Tools of the Regime

The Regime has three primary tools at its disposal with which to forge the chains that bind the rest of us to our -- as I call it -- AWWS (Assigned Work and Worry Stations) -- the notion being that worry keeps us working (for the Regime) and, for most of us, our work is itself a source of worry. The tools are as follows: (1) fear; (2) gradualism; and (3) stealth. Or a combination thereof. I've talked about fear quite a bit already, and the latest thing to come out of that playbook is the so-called swine flu -- or maybe it was called that yesterday, and it's being called something else today because the pig farmers raised hell with the Department of Agriculture, I don't know. Where or how this particular type of flu got started is anybody's guess, but the way the Obama administration and the media latched onto it reflected more than a simple concern with public health. It was obviously seen as an opportunity to fast-track, or at least provide a convincing argument for, universal government-run health care. But now that it's starting to lose traction, all we're hearing is a bland "never mind" -- but you can be sure that something will come along to take its place in short order. Health scares in general -- and it's amazing how many we've had in the last few years, considering how highly-developed our health-care system supposedly is -- are almost invariably exploited as ways to "ratchet up" government control, along with "standardization" of allowable treatments, medications, and providers.

Gradualism -- another tool -- is a way of describing "revolution within the form". This is what happens when we all wake up one day and discover that some significant facet of the American economy, social structure, etc. has been overthrown, or irrevocably altered -- but that this was accomplished gradually, over time, and in plain sight, with nary a word of protest being heard until it was too late. The psychology is that of the proverbial frog in the pot of water that doesn't know it's being cooked until it _is_ cooked -- you turn up the heat so gradually that, from one minute to the next, no change can be detected. But when someone shifts their focus from the immediate moment to the long run -- when they choose to exercise that thing called "memory" -- then it becomes obvious. A good example of this strategy is the gradual (gradual, that is, up until the past few months) growth of the national debt -- which is now impossible for us to ever extricate ourselves from. Another is the burgeoning tax code. Then try things like labor law... "disability" laws and regulations... and the morphing of the public school curriculum. All done totally above board, out in the open, and only in retrospect can we see it as part of a long-term plan to cement another brick of totalitarianism into place. And I suppose the ultimate example of gradualism is the demise of true federalism and states' rights -- a process which goes back at least to the Civil War.

Then how about stealth? I think the diversion of a significant amount of the world's capital into "derivatives" and other exotic financial "instruments" certainly qualifies. Most people -- including most investors -- had no idea it was going on, nor were they _intended_ to have any idea. And how about the growth of the CIA, both in resources and influence, over the decades since World War II? This is "stealth" by definition, I suppose, and is something that has always been suspected, but it could never be proven because no one outside of the CIA -- including, I suspect, the president -- knows anything about its personnel structure, plans, priorities, programs, overall strategy (or if it even has one), or budget. All we know (or think we know) is that there are CIA personnel in nearly every country on earth, in some cases heading up private armies, and for what purpose no one really knows.

Back on the domestic front, there are certainly plenty of stealthy aspects to campaign financing -- "reform" efforts notwithstanding. If campaign financing is such an open book, why are we constantly reading revelations as to who, or what, is really behind a given candidate, money-wise? And you can be sure that for each revelation of this sort there are scores of other cases that are not revealed, for whatever reason. And one of the most blatant "stealth" operations of recent times was, of course, the "Hillary Care" caper... which was, frankly, not all that effective as a stealth operation because everyone knew it was going on even though the discussions were top secret. (I've got some theories as to why that was, for another time.)

And I guess I really ought to add one more technique to these three, which is the "no explanation, no apology" total surprise, that has everyone pretty much dumbfounded because it seems so arbitrary (at least until we go back later and figure out who benefited). One of my favorite examples of this is the demonetization of silver by Tricky Dick. All of a sudden, literally overnight, the dollar had no backing. Why? One could also add the bombing of Serbia on order of Bill Clinton. And how about the rescue of the Shah of Iran by Jimmy Carter & Co.? What things in this category have in common is that they are relatively rare, isolated incidents... and of course there are always "reasons" provided, but those are transparently bogus and often laughable. For that matter, the invasion of Iraq qualifies as well -- especially in retrospect -- but it does seem a bit big to put into such an amorphous, assorted category, so let's keep it under "fear", as far-fetched as that rationale was.

More common, perhaps, than "pure" cases of one technique are hybrid cases, and examples abound. Clearly, the economic crisis is being handled as a "fear" case but, as already pointed out, there were plenty of gradual and stealth factors leading up to it. The 9-11 incidents clearly represented a quantum leap in fear -- comparable to, say, the Russians' acquisition of the atomic bomb. But again, it's pretty obvious that there are plenty of stealth factors surrounding 9-11, just as there were surrounding the JFK assassination, and -- also highly likely -- the King assassination and the Oklahoma City bombing. I'm even convinced that there is some sort of combination stealth/gradualism process going on when it comes to the selection of presidential candidates. Every four years I take a look at the people running in the primaries and say, "Where did these clowns come from?" And no one really knows. I mean -- Sarah Palin? Please. And how about Dan Quayle, who really _was_ "one heartbeat away from the presidency" for 4 entire years; now _that's_ scary. (OTOH, Nancy Pelosi is only two heartbeats away, which is no less scary.)

So... to sum up, if possible, I submit that the most prominent earmarks (you should pardon the expression) of Regime-based scams, stunts, and tricks are fear, gradualism, and stealth, with the occasional arbitrary, "Whaaaa?" item thrown in once in a while for good measure. Now, you will notice, number one, that none of these techniques has any positive features -- they are all negative, all designed to increase the level of anxiety and insecurity, and get us to rush to get under the protective wing of Leviathan. They are designed, moreover, to cause us to accept, over time, this state of chronic anxiety and insecurity as our lot -- as the natural state of things -- and to accept the central government as our only reliable protector and hope. What gets trampled underfoot in all this repeated panic is, of course, any vestige of independence, love of liberty, or self-respect on the part of the citizenry. Thus, we all become either serfs or parasites (the latter category referring to both the upper and lower ends of the economic totem pole). Also lost is any real hope, i.e. the hope of realizing the ideal of liberty, since we are constantly reassured by the media, and successive administrations, that that notion was, really, just a dream... and a scary one at that... and, after all, as Dorothy said, "There's no place like home" -- that is, when "home" is the Servile State.