“Be Not Afraid of Their Fear”

I was struck by the Epistle reading during Mass last Sunday – it's from I Peter iii, verse 14. There are, of course, many translations, but the essence seems to be that succumbing to not just the fear of others but to their own fears is a trap and a hindrance. It is certainly true that (to quote another verse) “sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof”, i.e we each have plenty of our own problems to worry about without getting drawn into the fears, anxieties, hang-ups, and phobias of others – getting infected, if you will.

And yet what is our society – and the world in general – but a hotbed of fear? And it seems especially accentuated for us, because we have more to lose – materially as well as in world-view terms. But most of it has nothing to do with our personal, direct experience – it is, rather, adopted. It is made part of our belief system, and thus becomes as real to us as an actual direct threat to our lives and well-being.

Now, much has been made of the role of the media in all this. Time was (and I remember) when you had to wait around all day for the evening news on the radio or TV, or the evening paper... or wait overnight for the morning paper. You could then indulge in reacting to the “outside world” for a while, but your everyday affairs still took precedence. But what do we have now? A 24-hour news cycle, hundreds of radio stations, TV channels, and the Internet, to augment the traditional “paper” media which have multiplied as well. And the question arises, or should – how much “news” is too much? Is this “global village” imploding, and collapsing of its own weight – its information overload? Is it really our duty as citizens to keep constant vigil – to be constantly on guard, with a panic button at the ready? Do we have the emotional capacity to “care” about everybody and everything that happens in the entire world? (Change.org is a good example of what happens when someone assumes that we all have the time and energy to attend to all the problems of the entire world population.) And, on a deeper level, has the world really gotten that much worse in only a generation or two, so that we cannot be allowed to rest, even for a moment – to turn it off? If this is true, then the “good old days” really were good – but on some level we know it's not that simple.

That's one line of questioning. Another, which has grown somewhat more popular of late, is – what is the function of all of this fear... anxiety... panic? Is it really to inform? It certainly doesn't make life any easier, so it must have something to do with survival, right? Except that pretty much any piece of “news” that one runs across carries with it an element of despair – that there's nothing any of us can do about it. Or actually there is – namely to run to the open arms of the government, since it is the only thing on earth powerful enough... wise enough... good enough... to protect us from the myriad threats that we are forced to encounter on a daily basis. And this agenda, if you will, is the very one that Michael Crichton presented so masterfully in his book “State of Fear” (published in 2004). The book is identified as “a novel”, but like so many good works of fiction that deal with the future, near future, or present, a canny reader will say “novel schmovel, this is the way things really are”. That is, we are being manipulated at all times -- “played like a fiddle” as the saying goes – not only by politicians but by all other species of fear-mongers as well. And what is the goal? Just to sell more tranquilizers – more liquor? Well, no – it's to increase (not maximize, note – that would be too much for the Regime to handle) helplessness and dependence up to some optimum point, where we would do the government's bidding without question, simply because of the terrible consequences that might result if we did otherwise.

And I shouldn't have to dwell on the irony of all this. After all, don't we constantly brag about our “freedoms” and our prosperity, and standard of living, as opposed to the poor benighted peoples of other lands (especially the ones we insist on invading – for their benefit, of course)? In fact, isn't “freedom from fear” one of the Four Freedoms articulated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1941 State of the Union address? And yet we have become a fear-ridden society, with anxieties and bogeymen that our forebears (of 1941 or earlier) could never have dreamed of. The Regime promised us freedom from fear, then with barely a skipped beat presented us with the terrors of the atomic bomb and nuclear warfare. And so it continues up to the present day, with enemies real and imagined... disease... hunger... pollution... overpopulation... global warming and/or cooling (depending on where you take your sample of the propaganda)... war... more war... even more war... and so on, ad infinitum. (And let's not forget “terror” -- the fear of fear. So perfect for our times!) And it's not as if some of these issues are purely imaginary; they may exist on some level. The question, rather, is how much time should the average citizen spend thinking – i.e. worrying – about them, as opposed to minding his own business, earning a living, and sitting – if there's any time left – under his own vine and fig tree?

Where does one look for inner peace, after all? Is it among what are called “tax receivers”? Their anger and resentment seems to know no bounds; the more benefits they receive the worse their attitude becomes. Is it, then, among the rich – the ambitious, the capitalists, the “one percent”? They're too busy trying to get even more. It's easier to find smiling people in the inner city than among millionaires and billionaires. Is it, then, among the middle class? But they are set upon by every side by the media and the popular culture; they are a majority that is treated like a minority (or the way minorities used to be treated before they became the majority) – with mocking and contempt. Every effort they make to improve their lot meets with push-back from the Regime; the tax code is designed to inflict diminishing returns on their efforts to better their material lot. They are, in effect, slaves who know not that they are slaves, except on those rare occasions when someone – typically a “tea party” type – sees a glimpse of the truth.

