What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life—that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. The truth is that you are a slave. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind. This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill by reading no further, and the story ends; you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
- Paraphrase: The Matrix, Warner Bros and Twentieth Century Fox -
The Red Pill
About a year ago, I started research for a book based on Socrates allegory of the cave from Plato’s Republic. For those not familiar: Socrates described a society of people who are bound in a cave from birth to death. The nature of their bindings does not allow them to turn around or even turn left or right. They are so bound that they can only see the wall of the cave in front of them. The opening of the cave, where reality takes place, is behind them. As a result, their entire reality is made up of the shadows cast on the wall in front of them. If someone outside the cave speaks, those in the cave believe the voice is coming from the shadow cast by the speaker, and they have no idea that the shadow is not an actual person.
This got me thinking, can it be that our modern and enlightened society is just a shadow of reality? Are we tied, or more accurately manipulated, to see only what others wish us to see? I promise I will not go into tin foil hat territory; so, before you write me off, consider what else Socrates said about the people of the cave. If a prisoner broke free of of his or her bindings and ventured outside the cave, the escapee would think that life in the outside world was much better than life in the cave. If the escapee returned to the cave, the escapee would be blinded by the darkness and those in the cave would think that the journey outside caused the escapee harm. When the escape describes what he or she saw, the others may even think the escapee was crazy. As a result, they would oppose the concept of leaving the cave. If they were able, the other prisoners would kill the escapee or anyone else who tried to drag them from the cave.
When I first started research for this book, I did not expect to conclude what I am about to describe. Like the people in the cave, I resisted the notion that life is not what I always thought it to be. However, if I am truthful with myself, then I must follow the path of logic wherever it may lead. The remainder of this article describes where I was led and what I discovered.
A History of Freedom
Here in the United States, and republics throughout the world, we consider ourselves free citizens, but are we really free? Answering this question requires a trip back to the dawn of humanity. Humans who existed before the formation of societies were totally free. They could do anything they wanted to do. With great freedom, however, comes great risk. Since they were not part of a social structure, each family had to fend for themselves. Every day was a new challenge for survival. They had to stave off starvation, find and defend shelter, and they were at risk of being the next meal for a predator. To put it bluntly, having absolute freedom sucked.
Later, humans formed societies where the stronger and more fortified among them became self-proclaimed deities. This was the age of tyranny. Thousands of years later, came colonialism. Colonialism spread throughout the world like a cancer, conquering smaller tyrannical societies under the single domains of stronger, better funded, and more organized European tyrants.
Rise of the Republics
Then something magical happened. A spark ignited in the darkness of colonialism. As this spark grew into a flame, it became the greatest republic in world history. This republic grew in both strength and prosperity as the colonial monarchies waned. Eventually, colonialism receded, and like a phoenix, free republics rose from the ashes. If one good thing can be said about colonialism, it is that two-thirds of the world’s people were freed from tyranny in its wake.
To recap: People went from being totally free with a lot of risk (no societies), to being virtual slaves with less risk (tyrannical societies), to being free with far less risk (republic societies). Later, a new socioeconomic order called Communism brought oligarchical tyranny to a large part of the world. Today, all nations, regardless of their socioeconomic labels, serve under the conquest of a new world tyranny. You read that correctly. You may not have noticed, but you are more a human resource to a new world tyranny than you are a citizen of your nation.
You may not have noticed, but you are more a human resource to a new world tyranny than you are a citizen of your nation.
Let me explain…
The greatest republic did something that the elitist (those previously in power during colonialism) detested. It gave most of the power to the people. In fact, with the horrific exception of slavery, the first hundred and fifty years of the greatest republic offered the masses the most freedom with the least amount of risk anytime before or after. As a result, the elitists sought to erode this republic since its inception. The great effort to remove power from the people succeeded in 1913, and it has grown in strength ever since.
What is the New Tyranny?
