There is, as we all know, a huge and growing anger in the land. The Ruling Class…The Elite….The (alleged) Smart Guys…have screwed just about everything up. The only exception, being…um….um…ok, they have screwed EVERYTHING up.
Led by, among their many and various other faults, THE most incompetent eight year Presidential Administration in modern, if not all of, history. And their frantic efforts too dumb every one down, reduce everything to the simplest possible level….so that they might have a chance to look smart, or at least pass for knowing WTF they are doing.
Health care, energy, foreign policy (TWO screwed up wars and the animosity of the entire civilized world) energy policy, infrastructure, education (heh) and of course finance and the economy. Not to mention the media that reports, or should I say DOESN’T report it all to us, because they too were too busy being Elite to actually, you know, DO anything. Other than type out what the other Elites were telling them. Which was that everything was just going swimmingly, darlings, don’t you worry your little heads, we have everything under control. And we are not just saying that to keep our jbs and make ourselves look smart, either.
Things had gotten so bad in fact that the American people were actually forced to elect a black guy president since he was the only one to even SEEM to have a clue, be calm and smart, and since he was seen as not AS tied to the rest of the Elites who, they had already sensed deep inside….just plain fucked everything up. The People did the right thing. They elected the Smart Guy, not just the connected guy. Connected to the world of the Elites….that we could feel in our bones and see with our own lying eyes were deeply, deeply not up to the job of actually running the complex modern world.
So we elected him, he got into office and immediately….the ‘Elite’ started to oppose him on every level and at every turn. To protect their Eliteness, so that they could pretend that all of this wasn’t their fault. I mean sure everything was screwed up, but, the people in charge thought….and STILL think…that was somebody else’s fault, somewhere else. Man, thought the people in charge, whoever is in charge sure is doing a bad, bad job!
I hope somebody fixes it! Somebody…..else, of course. After all, I have a BMW a McMansion, Armani’s and Rolex’s and Manolo’s and drink expensive wine. That means I am doing a good job, right? Heck I went to a good college I must be smart! After all, I have all this stuff!
Sure, everything seems to be, ya know wrong, but somebody somewhere will fix it, that is above my pay grade, can’t fight the system (not matter how stupid the system is) and at the end of the day, after all, somebody somewhere knows what the fuck they are doing, so everything will be Ok. THEY will fix it. THEY are even smarter than me (so I should just shut up and go along to get along)I’ll just knock off for the day and go play some golf or go shopping. I have LOTS of toys and stuff to keep me from, well….thinking too much about what is wrong.
Sure, I grouse to the wife and my friends about how incompetent my boss and my industry is and how nobody REALLY seems to know what they are doing, and how everything in every other industry is screwed up. But somebody somewhere is in charge….and THEY will fix it. THEY.
Who IS they, exactly, anyway?
It is the system, after all, and if there is one thing we all know for sure, If there is one thing we have learned since we entered Kindergarten and in absolutely every other stage in our lives, if there is one absolute truth in the universe….if there is one thing I must not do or I will be punished for it…if there is one thing that everybody everywhere agrees on…..it is that you can’t fight the system. No matter how bad the system is. No matter how loud that little voice in my head screams that nobody really seems to know what they are doing anywhere, anymore. The system knows what it is doing, the system will fix itself somehow. I heard about this invisible hand thing…
And I know one thing for SURE, You can’t fight the system! No matter how bad things get.
.
Well guess what kiddies…..we ARE The system.
And all of those Elites that will catch us if we fall? THEY are the system too. And here is a little secret, they are not any smarter or wiser than you. For one simple reason. THEY won’t fight the system either. Because as soon as they try to fight the system, everybody around THEM gets that scared look on their face and starts whispering to them after the big meeting to remind them…..that you can’t fight the system. That same scared look that the folks around YOU get when you have the temerity to suggest, in even the smallest of ways, that maybe we should fight the system, somehow.
Everybody knows, deep in their bones, that fighting the system will only get you in trouble. (Some vague, unspecified, but deeply scary….trouble.)
And as Obama is finding out, FIXING the system has now become “fighting the system.” Attempting to change the system into something that actually works is “fighting the system.” Demanding competency from “what everybody knows” is an incompetent system….is fighting the system.
We are invested in the system. (If I say THAT, I will lose my job!!!) Or get shunned at he grocer store! The system sustains us, and if we fight it, the system might reject us. So we don’t. No matter how bad things get.
We have internalized the system, we have become the system, we have been programmed to protect the system, by telling others not to fight it. If we protect the system, the system will protect us and we can keep all of our stuff. We have become the system.
If we revolt against the system, we are revolting against us. And dammit, anybody who revolts against us is…is…is….well, they are just rocking the boat.
And you know where THAT gets you, haha.
So, erm, just how DOES one revolt against the system?
When we have become it? When we are the ones in charge of it? When all of our lives we have been programmed by our education, and our jobs, and the government, and the media and every TV show we watch to Not Fight The System?
