Insidious “Habituations”…

First, they came and said they would borrow your money and pay you a 2% annual interest rate for it. They called themselves a Savings Bank, so you accepted it.

Then they came and said you could borrow money from them at a variable rate, probably 6% (but just maybe as high as 30%). They called themselves a Financial Service, so you accepted it. Soon, they came and said that home “ownership” was a great personal investment and, that notwithstanding inflated market-”bubbles” and the like, it was a great idea to obtain a 30-year-mortgage with an “adjustable” rate. They called themselves a Lender, so you accepted it. Later, they came and said that, since your taxes were being used to kill foreigners rather than pay for your medical “needs,” you needed to “insure” that your personal medical bills would not cause personal bankruptcy. They called themselves an Insurance Company and said that, notwithstanding deductibles and co-payments and claims examiners, they would protect your interests. So you accepted it. (Some years later, jobless due to automation and “outsourcing,” you were ordered to continue buying such insurance–without the income to pay for it–but at a special, “affordable” rate. They called themselves the Government, so you accepted it.

But soon, as you became dependent on drugs called medications which were very expensive, you realized that cheap “generics,” manufactured in South Asian sweatshops, would have to do. After all, the Government had approved this–so you accepted it.

About this time, the President had suddenly urged all citizens to support, and pay for, a massive military invasion of a distant land. He insisted on starting a war–after all, the distant land in question might at some point threaten to start a war. Although no evidence was ever presented to substantiate such a threat, the President said this–so you accepted it. As the resultant war continued, causing unspeakable, mass suffering, the President periodically demanded an extra $200 billion-or-so to pay for his senseless, criminal war–and you accepted it.

Not much later, it was found that the Lender aforementioned had approved mortgages for millions who could not really, under the provisions, afford them in the long-term. Your Lender, having known this all along, had sold off these bad mortgages as a high-interest, “junk” investment which would certainly fail, then invested in lucrative hedge funds predicting such failure–and then paid bribes to the politicians to receive the usual tax-funded Bail-outs. Since economists and other self-styled experts seldom questioned this chain-of-events, you accepted it.

And right now, as it happens, much-worshiped Technocrats are declaring in commanding tones that you cannot even “live” without their daily, constant, intrusive oversight. They know already– and will monitor you all-inclusively–to calculate precisely what you really want–product-wise and “lifestyle”-wise! No need for you to choose–they will choose for you! Moreover, they will connect everything, from your child’s babbling in the nursery to your toaster in the kitchen, to “help” you! And…since they are all-knowing Technocrats, able to know you as you’ve never known yourself…you are accepting this??

Intellectual historian and psychoanalytic anthropologist, William Manson (Ph.D., Columbia) has published numerous scholarly books and papers, and is a longtime contributor to Dissident Voice. Read other articles by William.