It is not difficult to
establish the connection or alliance between war and global
corporate interests. That there are huge multinational
corporations that benefit from war is no secret. That the few
corporations dominating the media benefit from war is no secret.
That viewership goes through the stratosphere when there is war to
report is no secret. And needless to say it is cause for concern
that such interests control governments. This global
elite complex
possesses both the motive and the ability to foment wars. But the
manner in which they do so has grown increasingly subtle along with
advances in communications and information technology. Clearly it
is much more difficult today to control and contain information.
Though censorship still plays a role, there is clearly something else
that plays a more vital role in maintaining the status quo.
Just as a military coup or martial law has very limited
applications in controlling government today, censorship has similiar
limitations in controlling the populace in dominant first world
countries such as the United States. More sophisticated
modalities of control have evolved. Demagogy, disinformation, rhetoric, and sophistry have become
the preferred methods. Smoke and mirrors are much more effective
than information black outs, which, being impossible to hide anymore,
tend to make the establishment look bad. It’s much more effective
to keep the people happy and productive under conditions of perceived “freedom and democracy.”
Thus
today we often see the corporate mass media sponsoring dissent and
anti-establishment opinion. People have political needs just as
they have religious ones. If they are not given a sounding board,
they will be unsettled. Their productivity will decrease.
Thus we see Michael Moore in the movie theaters. We see Keith Olbermann, who should have
won an oscar by now for his many diatribes on MSNBC. On the other side sit
apologetics like Bill O’reilly and Sean Hannity, who are of course just
as bad. The masses lap it up. Both sides have their needs
met and feel they have political membership. Sponsorship of
dissent thus serves the establishment better than censorship
would. It paralyzes the masses. It polarizes
us. All we have is our numbers. All they have to do is
divide us up. As Orwell pointed out, many people look to
political leadership for “the
stimulation of nationalistic loyalties“, not for “appraisal of the facts“. But
this is not only true for one’s country. It’s just as true for
ones religion or one’s political affiliation. Herd them toward the right or the left,
just so long as they don’t think for themselves.
There isn’t a liberal media, or a conservative media. There’s both. They seek to divide us and they’re succeeding. Thus today we see liberals and conservatives who are increasingly polarized, obsessed with nonsense issues, tethered to party lines, who believe they are under seige and who are being herded toward the margins and extreme viewpoints. And once this political and religious entrenchment and polarization is accomplished, what chance do the people have against assaults upon their constitution ? What chance do the people have of standing up against unwarranted military aggression by their government ? The masses are crippled - if not paralyzed - by the various chasms that divide them. We become so preoccupied with the issues of the day - with emotional claptrap which is foisted on us by the mass media - that we have no desire to organize and be politically proactive. Everyone has come to believe that their neighbors and even their own family members are lunatics. We have no desire to undertake the necessary actions of reform. Instead we become obsessed with just walling ourselves off in our own little soap bubbles, precisely what we would expect in a world controlled by demagogues - precisely what we would expect from an elite overclass that plays into the popular fears and natural prejudices of the masses to attain/maintain politcal power. And such tactics are used not only in domestic policy but in foreign policy as well. Our enemies, both here at home and abroad, are defined for us by the media. We all know who they are, even though perceived threats are immensely greater than any real ones.
Watch the news tonight. I guarantee there will be at least one thing - at least one - that will have “liberals” and “conservatives“ squawking up a storm about how deluded the other side is … Watch how the media always supplies plenty of fodder for both sides. And watch how the moderates are encouraged - if not shoved - to get out of the middle, or “off the fence“. The media loves to portray those “on the fence” as the few oddballs … as the knuckleheads chasing their tails in the middle. But moderates are in fact the natural majority. Think bell curve here, or normal distribution. Clearly, in the natural, unadulterated distribuition, the minority extremists tend toward the margins and the numbers tend toward the middle. But instead of this, the distribution we see in our society today is quite abnormal, and becoming worse. Instead of the majority in the middle, we see two separate, polarized groups piling up in the extreme margins. Divide and conquer anyone? Throughout time, the overclass has achieved crowd control by division of one sort or another. They are accutely aware of our natural tendencies as a societal whole and seek to exploit them. They have mastered the fine art of tearing people apart and creating obstacles to the organizing and unification of the people. They fear popular government. They believe in Plato’s “noble lie“, and advocate Machiavellian deception. Their foreign policy is no different, except for scale. Query “cia destabilization programs“ into any search engine to see how incredibly proficient they have become as well as the sheer number of times they have dusted off this destabilization blueprint, which was created in the the 1950s - a few years after the CIA was founded - to destabilize Iran and Guatamala.
There isn’t a liberal media, or a conservative media. There’s both. They seek to divide us and they’re succeeding. Thus today we see liberals and conservatives who are increasingly polarized, obsessed with nonsense issues, tethered to party lines, who believe they are under seige and who are being herded toward the margins and extreme viewpoints. And once this political and religious entrenchment and polarization is accomplished, what chance do the people have against assaults upon their constitution ? What chance do the people have of standing up against unwarranted military aggression by their government ? The masses are crippled - if not paralyzed - by the various chasms that divide them. We become so preoccupied with the issues of the day - with emotional claptrap which is foisted on us by the mass media - that we have no desire to organize and be politically proactive. Everyone has come to believe that their neighbors and even their own family members are lunatics. We have no desire to undertake the necessary actions of reform. Instead we become obsessed with just walling ourselves off in our own little soap bubbles, precisely what we would expect in a world controlled by demagogues - precisely what we would expect from an elite overclass that plays into the popular fears and natural prejudices of the masses to attain/maintain politcal power. And such tactics are used not only in domestic policy but in foreign policy as well. Our enemies, both here at home and abroad, are defined for us by the media. We all know who they are, even though perceived threats are immensely greater than any real ones.