To understand the new tyranny, we must first examine prior tyrannies and the concept of tyranny itself. At its roots, tyranny is about the few controlling the many. Royal tyranny was easy until the greatest republic brought about the fall of colonialism. Since then, the institution of communism resurrected the old tyranny, which controls the masses with fear, intimidation, and punishment. There is a lot of talk today about democratic socialism. However, the proponents of democratic socialism have simply rebranded pure Marxism without the stigma of communism. If they were really interested in democratic socialism, then they would pursue collectivist anarchism, which is democratic socialism in its true form. The problem, of course, is a society based on collectivist anarchism has no elite or political class. Hence, those promoting democratic socialism would have nothing to gain. While I do believe the concept of socialism has merit in theory, it simply does not work in the real world. In a nutshell, the goal of Marxism is to make the proletariat (common men and women) the ruling class. As Mikhail Bakunin cleverly points out, “If the proletariat is the ruling class, then over whom are they to rule?” Bakunin concluded that Marxism would always fall into communism with an elite class ruling over the masses. Sure enough, Bakunin was proven correct with the rise of both the USSR and Communist China.
When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called the People's Stick.
Mikhail Bakunin
I believe Mikhail Bakunin was one of the greatest social scientists of our time. In fact, if I were to choose a social structure that gave humankind the most freedom with the least risk, it would be Bakunin’s collectivist anarchism. However, I would not propose collectivist anarchism for the following reasons. First, Bakunin was an ardent atheist and proposed that people should be forced to abandon the concept of God. If people are forced to reject their religion, then they are not free, are they? Second, a collectivist anarchist society is a true democracy, where there are no politicians and the majority rules. See my other blog post, The Tyranny of the Majority. The primary reason, however, is that Bakunin did not take human nature into account. As such, I believe his version of socialism would eventually decay into Marxism, which would eventually decay into communism. What those who promote socialism fail to understand is the dichotomy of morality. In other words, capitalism, which is based on the immoral economic principal that a product’s worth is determined by the market, creates societies with the most freedom and prosperity. Whereas socialism, which is based on the moral economic principal that a product’s worth is based on what it costs to produce, creates societies with the least freedom and prosperity. This is because the moral economics of socialism is a forced morality. That, along with the concept of central planning, is contrary to human nature and doomed to fail.
Unlike Bakunin, the men who created the greatest republic understood human nature. They knew that a federal government is a necessary evil and the evil could only be contained if the government were small and limited. Unfortunately, starting in 1913, the greatest republic fell and was replaced by a tyrannical government that detests the individual and is beholden to the elite. Like colonialism, this new tyranny has spread throughout the world. Words like republic, democracy, capitalism, and socialism are simply tools to spread fear for control under this new tyranny.
In 1949, George Orwell wrote his dystopian masterpiece, 1984. The proposition of this novel is the masses would ultimately be controlled by an elitist class through overt fear, intimidation, and punishment. Aldous Huxley, who wrote Brave New World in 1931, disagreed. [Interesting fact: Huxley was Orwell’s French teacher when Orwell attended Eton College]. Huxley proposed that people would be controlled through distraction and the covert use of fear. It turns out that they were both right. Today we live in a world where we are controlled by a matrix of distraction, in the form of Huxley’s faux happiness, mixed with Orwellian memory holes and newspeak.
Still think you are free. Consider this: Some person, some company, or some organization, files a lawsuit against you. You may be in the right, but if the entity suing you has more time and the financial resources to pursue their lawsuit, then your life will be ruined trying to prove your innocence. If you wish to avoid ruin, then you must submit to the demands of those who sue you. Similarly, if some corporation violates the law by infringing on your rights in an illegal way, then good luck getting the government that claims to protect you to do anything about it. Does that sound like you have freedom?
