If Our Government Wants A War (It Does), It WILL Use A False Flag

 

Anyone thinking that a false flag operation (i.e. a lie) will not be used to initiate U.S. entry into a war with Iran is being childishly naïve. Embarrassingly naïve. Unpardonably naïve. This is just standard operating procedure, and as the truism goes, truth is the first casualty of war.

A false flag was used when Iraq invaded Kuwait (Iraqis pulling babies from incubators), happened a decade later when the U.S. was determined to overthrow Saddam Hussein (WMDs), was used in Syria (Chemical Weapons), etc. You say Syria had chemical weapons? The Assad regime has been toppled, where now are the chemical weapons it possessed? Or don’t we even merit the proof of the assertions made to justify the bombing, the sanctions, and the support of terrorist mercenaries that ruined so many lives? If you have not learned from the multiple examples of lies and provocations our government has used to overthrow governments and ruin nations, naïve is not a good enough descriptor for your behavior. Cowardly is much more accurate.

The false flag required to justify a war with Iran will have to be much greater than any of these, since Iran is a much greater power than any we’ve faced in our lifetimes. Although strict sanctions have been placed upon Iran for many years now, they have not strangled Iran the way those imposed on Iraq and Syria did. Iran did not agree to basically disarm the way Libya and Iraq did, rendering them incapable of defending themselves. Iran saw what became of those countries, and only a fool would trust the United States and its allies (vassals). Moreover, in the ensuing years, countries that are not empty vassals to U.S. power have grown stronger while our allies have grown weaker. Iran will not be without allies, while those countries who support the U.S. and Israel (Saudi Arabia, Jordan) will face the wrath of their own people.

The time will come when you will be asked to believe the false flag allegations that will justify a war that no honest person can tell you will not grow to something beyond anything our masters have promised. And when I say we will be asked to believe, I mean it in the sense that Big Brother asks the people to believe that 2+2=5. The allegations will be thrust upon us with such force and from every quarter in an attempt to overwhelm us and crush our ability to resist.

It will be your decision whether or not you will succumb to the pressure or else find within you the will to retain your individuality and your capacity for skepticism and critical thinking. It will not matter what anyone else thinks or says or does, you will have to find something within you that calls out for sanity or else be washed away in the madness. A few individuals willing to stand up for peace and truth will go a long way in halting a war that will do no good to anyone and will do great harm to millions, perhaps billions.

I have no great faith that those who identify themselves as being on the left will find that kind of courage to stand alone, even when it is Donald Trump they would be opposing. Their leaders will fall behind this war as they fall behind every war, and I have seen no evidence that those who follow AOC, Kamala Harris, and Chuck Shumer will oppose Trump on any subject they are not explicitly told to.

I have a slightly greater hope in people on the right opposing the war, though their ultimate commitment will require greater proof than mere words. I see people like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Candace Owen and even Marjorie Taylor Greene speaking out against it, so perhaps Republican voters might find courage in their examples.

I cannot fathom how those who manage to gather in the hundreds of thousands to protest Trump’s military parade cannot be trusted to gather in greater numbers to protest Trump’s war, but logic and moral consistency have nothing to do with politics nowadays.

The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier is headed to the Middle East as I type these words. Many speculate that since it is a fifty year-old ship that is due to be decommissioned that it will be sunk in order to be used as justification for the war both the U.S. and Israel so obviously want and have so obviously been building up for. If not this, then some other casus belli will be manufactured. And the people who lied to you so often before will tell you to believe them and so many of you will.

It doesn’t matter whatever anyone else says or does, the moral responsibility for what is about to transpire rests firmly upon your shoulders. Such dark times are remedied by individual heroism and made darker by those who relinquish personal responsibility to authority. Democracy cannot survive in a country where individuals cannot find within themselves the courage to oppose a government that seeks to bully the masses.

