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.
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