The fact is, someone is in control. Most people would like to think it's them. "I know who I am, I know what I like and I'm in control". We've all heard it. Maybe you have said these words yourself?
So who would be in control of you if not yourself? The clue to that answer is in your values or at least the ones you think you have. Ask any child what they like and they will almost always say, "Nature", "Playing", "My best friend", "Ice Cream", and so on. And with the exception of playing, most would agree, presuming we actually have a best friend.
But ask a child what their values are and they will usually have but one answer; "To be nice to one another".
Pretty simple, eh? But look around at the world we live in. It is hardly a collection of people and nations 'being nice to one another'. In fact, if you consider the Amazon rain forest "nature", just look at how much we love that.
Ice Cream! There's something I can get my spoon around! Sure enough, we are one massive bunch of over-eating, over-consuming, artery-blocking people. And if you aren't there yet, you're on your way.
Yep. We have values, but what they actually are isn't determined by us. It's they things we hear that make us feel good enough to say, "You're god-damned right!" It's true. We hear about the U.S. being the most powerful country, it makes us feel good (unless you aren't actually from the U.S.), and you say, "You're god-damned right!" And we hear about the U.S. being a world leader, you say, "You're god-damned right!"
And then you hear about, "The American Dream", and you say, "You're god-damned right!"
The only problem is that we don't know and certainly have not experienced, "The American Dream", until someone else defines it for us. And we don't know if invading Iraq is a good idea until someone else defines why it's a good idea. Even after we find out that the premise for doing so is, was and will forever be, completely falsified (For those who don't know what this word means, replace it with, "built on a pack of lies"). We continue to argue the validity for invading Iraq. We claim ownership of whatever we catch in the media. "The region was unstable", or, "Suddam could have been working on weapons of mass destruction", and so on.
And as you read back these reason long after the fervor of the moment has passed, doesn't it ring a bit tinny?
Are you old enough to remember the news of the sixties? Well, not exactly the news but the news programs? Do you remember how, most of the time, they reported what was going on? Do you remember how you rarely heard a comment about the news? Back then, people were shocked when Walter Cronkite removed his glasses and showed the hint of sadness when he reported that the then President of the U.S. had been assassinated.
Well, "news" is no longer the reporting of the facts. It's not even the reporting of the facts and then making a compassionate remark... or a sarcastic remark. No, it has turned into the fabrication (lies), of the owners and managers and writes of stories with a subsequent rant or slated opinion about the false story (or in some cases, the actual story with missing details).
And it is this slant (all opinion is slant, including this blog), that people gravitate toward. They find the dry news of public radio and the CBC and BBC as "boring". Why?
Willful Ignorance
There is a certain 'in the womb' comfort in releasing control and letting others make the decisions for us. Do you remember your mother or father carrying you from the back seat of the car, into the house and into bed? If you do, let me ask you a question: HOW do you remember this? After all, you were asleep, right?
There is a certain comfort in knowing that someone else will take care of you. And if that means all you have to do is agree with and adopt the slant, the opinion, the identified scapegoats, then that's the price you have to pay, yes?
Intellect is about self-determination. It's about analysis without fear. It is NOT about letting someone else define our biases, our enemies, our hatreds and our points of pride. If you LIKE being controlled by others, then this is your time and the U.S. is your place.
Why? Because the DREAM IS DEAD. You know what I am talking about? The American Dream of self-determination and building a better life for your children. The American Dream of fairness and reason and doing the right thing. The American Dream of treating others with respect and getting that respect in return.
It's gone.
Dead.
Why? Because we surrender that dream when we let others define our values, set our likes and dislikes, determine how many jobs will be available, what cities will be abandoned and which countries will be invades... all with our willful and ignorant support.
When we agree that freedom must lose for us to be safe, we have literally subjugated the American dream. We have allowed others to make our decisions.
And we have relinquished control.
Sure enough, we have given control to someone else. The opinion makers, the products makers, the spinsters and changers of reality... the definers of our reality.
The last vestige, I assure you, is free speech. For it is only here in free speech that we can dissent, disagree and express a higher vision than that which is sold in the media.
DO YOU THINK?
Am I wrong here? Please take the time to read, "The American Dream" by George Carlin. It is the text version of his HBO Comedy Special, "The Big Picture".
WARNING: This includes explicit language.
"There's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason that will never,ever, ever, be fixed. It's never going to get better; don't look for it; be happy for what you got. (...) Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations, they've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State Houses, the City Halls; they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls!
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want: they don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right.
They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table to figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard thirty-fucking years ago. They don't want that.
You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later because they own this fucking place.
It's a big club and you aint in it! You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy.
The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good, honest, hard-working people; white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on. Good, honest, hard-working people continue (these are people of modest means) continue to elect these rich cock-suckers who don't give a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about you! They don't care about you. At all! At all! At all. You know?
And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, what and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth. It's called, "The American Dream" because you have to be asleep to believe it."
I can go in to great length and detail as to who really are these people who control the United States and the World but of what value would that contain. Say I informed you that it was, "Joe Johnson". Then what?
THE TAKE-A-AWAY
The lesson we want to derive here is that our own self-determination and values and direction can only be ours if we selfishly grab it and never let it go. It means that we pursue intelligence, truth and never shy away from that.
The only way growth and freedom occur is when we education ourselves with facts that can help us navigate our own path. And we need to never be so mentally lazy that we spend our days and evenings in pursuit of distraction. For distraction is designed to remove us from reality. On occasion, this is good but as for our main activity being television watching and Internet game-playing instead of reading and contemplation - this would be the "Willful Ignorance" I spoke of earlier.
We must remain diligent to who we are and what really matters... every day.
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