Our Ruling Class Will Only Permit Your Input On Social Issues, And Then Only Until It Affects Them

 

Photo by Arthur zKrause on Unsplash

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are both parties that work for the one percent. The one percent are not divided, they only need two parties to ensure WE are divided. The two parties work in tandem whenever it is an issue on which the one percent agree, and only differ on issues that are of no interest to the ruling elite. On social issues, the two parties rage like tigers, or more precisely, like two chihuahuas with a gate between them. Social issues never concern the one percent. They will be able to have abortions even if they have to take their private jet overseas to get one. And that includes the wealthy among the “moral majority” as well.

The laws made by Democrats or Republicans don’t apply to our ruling elite. They never did and never will. This is why they don’t care about social issues, because social issues only apply to the poors. However bigoted or homophobic some of the obscenely rich appear to be, such issues ultimately matter little compared to the class issues which unite them. Even Nazis tolerated Jews, homosexuals, and people of “lesser” races when it suited them to do so.

After all, the ruling elite are used to tolerating the eccentricities of others members of the ruling elite. Those who have such power and wealth can and do live their lives the way they want to, unrestrained by what other people think of them. They have a sexual freedom that few of us could imagine, and I suspect they pursue their sexual predilections as freely as they do the acquisition of unnecessary luxuries. In short, the rich have learned not to be judgmental of how other rich people pursue their freedom but rather concentrate on shared economic interests. The social issues which the political parties use to divide us do not divide the ruling elite in any meaningful way, whereas economic issues are of central importance to them. They divide US on social issues so that WE are not united on our own economic interests, which are in direct opposition to theirs.

The obscenely rich are privately decadent and yet pay handsomely to keep their appearances up as morally respectable. They are made out to be philanthropists and role models. It is safe to say that their behavior would be equally deplorable to liberals AND conservatives should the truth of their behavior leak out. And yet the average working person looks to the one percent for leadership. They hang on the words of celebrities and oligarchs. They may despise the ones who do not cleave to their own personal biases, but they worship those who mouth the proper buzzwords of their clan.

This is not to say that social issues are unimportant to the average American, it is only to point out that social issues are the ONLY issues in which the average American is permitted to have a say. Like children, we are placed in the sandbox of social issues and are willing to do there whatever we like, so long as we do not reach some suitable compromise with those whom we disagree. We can raise our voices as loudly as we like about social issues. But should we raise our voices to speak about economic issues, the self-proclaimed adults in this situation will quickly put us in our places. And should we speak up about war and imperialism — which after all are just our ruling elite’s tools for extending their power and increasing their wealth abroad — we will feel the full force of the ruling elite’s goon squads pushing down upon us.

Go ahead, scream “Free Palestine!” in the most liberal of universities and see what happens to you. You will be hit with batons, arrested, and have the degree you worked so hard for and paid so dearly for yanked from you, as though your money, effort, and achievements earned you nothing. This is because Palestine is beyond merely a social issue and affects our ruling elite’s wealth and power. Palestine is currently where our ruling elite’s true face is being exposed, where the violence required to sustain a system for the ruling elite is most undeniable. Israel must not be held accountable to anyone, and all the freedoms you purportedly have as an American citizen will not permit you to speak out against what many experts deem to be a genocide.

In the end, it only matters to the ruling elite that you go to fight their wars of profit, or at minimum refuse to speak out against them. And so both parties must always in the end convince you that THIS war, whichever war of the endless wars they are now pushing, is just.

For a while, it was useful to push inclusion in the military, and to make the targets of our military appear guilty of not being inclusive. The accusation of inclusivity has been a justification for overthrowing other people’s governments or starving their children. But our ruling elite are coming to realize that inclusion is not an ideology that meshes well with our military’s objectives. Militaries require more typically masculine traits, such as an uncritical obedience to a hierarchy and the desire to commit great violence as a way of proving one’s value to society.

So expect a swing back toward conservative values for the time being. Not because those are the values held by our ruling class but because those values are most useful to meet the economic needs of the ruling elite in this moment.

It is in such moments that we should finally realize that we have no seat at the table even in social matters. That all of the arguing we have been engaged in our entire lives has only distracted us from the economic issues that should have been enough to unite us in the first place. That even if we should continue our fight for the social issues we most strongly believe in, the issues will ultimately be decided by what currently serves the interests of the very richest and most powerful among us.

