concl

Propaganda has been important historically for creating a sense of nationalism as well as a facade of democratic values, helping to maintain morale and therefore productivity. And it remains so today, here in the US and elsewhere. Though "we the people" are increasingly aware that the big political decisions are in fact made by big monied interests, somehow we remain largely under the spell of the propaganda that paints a pretty picture of a just, democratic system and popular government. Things like the education system, mass media, and organized religion condition us to think about the concept of duty in a very benign way. While it's alright, even desirable, to dissent, you had better be careful how you do it, lest you be dubbed a "misanthrope." It would be one thing if the deception and so-called "noble lies" of leadership were solely intended to facilitate crowd control and help keep the peace. But it is quite another that this deception plays a vital role in stifling the creative potential of our people and exacerbates natural inequality by orders of magnitude, catapulting inequality to obscene levels.

So, by all means, question things. Be a dissenter. Fulfill your "duty." Just don't ask the taboo questions. You might ruin the magic. When reality sets in however, we are forced to confront some very inconvenient questions. To what extent:

do so-called "people's movements" have to compromise or acquiesce to the will of industry elites, or else risk the loss of funding?

do these compromised social movements provide a false sense of achievement, acting as a pressure relief valve for societal dissent and radical energy?

does toeing religious or political party lines divide and alienate people from one another, even family members, as well as other people who might otherwise have been natural allies?

The role of the mass media in our conditioning cannot be emphasized enough. It provides constant reinforcement for consumeristic values. It creates a milieu of fear and distrust by focusing on disaster, disease, endless crime and terrorism, all of which flood the mainstream press. But one of the most important things the media does is fan the flames of partisan politics, keeping the people divided and distracted. Almost everyone I have talked to about this has related to me a similar narrative, one where there has been considerable tension and alienation in their friendships, communities, and families that stems from religious and/or political values. Is it really worth the trouble? Are these values even our true values, or variants promulgated in popular culture and mass media, on behalf of those who stand to gain the most from maintaining the status quo, which is most easily accomplished through division? Sure, there are plenty of divisions and distractions that occur naturally. But to what extent does the mainstream press and popular culture exacerbate this? And aren't such divide and conquer tactics eerily reminiscent of the CIA destabilization blueprint, where foreign populations are manipulated, armed, and stirred into conflict in order to justify an intervention, military bases, and UN "peacekeepers"? Monied interests are always the ones arming both sides of these conflicts in areas rich in natural resources and/or geostrategic significance. One need not have any special training to connect the dots here. And how much different are our little domestic divisions, from the political to the religious, save perhaps their level of sophistication and more affluent audience? Divide and conquer has a rich history in both foreign and domestic policy. The net result bodes very well for the big guys, while the common man, increasingly at odds with his own natural allies, remains unable to organize and form a coherent, powerful voice. Powerless and voiceless, we turn to cheap substitutes to replace our true values, cheap substitutes that are ready and waiting.

According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, "the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." What's wrong with collusion? Why shouldn't people collude? Isn't it natural for people to collude? Isn't it constructive to do business with other countries? If that's unnatural, how natural is it that elites collude so that others can't? And what's a barbarian? Someone who would like to be left alone? Someone who's in the way? Someone who would like the best for his/her family? Someone who would like to remain on their ancestral lands without being told it was "for the good of the whole" to kick them off to build a "clean development mechanism," perhaps a hydroelectric dam or a carbon sink? How many of those deemed “barbarians” are really very barbaric?

And these geostrategic principles are used also on the domestic front. There is little ambiguity here as to who must be kept from colluding, and who the barbarians are. Thanks to legislation passed under George W. Bush (Military Commissions Act of 2006, Defense Authorization Act of 2007 ) all future presidents in the United states will have the dictatorial power to detain anyone, simply via deeming them an "enemy combatant", denying them legal protection and a fair trial, as well as declare martial law and invoke the military to deal with "domestic insurrection" and "rebellion", or natural disasters, health/disease related concerns, or even something as vague as "other conditions." Going forward, our president can now do all this with no congressional oversight. Thanks to Bush's Executive Order 13438 of 2007, all future presidents will also have the dictatorial power to seize the assets (bank accounts, homes, etc ...) of anyone he alone deems a "significant risk." And I don't think it's much of a secret (anymore) who the myriad of so-called "progressive" reforms and regulations are really aimed at. While such regulations may seem onerous to big business superficially, they are absolutely devastating to the ordinary, average businessman. It must be nice to be able to lobby for legislation that wipes out all the competition. Is there any doubt who the winners were during the bailout legislation passed under Barack Obama?

In our society, what percent find themselves able to follow their passions and true calling? And to what extent? Why do so many find themselves asserting things like "we're God's chosen people," or "the only true church," and other very divisive, unrealistic, black and white, political values, from the "you're either with us or against us" foreign policy to the "believer/denier" framing of environmentalism? Why do we find ourselves tethered to party lines, casting votes which are, in effect, dictated to us? We have become a crippled body politic, having replaced our innate sensibilities with embarrassingly soap-operatic, religious and political ones - with authoritative, dogmatic values systems which are not to be questioned. We live vicariously through ideologies which appear different superficially, but which support the same corrupt edifice. Why is there so much blind faith in both religion and politics? Why is it so tempting to toe party lines? What is the true nature of this sort of devotion? Shouldn't participation in organized religion, politics, or anything else for that matter, be done with a cautious, selective, and discriminating sort of optimism? In the real, natural world, individuality is far less dangerous than establishment elites and social engineers would have us think. It's also far more interesting than the homogenous, sterile, social organization which they strive to foist upon us.