The peaceful people of this world tend, it seems to me, to be those with religious faith – not necessarily of a given creed but sufficient in strength to overcome the frustrations of the world and the fear those generate (or are generated – intentionally – by the overlords). And this is not to say that the answer to fear is to not care – to be apathetic, or a happy idiot. It's to put the material in its proper place, and allow faith (or philosophy, if you prefer) to have the upper hand. And yes, it's a delicate balance, because few are called to be complete mystics – spiritual beings who just happen – by accident, as it were – to be in the world. But on the other end of the scale, the dissatisfactions of materialism are all too apparent: Those who have not, want. Those who have, want more. Find me someone who has enough – who is satisfied – and I'll show you a non-materialistic individual.

And of course fear – which is how this got started – has to be directed at something, and that something is typically some kind of loss – of life, liberty, friends, fortune, job, health, home... all perfectly respectable things in themselves, but the fear of losing them can become an entity in itself, and corrode one's outlook on life, stifling enjoyment of the here and now. Our rulers claim they want a contented populace, but in fact they want anything but. Widespread contentment would put them out of work, so it can't be tolerated. In its place, we have a finely-tuned mechanism for generating and sustaining fear – not too much, not too little, just right. You can see it in the media on a daily basis – the constant cycle of crisis and reassurance – but not enough reassurance to totally eliminate the fear generated by the crisis. So the residual fear builds up; its names are legion and it begins to manifest itself in the physical – in terms of our mental and bodily health – which then becomes still another basis for increased dependence on the government. And there are always new things to be afraid of; they cascade around our heads each day. New ones are being created faster than new “terrorist” organizations. If we took each of them seriously, we'd have to be afraid of everything, and would sit, paralyzed, in a catatonic state of fear – which is, figuratively, the way a lot of us live already.

There are no simple prescriptions for this disease of ours, but a sense of proportion and of skepticism would certainly help, as well as the awareness that we are, in fact, being manipulated according to an agenda we had nothing to do with, and for purposes we have no interest in or use for. And rather than indulge in escapism (another tool of the Regime), confront the Fear Machine head-on. Put in a good day's work re-asserting your freedom – not just of body but of mind – and then sleep well, because the battle will resume with the morning light.

A Dispatch From the Country of the Blind

It can be difficult to define what is “libertarian” because it would mostly be a list of negatives. (It's no accident that Ron Paul was known as “Dr. No” during his time in Congress.) But what is anti-libertarian? In the broad-brush sense, it's any political world view that puts government first and people – i.e. individuals, not “the people”, which is another word for government – second, or not at all. It includes both communism and fascism, as well as what I call suffocating socialism – i.e., socialism with a veneer of law and order – and even humanism -- but with a firm totalitarian underpinning (sort of like what we're starting to see in Canada and Australia). People are oppressed not so much by guns, prisons, and internment camps (although those may be present) as by laws and regulations that impact every aspect of their lives, no matter how trivial. This would include the American-style socialism that was created by the Progressives but reached full fruition with the New Deal, as well as postwar European-style socialism which has had, let's say, its ups and downs. Europe is still committed to socialism on the fundamental level, but its implementation goes through various cycles, accompanied by disputes and controversies. They go through cycles of reform, then reform of the reform, then reform of that reform, ad infinitum, but never seem to learn any lessons.

Our form of socialism has morphed from the relatively “pure” type represented by the New Deal into what I will call “soft fascism” -- i.e. control of the economy, and therefore (by necessity) the political system, by financial entities, both domestic and international (given that there is even a difference, which is doubtful). The fact that soft fascism doesn't involve mass rallies, torches, uniforms with a lot of leather, and goose-stepping parades doesn't make it any less fascism. What it means is that it's less obvious... more subversive... sneakier.   Another way of putting it is that, in the old days, fascism had to be presented as a political system where government was still in charge, with business being subordinate.  Now we've decided we no longer need that illusion, and government is openly subservient to business.

When Americans wake up, on occasion, to the fact that every meaningful political, economic, and social decision has been taken out of their hands when they weren't looking, that's when they feel the cold chill of fascism – but it's quickly forgotten in the wake of government handouts and entitlements and the contemporary equivalent of “games and circuses” (think NASCAR, the NFL, NBA, entertainment media, computer games and gadgets, etc.).

