Being the Butterfly
"That's the greater challenge, how do we make people love freedom and reject the government as a parent."
Possessing nuclear weapons is the only way to guarantee that the US Government will not wage direct war upon your country. I wonder what the equivalent is for us average people against the elite. What might a nuclear deterrent look like at the dissident level? What if you actively attempted to operate at the scale of a butterfly flaps its wings in Bhutan and sometime later on the other side of the world a hurricane forms? Though I expect some might prefer: A gentle breeze knocks down Joe Biden.
"To paraphrase Michael Lewis, “One of the qualities that distinguishes Americans from other people is their naive conviction that every foreigner wishes to be one of them, but even the most zealous Japanese patriot has no illusions that other peoples want to be Japanese”. The Americans not only believe everybody secretly wants to be like them, they believe no nation can succeed or even progress without being like them and adopting the entire American value system. It isn’t possible. There are no alternatives to the American way and, if there were alternatives, God would be displeased with them.
The elites in the US government and corporatocracy invented, and for 200 years promulgated, the concept of “manifest destiny”, a theological proposition that “merged religious delusion with boundless hypocrisy and racism” into a popular theory that God was entrusting Americans to rule the world. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that what promised no end of grief was Americans’ arrogant conviction that “Providence has summoned America to tutor all of humankind on its pilgrimage to perfection”. (1) These ideas of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny rest on a cornerstone of a pervasive political culture infused with the religious concept of a kind of covenant with God. “The packaging of wars of aggression, genocide and imperialism in the tattered camouflage of liberty with a Divinely-directed spin are old propaganda tricks which have been used to delude the US masses throughout the history of the country to the present moment.” To this day, most Americans fervently believe all of their nation’s unjustified and criminal wars were conducted to “make the world safe for democracy”.
American politicians and their allies in the military, in Hollywood, in publishing, in business and banking, deliberately created and then exploited the nationalistic loyalty of a gullible and uninformed public to shape perceptions and values on a massive scale. Americans have been programmed with religion-based politics for generations, being taught to see the world as black and white, good and bad, to believe that only American virtues and values were good for mankind and would always triumph. Their fabricated historical myths taught them that they, their leaders, and their nation were moral, righteous and upright, selfless benefactors to the world, battling evil wherever it was found. Everything was distorted, based not only on misinformation but on outright deceit. America’s image of itself, and its image of the world’s nations and peoples, were tragically and shallowly twisted to create the narrative of American moral superiority.
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And herein lies part of the tragedy of America, and the reason the country will eventually have to implode: the enormous disconnect between the propagandised ideology of the people and the brutal reality of the thin layer of elites that run their government and military, their corporations, banks and mass media. There is no other nation whose population has such a large gap between myth and reality, between what the people believe their government has done and what it has actually done. When the people one day put the pieces together, the US will have another revolution; I don’t believe anything can prevent it. It was not for nothing that George Bush Sr. said, “If the people knew what we were doing, they would hang us in the streets”. Perhaps one day soon, they will." [Source]
Let's examine, briefly, the label "the elite." It is interesting to ponder (and likely impossible to ever discover the "truth") the source of the label as well as if it was actually originally attempted a symbol of pride or if from the start it was used in a more mocking fashion? Or take the example of air acrobatics: How many of the people whom we might from the outside consider worthy of the elite label (in the high-ability sense) would instead reject such a claim or at the very least would never use it to describe themselves?
It's also good to keep in mind that for many people, the more you see or do something the more desensitized you will become. That works the same whether it's danger or dealing with people's problems. From farmers to doctors & nurses we've dramatically unbalanced the equation. We're putting too much on too few shoulders and it's ultimately to everyone's detriment.
"Many of us want to be led. As children we look to our parents to protect us, to soothe our fears, to relieve us of responsibility. As adults we seek the same protection – we want powerful leaders, leaders who appear fearless and resilient.
Our narcissistic culture also demands that our leaders are charismatic, self-assured, and eloquent – we want leaders who can perform on the world stage.
And so trustingly, time after time, we relinquish our power to those grandiose individuals who covet high office, unaware that their determination – their sheer, dogged, winner-takes-all ambition, their superficial charm and seductiveness – may suggest that many are psychologically unsuited to these roles." [Source]
Never forget: Perfection is unattainable. The more perfect someone or something seems the more likely it is that you are being misled.
Ultimately, regardless of the labels used, there are millions of us who see that a group of people who seek power & status for their own benefits have plagued us since we expanded beyond our small tribes. It's much easier to put the tyrant Bill in his place when there's only 10 or 100 of you. You've only got to convince a small number to bash Bill in the head with rocks. Or maybe he "accidentally" falls off a cliff. Or you just don't tell him about the big cat in the grass. But now that we are billions and so connected we find ourselves in deep trouble with this narrow-minded group of folks in control.
"Traditional America is essentially leaderless. The colors have fallen in battle and no one has picked them up. The colonels and captains are pretending they don’t see it, while the corporals and privates, who fear being overrun, are fixing bayonets.
Ever notice how the politicians who are reportedly “concerned” about your job being offshored are the same ones voting for the bills to offshore your job, outsourcing it to H1-B replacement worker programs, or hosting political fundraisers with offshoring and outsourcing lobbyists? Yeah, strange isn’t it?
