause. It gives the State a chance to take two steps forward. Which it did, the faces of liberty are Johnson and Weld. Did a non participation stance yield this result?
If ever there was a moment to inject unfiltered ideas of liberty into the conversation, it was this election cycle. Nuts to me for not participating. Maybe I'm off base, and I'd welcome some criticism to tell me why.
*Credit for these citations rests with Robert Wenzel and Justin Raimondo. Thanks to you both!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)