And you might say, “Whaddaya complaining about? Life (at least in this country) is no longer 'nasty, brutish and short', and the stock market is at an all-time high,” etc. Well, it's true enough that life is now, for most people, only mildly annoying, a bit dangerous at times, but longer than ever. And that's the point – or one of the points. We've been overcome by blandness. We are so far from our own revolution that we've completely lost any concept of what revolution is – the excitement, the fervor, the willingness to sacrifice. Ron Paul's campaign was called “The Ron Paul Revolution” (with the 2^nd through 5^th letters reversed to spell “love”) because it was, indeed, a revolution – not in the physical or violent sense but in the sense of consciousness – of awareness. As such, it was every bit as radical, if not more so, than the cultural revolution of the 1960s, which changed the world view of many but didn't make much of a dent in the true, underlying power structure. Rich white men ruled back then, and they continue to rule today – and the primary instrument of their rule is not “cut-throat competition” and “capitalism”, but government. Economic freedom is enjoyed by those at the top of the heap, and the rest of us have to be satisfied with our status as faceless, gray serfs. And granted, this does not differ significantly from the socio-economic structure of either communism or fascism.  But at least under “classical” fascism, the middle class had a place and a function, although it was tightly supervised and controlled – more so than the “proles”. Under the new fascism, the middle class has no more place than it does under communism; the only question is how quickly, and by which specific means, to eliminate it. For us, it's not about forbidding people to own property per se – or to be consumers. It's more about making it more and more difficult to save money, or to hold onto money that is saved. And it's also about making it more and more difficult to start small businesses, and to remain in business. Please note that large corporations run around sucking up small businesses like some sort of giant Roomba. The regulatory and tax structure is overwhelmingly tilted in favor of the largest entities, and works directly against the small ones. When you wake up one morning and find that everything you eat, drink, wear, drive, use, listen to, watch, feel, touch... is all under the control of one giant international corporation, you will know that a milestone has been reached. (On the plus side, there will be no more need for advertising, any more than there was in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany. Propaganda, yes – ads, no.)

There's another aspect to all of this, and it's a product of this deadly combination of helplessness and cradle-to-grave security. I call it “societal anorexia”. It is not natural for man to be rendered helpless when it comes to his own life – his successes and failures and the decisions that lead to them. And it's not natural for him to be treated like a baby or retarded adult all his life – as someone who is incapable of making any important decisions and would be a "danger to society” if he did. So what is his reaction to this? We know that in the case of anorexia, women react to helplessness in the face of exploitation and abuse by asserting their choices and power in the only way available – namely by not eating. If everyone (or so it seems to them) has complete power their bodies, they'll show them that they don't, by not eating even to the point of starvation. Well, when you render an entire society helpless except for the ruling elite, they push back in odd ways. Their span of control shifts from society in general (Why bother voting?) to their immediate environment, and when that fails to themselves, and not even to the aspect of themselves that interfaces with the rest of society but by something that they alone can control and manipulate. So we get radical tattooing, piercing, people redoing their facial and body structure... things that go way beyond the self-assertion via hair and clothes that characterized the hippie era. If you can't have any impact on your environment, and if you're fair game for whoever wants to come along and intervene in your life, then the only option is to reinvent yourself – again, not at the interface (which is a lost cause) but physically. So I don't blame these people; they are reacting the only way they know how. Call it ill-advised, weird, pathetic, whatever – but I understand it, because the alternative is annihilation... being sucked into the machine like in “The Wall” and turned into lean finely textured beef, AKA pink slime. And of course the people who witness their futile antics shake their heads and wonder what their “problem” is. And – the tattooed, pierced hordes shake their heads back because they know what the problem is, and the squares don't.

The election of 2016 now seems to be looming on the horizon – at least according to the media. And in the midst of it all, breathing fire and crushing everything in her path, is the political Godzilla, namely Hillary Clinton. The supposed inevitability of her nomination and election makes any efforts the Republicans make seem silly and pathetic – like, why don't they just give up now? Hillary could be elected by popular acclaim, thus even eliminating the need for an formal election (and campaigning, and political ads – hmmm, not a bad idea when you come to think about it).  She could place the empress' crown on her own head, the way Napoleon did, with Bill smirking in the background.

And among the Republican “field” stands Rand Paul, who is invariably called a “libertarian” by.... well, by pretty much everyone but libertarians. The problem with Rand is that, unlike his father, he doesn't seem to have a deep understanding of libertarian principles. In other words, he is more a politician than a theorist. He says a lot of the right words, but wanders off the reservation a bit too often, in my opinion; he can be seduced, at least to some extent, by politics and “pragmatism”, whereas Ron Paul, as far as I know, never was. What it means is that it's a bit ironic for the mainstream Republicans to be having conniptions about this “radical” libertarian in their midst, when he really isn't – although compared to them, I supposed anybody with even the vaguest concept of individual freedom is going to seem like a radical. So, bottom line, if he in fact runs for the nomination and loses (which would be inevitable) it's no great loss for libertarianism. It would be better, in fact, if he were to stay where he is and, as I said, say the right things at least enough of the time to get people's attention (and their irrational reactions, which give away the hollowness of their position).