Just acknowledge it. Those people you sent to Washington? They’re not going to save your job, protect your children from Marxist indoctrination and race hustling at school, or preserve what’s left of the Bill of Rights. We’ve outsourced our citizen responsibilities to the wrong people, and many are mistakenly still waiting for those same people to ride to the rescue.
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Let’s face it, in life there is only so much bandwidth to deal with the free citizen’s voracious mortal enemy—the power-hungry, dictatorial tyrant. After working a full day or more, dealing with kids, running a business, and managing an ever-dwindling family budget, most Americans have very little time to analyze politics and governmental issues. Tech companies, with a nudge from the government, compete hard for that sliver of free time with social media and 24/7 entertainment packaged as news and commentary, also known as propaganda.
How are citizens supposed to deal with the authoritarian machinations of our rogue elite while balancing work, life, and crisis-of-the-moment daily drama? Simple—stop playing their game.
Unplug from the constant two-way stream of propaganda-down and surveillance-up. Use the internet, and its delivery mechanisms—smartphone, computer, and TV—just like any other tool. Turn it on when you need it to perform a task, and turn it off when you’ve completed it. Do not plug yourself into their machine with always-on wearables and voice-activated assistants. Don’t let the digital world enumerate every aspect of your daily life and shape your real-world associations and beliefs. Take back that sliver of free time in your life and reallocate it to citizen time—a time to exert your power by building knowledge, fostering local, real-world associations, and making your voice heard in your community.
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The enemy attacks what it fears, and it fears an organized, independent, grassroots political movement. These independent movements are considered dangerous because they are not controlled by the party bosses and corporate donor class.
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The regime doesn’t care about things that aren’t a threat to its power. Consequently, they want you focused on these frivolities that don’t matter—the throwaway issues that distract from their real agenda. If you’re comfortably whining about the latest men-in-girls-bathrooms outrage while ignoring the intelligence community’s assessment on domestic violent extremists, then the regime is winning. If you’re spending your time following Twitter spats and the latest manufactured drama, you’re missing important information on things that can literally kill you.
People should be free to talk about whatever they want to talk about in America, but mindless middle-school arguments and political infotainment are not substitutes for tackling the real problems we face as a nation . . . and formerly free society. When it comes to reengaging and protecting the Constitution, when it comes to resisting authoritarian factions within government and society, we need to be serious—and focus forward on the agenda and actions that will lead to victory and to the restoration of a free constitutional republic. Be the reaper!" [Source]
I think the cure to authority worship may be to actively empower people from the ground up. What those in authority do seems complex but they're just weaving together a variety of simple processes to create their manipulative BS. Anyone can do what they do given the resources, but more importantly, once people can do it themselves, even on a small scale, seeing through it becomes that much easier.
"Folks have some great thoughts and ideas gained from their experiences. The American culture is built on a propagated narrative, which is crumbling right now. Synthesis of ideas going forward is important. I'm extremely skeptical of the intellectual community in this endeavor as they often live in a disconnected dystopia (virtual reality of sorts) of books, films, games, second hand intellectualized knowledge, not that gained from real world experience. The reason I write is to poke the intellect of everyone and drive a new functional narrative, rather than this broken social contract that we accept in ignorance. Freedom is not easy on so many levels. To everyone, thank you for your cogent thoughts, time and effort. My mission is simple, . . . Find a guiding philosophy for freedom that can not be usurped by greed. Peace."
--@robertemmet
The reason Antifa and BLM and other movements can gain such popularity with the youth is because the youth are purposeless and adrift. These movements provide them with the opportunity for meaning & importance. They provide a story which the youth can be the heroes of. The modern professionalized world has largely taken away all opportunities to be heroic. Broken families and precarious jobs have limited the time available for intergenerational knowledge transfers. But the needs aren't gone...the need to feel important, valued, wanted, etc. Those needs are all still there. If you want to break the grip on the minds of the youth, here's a good place to start.
"...the dark forces of the Global Cabal, the Deep State, has plunged humanity – all 193 UN member states at once, into a global catastrophe of epic proportions. To break that globalist spell and to get out of the disaster still unfolding, the world needs thinking people, courageous people, informed and awakened people; people who are not afraid to swim against the stream, to stem the ever-increasing flow of misinformation and government and media lies. It takes educated people. It takes people who dare to resist.
We are experiencing today just the contrary. The minute global elite that has taken a covid-stranglehold on the world’s 7.8 billion people, is doing everything to keep our children, the generations that are supposed to lead the world and humanity into a bright future, uneducated, scared, socially unfit to communicate, to take initiatives, to lead. Today’s youth is depressed by this constant fear propaganda, by the authorities (sic) rules of confinement, not being able to see their friends, to play with them, communicate with them, to do the healthiest social activities there are – exchanging ideas with peers, acquaintances and friends.
One might think, there is a purpose behind it all. Could it be, that this minute diabolical Globalist Cabal, those who are behind “The Great Reset”, co-authored by the WEF’s founder and CEO since the NGO’s creation in 1971, Klaus Schwab – could it be that these people have a plan, namely to leave the world to a generation of uneducated, fear-indoctrinated people, who are used to and have been trained to follow orders, obey authorities and believe their very leaders’ (sic) lies and fall for their manipulations?" [Source]
This far removed from early human cultures, it is difficult to determine the distinctions between human nature and what has become dominant cultures. Is invention & discovery in our very soul? Or were they just the kinds of things the cultures that were successful at conquering others were inclined towards? Obviously humans are curious, but not all of us feel the need or see the value in constant technological "progress."