Then there are the thousands of people falsely imprisoned and sacrificed at the alter of the political aspirations of overzealous prosecutors. An excellent example is the case of Aaron Swartz. Swartz first caught the ire of the U.S. Government when he embarked on a project to bring the law to the public. Even though legal documents are government funded, they are not easily accessible to the public. Instead, this information is only available to attorneys and law students via privileged access to legal libraries. Swartz sought to change this by creating an easy to use website that would allow the common man to effectively navigate the law. Later, Swartz noticed that medical research produced at public universities, hence financed by U.S. taxpayers, was not made freely available. Instead, this information is copyrighted by publishing companies who are not involved in the research or its funding. As he attempted to do with legal documents, Swartz set on a path to make publicly funded medical research available to those who paid for it in the first place. For this, he was prosecuted as a terrorist. On January 11, 2013, Aaron Swartz – a man who revolutionized the sharing of information for the betterment of mankind - committed suicide at the hands of a Federal Government. In this case, the Federal Government chose to protect corporate interests at the expense of the individual. Does this sound like a government of the people to you? As a footnote, fellow child prodigy Jack Andraka, who developed a breakthrough test for the early detection of pancreatic cancer, which could save tens of thousands of lives each year; stated that he may have discovered the test far sooner if the publicly funded research that Swartz sought to share was freely available.
To put it in a nutshell, our laws are enforced to protect the rich and powerful and to penalize the poor and the weak (a.k.a. everyone else). This is why Bernard Madoff, who was born poor, rots in prison; while Elizabeth Holmes, who was born rich and politically connected, walks free for committing financial fraud that dwarfs Madoff's. Holmes's offense did not only defraud investors, it also put the health of millions of Americans at risk. Nonetheless, she walks free today.
The Illusion of Control
The science of controlling the masses is not new. In fact, the great philosopher, Socrates implied that stories of the Gods should be used to control the behavior of the masses. Jay Gould, a powerful railroad developer in the late nineteenth century, famously said, “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” Shortly after, Ivan Pavlov published observations of his famous dog. Later, John B. Watson would perform similar experiments on humans – famously known as the Little Albert Experiments.
Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in, and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors
John B. Watson
Edward Bernays: Father of the New Tyranny
In the meantime, Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, mastered the art of mass manipulation and became the undisputed king of advertising, public relations, and propaganda. In fact, many of the social norms that we accept today are a result of Bernays. Among other things, Bernays taught politicians the art of fear mongering. He also pioneered the practice of using news media to drive public opinion. To put it simply, the work of Bernays enabled the elite to manipulate the masses outside of the public eye. As you read further, please keep in mind that Bernays was a man whose influence shaped today’s society as a key adviser to major corporations, politicians, and governments.
The trick of mass manipulation is the illusion of control. It is well known that people are easier to control if they are made to feel in control. Hence, the Hawthorne Effect. In 1924, the Hawthorne Works commissioned a study to see if workers are more productive with higher levels of light. The workers productivity did improve, but it dropped back to prior levels after the study was concluded. As it turned out, it was not the level of light, but the attention paid to the workers that improved productivity. Companies often make use of the Hawthorne effect via the suggestion box. These boxes improve productivity by having employees feel empowered. Many who are familiar with this technique believe that voting booths are Hawthorne suggestion boxes on a much larger scale.
According to Bernays, the keystone of control is fulfilling people’s unconscious irrational desires – something he learned from his uncle Sigmund. Hence, giving people the illusion of being happy will make them docile. This is eerily like the methods used in Huxley’s Brave New World. In fact, it leaves one to wonder if Huxley drew inspiration from Bernays.
Many of man's thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes for desires which he has been obliged to suppress. A thing may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else, the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself.
Edward Bernays
We are also manipulated through our tribal instincts. Such instincts once improved our chances for survival. Today, these instincts are no longer necessary for survival. Instead, they are used to control us. We are manipulated into defining ourselves by race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, and political party. By having us identify as a tribe (a.k.a. group) the elite can manipulate the group mind, which is distinctly different from the mind of the individual. Bernays proved that shaping the group mind will eventually shape the minds of individuals.
The systematic study of mass psychology revealed the potential of an invisible government of society by manipulation of the motives of the group mind. The group has mental characteristics distinct from those of the individual. So, the question naturally arose: If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it
Edward L. Bernays – paraphrase –
Contempt of the Masses
Many assume that the techniques developed by Bernays were solely for the purpose of corporate marketing. This is a false assumption. In his first book - Propaganda, 1928 - Bernays makes no secret of his contempt for the masses. To Bernays, most of humanity is too gullible and easily manipulated to self-govern. According to Bernays, democracy could not be left in the hands of the unwashed masses, and the world's wealthy and powerful must protect those lower in class from themselves. Obviously, Bernays never read the works of Plato and Mikhail Bakunin.