Having even a quasi-libertarian in the midst of the Republican Party is no less anachronistic than if he were in the midst of the Democratic Party. Each party gets things right on rare occasions, and totally wrong the rest of the time. I find myself agreeing with radical leftists more often than with the bland middle... and I even agree with the Neocons once in a while (based on what they say, not on what they actually believe). But I think that if our society is to survive in any meaningful way, and not morph into a blob of green slime out of some horror movie, the only thing that will save it is libertarianism in government – AKA Constitutional “originalism” -- combined with charity and tolerance on the part of individuals. You can't have a decent government if the citizens don't give a damn... and you can't have a decent society made up of people -- regardless of how charitable or good-intentioned they are – who are ruled over by evil men. People think of government as a one-way street, which it is in our time – all of the energy moves in a downward direction. But society, on the other hand, has to be a two-way street in order to function. This country was imagined, and organized, as a society, but has, over time, become a two-class system of rulers and ruled (with the middle class deluding themselves as to which class they belong in). It may be “soft” still, but there is no rule – nothing on the books – that requires it to remain that way, and plenty of sectors of our society have found themselves on the receiving end of actions that are anything but “soft”. That fact that prisons constitute a significant sector of the economy should tell you something; we are gradually moving toward a point where there are the “done to” and the “doers-to”, and no truly free men.

And as I've said before, perhaps this is only the natural product of societal evolution. Perhaps, like any organism, a given society has only so many years to grow and prosper, after which decline and death are inevitable. In that case, it's our bad luck to be around during the decline, although I imagine it will get much worse before things hit bottom. On the other hand, predictions of the demise of any society, nation, or system can be premature; cultures have a strange way of muddling through and showing surprising survivability – based, I would say, on cultural habits and values rather than governmental structures and laws. This may yet give us time to repent and mend our ways (dream on!), but what is more likely is that the system will collapse of its own weight (as opposed to being conquered in the military sense), not unlike what happened to the Soviet Union. And yet, there is always someone left... someone survives... and let's hope that they at least have a sense of history.

The New Slavery

Mention the word “slavery” to the typical American, and it will immediately conjure up images of black people toiling in cotton fields under a blazing sun, with a cruel overseer on horseback cracking a whip and the plantation owner serenely lounging on his verandah, mint julep in hand, making small talk with the womenfolk in a long, deep South Carolina drawl like Fritz Hollings.

Or -- someone with a bit less solidarity with the black narrative might envision Ben-Hur on a Roman galley, glistening with sweat as he plies his oar to the beat of a very large drum manned by that big bald beefy guy.

What that person is less likely to think of -- or even consider at all -- is the image of the typical middle-class American, trudging off to work each weekday morning and, of a weekend, sitting back in a Barcalounger, armed with a six-pack and a pile of “snack” food replete with sugar, salt, and toxic fats. This -- he will say, if asked -- is the happiest of creatures, the culmination of the American dream. His life has a quality that the wretched citizens of an earlier time could barely imagine, even in song and legend. And, all of the many woes of that benighted time have been eliminated by “technology”. Well, OK, war is still with us, but there is a conspicuous lack of plague and famine this side of the line dividing “First World” from “Third World”. (And BTW, whatever happened to the “Second World?” Was there ever such a place, or was that just a space filler designed to separate us, conceptually, from the vast hordes of the unwashed?)

So if someone has the affrontery to refer to this fat, happy, smug, placid, apathetic specimen of humanity as a “slave”, they are immediately accused of raving, ranting, and talking nonsense -- and none of their accusers is more severe than the one who is himself an exemplar of the alleged slave class. This would be the one who believes, along with Candide, that we live in the best of all possible worlds… that our leaders have only our best interests at heart… and that our “system” is the best ever, in the entire history of the world, not least because it offers the citizens, on a regular basis, the opportunity to actually “choose” their leaders, by exercising their “right to vote”. And not only is our system the best, but it would be the best for everyone else on earth as well, if only they would get over their silly superstitions and traditions… but not to worry! We can facilitate that process, with the help of our ever-ready armed forces. So really, nothing more could be desired… and anyone who asks annoying questions or expresses cynicism or doubt should be ignored. And anyone who claims there is a man behind the curtain (or that there is a curtain at all) should be shunned and exiled from the body politic.

In how many ways is the lot of this millennial man different from the lot of the slaves of old? His standard of living, for starters, is the envy of most of the world, and would have been the envy of most of the world down through history. He is free from the bulk of the everyday aggravations that afflicted his ancestors -- sometimes even unto death. And whatever trivial “freedoms” they might have enjoyed, well… those weren’t really important, and frankly, we’re better off without them. They smacked of “cutthroat competition”, “lack of consideration for others”, and any number of other sins. And we’re certainly better off without all of the “-isms” that so thoroughly infected societies of old -- you know, things like racism, sexism, homophobia, superstition (AKA “religion”), “hate”, discrimination, and so forth. Not to mention nationalism and “chauvinism” -- those will most certainly not be missed.

But the main point is this. Modern man is, by and large, happy. He is content with his lot. He is satisfied that all the important problems have been solved, or are well on the way to being so. And, most of all, he is satisfied that all of those pesky “Philosophy 101” questions have either been answered satisfactorily or -- better still -- declared null and void. “Morality”, it turns out, is a delusion -- or so says Time magazine in its legendary Christmas and Easter issues. And likewise religion -- an illusion, as Freud so sagely pointed out. So, unquestioning contentment is his lot, and he will fight to the death -- or at least to the minor inconvenience -- to maintain his level of contentment and the privilege of having run out of questions to ask.