"Doing your own research" often seems complex and overwhelming, but all it is is simple processes that add up over time. If people can read in a critical manner (and the more they do the better they'll get) they can free themselves and begin to free others.
Though keep in mind that on any journey you'll experience times of disillusionment. You'll just want to stop. If it's an option you'll just want to go home. But how many times have you felt the same way? And how many times was just going home the best answer? It's normal to feel this way, everyone does, some talk about it and some don't. So take a minute, remember why you started, and let's keep going.
There is something to be said about "overthinking it" however. Ask many after, if they knew what they did now before they started, would they? Those that are honest will often answer "No." So some people simply avoid thinking about this altogether. Others become overwhelmed by it. But perhaps a few will see possibilities in the potential problem.
Our culture encourages everyone to try to be the hero, the main character, the center of the story. But the supporting characters, especially in our non-Hollywood world, are the most important of all. For example, a just-the-facts reporter provides solid information for more artistic & subjective creations to be made. But without the just-the-facts foundations being offered, the more subjective & artistic writers are stirring emotions using fictions & fabrications, an extremely dangerous situation.
"Consider a scenario in which we're on a ship that's sinking, and the lifeboats have been launched. Being some of the last still on board the doomed vessel, we can scan who's in each lifeboat and choose which one we'll clamber into.
It's a consequential decision because the currents and weather are already separating the lifeboats, and so each lifeboat will be on its own. The seas are increasingly treacherous, and the nearby islands are surrounded by reefs which could shred the lifeboat's hulls in seconds.
While we don't know everyone on board, we've met many of the other passengers and crew and made the acquaintance of a fair number of our fellow castaways.
So who do we choose to join? Our knowledge is imperfect: we only have first impressions and intuitions about the people who will potentially impact our life in a very direct and consequential way.
Do we choose to go in the lifeboat with a friend? This is certainly more appealing than a boat full of strangers.
Do we choose a boat with an experienced sailor whose skills in the open ocean would improve our chances of surviving the ordeal ahead?
Or do we choose a boat which is already under the control of a natural leader? If we understand that dithering and unresolvable conflicts can lead to disaster by default, then having someone in charge might be worth the risk that their leadership will lead to a catastrophically bad decision.
If we feel we have the experience to take charge and bring a lifeboat to safety, then perhaps we look for the disorganized, leaderless boat.
Alternatively, we can weed out those boats we'll avoid as potentially dangerous because of the presence of domineering individuals with traits that have poor survival outcomes.
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The boats I would avoid are those with wealthy, powerful people who confuse their position and wealth with competence, when actually there is no connection to competence beyond whatever specialized niche they used to acquire wealth and power. Their assumption (a form of privilege beneath the surface) that their specialized competence grants them universal competence is disastrously wrong-headed.
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Boats filled with self-important, self-absorbed people I would avoid as death traps. I would also avoid boats with do-gooders / would-be saints whose motivation (above self-preservation, until it's too late) is to defend the rights of the weak as the most important principle, even in life-and-death circumstances. These types are especially dangerous because their life experience is that Somebody Will Rescue Us. They thus conclude we can devote asymmetric resources to the weakest because Somebody Will Rescue Us.
They are incapable of recognizing the difference between making the vulnerable/dependent as comfortable as possible given the resources available and devoting the primary effort to saving everyone but if this can't be done, then saving as many people as possible. They are unable to recognize the need for difficult decisions that may well have asymmetric outcomes for the individuals on the boat. In demanding equal outcomes, they will lose everyone's lives--an outcome that is certainly equal but foolish.
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I would look for a boat with low-key individuals with high situational awareness and experience in responding to crises and danger. Combat veterans come to mind, but there are many others with training and experience (or natural abilities) that aids their situational awareness, risk assessment and responses to rapidly evolving threats. The OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) is an example of this process.
I would also look for a boat with the increasingly rare individuals who do what they say they're going to do, and do it without self-obsessed drama/trauma or childish excuses. These individuals have a healthy awareness of their own limits and the limits of human nature. They don't overpromise to make themselves larger than they really are and they won't burden the rest of the boat with their self-absorbed histrionics or adolescent excuses." [Source]
Many aren't ready to lead themselves. And any collapse likely empowers wannabe warlords, many of whom might implement additional rounds of dissident cleansing, cheered on by their new subjects. I'm not sure though how much of the leadership problems stem from actual incompetence or induced helplessness. And of course it will also depend on the individual personality. Though we do see in times of crisis many stand up and organize themselves. Does the crisis simply give them a license to act they don't feel they have in normal life? If so that would be an important piece to keep in mind as we approach how to resolve this lacking of leadership ability.
It's certainly a frustrating experience. If you can see the problems, the inaction & apathy are just intolerable at times. And oh how much easier it would have been to fix decades ago, before the technological advancements, the additional years of decay & decline, and when there were just fewer of us overall to convert. I think even those of us who are ready see that there's no worthwhile plan. And, there's no powerful interests that would align with a real people's revolution, unlike the massive benefits received by BLM & Antifa. For many the best outcome they'd be hoping for would just be a collapse, everyone loses and then we all get to play king of the hill of rubble.