Quotes On Awakening

 

Artwork in progress for Essays On Awakening

Some quotes from my forthcoming book, Essays On Awakening:

Any choice you opt for, any candidate you vote for, that is offered by the system, is opting for and supportive of the system. Any corporate product you buy or political candidate you invest your energy in is profiting the corporate system. There is no way within the system to fight the system. That’s not an option they are going to give you. Prison guards don’t give weapons to the prisoners they profit from controlling.

This may sound very discouraging, as if there is no way out of the dilemma. And when we feel discouraged, when we feel there is no real way to improve things, we shut down, stop trying, ignore the problem because we feel as if we can do nothing to fix it. This isn’t the case at all, but it is what the existing system wants you to think. They want you to think that there is no hope and there are no solutions. And that is true, but only when you look to the system for answers. The system will only give you answers that support the system, therefore they will only give you lies that will ultimately leave you feeling hopeless. That’s where you are now whether you are fully aware of it or not. You have been beaten down and made to feel that you can only hope for the crumbs that they throw you.

If you cannot say no and you always come up with reasons for supporting those who rule you in ways you should not be ruled, you are a slave. And good for you if you want to be a slave, that’s your choice. But for God’s sake, don’t try to lecture the rest of us. If we do not listen to your master, we are not going to listen to his lackeys. Go live your slave lives but don’t go preaching to us.

So how do you know when you are effectively opposing a system that is created to oppress rather than encourage individual rights? When the system tells you you are wrong. When they try to silence you, when they tell you you are not merely wrong but dangerous. You ARE dangerous. Dangerous to THEM. Dangerous to the power they have usurped from the masses. You are dangerous to unjust power. And when you are dangerous to unjust power, that means you are powerful to oppose injustice. And that’s a good thing.

The courage that permits wisdom demands you relinquish all of your biases, which act as defenses. You must abandon not only self but your larger affiliations, which, after all, are merely larger sorts of self. You must attempt to see reality through God’s eyes. And in doing so, you must not limit God to what you believe Him to be or what your larger group tells you God is. Again, you must see through the eyes of others. You must attempt to see God through the eyes of those who call him Allah, must see him through the eyes of those who call him Vishnu, those who do not call him by any name and yet seek him though they know it not.

Seek the wisdom of the young, who see life through unbiased eyes. Seek the wisdom of the old, who at last have seen through the many stages of life. Though their eyes be weak, their vision blurry, their knowledge of what to look for is unsurpassed.

The greatest courage we can attain is to step out of our own little shells, to leave self and ego behind and float, selfless and vulnerable, through all the life we encounter. In leaving our home, we find everywhere to be home. In leaving ourselves, we find everybody and everything to be us.

Once wisdom is attained, courage is no longer required.

Do not fear that you will never be free from their machinations. They will always be ahead of you in the games they play, but all their plotting will come to nothing if you keep to the basic principles you know in your heart to be true. They cannot manipulate you if they cannot make you stray from your core values.

Do not hate, even when you do not understand. Do not support violence, even when you are afraid for yourself and your family. Hatred and violence are their tools, not ours. Hatred and violence make tyrants strong but they are the ruin of civilizations.

Have faith, in yourself and in the overall goodness of humanity. Perhaps people are not naturally angels, but neither are they naturally devils. The deciding factor is the way we choose to perceive ourselves and others. If you commit to seeing the better angels of your own soul and of those you meet, you will turn the tide in favor of goodness.

Primitive man realized he was part of a family as much as he was an individual. Advancing, he realized he was part of something larger, part of a clan. Then still something larger, a tribe, a city, a nation. The history of humanity is one of searching for belonging in an ever-bigger community. We have now arrived at the logical endpoint, the realization that we are all one people, a global family, each of us depending upon others for our own survival.

