Dear Editor,
Fifty years ago there was a TV episode on ‘outer limits’ called “to serve man”. In it aliens, other planet types, landed and one of the first things they did was present world leaders a book, in their language. They provided earthlings free travel to their planet with extensive marketing about wonders to be found there. Earthlings lined up at the space ships to go. One radical, early on, decided to translate the book presented at the first landing. When most of the earthlings had already departed he discovered that “to serve man” was a cookbook.
“Consumers” say “out of the box” for being out of the mainstream, an unapproved place to be, so it’s hidden with slang. Eighty percent of the people will follow and/or do anything. You see them everywhere. They eat corporate plastic food. They have no minds. They follow whoever has the loudest voice. Propaganda campaigns from corporate media, even though fewer people trust them, still have great influence. The mainstream media repeat, as though real, what government tells them.
Despite all the moralizing propaganda “our government” isn’t much different than the feudal lords of the Middle Ages acting as though they rule thru divine right. It’s difficult to say that you think “our government” stinks and that you’ve had enough. The wealthy have the power, buy “our government”, and own American policy.
The quality of America’s education is considerably reduced in recent years. With such a handicap, even brilliant working class individuals have little hope of escaping their lot in life; a form of slavery essential to maintaining some measure of social order for the ruling class.
When the doctrine of “divine right” wore thin, a replacement was created so “consumers” didn’t view political authority as only naked power. That replacement is the theory of the rule of law. As long as the public identifies order with law, it will believe that an orderly society is impossible without the state provided law, and will support the state without considering how oppressive it may be.
Mentally challenged flag wavers, accept the myth that those from Government are here to help in the face of demonstrated reality. The only rational conclusion is to expect the worst. Those who still say it could never happen in America lack a real historic awareness and current events understanding.
Constitutions are worthless for controlling government that doesn’t know any limits to its power except your patience. We’ve accepted a society with shameful extremes of poverty, immense wealth and untrustworthy civic institutions. We’ve accepted regulation that’s no more benevolent than it absolutely has to be to avoid revolution.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), allowing indefinite military detention without charge or trial, places every American at risk of the torture chamber. The next fabricated crisis offers the opportunity for Martial Law creating the order for breaking down your door. Of course we all know the innocent are never accused because those in ‘our’ government are the best of the best and only have your interests at heart.
At least they’ve put your taxes to good use, fighting wars of choice, creating the Dept of Energy making us energy self-sufficient, creating the Dept of Education making our kids smarter, creating the VA to properly care for the veterans of our military adventures, creating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to allow everyone to own a home, creating an state of affairs that has resulted in 100 million government supported “consumers”, creating the SEC to make sure Wall Street banks don’t commit fraud destroying the worldwide financial system and we have Obamacare to make us healthier.
If our system is so grand how come we lead the world in per capita and total prisoners? Our officially poor and homeless grow faster than our wealthy population. The system sells hope like a lottery ticket. Banks have been repeatedly caught laundering money for drug gangs and similar nasty activities. Nobody went to prison for those acts. You might wonder why.
“Our government” should care about observing the law. It protects you from government, and they really dislike that but it also protects government from you. Law is government’s only claim to legitimacy, yet they seem intent on ignoring it in the most public way possible. A contract is valid only if both parties comply with its provisions. We wouldn’t want “consumers” to think the deal is off, would we? You might not vote or something.
Liberty isn’t economic, but life style. The economic good is a bonus: Would you choose to live in a cage because the economy’s better there than in the wild?
Americans that question the system or expose its crimes are considered enemies; communists, terrorists, subversives, and such; “Our leaders” tell us to trust big brother, defer to authority, approve the military, NSA, CIA, and always “support the troops.” That’s how a “patriot” is expected to act to be acceptable in America: no brains required.
America is terrified by its own images of terrorists everywhere. Like many dying empires America is striking out in blind desperation to save itself from its own paranoid fears and is destroying its foundations in the process. America is the Constitution. Without the Constitution America ceases to exist and becomes a tyranny. America has become a tyranny masked in the costume of “freedom and democracy.”
Satire died the day Kissinger was given the Nobel peace prize. What’s the difference between our empire and Rome’s; between TV and the coliseum, between Germanic tribes and Afghans or Russians?
“Our government”, creates coups everywhere, subverting the democratically-elected governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras and Ukraine; backing terrorist forces in Syria and Libya; militarizing Africa; and negotiating “free trade” agreements that remove democratic accountability from transnational corporations, and international banks: a few of America’s global, anti-democratic, anti-people strategies.
We’re told we live in a representative democracy, but who is being represented?
We’ve become the country where an angle to get something for nothing is “accepted”. “Everyone is doing it, so why shouldn’t I”. The oligarchs and politicians set the tone. Everyone is on the take. Greed and avarice are considered legitimate goals. The country revolves around fraud, corruption, scams, and swindles. It’s obvious from the local level to the national should you care to remove your blinders.
If history is a guide, most Americans will get out their dusty flags again, chant USA! USA! USA! And many Christians, conservatives, Tea Party types will be duped and distracted, once again. It just keeps on working out that way; just tell them they are being attacked by Muslims, and/or Putin. Rationality is in short supply in a nation of frightened, terrified people in which most of them can’t even find the ‘offending’ country on a map. It’s the ultimate disaster story of the welfare-warfare state—a nation with the most powerful government in history presiding over the most frightened people in the world. Large powerful government results in a weak citizenry, a citizenry that gets its courage vicariously through the disasters created by the five sided fun house on the Potomac, and falls for anything, a citizenry that eagerly surrenders its freedom to their own government in the quest to be kept safe from the dangers that such government engenders.
A few years ago I was offered an opinion column in a local publication which I accepted and submitted several ‘opinions’, and then I got an email showing it was only partially so as the editor wanted to control how I expressed my opinion and was unresponsive when I called him on it. Free speech isn’t what you’re told it is in school.
Craig Dudley