The ruling elites are willing to make concessions, and sure, some of these will be worth acting upon. But many others will not. Will such distinctions be made? And will we bill our participation in the political apparatus responsibly? Social movements like to sell themselves through such labels as "fundamentally transformative" or "revolutionary," and unfortunately, we eat it up. Historically, what are the odds a social movement will not be co-opted if it's not from its very outset? What are the chances that any genuinely threatening social movement will not be met with inconceivable power? Who thinks it makes sense to go head on with an establishment that controls armies, information flow, vast technology like the power grid, the legal apparatus, and the movement of goods, including food and fuel? What such a social movement is far more likely to do is create a false sense of duty and a diffusing of healthy, radical energy, steering us away from all manner of creative adaptations and innovative responses that we are capable of on the local front, where our real power rests, where natural, small scale networking, organization and collaboration can occur the easiest and most effectively. Toeing party lines only detracts from this, creating divisive, ideological antagonism, pitting us against one another, perpetuating a system that beggars all, keeping us beholden. Nor are we well served by their authoritative tone, whether political or religious, invariably encouraging us to defer to some luminary or "expert" to dictate our thinking when it's perfectly within our grasp to do the requisite research to produce a valid opinion of our own.

While the civil rights movement, for example, led to some positive changes in our society, it is completely untenable to claim that the establishment was in any way forced to make concessions they didn't want to make. It is also important to remember that we have examples of far more egalitarian cultures in our history that are thousands of years old, and even some extant today. It is a travesty then to look upon advances in civil rights as beacons of human achievement? It is morally reprehensible that our culture ever lost these rights in the first place. Why then are such details so easily overlooked or dismissed? Never mind what civil rights did for the corporate elite establishment. The tragedy of pom-pom waving is its utter lack of objectivity. Never mind if the movement is co-opted by establisment interests. Never mind that it is funded and steered in a way that defangs it. Just focus on the movement's ostensible objectives, on the illusion of popular government, self-determination, and countervailing forces battling it out to achieve some sort of magical balance, and an overall air of legitimacy to our so-called "popular government." Pom-pom waving allows us to ignore the dark underbelly, ensuring that we remain beholden to it.

"In a twisted logic, the battle against corporate capitalism was to be fought using the funds from the tax exempt foundations owned by corporate capitalism." ... "The hidden agenda was to weaken and divide the protest movement and orient the anti-globalization movement into areas that would not directly threaten the interests of the business establishment." ... "What is at stake is the ambivalent role of the leaders of progressive organizations. Their cozy and polite relationship to the inner circles of power, to corporate and government funding, aid agencies, the World Bank, etc, undermines their relationship and responsibilities to their rank and file. The objective of manufactured dissent is precisely that: to distance the leaders from their rank and file as a means to effectively silencing and weakening grassroots actions." (2)

The time is ripe to rethink the prevailing conception of "civic duty" and how best to resist corruption and achieve social change. As we know by now, the establishment prefers to define "resistance" for us. And they're more than happy to fund that "resistance." Are we better served, and is the local community better served, by large movements/ideologies which tend to be authoritative and divisive, which frame things in the usual conservative vs progressive manner, often ignoring needs specific to your community and/or your family? Or are we better served by smaller, more intimate, self-wrought efforts? Should resistance be direct, transparent and confrontational? Or should it be indirect, quiet, and undermining? Do we vote and sign petitions because we really think anything is going to change? Or is there something else that we are getting from this? I would suggest that we are all well equipped with the necessary creativity to empower ourselves in our local communities, where our real power rests, in a myriad of different ways. But we have limited access to this creativity as a direct result of our conditioning, which tells us that our involvement and pom-pom waving can buy us peace of mind and a satiated sense of duty more quickly and easily.

Relatively speaking, our lives are good. There is no doubt that much is true. But believing that we are in control of the system that makes it so is something very different and very untrue, as is believing that the so-called "noble lies" disseminated by the overclass are indeed noble. Moreover, understanding where our system comes from and who controls it empowers us in a number of important ways. While we have instilled within us a propensity for realpolitik and pom-pom waving, changing this is very much within our grasp, which is rather nice in a world where there is so much that isn't. Our involvement in all this can have extremely negative potential side effects insofar as it becomes fanatical and doctrinaire. Can we afford to put our faith into an intrinsically corrupt political system, just as we did the food system or the financial system? How many great ideas, creative adaptations and innovative responses were never realized because we were distracted by some prefabricated ideal, and one that had a strong tendency to alienate us from our natural allies? What sort of values would characterize our society if we knew nothing of the "progressive" or "conservative" orthodoxies trumpeted incessantly in the mainstream media? Toeing party lines gives us a false sense of hope and achievement, which masks the reality of division and alienation. Can't we be true to our innate sensibilities without falling into dogmatic slumber? Isn't this just more fuel to the already raging fire that is systematically working to weaken family and community? Are we simply destined to regurgitate prefabricated scripts like wind-up toys?

The electric car is finally making a comeback, after its debut almost 200 years ago. I'm sure there are a thousand or so culture serving ways to explain the hiatus without using the word "oligarchy". And I'm sure many of these are perpetuated so that the myth of "freedom and democracy" can endure. But "oligarchy" is a lot shorter, more to the point, and closer to the truth. Acknowledging the true origins and nature of our system empowers us, helping to make our responses reality based. Should we be trying to reverse the flow of the river, or diverting its flow to meet the needs of the family and the local community?