P.S. Essays On Awakening will be a sort of sequel to my book Essays On The Media, which is available HERE

The System Works (For Some)

 

                                 Photo from Museums of History New South Wales

Larry worked at an office where the boss was an asshole. His boss was vulgar, disrespectful, incompetent, and was constantly cheating workers of their rightful wages and benefits. He was a jerk to everybody, but he was especially cruel to Larry, even though Larry was one of his better workers. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t been born in the U.S., perhaps it was his very competence and intelligence that made the boss look like a moron slacker by comparison. You see, the boss didn’t get his position by working hard or by making great decisions, he got it because he was the owners’ son. Life is like that.

It’s not that the boss — we’ll call him Devon — was cruel to everybody. He was surrounded by a group of buddies (all of them male) who always agreed with Devon and who also treated everyone else as inferior. Especially Larry.

When Devon had been made boss a few years back, Larry welcomed the chance to have a fresh start with a new boss. He had worked hard for the old boss for years and never felt he got any recognition or a fair cut from the company’s successes which he had contributed to. But as The Who once said, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Or as the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. Devon was even worse than the last boss.

But Larry was convinced that his hard work and smarts would attract the boss’s attention. It did, but not in the way he wanted. Devon singled Larry out, always belittling him around Larry’s coworkers and to his cronies.

One day, Larry decided he had had enough. After learning that Devon’s buddies got a huge bonus while he hadn’t received a raise since Devon became boss, Larry was going to give Devon a piece of his mind. And seeing the state of mind Larry was in and Devon’s unwillingness to hear other people’s point of view, he knew it might just devolve into an old-fashioned ass-whooping. It might not be the smartest career move, thought Larry, but boy would it feel good.

Beverly, who sat at her desk in the HR department that was between where Larry’s cubicle and the boss’s office were, saw Larry walk by and she saw the anger in his expression and how the muscles of his body were bunched up and ready for action.

“Larry,” Beverly called out, attempting to defuse a potentially dangerous situation. “Can I help you with something?”

As angry as Larry was, Beverly had always been kind to him, and he did not wish to be rude to her, even though he was prepared for a confrontation. “I’m on my way to talk to Devon,” he said, his desire for action being rerouted into a plea for understanding. His emotions getting the best of him, he began to state his litany of complaints that he was about to use as weapons against his unjust boss. “I can’t afford to get my daughter braces. I haven’t had even a cost of living raise since he became the boss. He refuses to take any blame for any of the idiot decisions he makes but he’s always willing to take credit for the successes of everyone else. He’s cruel to everyone who doesn’t kiss his ass, you can’t take him on his word for anything, he never follows office protocol, and his mere presence here has been driving off customers who have been loyal to us for years.”

It felt good to get all this off his chest, felt good to have someone he could open up to. He began to feel his rage subside because Beverly nodded in sympathy with every accusation he made. Finally when he was done, she wrote some final notes in a notebook and looked him in the eye with a great amount of compassion.

“I understand your problem, Larry. You’re not the first person to express these concerns. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’ll speak to the people higher up in the chain of command and we’ll come up with a solution. Just don’t do anything drastic in the meantime, Larry. You’re a good worker and we’d hate to lose you.

“Yeah, but I really want to give him a piece of my mind,” said Larry, his heartrate still racing.

“I know,” said Beverly, a soothing sincerity in her voice. “I’m sure that would feel good in the short term, but remember your wife and your lovely young daughter, Jessica. Just sit tight and let’s see what we can come up with.”

“Okay,” said Larry. And he walked back to his cubicle and went back to work. It wasn’t like him to confront anybody like that in the first place, the situation had just gotten so bad he didn’t know what else to do. He felt better knowing that somebody in the company was on his side and was going to do something about it.

So in the ensuing days he tolerated the boss’s bullying, knowing that change was coming. The system was going to correct this big problem that was hurting the whole company. Larry just kept his head low, did his work, and took the abuse. Secretly, in his mind, he uttered the thought: “Your day is coming, Devon, just you wait.”