It's part of why I'm trying to do things like Sketch-A-Society, to get people thinking far more deeply about what they want to see so that then we can attempt to use these more concrete visions to form the outline of a path people might be willing to attempt walking, despite its treacherousness.
Us, the current living generations, are probably the last ones to have to deal with it. We win or its the Final Cage (and eventually no more humans). People can take that framing as glass half-full or half-empty as they see fit.
"As Hermann Goering famously explained regarding how to lead a country to war (and the principle holds true for any big transition, like the one we are experiencing currently):
“[T]he people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
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...Global capitalist governments and their corporate media mouthpieces are telling us, in no uncertain terms, that “objection to their authority” will no longer be tolerated, nor will dissent from their official narratives. Such dissent will be deemed “dangerous” and above all “false.” It will not be engaged with or rationally debated. It will be erased from public view. There will be an inviolable, official “reality.” Any deviation from official “reality” or defiance of the “civil authorities” will be labelled “extremism,” and dealt with accordingly.
This is the essence of totalitarianism, the establishment of an inviolable official ideology and the criminalization of dissent. And that is what is happening, right now. A new official ideology is being established. Not a state ideology. A global ideology. The “New Normal” is that official ideology. Technically, it is an official post-ideology, an official “reality,” an axiomatic “fact,” which only “criminals” and “psychopaths” would deny." [Source]
If I had a magic button that could "poof" away all the top elites in an instant nothing much would change if I pressed it. Other than maybe people freaking out over 3,000 people just vanishing at the same moment. If you do find yourself in possession of such a magic button you may want to craft some sort of religion which that freak out could feed into.
The elites can do nothing without many many thousands more. Slaves is certainly a reasonable term to use. But its not just their bodies which have been chained, it's their minds & foundational beliefs as well. So removing the figureheads will not necessarily change the minds of the next level lower that was tasked with the real implementation of these agendas. It would only replace the figureheads with less well-known figureheads.
We would also be wise to remember that even during so-called "slave rebellions" there were numerous slaves who picked up arms to defend their masters.
Just as we can't defeat radical Islam by killing Bin Laden or Baghdadi, we can't defeat these people with assassination. Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, and the like are just carriers for the real virus which infects far more than the core elite. The idea of perfection, that we can end all tragedy, that we can redesign what nature has made in ways more convenient for ourselves, etc. These are the beliefs which the elite can tap into to manipulate the masses. And it is these ideas which must be made into bugsplats on the windshield of history. We do that and Bill Gates is just some old powerless prick.
"OK, before somebody calls me a “conspiracy theorist,” GloboCap is not a bunch of guys in a room conspiring to do all this. Global capitalism is a system. Systems function according to their own structures and logic. What I'm talking about is not individual people conspiring (although individual people certainly do, and that is part of it). I'm talking about the logical evolution of a global-hegemonic ideological system, i.e., a system without external enemies, which has nothing left to do but consolidate power and eliminate internal resistance. If you understand the last 5-6 years (actually the last 30 years) that way, as I do, this shift to a less democratic, more ideologically monolithic, more totalitarian social structure (i.e., the “New Normal”) is not at all surprising. On the contrary, it is the next logical step." [Source]
Everything orbits around the manipulations of elites throughout history I think. I do try to avoid going too far down the "secret societies controlling the world" rabbit hole while I'm doing it as it's usually a far less organized affair than that. Spending too much time trying to fit certain Hollywood tropes into an analysis of reality is a good way to ultimately end up looking foolish and wasting efforts.
But it's also always good to remember that the tricks to sell you soap or make you connect with a fictional character can be used to influence you in the real world. So just because you've paid far more attention to pop culture than politics up until now doesn't mean you can't provide valuable contributions. You'll lack important context but you'll also be intimately familiar with many of the tricks & tropes which are used to create false realities.
The same playbook throughout history is used by the elites to divide the numerically superior masses. The propaganda plays are just simplistic templates patched together. It's mad-lib manipulation. Looking at the immense influence wielded across a broad array of topics its clear this works very well. All that money backing it certainly doesn't hurt either.
The entire system is propped up by nothing but words repeated & amplified by organized elite systems. The more people see this, and the more they are offered simple yet effective ways to begin to create something massive, the sooner we achieve our liberation. Because its so simple, and because it works so well, anyone can do it with varying degrees of success. Since we have the superior numbers theoretically we can override any storyline if we can get enough people to utilize simple methods that eventually add up to something big.
We need to become much better at determining what's the will of the people and what's the manufactured will of the people. Let's maybe get close to a "third rail" here and briefly discuss religion. Religion fills a very real need people have. It's certainly been exploited for ill ends. The past 12 months though provides us with an excellent example of what is often portrayed as religion's opposite (science) being used for ill ends. Humans always seem to treat one category of ideas as divine. For much of history this was religion but increasingly we've replaced it with science.
"How could people even countenance a term like lockdown, with its overtones of imprisonment and total control, let along coming to think well of it and condemning and shaming its violators and critics? My argument was that societies like Canada had, for a long time, been “practicing” – we’d already turned the concepts on which our pandemic policies have been founded into common sense.