Now, this is not to say that his days are filled with cloudless sunshine. He will admit, at times, to a certain unease when it comes things like his income (never enough), his “portfolio” (not growing fast enough), and his health (occasionally beset by ailments of vague origin). He may even, on rare occasions, experience a moment of doubt as to whether his world is all it could be; is he properly exercising all of his “rights” (by which he usually means “entitlements“)? But there is an endless supply of tranquilizers and distractors with which to alleviate these flickering shadows; they are cheap, or even free, and they get the job done. With hundreds of cable channels on 24 hours a day, no one has an excuse any longer for being unhappy -- or unentertained.

There is certainly no comparison with days of yore, when slaves were acutely conscious of their lot and would not hesitate to detail its many inequities to whomever would listen (mostly other slaves). Slaves knew they were slaves, and free men knew they were free (and they were, in fact, free -- by and large -- by any criterion). No one was under any illusions, in other words; there was very little to compare to what we today call “propaganda”, because there was no need. No one needed a “morale boost” because their morale was boost-proof; it was directly predicated on their lot in life, and that, in turn, was out there, in the open, for all the world to see. It would have been futile (and false) for anyone to try and convince a slave that he was free, or a free man that he was slave. And this is because the conditions of slavery were physical, overt, and obvious… and likewise the conditions of freedom. Free men acted like free men; they exercised their rights (without worrying too much about the source of those rights -- up until The Enlightenment, that is) to the maximum, and on a regular basis. Slaves, on the other hand, had no rights to exercise, and no one spent time trying to convince them differently. Slaves served; free men were served, or were independent of the slave culture. Few arrangements of human society have been more obvious or -- apparently, at the time -- more immutable.

What, by contrast, do we have today? How is our society arranged? To look at it from without -- with the perspective of history -- it would appear that we are a society of free men. There is no one in an obvious state of slavery -- shackles are scarcely to be found outside of high-security prisons, and slave collars are reserved for highly-paid runway models. Certainly, there are those who serve, but they do so on a voluntary basis, and for due compensation. No one is forced to do that which he would rather not -- although, let’s admit, there are plenty of “thou shalt nots” on the books… but that is all for the greater benefit of society, and of mankind in general.

But let’s turn the question around the other way. Given that we have no obvious, overt slavery, how truly free are our “free men”? And the answer -- if you compare the mountain of laws and regulations impacting every aspect of existence -- is, really not free at all. In how many areas of human endeavor can one simply set out, and do what they want to do? And I’m not talking about the “golden rule” of doing what thou wilt, so long as it causes no harm to others. I’m talking about things that cause no discernable harm, and yet they are either prohibited or heavily regulated. So we wind up with a society composed of “free” men, but they are each in their own straitjacket -- a fairly loose one as these things go, but a straitjacket nonetheless. So this imposes a ceiling, or limit, not only on human action but on the human imagination, which is actually a bigger tragedy. And why are we all walking around wearing loose straitjackets? Read on.

But first, here’s another thing to consider. Whereas the bulk of humanity still, as far as anyone can observe, works to earn their daily bread, and has little opportunity to take advantage of, or exploit, others, there is a huge layer, like a very thick blanket, that has settled over them -- a parasitic layer that requires its share of blood and toil, and gives nothing in return. And I’m not talking here about the stereotyped “bourgeoisie” of old -- they are, in these times, as much victims as anyone else. And I’m not even talking about the run-of-the-mill businessman or prosperous farmer (the “kulak” of Stalin’s time). And I’m not talking about the “robber baron” industrialists and transportation magnates of old -- or their high-tech equivalent of our time. There is an additional layer -- a new accretion -- that puts all the exploiters of old to shame. Our leaders are, in fact, their servants… and all of the visible signs of commerce, trade, business, etc. are only one aspect of their overall empire. And, in fact, their empire continues to grow and become more oppressive with the help of our leadership and our military; what we call “foreign policy” is just a piece of their business model, and the American Empire is but a subset of their own.

Now, needless to say, compared to the level at which these “masters of space and time” (as Tom Wolfe might say) operate, the individual citizen -- of the U.S. or anywhere else -- is a mere speck… an insignificant mote of dust. Theirs is the privilege of controlling, or at least severely limiting the action of, other men… but to what end, you ask? Nothing too novel here -- for most of them it’s about power for its own sake; money for whatever it will buy; and simply the invigoration of playing the Master Game. But this could have been true of rulers and warlords down through the ages; what makes the current elite any different? Nothing, except that they seem to feel a need to cloak their activities in a cloud of often-contradictory ideas, or concepts -- as witness all of the “reasons” we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s considered tacky and in bad taste to simply set out to conquer, and to build one’s empire, these days -- so we have to substitute more noble motives, because that will make it OK, and will make all the sacrifices of the citizenry worthwhile. Of course, the benefits of all of these crusades never seem to quite trickle all the way back to the home front -- but not to worry, our victories were nonetheless “important”, according to some grand scheme… and our losses were just “temporary”.