But weeks passed and nothing happened. In fact, Devon was on his case more than ever before, as if he had somehow learned about his conversation with Beverly. His frustration grew once more until at last he decided to pay Beverly a visit to see where things stood.

“Oh, hi, Larry,” said Beverly. Larry looked into her eyes and somehow he could no longer see the compassion there, although her words were still soothing.

“I came to check to see what was happening. It’s been a couple of weeks and Devon has really been bearing down on me.”

“Yes,” said Beverly, “well I sent a letter to the head of HR at corporate, but she hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

Larry was clearly upset but Beverly wasn’t about to acknowledge it. “I’ll follow up with you and let you know,” said Beverly. And Larry, trying to express just the right mixture of disappointment, anger, and faith, said he understood and went back to his cubicle.

More weeks passed and with them came more excuses from Beverly. For all her expressions of concern, it felt to Larry as if she wished he would just go away. Although Devon was the reason for all of Larry’s anger, he couldn’t help noticing that his anger was focusing more and more on Beverly. Although she was outwardly kind and caring to him and Devon was overtly being an asshole, it was Beverly who had put herself in the middle. Back at his cubicle, Larry found his thoughts of punching Devon in the face turning more to thoughts of throttling Beverly. Both gave him a feeling of justice achieved.

Larry continued to check in with Beverly over the following weeks and months, each time with less enthusiasm and less ability to disguise his impatience. Months eventually turned into years. And while Larry had long since lost any hope he had had in the system, he continued to play by the rules that were in the employee handbook as written by corporate which he had early in his career been forced to sign. Until at last one day he walked into Beverly’s office with no expectations at all but merely out of habit. So it was with great surprise that she greeted him with a broad grin and a tone of victory in her voice.

“Great news, Larry. Corporate got back to us and they have decided to act. They’re removing Devon from his position and are shuffling him off to some other place in the business.

Larry’s entire being lightened with this news. All his doubts in the system had been unwarranted. The system worked and Beverly had his best interest at heart after all.

“And the best news, Larry, is that they’re making me the new head of operations here. Effective as of now, you can come to me with all your problems.”

“Well, a few years back, Jessica needed braces but we couldn’t afford them. Her teeth have gotten worse as a result. Is there any way the company could provide some kind of dental insurance?”

“I’ll tell you what, Larry. Thing’s have become difficult lately, what with the economy being the way it is and with me having to fix all the problems Devon was unable to take care of. Why don’t you just remind me of this in a few months and we’ll see what we can do?”

And so it went, for several more years. Until at last Beverly was transferred to another branch and was replaced by Devon’s brother, Darryl. Larry grinds his teeth in his sleep at night, dreaming of throttling Beverly and regretting his lost opportunity of punching Devon in the face.

A few months before Larry’s retirement at the age of 71, he saw a picture of Devon and Beverly hugging it out at a corporate retreat in the Bahamas.

Whether It Is Brian Or Jesus, We Have No Right To Impose Martyrdom On Others

 

There is a moral to be learned from the cross, whether you prefer the story as told in Monty Python’s Life Of Brian or the more traditional telling of it. In neither case was the person who was about to be crucified thrilled by the prospect. Brian yelled “Get me down!” Christ was a little more profound when he — knowing what lay before him — said “My Father, if it possible, let this cup pass me by. Still, let it be as you would have it, not as I.” (Matthew 26:39) You see, being an enlightened human being (for human HE was, though He was also God), Jesus appreciated the miracle and gift that is life, and really didn’t want to trade it in for pain and death. And yet I suppose he knew that a life that was not in accordance with higher principles was no life at all.

It takes an incredibly enlightened person to realize that. To realize that life is sweetest only when one lives uncompromisingly. That it is better to live a short existence as one with the universe than to live a long life out of tune with it.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Enlightened ones do not necessarily have to face crucifixion. If the burdens of an unjust world are not placed upon them, people of conscience do not have to choose between sacrificing their lives or their values. It is only when the evils of the world become great that those with integrity and courage are forced to rise up in order to defend their moral convictions.