These concepts include risk, safety, pro-active management, science as a mighty oracle speaking in a single authoritative voice, and above all, Life, as a quantum to be preserved at all costs. Gradual naturalization of these concepts has made the policy that has been followed seem so rational, so inevitable, and so entirely without alternative that it has been possible to freely vilify its opponents and largely exclude them from media which might have made their voices politically influential. But knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. What has come into stark relief during the pandemic may have been already latently there, but to see it actualized as the outline of a new social order is still a compelling and somewhat frightening experience....
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If Illich and Agamben are right, the truly powerful churches – the ones that tell us not only how we ought to live but how we must live – exert their claims on us in the name of education, health, safety, risk reduction and other shibboleths of the new religion. It follows that we now need what Illich’s dear friend, the American critic Paul Goodman, called a “new reformation.” The freedoms for which the first Reformation fought must now be fought for again." [Source]
So it seems the problem is more the unquestioning acceptance of an ideology rather than the "kind" of ideology it is. Some may say unquestioning acceptance is a hallmark of the major religions today. They wouldn't necessarily be wrong (though I don't think they're exactly right either, believers display quite the diversity) but they're also only arguing that those particular implementations of the religious impulse are flawed. And it would be important again to point out here that "secular" government & organizations have been used for ill ends based on little to no "facts" or "reality".
Atheists often mock believers for their faith. But to dismiss so easily what is a source of immense strength & resilience for so many worldwide seems quite foolish. Leaving someone unmoored in the modern world is often a recipe for misery. Yet it is not all rainbows, unicorns, and gumdrops in the Faith camp either. How we reconcile this is one of humanity's most important questions that remains unanswered.
"...many of the people we consider "intellectuals" seem more to be "intellectualizing" where they take incorrect or hollow conclusions and support them with words that sound smart but have no depth or meaning."
--@laochspiorad
Who is actually qualified for leadership? Our society often deems those with the proper paperwork to be qualified. But this is only one kind of qualification to look at, and it doesn't necessarily end up selecting the best leaders. Consider ACB's $2 million book advance: There are likely tens of millions of people considered unqualified for a role on the Supreme Court that would reject things like this book deal. But those kind of folks just don't rise very high up the ladder in this country. And that's one of our biggest problems I think.
People engaged & focused on real work don't usually rise as fast or as high as those focused on appearances. The higher up you rise in anything the more in a bubble you tend to get. Get high enough in powerful enough professions & institutions and most of the time your needs will be catered to simply because of your status. And in all other instances you'll have ample wealth to ensure your needs are catered to. This tends to make people dumber and thus more dangerous given the power they wield.
To put it a bit more crudely: The selection process weeds out all the non-sociopaths and if one of the sociopaths goes a little soft there's always some "crazy lone gunman" to take them out...or maybe they find some child pornography.
Thankfully we do see pockets of resistance popping up everywhere. However what I do not see much of yet are the stories which can provide the framework for their individual struggles to fit into larger ones. BLM had this with their corporate propaganda arms and we see the resulting organization and what it has achieved in relatively little time. They also had theories incubated within the university systems to employ as well.
Of course BLM's path also shows the hazards of using the corporate propaganda arm & university systems. So not only will we need local grassroots actions but we'll also need more grassroots narrative makers across the country (and the world really) who can begin to generate that loud roar necessary for any real, revolutionary change.
"The purpose of the universities, in the view of these industrialists and bankers, was to develop by indoctrination a kind of management elite capable of controlling society in a way most useful to the top 1%. By the end of the First World War, the world was in the throes of a massive industrialisation as well as urbanisation, creating social stresses from problems of inequality and civil rights, with social unrest already a growing problem. To deal with this, American universities developed (under the tutelage of Lippman and Bernays) what they called the “social sciences” like sociology and psychology with the objective of producing a cadre of “social engineers and technicians” to address these issues and control American society. The ‘secret government’ believed that psychology, with the techniques so skillfully applied by Bernays, could “be instrumental for attaining democratic social order and control”. The theory was that individuals in society were not “well adjusted” and that propaganda could be used to appropriately “adjust” them. From this point, with the educational system as a major instrument, the US transitioned into a society of social engineering and control, using Bernays’ methods directly upon primary, high school and university students to form and manipulate public perceptions and beliefs in a manner most useful to the secret government and the multi-nationals they controlled. Neither the good of the nation nor the welfare of its citizens were listed as priorities. Of course, education itself became diseased and corrupted by these measures.
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The elite 1% founded not only universities but the Foundations that exist to this day, and for the same purposes of social control. Institutions like the Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie Foundations, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, were primarily created “to perpetuate predatory wealth through the control of information and the sources of information”, and quickly assumed missions of direct influence and control of the mindsets of many of the world’s leaders, or at least influential individuals. The Rockefeller Foundation has been pre-eminent in an astonishing array of social control initiatives that included population control in the real sense through sterilisation and war. And both the Rockefeller and Carnegie institutes funded and promoted the practice of eugenics, Carnegie recommending a national chain of gas chambers to eliminate the socially (and ideologically) unfit.
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All the so-called Foundations and Think Tanks established during the past century shared the purpose of steering society and social thought into desirable channels, and executing massive schemes of social engineering, eventually corrupting the educational system and co-opting all emerging social movements for the benefit of Bernays’ ‘secret government. American society, primarily through the educational system and the use of the new social sciences was being almost totally re-created to serve its ultimate masters.
