The Absurd Illusions of a Shining City on a Hill

The average natural born citizen in any country is continuously indoctrinated into the national culture starting about the time they begin understanding the meaning of words. There’s one country in particular where reality is staring the public in the face, but the truth has been grossly distorted for decades by government, and mass media, bias and propaganda. If the citizens would suddenly see the truth, instead of what they’ve been conditioned to believe, they would find themselves in a strange and bizarre foreign land that’s contrary in many ways to their personal beliefs regarding home. For those who experience this sudden revelation, as soon as the truth is realized, it’s likely to provoke a profound and immediate sense of disbelief. Like emergency room personnel making insensitive jokes, laughter at some point becomes a self-defense mechanism for offsetting continuous parades of the absurd realities and outright horrors. This is all happening while the general population takes great pride in having a capitalist-democracy as their social-economic model for the stated purposes of providing equal rights, freedom, justice for all, and an all-inclusive participation in the political system. While in all truth, the capitalist-democracy in question has been corrupted directly by the legislation in place and the collective society’s inability to keep the system working for its stated and intended purposes.

Imagine being brought to a place without having any say in the matter, then being charged an exorbitant fee for the transportation costs and administration fees. Once at this location you’re required to work and sacrifice for the privilege of eating and paying your incurring debt while the rate of pay is set by your captors. There’s no escape, and the path of least resistance is to submit. Resisting the power structure in immediate terms would make life difficult to say the least. This is no imaginary scenario; for many this is reality in “the land of the free and home of the brave”, the United States of America, where natural citizens are born with the country’s debt already hanging over their heads, and from there on out, they’re indoctrinated as slaves to serve the dictates of the ruling-class when the time comes. The irony, and major absurdity, is that the populace believes theirs is the greatest capitalistic-democracy ever on earth, while the country has actually been moving further from the true workings of a capitalistic-democracy for decades and the percent of those being trapped in the indentured-servant class just keeps right on growing.

In cases where the US government appears to act deceptively on its own behalf, we have the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird, and the FBI’s COINTELPRO as prime examples of programs designed specifically to manipulate public opinion and illegally interfere with the people’s rights to free speech and assembly. With writers and editors of influential “news” sources on the government payroll as operatives, there is no better way to wage a propaganda war against the public’s “constitutionally guaranteed” democratic rights. The CIA and FBI do not distort the truth and subvert Constitutional rights just for kicks; they are directly aiding and abetting those behind the scenes who have an agenda which is pure and simple — corporate profits. Our government representatives are essentially screened, groomed and “voted in” by huge campaign contributions derived from corporate profits, and ultimately the press is financed by those same corporations. And for their “investment in capital”, the corporations are getting what they want in return. So when corporate and special interests influence the government and news media directly, while the US government also influences news networks directly on behalf of corporations, then public opinion regarding any important issue is essentially being manufactured and controlled to a very large degree by corporate and special interests. The plain truth is the government, news media, corporate and special interests are all in a symbiotic criminal relationship with the absolute bottom line being they are willingly and knowingly denying Constitutional rights to the American citizenry which, in some of these instances, makes all those in violation willing traitors as defined by US law. And no, a group of conspirators does not need be prosecuted and found guilty in a court of law to be living and breathing traitors…

To maintain corporate profits and our status as world champion capitalists requires the US to undemocratically wage wars for “protecting our self-interests” of continually acquiring and consuming resources. Capitalism demands resources, and in our case, “democratically” waged wars to obtain those resources, require a willing public to sacrifice blood and treasure towards that goal. It’s all part of modern capitalism as practiced today — convincing the public, through deception, to sacrifice their blood and treasure to keep the whole system going for maximizing the bottom line of corporate profits. The beloved political-economic system keeps us addicted, enslaved and condemned to languish in a continuous cycle of acquisition through any means, including military aggression.  After being manipulated by unpatriotic government officials and news networks to serve unpatriotic corporations and special interests, we believe we’re being patriotic when waving our flags while we’re actually throwing truth, freedom and democratic principles into the bin of the “Unnecessary and too Risky” for the powers that be. The entire system of control and manipulation is being run by less than one percent of the population for their guaranteed advantages, while on the other end, the system is rigged to keep the majority in perpetual servitude. And because American citizens are part of the system and contributing to it, in that sense they are an accessory to the crimes being committed against themselves.

The truth being known in all of this presents a danger for those who pull the strings keeping the slave camp operating, but so far, the propaganda campaigns have been successful in keeping the general public from recognizing the truth. When this reality is presented to the average America born citizen, chances are high they’ll reflexively and automatically deny the truth as a form of self-defense. They simply don’t want to accept the reality of their governments’ betrayal, and many believe they’re being patriotic by defending what they think America is, but again, they’re defending lies when the truth is told. When people are held captive and trapped, hope and dignity can be cultivated through planned or spontaneous rebellion of one flavor or another — which might be the closest America will ever come to pulling itself up by the boot straps. But because roughly seventy percent of the general population doesn’t think independently, they’ll look to someone else or society in general when determining how to think and react; this fact is literally being banked on by those who mislead us through “our government” and “news media” while profiting at our expense and that of the entire world. If the prevailing winds, prevaricated by the government and news media, say there’s no reason to rock the boat, then the majority will bow their heads and continue on as compliant slaves, just as we’ve seen over recent decades.