That’s why enlightened people become teachers. Not only because they wish to share a great joy with others (the good news, as Christians would call it), but also because if they are able to awaken enough other people, they won’t have to bear the burden of acting morally on their own. Unfortunately for Jesus, the instruction he was sharing with his disciples and the world at large was a bit heavy for them at that stage of human development. I’m sure it must have been frustrating to know that those he chose to be his apostles were so uncomprehending as to his true teaching. His frustration is demonstrated when he returns from praying to God that the burden of martyrdom might be lifted from him, only to see that his followers couldn’t even stay awake for him for an hour.

The truth is, the burden COULD have been lifted from Jesus, if those around him had only bothered to share it. What is heavy work for one is lessened by the help of another, halved again by the help of two others, and so on. So that a burden, if lifted by enough hands, is no longer a burden at all but a joy. If some follower of Christ had had the ear of Pontius Pilate, or had the ear of the wife of Pontius Pilate, or of someone who had some sway with Pilate, he — by having the courage to speak up — could perhaps have changed the verdict placed upon Jesus.

A million different scenarios could be written where a person courageous enough to act upon Christ’s teachings might have prevented His crucifixion. A thousand people — each of them lifting in some tiny part the cross which Jesus was forced to carry — would almost surely have changed the outcome. Christ speaks to this when he says “Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:29–30) He’s not asking anybody to undertake some tremendous burden, he’s asking everybody to partake of some small part of it. Many hands make light work. Ask any cook, and they’d most likely to tell you that a little help clearing the table would be more helpful than praise from those sitting on the couch watching the game.

Now there will be some Christians who will object to this notion. They will say Jesus had to suffer and die that his role might be played out. But if people had been capable of taking up their cross and following in Jesus’ example, even if only slightly, such a sacrifice would not have been necessary. Jesus’ message would have gotten through to the masses without him having to sacrifice his life. It was they, his own followers, who demanded that sacrifice. Through their lack of willingness to stand up and share the burden, they placed it entirely upon His shoulders.

I see this playing out in all aspects of society today. I see it on Veteran’s Day. People are quick to utter their appreciation for those who served, without lifting a finger to help them in any meaningful way. They offer them their gratitude in the same way they offer their god praise and prayers. They venerate veterans so that they do not have to do anything to lessen their burdens. They worship the warrior so that they do not have to work to prevent war.

I see it too on election day, where they performatively vote for their candidates and feel as if they have done some great task, wearing their “I Voted” sticker like a medal. They behave as though the politicians they vote for are more than mortal men so that they can place the burdens of running the country entirely on their shoulders. Voters need only vote, and to hate those who vote against them, those people who worship other gods. Voters want to believe their politicians will work miracles so that they won’t have to work at all. In this way, they do nothing and yet can consider themselves God’s chosen.

Martin Luther King would have been of little value were it not for the fact that the people themselves had risen up and were willing to participate in the movement. Even then, Dr. King was made to pay the ultimate sacrifice. Too many of us abandoned the cause after that, permitting King’s dream to be too long deferred, too imperfectly realized. Because it was easier to worship him than emulate him.

How much could be accomplished if the masses realized that in lifting a small part of the cross they might lighten the burden upon those willing to carry it, if necessary, alone. Thus we have people like Julian Assange, who was imprisoned for years for the burdens of witnessing the truth and protecting journalistic integrity. We have people like Aaron Bushnell, who are willing to die a most painful death in order to bring attention to those being burned alive and in other ways slaughtered with the help of each and every taxpaying U.S. citizen.

And yet there are those who would not move a finger to lighten the load of those with a greater compulsion to act upon their values. They could not perform the meagerest performative action, refusing to vote for those who were aiding in genocide. Even worse, they scolded those whose consciences would not permit them to do so.

The burden you lay upon people of conscience by doing absolutely nothing to prevent perhaps the worst of all imaginable crimes is not a light one. The refusal to vote for a political party in its abetting of genocide was merely the most obvious action people of conscience would take. That we could not stop a genocide with our vote — as if we were given any real hope of that — makes us ask ourselves what actions our consciences now prompt us to take.

