Saturday, March 6, 2010

You are being lied to

In nearly every aspect of your life, you are being lied to. You are being sold a concept, a world view that isn't real--the American Dream you grew up hearing about doesn't belong to you. It doesn't exist. It never existed. And if it did, it only existed for certain people.


The America you studied in history class is the product of a carefully written myth. It's a trashy romance novel, a shitty comic book, a  crazy fable. In it, WE have always been the good guys, and our enemies were always so clearly written as bad guys. And we want to believe that, no matter what our political orientation is/was: we ARE the good guys...right?


In every election, we voted with our conscience thinking we made the right choice, our decisions were informed. We were solid in that understanding, but unaware that our choices have always been made for us. The candidates for political office were picked by their corporate sponsors. It used to be a secret, but it doesn't have to be a secret anymore. The Supreme Court said as much recently.(Look it up.)


It's sort of like when you were under 21 and had a fake ID. You used it at this one bar and everyone got to know you, even the door guy. But when you finally turned 21, you used your real ID and told everyone in the bar it was your 21st birthday and now you're legal. Nobody says anything, but they're pretty pissed you risked their bar getting in trouble.


That's how we are. Most of us have long suspected that our politicians were controlled, influenced, beholden to something greater than they with lots of money. It has many "projected" names: the "new world order," "illuminati," "they"--but it's just Corporate America's plutocratic oligarchy. And that's bad enough.


We are corporate Americans--well, until we no longer participate to our fullest extent in the economy. Many of us are being phased out--whether by layoffs or outsourcing--and unable to find new jobs. It's a weeding out process that runs concurrently with this "small 'd' depression." Some of us have been unemployed for so long, we aren't even considered in the unemployment stats--just in the "real unemployment rate" you get from sources that aren't mainstream. The jobs that have gone away are gone forever. They aren't coming back. They won't be "recovered." McDonald's is the only corporation hiring, even though many corporations and whole industries have earned record profits over the past two years, and are sitting on over $3 trillion in pure profits, they still aren't hiring, making those left with jobs having to do the work of the people in their departments who were laid-off in addition to their own jobs.


Mainstream news pumps out the government propaganda that unemployment is 9%, that the economy is recovering. They paint such a rosy picture, such a positive outlook, one can't help but be inspired. But it's all bullshit. They only report what is in their corporate ownership's best interest. You know it, you feel it, you hope the feelings you have are wrong, that they are just residual pangs of pessimism left over from the past couple of years. No, that is your soul trying to wake you the fuck up. The real unemployment rate is nearer to 22%. That's 1 in 5 people who are able to work can't work because there aren't enough jobs. Again, those jobs are gone forever and won't be coming back, despite what your politicians might say. It's almost as bad today as it was during the Great Depression. There are plenty of reasons why it can get a whole lot worse, and it's not over--not by a longshot. (Look it up.)


The guy that ran on "Hope and Change?" We all thought he was something special--even those who voted against him. They knew he couldn't lose. But none of us saw him bailing out banks instead of people after being such a populist while campaigning. Or extending the Patriot Act after campaigning against it. And campaigning against detaining suspects as "unlawful enemy combatants" then later saying it was now the US policy to detain UECs indefinitely. Demanding the public option in health care reform, then backing way off the public option. What a disappointment to find out he's just a regular old politician, talking a good talk about reining in the corporations, though his actions say he is beholden to his corporate benefactors who selected him--not the people who elected him. He ran against war, he won a Nobel Peace Prize, and he has escalated the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while starting one in Libya. Don't even think Iran is off the radar.


If you are a Republican, you are a fool. If you are a Democrat, you are a poor fool. If you believe in your party, you believe in nothing--you need to wake up. Both parties are branches of the same corporation. They are two sides of the same coin, etc. You are not their priority. Your rights are not a concern of theirs, unless you inhabit the category of richest top 1% . They serve and protect the corporations and the banks and the corporate military industrial complex (about which we were warned by America's last great president in his farewell address.)


You are being lied to by the same people who slaughtered the indigenous people who lived here before anybody else did. By the same people who enslaved a whole other race of people for 400 years. Then oppressed them and suppressed their rights after they were freed. You are being lied to by the same people who financed Hitler during his rise to power. You are being lied to by the people who fight wars in the name of Jesus; who gain fortunes with the blessings of Jesus; who think Jesus was a white man who hates homosexuals. (Saul/Paul hated homosexuals--Jesus never even mentioned homosexuals, not once.)(Look it up.)


You are being lied to by your elected representatives, by the media you choose for the source of your news, by the PR firms for the products you buy, by the processors of the food you eat, by the manufacturers of the drugs you take, by the future you expected but don't get.


The food you eat is full of harmful chemicals that over time, make you sick...so you go to the doctor who prescribes you drugs that lessen the symptoms but don't treat the cause of what ails you (there's no money in the cure, after all). The drugs make you well enough to continue working, to buy the nutritionally depleted food full of chemicals that makes you sick, the insurance that covers part of your doctor's fee, and the drugs that make you a little better without curing you. And they'll even invent a condition or hype an existing sickness to include general symptoms so you'll see your doctor and ask for a certain drug you saw on a TV commercial.


Health care is seldom about prevention, diet or exercise. Health care is about dealing with symptoms of sickness, not preventing the cause of sickness. Preventing sickness also prevents profit. And in corporate America, profit is always the bottom line.


You are an obsolete, devalued commodity--when you are no longer needed, then what? Remember: your government does not value you or think you are special. It thinks you are a liability, someone with the potential to wake up and see the world for what it really is, and that you might be one of those who does something about it and seeks out other people who feel the same way you do. Every single day, more and more people wake up and are pissed off when they do. It's natural to resist what your conscience has been telling you for a while. It's natural. Look these things up for yourself, and use unconventional resources. Cross reference the items you read to make sure the information they provide is legitimate. Take the initiative and either prove that I'm nuts, or that you are nuts--or that you are way too sane and perceptive.


When you do finally see, wake up someone else. "Pay" it forward...or will it take gas going up to $5 a gallon to snap you out of it.

--jef

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