When it comes to obtaining foreign resources, America’s “interests” often come at the expense of someone else. Converting a socialist leaning country, creating and aiding developing countries, or propping up dictators “friendly to western interests” can all work to enhance corporate profits with “privatizing the world” being part of the agenda. Under the table deals, coercion and outright military intervention, in any combination, are all being used to gain control of the world’s resources. This is often done under the guise of the IMF, and World Bank, making loans to “help” developing countries. In all reality the IMF and World Bank are there to secure the rights to a country’s natural resources, with the bottom line purpose again being corporate profits while having no concern for the indigenous people or anything else.

Corporate America is actively seeking to control water, farmland, mineral and energy rights all over the world. This all comes at the expense of human rights and lives, domestic and foreign. Very few, if any, of the ruling-class personally risk anything other than their personal integrity in these gambits. But everyday Americans, through propaganda, are persuaded to sacrifice their lives and tax money for use in the arsenal of weapons to beguile and wrestle the resources away from people in foreign lands. The powers that be are currently trying to tell the world we’ll all be better off with rain water being corporately owned so they can charge human beings for being alive. Next on the agenda is privatizing sunshine which probably sounds absurd to everyone — just as the concept of owning land was incomprehensible to native Americans. Judging by the actions of the ruling-class and not their words, as long as they have enough slaves to manipulate, they don’t care if American citizens or others must die so they can accomplish their primary goal of enriching themselves while controlling everything and everyone to that end. The wealthy and politically influential in the US are perfect examples of success in our overall corrupt capitalistic-democracy; while the rest of us are the epitome of failed dupes, having failed to exercise our democratic rights while being exploited. When summed up, the fact that Americans go along with all of this in the direction it’s going, is ludicrous when considering the impact all of this is having on the earth’s ecosystem (which can no longer be denied) — the ruling-class agenda is completely out of touch with reality — if the human race doesn’t get it together soon, all those corporate profits will all be for naught anyway, and could possibly end up being what ends it all for the human race. We do enjoy our self-deceptions though, and denials of the truth, while as master escape artists acknowledging a destiny beyond our control we turn on our favorite televised entertainment as absolute proof.

Destiny is inevitable and unstoppable just like the need to show the world how powerful we were in 1945, by dropping atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima when the US had already known the Japanese were preparing to surrender. With special interests in mind, the US recognized ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as being legitimate starting before 1948 and continuing to this day. We can’t leave out the CIA’s roll in overthrowing democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 Iran, only to install a murdering tyrant so the corporation now known as British Petroleum would benefit at the expense of the Iranian people. We had the Vietnam duo, with Henry Kissinger aiding Nixon’s treason, which ultimately cost one million Vietnamese lives, twenty thousand American lives and one hundred thousand Americans wounded. For authorizing the Watergate scandal, Nixon later received a pardon from his personally designated successor. The overthrow of democratically elected Salvador Allende in 1973 Chile was backed by Nixon’s CIA which supported the brutally repressive regime of Augusto Pinochet. Another illegal Kissinger duet with Gerald Ford started in 1975 East Timor. Then came Ronald Reagan and the arms for hostages’ deal which circumvented Congress to supply weapons to Reagan’s murderous Contras. There was the “just say no to drugs” when Reagan’s CIA aided importing crack cocaine with the profits also illegally supporting the Contras’ killing machine. The Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s was our largest wealth redistribution up to that time, with many of the well-connected, including the Bush family, profiting at the expense of tax payer dollars. With the 2003 Iraq war being part of the neocon strategy for “securing the realm”, America was led to war through lies and deceit while the defense contractors made huge profits from the death and destruction at tax payers’ expense, which we’ll still be paying for decades from now. The 2008 economic meltdown resulted from the biggest financial rip-off and redistribution of wealth in the entire history of mankind, and while there was plenty of criminal activity on record, there were no prosecutions among the Wall Street ring leaders who orchestrated those crimes. Ultimately, after the 2008 economic collapse, the redistribution of wealth to the well-connected banks and their already wealthy stock holders, was again put on the tab of tax-paying slaves.

Our government escapes the consequences of these realities by manipulating the truth with the well-oiled propaganda machine. And by allowing Wall Street bankers to keep what they stole, and the press having no interest in holding anyone accountable, it all works out to continue bribing politicians with more “investment capital” in the form of “campaign contributions” from those same banks – and the US keeps right on moving toward the goal of lording over the entire world. It’s all just part of America doing business as usual, served up by corporate and special interests influencing the unpatriotic duo of US government and main-stream media networks to manipulate the American public into unwitting support for corporate fascism. By all means the illusion of equality, liberty and justice through a disingenuous capitalistic-democracy must be kept alive by our government and news media. If not for the illusion, who or what would run the show?

Mark Weiser was thrown into this world without any say as to when, or where, and to whom he would be born. He says his story is the same as all others in that respect as we all come from this same earth and began the same way. There is absolute truth in all matters among human kind, even if it’s that truth we’re afraid to acknowledge or don’t yet know. The truth where he's concerned is preferable to anything else; it’s where his search began and where it never ends. Read other articles by Mark, or visit Mark's website.