The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or Divine, collective or individual.
Mikhail Bakunin
The Commodification of America
Inter-commodity competition…I believe that competition in the future will not be only an advertising competition between individual products or between big associations, but that it will in addition be a competition of propaganda.
Edward Bernays
In 1913, the United States passed the Sixteenth Amendment – repealing the tax apportionment requirement and paving a constitutional path for the income tax. In the same year, the United States passed the Revenue Act of 1913 (the income tax law) and the Federal Reserve Act; hence converting citizens from free individuals to human commodities. Shortly after, businesses in America (and later the world) evolved from an economic model of supply and demand to that of commodity sales. In other words, we went from a needs-based economy, where people bought what they needed, to a desire-based economy, where people buy what they are conditioned to desire.
Under the old salesmanship the manufacturer said to the prospective purchaser, ‘Please buy a piano.’ The new salesmanship has reversed this process and caused the prospective purchaser to say to the manufacturer, ‘Please sell me a piano’
Edward Bernays
Instead of investing in the quality of their products and the promotion of customer loyalty, today’s companies trade the satisfaction of existing customers for new customers. In effect, they trade one commodity for another. As a result, companies have little reason to be concerned with quality or customer satisfaction. In return, customers have abandoned the concept of loyalty in favor of the lowest bidder. An excellent example are the providers of cellular service. A cellular service need not offer anything different to get your business, they just have to be an alternative. Since the events of 1913, the US Government (and all republics of the world) have adopted the commodity mentality as well. Politicians need not provide real solutions to get your vote, they just need be an alternative.
Behind the Looking Glass
I am certainly not the first person to write about the elite, propaganda, and Edward Bernays. Nor am I the first to notice inconsistencies between what I observe and what I am told is reality. I am the only person, as far as I can tell, who followed these inconsistencies along a path to their logical conclusions. So, who are the people pulling the strings? Are they the masses? Those in political office? The media? Professional foundations? Or are they the rich? Let us look at each.
The Masses
We the people are not pulling the strings. If we compare levels of power to a chess board, then make no mistake that we the people are most assuredly the pawns. Pawns are the most in number, the weakest in power, and they are expendable. Conversely, the ones pulling the strings are most assuredly the king and queen. The king and queen are the least in number, most powerful, and they are far from expendable.
The Political Class
While those in political office are certainly in the upper echelons of the new royalty, they are not the king and queen. Their job is to do the bidding of the king and queen. In return, they get elevated from pawns to castles and live a lifestyle like the king and queen. Not all politicians acknowledge the role that they play. Rest assured, however, that they are aware of it.
The Media
If politicians are the castles on our chessboard, then the media are bishops. Like bishops, the media plays a key role in service to the king and queen. According to Bernays, the media is a critical keystone to manipulating the masses. Recently, the term ‘fake news’ made its way back into the American vernacular. This is nothing new. Yellow journalism, the practice of exaggerating or manufacturing news to sell papers, dates as far back as 1883. When it comes to fake news today, once again we can thank our old friend Edward Bernays.
Page one of the New York Times on the day these paragraphs are written contains eight important news stories. Four of them, or one-half, are propaganda. The casual reader accepts them as accounts of spontaneous happenings
Edward Bernays, 1928
The king and queen wield most of their power unnoticed. This is accomplished through the art of distraction. In Brave New World, the citizens of Huxley’s dystopia are distracted with physical luxuries and the promotion of ‘feel good’ drugs. The distractions employed by the new tyranny are not very different. Thanks to the desire driven economy, we are distracted with a host of luxuries. For instance, nearly everyone in the United States has a smart phone. Last week, I decided to look around while at a traffic stop in New York City. Four of every five people who crowded the streets had their eyes glued to their smart phones. Like the prisoners of the cave, their eyes were bound to the shadows of social media while the real world was all around them.