Watch the news tonight. I guarantee there will be at least one thing - at least one - that will have “liberals” and “conservatives“ squawking up a storm about how deluded the other side is … Watch how the media always supplies plenty of fodder for both sides. And watch how the moderates are encouraged - if not shoved - to get out of the middle, or “off the fence“. The media loves to portray those “on the fence” as the few oddballs … as the knuckleheads chasing their tails in the middle. But moderates are in fact the natural majority. Think bell curve here, or normal distribution. Clearly, in the natural, unadulterated distribuition, the minority extremists tend toward the margins and the numbers tend toward the middle. But instead of this, the distribution we see in our society today is quite abnormal, and becoming worse. Instead of the majority in the middle, we see two separate, polarized groups piling up in the extreme margins. Divide and conquer anyone? Throughout time, the overclass has achieved crowd control by division of one sort or another. They are accutely aware of our natural tendencies as a societal whole and seek to exploit them. They have mastered the fine art of tearing people apart and creating obstacles to the organizing and unification of the people. They fear popular government. They believe in Plato’s “noble lie“, and advocate Machiavellian deception. Their foreign policy is no different, except for scale. Query “cia destabilization programs“ into any search engine to see how incredibly proficient they have become as well as the sheer number of times they have dusted off this destabilization blueprint, which was created in the the 1950s - a few years after the CIA was founded - to destabilize Iran and Guatamala.
Equally
important, everyone - progressive and cautious alike - have been
conditioned to be indifferent. By the entertainment world we are
abuzz in, we’ve become comfortably numb. We’re anesthetized by
creature comforts. They’ve made us an offer we couldn’t
refuse. Thus the system breeds the very thing that sustains it ; indifference. It’s not that
the drug addict doesn’t know what he’s doing is wrong, it’s just that
he’s having too much fun. How
likely is it that we - immersed in our service/entertainment
oriented culture which we are led to believe we have earned - will push for reform
? Why should we care one way or the other ? Why would we want to
consider the mountain
of debt upon which our
opulence is built ? What
would motivate debt financed consumers to do anything other than ignore the fact that our currency is the
world reserve currency - that we import vast amounts of goods and
services virtually
for free?
Why should we acknowledge the heinous
undertakings of the CIA, which has been intervening on behalf of
big oil and other multinational interests for decades now, protecting
the big fellas from market discipline? Why think about the
effects that CIA-backed death squads, CIA destabilization
programs, and CIA installed dictators have had on the world? Why
worry about the banking sham - the toleration of which is
beyond belief - upon which our entire system rests? Why should it alarm us that a Constitutional
law expert would liken the current
administration to The Sopranos
- pointing out the fact that many of the current leaders have been
accused of violating the law and subsequently “had a
rapid ascent in the administration” ?
The overclass, who control an
obscene proportion of the world’s total wealth, do take
measures to maintain their position, as should be expected.
With ownership of the media they control the flow of information.
And with this power, they divide and destabilize the populace on
multiple ideological fronts while simultaneously promoting
diversionary pop culture, consumerism, violence and
depravity. Such “softening the target” sets a perfect stage for
overreaching new legislation calling for expansionary foreign
policy and the use of military force, which has its roots in
underlying economic realities. Common
sense tells most everyone that the propaganda we are inundated with is
a lie, but the masses have somehow been able to suppress
their rational thoughts like a dirty family secret, like the
proverbial mad uncle who lives in the attic. The herd quite
likes its role in the play - its identity in the world.
The fight is noble - “God’s work“.
How
easily we can overlook all of the foul play
that has been done in the name of our country and/or our religion which serves us
quite nicely to this day. How unfashionable it has become to
invoke unpleasant historical facts. “The ends justify the means.”
“The good surely outweighs the bad.“
Yadda, yadda, yadda … The
think tanks have done a fabulous job of writing the script
Yet we’re happy to become quite negative
when it’s someone else’s head on the chopping block. Do we ever
consider the “positives” of
the likes of Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer ? Never.
Why are we so pessimistic when someone else is in the hot seat, but so
perennially “positive” when we
get taken to the woodshed?
Why, upon looking into the mirror, do we only see sugar and spice and
everything nice? So much for optimism. It is highly
selective, at best.
America is touted as the land of
“democracy and freedom“.
But everyone who raises a pinky to investigate the underlying realities
finds flagrant internal contradictions and a hipocracy that is so thick
you can cut it with a knife. The very foundations of our
social-political-religious realities are rooted in smoke and mirrors, fairy tales, over-exaggerated “evil-doer” hokum, and flat out
lies. We have surrendered
popular control of government to the national security
state. Why?
Because we are paid well to swallow it. We have fallen, hook,
line, and sinker, for the fantasy. Ignorance is bliss. All is well in Neverland.
But what sort of legacy do we
leave to our descendents with this mentality? Will this make
their world better or worse? Is it somehow desirable to be a
society of care free, complacent, ignorant, self-indulgent dolts who
bow to the slumlord leaders? Do we worry about being ostercized
if we make waves? It would appear so. But what’s worse- being a
crack addict, or being ostercized for not being one?
Is it even close?