This is not a light question which we ask ourselves. The cost now demanded of people of conscience will take them from the comfortable lives they had hoped would be their lot. But the cost of doing nothing in the face of great evil, they know, would be greater still. And so each of us must ask how far we feel comfortable in carrying the cross. It is a burden that would be light and easy if others realized how just a little courage and effort might help change the situation. It would be far preferable to saying afterwards what brave and selfless heroes were those willing to bear a burden that was everyone’s to share.

Maybe those you claim to worship don’t want to be worshipped. Maybe they just want a helping hand. Maybe they just want you to do a bit of the lifting. So that the cross is no longer a burden to them but a joy for all. If I may repeat the words of Gil Scott Heron:

“You alone have the wisdom to take this world and make it what it
Needs to be, wants to be, will be. Someday,
The day you understand
That there ain’t no such thing as a Superman.”

We Are Given The Choice Between Genocide And Genocide

 

We built a compromise world by negotiating an agreement with the corporations. We permitted them to keep the power in return for some concessions. We gave them our support to do what they wanted abroad if they treated us decently here in the heart of empire. They gave us a certain degree of choice in who and what we might vote for, along with the illusion that by voting we might make things better and better with time. We didn’t know the other side was biding its time, until any opposition governments around the world fell. Until they no longer had to make capitalism look pretty. Until the populace gradually lost any memory of morality and virtues that weren’t rooted in selfishness and obedience and apathy. We let them keep the power and in turn they gave us all kinds of toys to play with to keep us amused, to keep us distracted, to keep us as children.

And all this time we imagined the future was going to keep getting better. That we were progressing somewhere that we might want to go. Even when things started getting worse, we imagined such problems were just bumps along the road of progress. Even when we voted in the party we thought best represented our ideals and things still got worse, we thought we could fix our party, that our party cared for us. Even when our party and the other party started taking hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations, we still thought they cared for us, shared our values on the sacredness of democracy. Even when the corporations started writing the bills our representatives then signed into law, we just thought if we voted harder we could set things right. If we just hated and blamed the other side enough, we could have a country based upon human values and not corporate values.

And now the choice our corporate government gives us is that we can vote for genocide or genocide. That we can vote for war or war. That we can vote for censorship or censorship. That all housing will soon be owned by Blackrock. That the entirety of the internet will soon be in the hands of a few billionaires, and what is not outright owned by them will be controlled and censored by them. We thought the internet was going to save us, would permit us to share information and ideas across the world. We thought technology would bring us freedom. And community. But now we are screaming for big tech to censor us. Well, not us, exactly, just those we disagree with.

Our last rationalizations for supporting the system we have permitted are wearing out, but there’s a new Deadpool movie that will soon drop. And there’s a new Call Of Duty that will be out just in time for us to celebrate the birth of the Prince Of Peace. And in it you can save the world from Nazis by killing whatever people anonymous authority tells you to kill. Because killing is wrong unless some voice in your ear tells you to. Just do what the voices tell you to do and you will never have to worry about anything. You will never have to make a difficult moral decision. You will never have to hold your own government to account. You will never be alone no matter how lonely you feel. And the magic of the market will guarantee that whatever you spend your money on will be good for the environment. And will make you a better human being. Because the TV said so. Because the economic professors said so. Because I’m pretty sure The Bible and Declaration Of Independence say so.

Once our grandparents fought fascism. And oligarchy. And corporate capitalism. They spilt their blood on foreign shores and in front of padlocked factory gates. They walked across Pettus Bridge, rode buses across the South, provided mutual aide in Oakland’s slums. But they only managed to fight it to a standstill. But the forces that wanted to control and exploit us were never going to be satisfied with sharing power. That’s not what fascism is about. They plotted, and waited, and positioned their pieces on the chessboard. And they lulled us to sleep. But we’re having dreams that we are awake. And fighting for freedom on the beaches of Normandy, fighting for the environment on Pandora, fighting empire with light sabers. In our sleep we claim that we are woke. In our sleep, we are screaming “Wake up, sheeple” to people conjured by our sleeping minds. In our sleep, we are arguing with AI, repeating all the wisdom that has been pumped into us by the corporate media.