And what else contributes to the overwhelming force, and influence, of the Regime of our time? For one thing, it’s totally international, i.e. global, in scope -- national identity, not to mention racial, ethnic, or religious identity, has no place in the hierarchy. Now, this is not to say that the Regime is free from all ideas, and ideals, above and beyond mere self-seeking. One can take it for granted that its programs, and activities, are not inconsistent with what is called secular humanism… so its attitude toward true religion of any sort will always be that of persecution and suppression (as much as conditions in a given place and at a given time will allow). And its attitude toward the individual will be, basically, that the individual does not count -- and that something approximating “groupthink” is the best policy when it comes to mollifying the masses. I should also add that the efforts of the Regime are only made easier and more efficient by the technologies of the “information age”; the “global village” of Marshall McLuhan really has come to pass, but it operates more like a global tyranny than any sort of traditional village. And thus we see the impact of what is called “the technological imperative”, expressed as: Whatever can be done, will be done. If the rulers of the world can utilize the Internet, and the media, and technology in general to further their ends, they will do so. And the advantage of keeping things technological -- and therefore sterile -- is that the tyranny remains less obvious than if it were enforced through the physical coercion of old. In our time, it’s always ideas that come first, and once 99% of the people are on board, the odd hold-outs can be dealt with and no one will object, or even notice. No more “forced conversions” are needed -- people will clamor and crowd around for the benefits of world government and “rule by media”, because they are already convinced that this is the best thing -- that it is, in fact, the only thing protecting them from the chaos and danger that must result from things like “competition” and “the free market”, not to mention the media bugaboos of racism, sexism, etc. The media educate people as to the many dangers inherent in the modern world -- then proceed to show them a way out, which is to, basically, follow orders. They are then reassured that their dutiful following of orders has saved the day -- for now. But eternal vigilance is required! And while you sleep, we are keeping watch.

So… the answer to why this relatively new layer of oppression is so total, and so heavy, has to do with both goals and means. The goals include the complete control of every aspect of existence -- once again so that people can be kept in a state of servitude where all of their surplus labor or productivity is siphoned off for the benefit of those in charge (and I know this sounds very Marxist, but it can’t be helped… ). I mean -- for example, where did all that “bailout” and “economic stimulus” money go? Where did all the money go that people put into the stock market and real estate? No one knows. These are resources that we could have used, but they were denied us, because someone else had a greater need, or thought they knew better -- or, once again, because they could do it, they did do it. So the greatest transfer of wealth in human history took place right before our eyes, but what could be done? What I’m trying to say is that as historically prosperous as the U.S. is (even at this point), it should, by rights, be much more prosperous -- except that we are taxed, both overtly and covertly, at every opportunity by the government and by the people to whom it answers.

Now, as to means -- once again I cite the mainstream media, as well as “entertainment”, the colleges and universities, the mainline churches and congregations… everyone, in fact, who has anything to do with originating or spreading ideas. And those ideas are not, in our time, meant to inspire, but to mollify… to anesthetize… to cause the brain to turn off. And this process takes, as you might suppose, enormous resources; we are, in effect, taxed in order to support the propaganda machine that assures us that we are not being taxed -- or that if we are, it’s all for a good and noble purpose. (It’s like those toll roads whose entire income goes to pay the toll booth attendants.) So it is no wonder people have a heavy, oppressed feeling these days -- even in the face of the Messiah of Hope and Change who occupies the White House. But ultimately, no one is fooled -- we know that all of our real rights have long since been taken away, and all we are left with is tokens. But does this lead to rebellion? No, because -- as I said -- this time the ideas came first. There have been plenty of cases throughout history where the “rough stuff” got things rolling, and the ideas came along later on in order to provide a sort of retrospective rationale. But not this time! How much blood has really been shed? And yet, seen from a distance, we are every bit as enslaved as any subject race of ancient times -- but this time with little or no awareness, and therefore little or no chance of regaining our freedom.