A memo from the Rockefeller historical archives revealed a concern that their purposes might become public knowledge and be “misinterpreted” since public opinion would naturally be violently opposed to such secret programming. Senators and Congressmen rightly feared these Foundations were dangerous to their society and form of government, and recommended their abolition, but the elected portions of the government have never had the power to control the secret government. The US Congress stated that these foundations, with their wealth and influence, were “a grave menace to the welfare of society” and would be used not only to affect and control the government but to change its form. And try to change its form they would.
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Now, the offspring of Lippman and Bernays are spending huge money on psychologists and psychiatrists to fathom precisely what it is about going to a Starbucks or a Wal-Mart that can create a “positive emotional response”. Yes, I know. I almost choked writing that sentence, but these people are serious. They want to identify the underlying stimuli and then fabricate the circumstances in an attempt to provoke that response. If successful, the fake commodity and fake service can disappear to be replaced by a fake emotional experience that you will treasure and one day excitedly relate to your grandchildren. It is all a false reality created with contrived experiences that are not real, but Americans are already on international speaking tours proselytising the new marketing approach. And it’s all fake, in the same way that most of America is fake. Americans promoting this new view seem unable to recognise that any part of their new bible contrasts with reality, and react with offense when Europeans tell them “You Americans are all about image instead of reality. Everything about you is fake and superficial. You people are living in a cliché.”
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In summation, we have a grand conspiracy by a relative handful of people to manipulate and control the perceptions and beliefs of an entire nation of people, entirely for perverted purposes. Perhaps the word ‘conspiracy’ is inaccurate, since these categories of players were in some sense acting independently or at least in different spheres such as advertising and media control or education and politics, but the net result is not different from what would have occurred had there been a tightly-organised conspiracy. Certainly, each knew what the other was doing, and would have been fully aware of the effects of their combined efforts. If we connect these dots, we have the European Jewish bankers and their many huge corporations, and the wealthy US elites exercising enormous control over the US government and effectively taking full charge of American education, of banking and the economy, of industrial production and, most important of all, of the mental and emotional content of the American people.
In every case, there was no concern for the good of the people or of a nation, no value placed on human lives, the human experience, or the human environment. It was only about the money to be derived from social control. Lippman and Bernays are gone, but their mainstay of immoral, manipulative and deceptive practices is as virulent as ever. As Shakespeare told us in Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”." [Source]
And when put so simply it is crystal clear that we're not being offered a better alternative than the system of "rule by the 1%" they claim to be against. They're just doing what failed "people's revolutions" have done throughout history: replace one elite group with another.
"The U.S. Marines pride themselves on making leaders—at all levels. One of a Marine leader’s primary missions is taking care of their Marines. Taking care of your Marines doesn’t mean making life rosy and easy for them. It means looking out for their welfare, giving them meaningful work, being direct with appropriate guidance, and holding them accountable for their actions. Maybe there’s a lesson here." [Source]
I can't shake the feeling that essentially all prominent people are just in it for themselves. They lack a certain simplicity & humility. It's part of why I would like to build up average people. It's really hard to get a huge head when it's clear from the start you're just applying extremely simple processes that anyone can do and after that it's just "energy over time."
The frameworks we need already exist. They're scattered, imperfect, some are in need of significant tweaking. These ideas need to be brought together outside the stifling realms of academia and brought into the public squares. It's only through actual engagement by tens of millions of average people that any of these important questions we face can be answered in ways that benefit us all. Leaving it up to "experts" will ensure the continued misrule of a narrow-minded few.
"Who will lead the deplorables’ exodus from the bondage that the political-corporate-cultural oligarchy imposes on America? The power that the oligarchy has gathered since 2015 pales by comparison with the resentment it created thereby, and the wave of public opinion that is building against it.
America’s deplorables, clingers, irredeemables, chumps, dregs, neanderthals, etc.—persecuted, increasingly prosecuted for being on the wrong side of the oligarchy—yearn for political leaders to rescue their way of life. Demand is so high because most self-proclaimed conservative leaders talk the voters’ talk, but walk the big donors’ oligarchic walk.
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Subtracting Americans from the oligarchy’s oppressions requires using one’s powers—as governor, senator, indeed as anyone with access to an audience—to personify and organize any number of tasks, neither minimizing exposure nor mincing words. Standing against the madness of transgenderism, flying in the face of the most objective truths, may well be the easiest of these....
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The point is clear, however. To lead the deplorables is to meet their sociopolitical needs." [Source]
Build your communities and figure out how to integrate them into the larger whole after & with the new knowledge you've gained in the process. You need no credentials to do this. Just a healthy dose of humility and the ability to laugh at what a fool you once were. Keep those two things with you throughout your life and you'll be led astray far less than those that do not.
The hardest part of this project is likely to be teaching & encouraging people to question everything including you. This is something that many people often overlook for a variety of reasons. But it's the absolute best chance to really make the habit of challenging authority stick. There can be no exceptions.
"CRT or simply CT seeks to unravel narratives and allow people to be critical of all sides of an issue. Not bad on the face, but it admits that it plays with language. That makes it a system that works well for deconstructing a fictional narrative.
