Not to them. Not to the Ruling Class. Not to The Powers That Be.
WE all know how special and wonderful you are…..they, however, just don’t care
To them you are merely….a unit.
A demographic unit, a production unit, a consumption unit, a vote unit, a contribution unit, and if you are the right age etc, a military unit.
Sorry to be the one to tell you, but ……… They just don’t care about you. They don’t like you and they don’t hate you. It is not personal. It’s about production and consumption ONLY. You, to them, do not exist, except as an entry on a spreadsheet.
They don’t care how you feel, what you want or what your dreams and aspirations are….except so far as it helps them sell stuff to you. And they don’t care about how you feel about them not caring about you.
They do care about what scares you though, so they can use your fears to manipulate you.
But it is decidedly not personal.
As long as you continue to produce for them, everything is fine. You have nothing to fear. You can be comfortable, and they can be comfortable. The deal, the bargain, works. They get the fruits of your labor, and you get the illusion of security.
Until you don’t.
Then they REALLY don’t care.
Until through some “glitch’ in the System, you lose your job or can’t make your mortgage or credit card payments or don’t pay your taxes….or until you stand up to ‘them.’
Then you change into a ‘problem unit,’ something that must be ‘dealt with.’
Which is ironically, one step forward in becoming more than a unit. Because (unless you enjoy the illusion of security and comfort too much) then you have ‘stood out,’ or even better……stood up.
Stood up and said to them in all the small ways we are ‘allowed’ to stand up, the iconic line from the old teevee show …. “I am NOT a number, I am a human being!”
Or even worse…. “I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore!”
Or even worse worse….you get a bunch of friends and like minded people together and you ALL stand up and say… “I am NOT a number, I am a human being!” AND “I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore!”
Then you move up the ladder from unithood to personhood even more! If you continue to organize and make waves and rock the boat and Yell Louder….then they MIGHT be FORCED to deal with you as an actual Human Being, as something more than a neat and tidy unit of production and consumption.
And if you and you buddies succeed in FORCING them to deal with you as a living breathing thinking feeling Human Beings…..you have just changed the System.
Which is TERRIBLY inconvenient for them.
Which makes it worth doing just for that, lol.
Let alone the fact that YOU have changed. Changed from a powerless faceless voiceless unit made to be used to fuel the power plant of the system, into a participant in the system. A participant with the power to change the system, a threat to the system. Only then will they deal with you as anything approaching an equal…
And they will do so ONLY if you MAKE them do so.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
NO ONE is going to GIVE you anything….no matter how politely you ask or how reasonably you phrase your request. They did not get where they are by being nice, they do not stay where they are by being nice, and they are not going to give one scintilla of their power away to you because YOU are nice.
It is a Power game, pure and simple, and the power of ‘nice’ is last in the rankings.
YOU are the ONLY one who determines how much power you have. And you determine that by how much they are FORCED to respond to you. And the only thing they respond to is power.
And the more people you can convince to take power for themselves by joining you…or you joining them…in coalition, the more powerful you will be.
Reality Check: They don’t care about you or your feelings or your causes unless you MAKE them care….and being ‘nice’ and ‘polite’ and ‘reasonable’ does not feed that bulldog.
It is your choice.
Are you going to be a unit, or a human being?
But if you DO make the choice to be powerful, to be heard….make sure you are doing it for the right reasons, please.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Not just for YOUR …..comfort.
.
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… just a wee bit.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm…
Polls apart in Massachusetts- The Guardian.co.uk
abused and hung out to dry.
How do people think they are immune somehow?
In my next “Off The Wall” (Thursday) Essay, Im going to focus on Hmong in Thailand being sent back to Laos.
Very Matrix like and I agree that we are viewed as ‘units’ not good or bad just ‘units’ but I ask myself who is the viewer, the ‘they’ or ‘them’? Even the most powerful person is but a unit a cog who serves the machine in a specified position with prescribed duties. They subscribe to the same Faustian bargain we all do, the illusion of comfort and stability such as it is.
Honestly I dont see the ‘they’ or ‘them’ as a group apart from ‘us’, all of us are parts of one group of ‘them’ or another, I am a blind, white male american and as such belong to the powerful white “establishment” of America and one of the poorest and most overlooked groups.
Anyway I guess its a red pill blue pill deal. Very deep stuff
apparently. Blech. Hand me an airsick bag, please.
Check the first comment. It’s like sesame street or something.
as a campaign slogan, but he was right when he said that we are the change we seek. I can’t speak for all of us who voted for the guy, but I can say that many of us (and, I’m ashamed to say, myself included) should have perhaps taken those words more literally and not placed as much faith in him as we did.
I myself, having voted for Clinton in my first presidential vote back in ’92 and dealt with the disappointment of him not living up to my expectations, should have known better, but I nonetheless invested myself too deeply in the idea of him serving as an organizing principle for change. I guess it was the fact that he was sold as a former community organizer, taken in combination with the symbolism of electing the first African-American and the desperation that came with eight years of Cheney/Bush. I thought that where he fell short, we who supported him could press him to do the right thing and fill in the gaps in his job performance. I didn’t count on the gap between what he promised to be and what he actually is being quite so large, but the fact is that we need to do a better job forcing Obama and elected Democrats to do better, and taking direct action where necessary to force the issue of change.
Thanks for posting this diary.