A Meditation on Freedom

What passes for a dull news day in these times is a day on which there is not a single new crisis which threatens to exterminate all life on earth, and/or trash the U.S. economy. Truly, the bar has been raised mightily for what it takes to consider an event “important”. But at the same time, the news is full of bland, predictable “filler” that, like the soap operas, does not change appreciably from one month to the next. The custom of establishing “standing headlines”, i.e. ones that can be reused time and time again, has been firmly in place for years. And we see that even trivial, random ups and downs in the stock market can set off reams of newsprint and endless “analysis”. It seems to me that, where the Dow is concerned, any change less than 1% on any given day has to fall under the heading of “random fluctuation”. And yet to hear the analysts talk about it, anything greater than five points – that's .05 percent – merits deep rumination. (And you'll notice, the Dow never just goes up or down any more -- it either "soars" or "plummets".) And the interesting thing about the Dow, for example, is that there's no more of a reason for it to be above 10,000 today than there was for it to be below 8,000 a few months ago. Try and find the cause-effect relationships; there aren't any! The economy is every bit as fragile and crisis-prone as it was then... doomsday for the national debt and entitlement programs approaches as rapidly as ever... the dollar is under attack from places like India (!)... the balance of payments issue remains untouched... and wealth-hemorrhaging wars rage on. And yet the Dow is back above 10,000. What's going on here? One would almost think that market indicators like the Dow had very little to do with the economic health of any one country – the United States, for instance. And if you suspect that this is the case, you're right. There is, basically, only one market, and that is the world market – nationally- and regionally-based markets are only subdivisions, their names holdovers from a time when nations still had economic integrity. Today's empires, unlike those of Alexander, the Romans, the Mongol Horde, et al, are entirely based on international finance – and, as such, are based, geographically speaking, everywhere and nowhere. Oh sure, we can point to Brussels and Luxembourg and Switzerland... but if those places disappeared tomorrow, the global financial power structure would live on. It's like The Blob – it just keeps getting bigger, and if you try and fight it, it only gets bigger faster. And besides, it lives, by and large, largely in electronic form, which makes it harder than ever to comprehend and even harder to catch in the act of any of the countless machinations it must perform on a daily basis in order to maintain its power. Now granted, there are, undoubtedly, somewhere in the world, “Scrooge McDuck money bins” full of gold, other precious metals, and precious stones... and maybe art, stamps, rare wines, and coins as well. These are the most basic holders of value, and have proven reliable for eons -- compared to which, what we fancifully call "money" or "currency" is no more than a will-o-the-wisp. But the everyday manipulations – the incremental accumulation of wealth – its inevitable falling toward the center of gravity of the financial universe... these are done, by and large, through the magic of electrons. The powers that be know that national currencies are worthless (except maybe for Switzerland's), but they also know that most people do not know this -- so currency remains the medium of exchange for the ongoing world-wide scam of redistributing wealth from the ignorant to the wise. (And the stock markets of the world are simply the public face of the currency scams -- they are where the sheep go to get sheared, in other words.)

But then the question inevitably arises, “So what?” In other words, can't the common man – the average schmuck – go on about his life of quiet desperation, ignoring the battles that rage among the pachyderms? And the answer is yes, of course – the masses of humanity always have the advantage of being... the masses. There are just too damn many of us for The Power to keep track of at every moment, day and night, everywhere in the world – although, heaven knows, they try hard enough with con games like the Patriot Act. But then the question arises, are we really that much worse off under The Regime than we would be if we ran wild and free like the mountain gorilla? In other words, if the world had no power structure... if the only “power” in the world was that of local tribal chiefs, for instance... would we really be that much better off? And I think that the answer is – maybe not, but at least we wouldn't be slaves. Because the way things are set up now, we _are_ slaves, although we are much fatter and (we think) happier than most slaves down through history.

See, this is what the Ron Paul campaign was really about – and why it attracted a few fervid believers, and failed to attract the vast majority of willing serfs. Beyond a certain point, “liberty” becomes – for most people -- an abstraction, because they are simply uninterested in whatever true human liberty means, or has to offer. Offer a fat house cat a chance to go wandering through the jungle – chances are he'll come to the door and take a few sniffs, and decide it's not for him. And who can blame him, since cradle-to-grave “security” is all he knows? See, libertarians, and Objectivists (of the Ayn Rand type) always assume that unfettered liberty... freedom, whatever... is man's highest goal and aspiration, and that anything less is a betrayal of human nature and a compromise with the forces of collectivism, statism, evil, etc. But what if it turns out that a huge part of human nature is the desire to sit on one's ass and let someone else do all the work? What then? Can this possibly be some sort of mutation in the human genome that has opportunistically bubbled to the surface with a vengeance in this age of socialism, collectivism, and welfare? If you go by the results of the 2008 election, the dominant species among the voters seems to be the one that wants ever more government power and control over their lives – or at least over the lives of everyone else. They may want, or enjoy, a few meagre crumbs of liberty with which to pursue their own agenda... but as to granting it to everyone, why, that's far too risky. It's easier to give up unused freedoms oneself than to retain them and take the risk that everyone else is retaining theirs as well. See, this is the basic point – people are afraid of freedom for themselves, but they are absolutely terrified of it for others... so the “compromise” is to give up their own in order to maintain “law and order” (or whatever it's called by liberals). So the world sinks into increasing blandness, and very few people see the difference, or care. And those lone voices crying in the wilderness – like the ex-Ron Paul campaigners – remain alone, and in the wilderness, because they really and truly do care about ideas – ideas that are mere abstractions, and therefore irrelevant, for everybody else. They care about freedom so much, for instance, that they are even willing to grant freedoms to others than they themselves are not all that interested in, or are unlikely to ever use. But do they consider this a sacrifice? No, because they are willing to grant unto others the same legitimacy as individuals – as created beings – that they grant unto themselves. Whereas for liberals, there is, ultimately, a sense of solipsism: I am all that exists, everyone else is mere wallpaper. (This is somewhat, but not a lot, better than the psychopath's basic premise that he is all that exists, and everyone else is just there for his amusement.) For a typical liberal, any “right” that he does not value should not be granted to others, because they are wrong to value it. Thus, he imposes his value system on the world. A genuine respect for “diversity” would involve valuing the right of others to value things that one does not value. Got that? But that is not what liberals mean when they talk about “diversity”. What they mean is, it's OK to act out some superficial, folksy “differences” as long as, on the core level, we all believe the same thing and all vote the same way. So the “diverse” world for a liberal is like a bunch of kindergarteners all dressed up for Halloween – under those colorful costumes we're all the same, and that's as it should be. Whereas people interested in true liberty are perfectly willing to accept a world in which, under those colorful costumes, we really _are_ extremely different, and no amount of “foreign aid” or empire building is going to change that. It's the liberal attitude that welcomes people into the U.S. without regard for their racial, ethnic, and cultural attitudes – no matter how much violence and hostility are contained therein – because, as we all know, those things are mere illusions... only skin deep... and the moment our “new Americans” gaze upon the benign countenance of Obama, they will become loyal subscribers to the New American Utopia, and all will be well. Well, OK then, so explain, if you please, characters like Nidal Malik Hasan. Oh, but – they'll say – he was only an aberration. Not true! Not if you accept that his attitudes, and the actions he took based on them, are shared by millions of Moslems the world over.