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My larger takeaway being exposed to it at a lightly academic level is this,they mean to deconstruct first the children,then the society,the institutions (that they overtake and wear like skin suits) and then the entire system.
If you can pick something apart from all sides what is true at the end? The new dark age is what they aim to reproduce."
I like to play with these ideas and tools as well, though thankfully I have avoided any sort of real indoctrination in the method and instead am attempting to re-purpose or create echoes of the more "academic" versions. I do like the increase in the possibility of "serendipitous realizations" that come about when given more license to explore alternate meaning and view, but it's always important not to descend too far down into the realm of narcissism & "my truth."
I see the basic underlying tools as equivalent to a gun. You can free yourself from tyranny or you can cause immense tragedy, all with the same simple tool. The most vocal proponents of these tools today certainly seek a new dark age. But I think there's openings for us to use their greater energy to advance towards our ultimate emancipation.
"If our society is founded on fictions, which it is, tearing them down only helps if we have a secure platform on which to land and bring others along with us."
Our society does rest on a foundation of fictions built up over the years. Analyzing these fictions is certainly essential to figuring out where we need to go, as well as how we got here. Complete deconstruction & destruction of some of these fictions is likely needed. What rises in its place depends in large part on the groundwork we lay now, both in terms of attempting to create a framework of an alternate story, something to avoid descent into a Dark Age, and also instilling within people the basic analytical habits & skills which can also be useful to deconstruct the fictions spewed forth from all camps.
With the benefit of hindsight it is quite clear that it was a bad idea to stand by as people who felt penned in by certain societal values began flocking to metropolitan areas which created the vast majority of the country's culture. Encouraging people to purchase so much of what once required the building & maintaining of relationships was probably unwise as well.
"In every age, we find ourselves wrestling with the question of how Jesus Christ—the itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist who died challenging the police state of his time, namely, the Roman Empire—would respond to the moral questions of our day.
For instance, would Jesus advocate, as so many evangelical Christian leaders have done in recent years, for congregants to “submit to your leaders and those in authority,” which in the American police state translates to complying, conforming, submitting, obeying orders, deferring to authority and generally doing whatever a government official tells you to do?
What would Jesus do?
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Jesus—the revolutionary, the political dissident, and the nonviolent activist—lived and died in a police state. Any reflection on Jesus’ life and death within a police state must take into account several factors: Jesus spoke out strongly against such things as empires, controlling people, state violence and power politics. Jesus challenged the political and religious belief systems of his day. And worldly powers feared Jesus, not because he challenged them for control of thrones or government but because he undercut their claims of supremacy, and he dared to speak truth to power in a time when doing so could—and often did—cost a person his life.
Unfortunately, the radical Jesus, the political dissident who took aim at injustice and oppression, has been largely forgotten today, replaced by a congenial, smiling Jesus trotted out for religious holidays but otherwise rendered mute when it comes to matters of war, power and politics." [Source]
Principles & morals can certainly help you achieve revolutions (and summon the courage necessary to attempt them) but they alone will not cut it. You must have the wisdom to know when to act and when to not. This can at times be a quite difficult task. Anger & rage at continued injustice can make even a wise individual less so.
Changing the world takes dirty hands not suits & ties. The plan never survives first contact with the enemy. Or something like that. It's hard for many people to recognize that the real answers to "How are you going to accomplish that?" often can't be provided. Nothing remains static as you attempt to change things. So really what's most necessary is good opening moves and the ability to then improvise and use your opponent's strengths & attacks against them.
The problem is we don't select for that skill set when it comes to choosing our leaders. Sure, we get many leaders adept at manipulation but that's not the same thing. Manipulation is a selfish act, it can't be used to promote the common good because it poisons everything it touches.
"According to the American Declaration of Independence, people enter into political society for the sake of protecting their inalienable rights, which are otherwise insecure. The question then arises: what can the people do if the government betrays its trust, and violates their rights? The Declaration’s initial answer is “that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”
The people create the government, but in so doing they do not forfeit their right to vindicate their own rights, even against the very government they created. Thus James Wilson asserted that the “vital principle” of America is “that the supreme or sovereign power of the society resides in the citizens at large; and that, therefore, they always retain the right of abolishing, altering, or amending their constitution.” This right supersedes the claims of the government to the loyalty and obedience of its subjects. Federalist 28 describes the right of revolution as “that original right of self-defence, which is paramount to all positive forms of government.”
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The natural law, as America’s Founding Fathers understood it, is simply that portion of the law of God that could be discerned through unassisted reason, without reference to any particular revelation. Alexander Hamilton noted that the natural law was “an eternal and immutable law, which is, indispensably, obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any institution whatever.” The natural law is a standard of political right that transcends the constitutions and statutes of particular regimes. This means that it can be used as a basis for evaluating the actions of governments and rulers, and any such that violate the natural law are to that extent immoral and unjust.
The natural law provides a higher-law foundation for resistance to oppression, giving such resistance a moral validity that it could not possess otherwise....
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The existence of a natural right of revolution does not, however, mean that the exercise of this right is justified in every circumstance. The Declaration’s treatment of the right of revolution continues with the assertion that “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” Revolution can have the most catastrophic consequences. One need only look to the other two great modern revolutions to witness this. The French Revolution moved from its moderate opening phase to the repression and mass murder of the Jacobins, and ultimately traded the Bourbon monarchy for Napoleon’s empire. The Revolution unleashed more than 20 years of constant warfare on Europe, killing millions in the process. The Russian Revolution swiftly descended into Bolshevik tyranny and the unending terror of Stalin’s regime.