The other mode of distraction is that of division. Here is where the media comes into play. As noted by Bernays in 1928, half the stories that we think are news are there to sway our mind in one direction or another. By having us take sides, we are distracted into fighting each other instead of banding together to fight those who would control us. Last week, I popped into the public library to read the Wall Street Journal. Two articles caught my eye. One stated the rate of abortions were the lowest since the passing of Roe vs. Wade. The other stated that Attorney General Barr was working with Congress to pass stricter laws for gun control. It seemed to me that the abortion story was designed to provoke fear in those who support pro-choice. Similarly, the gun control piece was designed evoke fear in gun owners. Truth be told, the powers that be, who easily manipulate the group mind in any direction, can take away both of those rights any time they want. The rights remain because they provide an excellent mechanism to keep us weak through division. We are divided by way of categorizing ourselves into specific groups – right, left, conservative, liberal, black, and white.
Categorizing always produces reduction in true complexity. Any reduction of the world around us can have explosive consequences. Since it rules out some sources of uncertainty. It drives us to a misunderstanding of the fabric of the world.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A common tactic of diversion used by the media is to bombard us with never ending crises. The use of crisis is effective because humans have evolved to focus on immediate danger. Since the mind is proven to only focus on one thing at a time [yes multitasking is a myth - see Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking Fast and Slow] a crisis will overwhelm all other conscious resources of the brain. As a result, we are constantly hearing of one crisis after another: the climate crisis, the Ebola crisis, the Zika crisis, the abortion crisis, the gun confiscation crisis. As I write this paragraph, the crisis of the day is the vaping crisis. Twenty-three people out of a country of 350 Million (that is 0.0000006%) experienced what we are told were vaping related deaths. Is this really a crisis? Oddly enough, all twenty-three deaths arose not from vaping commercial products but from adding street drugs to their vapes. The most recent death occurred after vaping marijuana oil. This information is not revealed by the media, because it does not fit into the narrative of a 'vaping crisis.'
The tactic of diversion is simple. It is designed to get you to look the other way to focus on the small things, so you do not take time to see and hold our leaders accountable for the big things. As a result, our leaders are free to continue doing the bidding of our puppet masters.
If you do not believe that your mind can be so easily distracted, then follow the link below and take the selective attention tests.
The crux behind all methods of control is that of loss aversion. According to Bernoulli's utility theory, people respond more strongly to losses than to gains. In fact, many studies show that loss aversion is twice as powerful on decision making than any other consideration. Those who control us know and use the science of loss aversion. They use this to keep us in a constant state of fear for the loss of our homes, loss of our families, loss of our money, loss of our retirement savings, loss of the right to abortion, loss of the right to keep and bear firearms, loss of a social program from which we befit, loss of fill in the blank _______. This too fits into Huxley’s paradigm. The more comforts we are given, the more we must lose, and the more we are afraid of loosing it.
Ironically, the media purports to unite Americans. Truth be told, they are the biggest source of our division.
Professional Foundations
The remaining pieces on the chessboard are the knights. In some positions, the knight can be nearly as vulnerable as a pawn. However, in positions like a knight fork, the knight is immensely powerful. The knights represent celebrities and professional associations who use their credibility to change public perception. For instance, when Edward Bernays was hired by the Beech-Nut Packing Company to increase demand for bacon, he masterfully used the credibility of the medical profession to state that a heavier breakfast was more beneficial than a light breakfast. Hence was born the consumption of bacon and eggs as a breakfast food. Bernays’s use of credible associations did not end there. When hired by the American Aluminum Company, Bernays used the American Dental Association to promote the fluoridation of water. When hired by the American Tobacco Company to increase smoking among women, Bernays got the women’s suffrage movement to publicly promote cigarette smoking by calling cigarettes “torches of freedom.”
The Rich
Now we come to the king and queen. Contrary to what the tin-foil hatters would have you believe, the rulers of the new tyranny are not a single individual, group, or ancient conspiracy. While there are elitists who join forces and conspire to wield the powers of manipulation in a single direction, most of those pulling the strings are separate individuals. These individuals are the ultra rich (people, corporations, foreign governments) who partner with our government, the media, and professional associations to control the masses. Some of these elitists seek to use the masses as a docile human resource. Others seek to control the masses to make the world in their own image. The new tyranny is an organic movement, in which our politicians and the media are willing participants. Even new money, if sufficiently wealthy to rank among the elites, will succumb. After all, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think Bernays describes our true rulers best:
The invisible government tends to be concentrated in the hands of the few because of the expense of manipulating the social machinery which controls the opinions and habits of the masses. To advertise on a scale which will reach fifty million persons is expensive. To reach and persuade the group leaders who dictate the public's thoughts and actions is likewise expensive.