When we were fighting the Germans and Japanese in World War II, it was remarked how much better our POWs were treated by the Germans than by the Japanese. This was simply the sign of a very different, very alien, culture. We had a similar experience with the North Koreans and the Viet Cong. Does this make them less than human? No – it just makes them humans of a vastly different stripe... and we have yet to effectively deal with that fact in our dealings with other nations and cultures. We assume that because every country on earth sends representatives to the United Nations, and they all dress decently and know how to use the bathroom, we are all pretty much the same – which really means that everyone on earth is like an American, or could be if they would just make a few trivial changes in their life style. And it doesn't seem to matter how often this premise is proven wrong, it continues to dominate our foreign policy and dealings with other racial, ethnic, and cultural groups, including our own “minorities”. No – underneath those colorful native costumes, people are still different, and no matter how deep you dig and probe, they stay different. Thousands of anthropologists have made a career of studying this phenomenon. Of course, all human beings have the same basic organic needs – air, water, food, and what not. They tend to form families, and villages, and tribes. They tend to develop division of labor. They tend to develop agriculture and technology on some level. But deep in that mysterious core of the human psyche – where the religious impulse is born, as well as its alternatives (philosophy, ethics, politics, global warming, etc.) -- there are vast and profound differences in both metaphysics (how does the world work?) and epistemology (how do we know?). And the vainglorious thing about America – as about all empires – is that we care little, if at all, for these differences, assuming that with enough silver crossing enough palms, and enough bombing, we can bend the world to our will while completely ignoring anything that makes the rest of humanity tick. And again, this premise has proven wrong time and time again, but we continue to base our entire foreign (and much of our domestic) policy on it, because... why? Because we are, in fact, so insecure about our own world view and view of ourselves? Because if that were ever questioned, the entire edifice might come tumbling down? And if this is the case, why is our self image anchored to something so ephemeral... so arbitrary... so false? Is it because America is a nation – perhaps the first and only nation to date – founded on ideas, rather than the much more solid and reliable factors of race, ethnicity, and faith? Is it possible that those ideas, which seemed to serve us so well in the early years, have been played out, and are now more of a burden than an asset? When one contrasts our ideas, or ideals, with debacles like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as with our ongoing and daily-compounding economic and social crises at home, it is tempting to think that they were all a terrible mistake from the beginning – that mere secular concepts cannot make up for the older, more traditional bases for social organizations. In a sense, it's like what happens when one substitutes “ethics” for morality – it works for a while, provided it has internal consistency and obvious means of application. But eventually we find that mere “ethics” has no heart, and no soul. Likewise, we are now finding out that an ideational, propositional basis for a society – and a nation – served about as well as could be imagined, but now that we have gotten “up close and personal” with the rest of the world, and all of its troublesome real diversity, we are finding that those things only go so far, and that they ultimately lack legitimacy where much of the world is concerned (and don't their opinions count, after all?)... and that what we have always considered the moral high ground, on which we firmly stand, is made up of the same clay, sand, and muck as everyone else's point of view, so they are no longer (assuming they were ever) awed by our moral superiority. So we go into battle, and continue to fight it out on the world stage, as equals... to everyone else, even if in our delusions we still consider ourselves superior. The crown on our head is, in fact, only in our head – the rest of the world doesn't see it. Wouldn't life be easier if we just, once and for all, admitted this fact and took a huge dose of humility... and tossed out that boxcar full of hubris?