What to call it? I knew, for example, that when I poked the hole voting for Obama that what I was going to get was exactly what I've gotten. No surprise. It was clear to me from the 04 Convention that Obama was being 'groomed' to play a role in national politics. The only question was, was it going to be Hilary or Obama? I figured it would be Obama. I remember before the primary an upper middle class liberal friend of mine rattling on about Obama saying, "We're going to take our country back, what do you think about that?" My reply: "I think you are delusional." She was shocked that I would say such a thing. Did I support Obama? Yes. Did I vote for him? Hell yes. Did I believe he was going to solve our problems -- or even be a significant step forward? Hell no.
For me the Anger began with the theft of the 2000 election. I knew right then and there that we were no longer in the realm of 'politics as usual.' Very powerful forces were at work shaping US destiny -- and they weren't the voices of We The People. When 9/11 happened I saw very clearly that it was NOT an terrorist attack by radical Muslims. I also saw that this was the overriding narrative that would cement people's understandable shock, grief and rage and would be use as the
reason detre for the advancement of the 'national security surveillance state', the curtailment of civil liberties and the cover story for resource wars in the middle east. Telling the truth about what I saw lost me a lot of 'liberal' friends. I watched in horror as everything I'd predicted came true followed by utter disillusionment not only with progressives and liberals but with every institution that refused to even question let alone comment on the absurdity of the narrative we'd been given. From that point I knew we were WAY down the rabbit hole. Even here on DU discussion of this topic is kept shuttled off into the dungeon and black listed as 'conspiracy theory' -- evidence be damned.
Since then I've watched as everything I anticipated and worse has unfolded. The greatest financial heist in global history occurred in 08 setting in motion a cascade of events that is still unfolding. The environmental crisis is now punctuated by a disaster that has profound consequences on a regional scale that could become global. Even people here at DU are still shocked to discover that the M$M aren't reporting on what is actually going on -- apparently still operating under the illusion that giving us information that might make us angry or empower us to make the kinds of changes needed to address these crises is their role, their job. No. Clearly
that is NOT their job.
So, where are we? In my estimation, we are in the midst of a global political, economic and environmental crisis that threatens the life, liberty and happiness of every one of us, our friends, family -- everyone we know -- and yet the majority remain clueless, uncertain of the scope, unclear about the structure of the beast that has us in its death grip. The old paradigms are still clung to as if they are all we have. And as long as we hold on to them and refuse to look at how bad things really are, we allow ourselves and everything we ascribe to as our values to be swept away in a chain of events we can not even grasp, let alone decisively influence or control.
This was written in 2004:
Perhaps the biggest hidden reason people don’t make the paranoid shift is that knowledge brings responsibility. If we acknowledge that an inner circle of ruling elites controls the world’s most powerful military and intelligence system; controls the international banking system; controls the most effective and far-reaching propaganda network in history; controls all three branches of government in the world’s only superpower; and controls the technology that counts the people’s votes, we might be then forced to conclude that we don’t live in a particularly democratic system. And then voting and making contributions and trying to stay informed wouldn’t be enough. Because then the duty of citizenship would go beyond serving as a loyal opposition, to serving as a “loyal resistance” -- like the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, except that in this case the resistance to fascism would be on the side of the national ideals, rather than the government; and a violent insurgency would not only play into the empire’s hands, it would be doomed from the start.
Forming a nonviolent resistance movement, on the other hand, might mean forsaking some middle class comfort, and it would doubtless require a lot of work. It would mean educating ourselves and others about the nature of the truly apocalyptic beast we face. It would mean organizing at the most basic neighborhood level, face to face. (We cannot put our trust in the empire’s technology.) It would mean reaching across turf lines and transcending single-issue politics, forming coalitions and sharing data and names and strategies, and applying energy at every level of government, local to global. It would also probably mean civil disobedience, at a time when the Bush regime is starting to classify that action as “terrorism.” In the end, it may mean organizing a progressive confederacy to govern ourselves, just as our revolutionary founders formed the Continental Congress. It would mean being wise as serpents, and gentle as doves.
It would be a lot of work. It would also require critical mass. A paradigm shift.
But as a paranoid, I’m ready to join the resistance. And the main reason is I no longer think that the “conspiracy” is much of a “theory.”
http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_203.shtmlMichael Hasty, the author of the above, may not have it all right but he is right on the main point: What is required is a new perception of what our politics actually are, a paradigm shift where we are no longer deluded into believing, time after time, that 'politics as usual', politics as driven and instilled in us by M$M, is going to 'save' us. It isn't. What is needed now is resistance and for that resistance to make any meaningful and strategic sense, it is still going to require a critical mass, a lot of work and 'street smarts' in the age of Deep Politics. What we are up against are very dark forces, forces that keep us distracted, deluded, confused, perhaps even angry but powerlessly so. Yes, anger is necessary to motivate people beyond their keyboards, their TV sets, their gerbil existence in the consumer reality bubble. But ultimately even that isn't enough because anger alone can be too easily manipulated, misdirected, playing right into the opposition's hands. We have to be smarter than that. Much smarter. But how 'smart' we are depends upon what we know, what we believe to be true, and this has been the battle ground for the last decade (and longer).
From what I can tell, the battle ground is about to shift, perhaps dramatically. The past is gone and it is never going to return. Not in our life times. The new and growing political, economic and environmental turmoil is becoming the new 'ordinary'. Humanity is at a critical juncture in its history. Either we awaken to the necessity of a whole new perception of ourselves and the world we live in or we will fall deeper into the hole of slavery, perhaps never again to escape.
This gerbil is beyond angry. He is resistant. I see the naked emperor and know who the real enemies are. And, to be clear, this includes the way I, myself, have been programmed to think, feel, live, produce and consume. It isn't just oligarchy any more, it is the entire system of ideas and manipulated emotional reactions that keeps us tied to a perception of reality that is fundamentally flawed, false. This is what we must change, now, both in the world and in ourselves.
edit typo