The explosive danger of revolution, and the catastrophic effect a revolution can have on ordinary lives, thus require a high bar for the exercise of this right. The Declaration asserts that revolution is justified only “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism”; in these circumstances, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
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Even then, revolution may not be the appropriate response. The odds of success may be so doubtful, or the likelihood of increased human misery so great, that revolution should be avoided even though the technical right exists. Two years before Howard, John Tucker told his congregation that “tho’ it may not always be prudent and best, to resist such power, and submission may be yielded, yet that the people have a right to resist, is undeniable.” The ruler may be so powerful, or his opponents so weak, that an ill-conceived revolution may be doomed to failure and merely worsen the condition of the people. In such a case, the revolutionaries would be guilty of a great crime against those whom they sought to liberate.
Under the right circumstances, however, revolution is not only a right but a duty. When the train of abuses is long, and the people are clearly being crushed into servitude, and those who would resist have a reasonable chance of success, revolution becomes an obligation. In the aftermath of the battles at Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress announced, in the language of duty, its intention to resist British oppression with armed force: “Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.” In America, in the mid-1770s, the right and the moment converged." [Source]
Any would-be leaders would be wise to keep in mind that even if an act is undeniably morally right, it may be a mistake from a tactical or strategic standpoint. Whether that matters is up to you to decide. People who acknowledge this can help steer others away from rash actions. People who ignore this only create more frustrations, which lead to more rash actions.
"13. Only when the land, people and treasure are all exhausted does the promise of total victory fade, and the factions seek some negotiated settlement that leaves whatever power they still have intact lest they lose everything.
14. The eventual settlement could have been reached in the initial stages of disorder, but the leaders of the factions were too myopic, too confident in their own judgment and power, too greedy for more and too hubris-soaked to appreciate their own weaknesses and the immense pitfalls ahead.
If you don't discern any of these dynamics in the present, what are you choosing not to see?" [Source]
There are currently people in this world who can act with impunity. They can get away with doing horrible things. But getting outraged over any particular injustice is usually not the most helpful course of action. There's certainly occasions where outrage has sparked reform (or at least seemed to) but simply bringing attention to something and then channeling that rage into more logical work is the only way you will have any chance of preventing these things in the future. The library is often better than the streets if you want to defeat the elites.
"It is considerably less painful to learn from the mistakes of others than from your own, and it is less costly to learn from the successes of others, versus your own trial and effort. As we consider how to resist the looming effort of the authoritarian Left to transform our system of republican self-governance into an autocratic unitary state, we should examine the experiences of other resistance movements....
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“Train. Equip. Lead.” That is an effective mantra for managing a resistance movement.
Train the movement to collectively achieve a unified political goal/agenda. A movement built on a coalition that retains myriad competing political objectives is easily divided and destined to fail. Include workshops on how to properly conduct political actions, how to deal with mass surveillance, and what to do when members are detained, arrested, or facing state-sponsored violence.
Equip your people with the skills and resources to survive and navigate the struggle. If you do not build a support network to protect and care for your movement’s members, you are effectively using them as cannon fodder—and they will quickly see that. They then become vulnerable to the enemy’s blacklisting, information operations, and intelligence collection efforts.
Lead them, protect them, and appreciate their sacrifice. A political movement that is centered around a personality is a cult or a grift. A legitimate political movement should never be about the leader, it should always be about the people.
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Americans are searching for a path to victory over the coming authoritarian leviathan, but there are few, if any, individuals emerging in conservative and independent political circles to provide guidance or leadership. Soon, Americans will have to decide whether they are going to fight or submit to the will of the ruling elites. If they choose to fight, they would be wise to examine the history of other political movements and the resulting lessons learned at the edge of liberty and tyranny." [Source]
Solitude is fantastic for gaining deep insights. But you've got to come out of the wilderness eventually in order to make those insights truly useful.
Other writers have used this analogy. It works well. It goes something like this: There's a door. It's not even locked. You're just told to not go near it and maybe that bad things lie behind it. Just to be safe, don't even look at it. It might as well not exist as far as you're concerned. Well I've been through that door. It's not all unicorns, rainbows, and gumdrops. It's certainly no utopia. But there's the potential for true liberty behind that door.
So I'm going to hold that door open. I'm going to scream "Look at this door!" I'll find things to jam in the gap. I'll start a bonfire so that the door will glow in the dark. But I'm not special. There's nothing I can do that you can't do (better?). And since this door is metaphorical, we don't even need to hold the same one.
Attempts to truly explain what lies beyond that door always fall short. But then again, we've never been really adept at using words to accurately reflect experience. Can you ever adequately describe the sight of the Himalayas? Can you ever capture in prose but a sliver of the awe of a panoramic photo, itself a crude imitation of the true experience?
Even with the true experience we find there is not one true experience. Some look out and see ancestors. Some see gods. Some see the ages long past. Some see fearsome obstacles or thrilling challenges.
So I can't tell you what exactly you'll find beyond that door. But I can tell you I look forward to trying to understand what you do.