Just think about that for the extent that your system reduced attention span will allow you to.
If you can focus long enough you might figure out that since YOU, we, ALL of us ARE the system….
Maybe there IS a way to fight the system after all.
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I don’t harbor any illusion that “They” have any intentions of “Fixing” anything, in fact Obama’s agenda is very clearly laid out in Alex Jones The Obama Deception. Quite the opposite they must get rid of 300 million screaming brats in order to sustain their top of the food chain status. You and I are on our own.
Im not ready to “revolt” (in that sense) just yet. But we do need a revolution.
As I keep saying, Ive been giving this a whole lot of thought but I still havent written much of it down.
I dont think we have to reinvent the wheel entirely, although it sure needs some upgrades. But we have been down this road before, in the 60’s / 70’s and what happened that time?
I think we need to organize big time. And there’s also a very serious element of marketing to it too. I think about this past year, 2008, and how Obama got elected. I mean, what a great success that was, actually. It succeeded for several reasons, of course, but a big part of it was that a coalition was formed of all the little offshoot groups, like Code Pink, etc, and the netroots (and other factions of society as well)… that all colluded together with one primary solitary focused goal, to get BHO elected.
Once that was achieved, it fell back a-part to separate efforts. The “coalition” went poof. Different groups tend to focus on their own respective agenda’s.
Then you add to that the fact that the economy is down the crapper and people (in general) are gonna revert to Survival mode.
To me, restoring Rule of Law, reclaiming America… its at the absolute core. If we dont do this, the rest is fershit.
Violent revolts are obsolete. The technologies of repression are perfected, and bloody revolutions are tainted by their ugly means. Today, the practical forms of revolt are actions that strike at the root evils of a perniciously dishonest system of corporatist fascism:
1. Shift allegiance from the money economy to the economy of esteem. This means trading and networking with good people and small trusted organizations.
2. Vote against all politicians tied to existing corporate malefactors.
3. Boycott all products and services tied to corporate malefactors.
4. Consume and generate accurate information using the public internet. Denounce false dealing and deception whenever they are encountered.
5. Become directly useful to others. Acquire knowledge and skills that are practically helpful to other people.
6. Cultivate goodwill among your neighbors and acquaintances, because esteem will be the new measure of wealth as the greedhead economy crumbles.
7. Remember that the ultimate challenge to the corporatist machine is this statement:
I am an honest person.
Obama and Dean built, which spread and won politically because people saw what was happening. The one Obama is in the process of pissing off, as he fights for our right to be screwed, for the American Dream of course, so your grandkids can maybe achieve it. Like I even want this soulless dream for my grandkids.
When Obama voted for FISA I stopped working and donating. Obama campaign called and I told them why. My boss said, it’s not Obama it’s the movement she also said she had countless phone calls like mine. The way things are going, I don’t think people have a choice not to fight. When your reality out runs your fears it tend to make people realize their fear was nothing compared to the real world they inhabit.
The illusions of politics can be overcome by reality. For me the antidote to our system is community be it on line or off. How can we live in a system that offers nothing but gambling on debt, war and prisons? We can’t and we won’t. nothing is too big to fall, this system is top heavey and its crashing all over . Maybe thats a painful but good thing let the damn thing fall and build like the phoenix out of the ashes. The foundation is still here buried somewhere under the debris.
We’ve all become too systematized to fight the system!
O.K., seriously, those who have, in the past, and in the present, sought to fight the system in so many different ways, in the workplace, the community, etc. always tend to stand out like sore thumbs, because others are too busy going along with the system to break out and join that individual(s) who is/are trying to fight it! The Sheeple!
And, again, here we have the worst possible situation ever with war crimes staring us in the face and so far, no action — this is the very kind of thing that enables the “system” to continue on it’s merry way!
Off Topic, (but only slightly) a must see is this video. It is with a Canadian lawyer and Keith Olbermann. Would that we were so forthright and forceful.
Will Canada Arrest George W Bush For Torture?
And, buhdy, please don’t refer to the Bush Administration as “incompetent” — they were anything but incompetent for their purposes. Everything they did was preconceived, planned, deliberated and acted upon. They were the most criminal, depraved, conniving Administration that we have ever known!)
I posted a comment in the other Essay but here…
http://www.cspan.org/Watch/wat…
My answer is: you revolt against the system by living in truth and staying alive. To the degree one can manage them together, a sort of creative, taffy-pulling duet that finally leaves nothing but sticky goo and the memory of something salty and sweet.
How does one revolt against the system when one is already close to the limits of that opposition? Between staying alive and living in truth. That’s what I’m trying to figure out, right now.
problem is it is to restart the system & not shift to the 1st level from 0
system fail lure at best
luck & luv
PEACE!
and you will not have to revolt……
it will have degenerated into what it is, fog in the morning sun…..
but then it will be gone…….
revolution = building networks of cooperation bonds today…….
evolution = gathering mobile infrastructure for tomorrow……..
find a place where you have something to contribute so that you will be conserved……….