Even at our desks at work, performing mindless and unrewarding tasks, we secretly know we are Neo, fighting the matrix.

Unpleasant Truths For A Nation In Denial

 

Think about how bad so many of us Americans have it, and then think about how we only have it as good as we do because we are massively exploiting labor across the globe, and you will have some idea of how messed up our system is. Once you realize we live as well as we do only because we are rapidly consuming our non-renewable resources, you will understand how unsustainable it all is. And just think that we’re living with whatever luxuries and even necessities we now have only because our nation has put it all on the credit card, to the tune of a $35 trillion debt. That we’ve let our public infrastructure slide, that we’ve failed to invest in educating our people as to what’s actually happening in the world. That we are only where we’re at on the global scene because of the reputation we once had but now have squandered, so that the world will never again look at us as it once did.

We’ve pushed our every advantage as far as it will go, let everything slide as far as we possibly could, lived off of our former reputation to the point where we have irreparably tarnished it. There are no good times that can be further extended, nor are there good old days to which we can return.

In 2022, President Biden dipped deeper into the U.S. petroleum reserves than anyone ever has, selling off 180 million barrels. Our current reserves of oil are good for about 17 days at 2019 consumption levels. We’ve blown up the Nord Stream pipeline that provided Europe with natural gas, meaning that we have to provide massive amounts of our gas to our principle allies. Russia still provides much of Europe’s fuel needs (through Ukraine pipelines, believe it or not), but they are under no obligation to do so forever. We’ve sanctioned the country with the largest oil reserves (Venezuela) so utterly that it would be incapable of providing for our oil needs should they desire to do so. Now we are providing everything Israel asks for so that they might contemplate attacking Iran’s oil fields. Iran is the world’s 7th largest oil producer, and the loss of their oil will create a significant strain on the world market. If this happens, Iran will surely shut down the Straits of Hormuz in response, blocking oil shipments from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and most of the world’s other major sources of oil. We will have 17 days to contemplate what to do after that happens before the whole system shuts down.

Russia and China have each other, so they should be more or less okay. Russia has resources and China has production capacity. They have been pushed into each other’s arms by a United States that thought it was its God-given right to subjugate each in its turn rather than finding some way to coexist with other nations. BRICS nations are looking to develop an alternative to the dollar standard that permits the U.S. to print money endlessly while placing sanctions on nearly a third of the people on the planet. Should the U.S. Dollar be dethroned as the de facto global currency, the dollar will not be worth the ink it is printed with. No one will need it, therefore no one will want it. As the dollar goes, so will go American influence.

None of this, none of this, is being discussed by either of our duopoly presidential candidates. You’re not going to vote your way out of this. Everything the mainstream media tells you to worry about doesn’t mean shit. They will never mention the fact that our system is not and has never been sustainable. Or just. Or sane. They’ve led us down a side street that has taken us to Looneyville, and we’ve been so conditioned by trips to Disneyworld that we don’t even recognize it for what it is. They parade Goofy and Cruela de Vil in front of us and we fight over which one is the serious presidential candidate. We argue over all the talking points the media gives us to prevent us from thinking about how the whole system is just an elaborate game of cards that was never going to last forever, which no one imagined would last as long as it has.

It’s no wonder we’re all playing along. We’re children who are ill-equipped for reality. We’re quite content to sit in front of the TV in our footie pajamas, letting the grownups deal with it all as we indulge in the fantasy worlds they’ve created for our amusement. Only there aren’t any grownups left. The one’s we’ve permitted to be in charge are the most deluded of us all. Take a good look at them sometime and see for yourself.

This is what happens when you relinquish your adult duties for too long. Things get worse. And they don’t get better until you reclaim your adult obligations, until you once again feel the power that grown, mature, human beings are capable of wielding. A child is incapable of imagining a way out of this. An adult rolls up their sleeves and gets to work changing things.