Edward Bernays
The Lighter Side
If you feel depressed after reading this, then do not be. After all, being a controlled commodity in today’s modern world is better than facing all the risk that goes with the total freedom of early humans. Heck, it is even better than having total freedom before the advent of modern dentistry. Better yet, if your eyes are open, then you should feel liberated. In some respects, you should feel more free than you did before. Now that the veil is lifted, you can experience real happiness in place of the faux happiness induced by our leaders. Being liberated, you can happily sip bourbon to Mozart instead of yelling at the television while watching the nightly news.
What We Can Do About It
While living under the new tyranny is not all that bad, there is a looming threat. As the science of control continues to evolve, the ultimate end will have us unknowingly surrender all our liberties. This will allow those pulling the strings to rule us more overtly and with a heavier hand.
Thanks to the high levels of control that the elite now hold over the masses, the only hope to reclaim our freedom is with a movement of peaceful resistance. When the masses unite, they are the most powerful human force on Earth. This is the dirty little secret that is in plain sight. However, we are distracted away from it every day. If we unite as a people, then we can rekindle what was once the greatest republic into an even greater republic. Make no mistake that those who control us will fight such a movement with everything they have. If the principals of this blog were to become popular, then those powers would mobilize every resource they have to discredit and shutdown this blog along with anyone who agrees with it. We can only be successful if we open our eyes and recognize their methods of manipulation.
Recognize that you are being manipulated.
Learn to look for the truth in everything around you. Remember, everything you knew for your entire life – every prejudice, every bias, every political view was imprinted into your psyche by someone else. If you want to be free, then you must start with a blank slate. Believe only what you learn from personal experience and scrutinize everything else. If you hear something that upsets you, then understand that the information is being used for the purpose of having your intellect follow your emotions instead of the other way around. The adage don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see is more relevant today than ever.
Simplify your life.
Break the chains of desire-based purchasing and buy only what you need. Since becoming a minimalist, I find that I am happier than ever. Best of all, I have no financial worries - thanks to the money I save by purchasing only what I need. Contrary to popular believe, needs based purchasing will not break the economy. Instead, it will force companies to abandon the commodity model and return to a model of quality, customer satisfaction, and the pursuit of customer loyalty. Yes, goods will be more expensive, but they will be of higher quality, and they will last longer.
Unify
Partisanship is the biggest chasm dividing us today. A hard-partisan division has gripped the USA for nearly one-hundred years. Someone once said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome. It is time to end the insanity of partisan politics. In my youth, I was politically left. Later, upon recognizing the hypocrisy of the left, I became politically right. When I recognized the hypocrisy of the right, I shed all the political labels that rule us. In so doing, I cut the strings that controlled me. You can do the same.
In my novel, Lifetime, I write about the rise of a fictional political party called the Unification Party. This party rose to dominance because it focused on the big things that bring us together instead of the little things that tear us apart. The party required all its politicians to step up by signing a contract of personal responsibility. If a politician did not live up to campaign promises, then that politician faced mandatory penalties of being removed from the party and/or financially fined. We can make this a reality.
The following list details core values on which we all should agree. By bickering over the little things, we are distracted away from holding our leaders accountable for their failures on the things that matter. If you believe in the following core values, then you are the Unification Party. If you believe in continuing down the road of failed partisan bickering and division, then you are the problem.
1. Every man, woman, and child; regardless of race, color, religion, and sexual orientation have individual rights that must be protected from abuse by the elite and corporate lobbies.
2. Every man, woman, and child; regardless of race, color, religion, and sexual orientation have the right to pursue happiness in whatever way they see fit, so long as their pursuit of happiness does not infringe on the happiness of others.
3. Every man and woman of working age is guaranteed, through prosperity, the opportunity to pursue a decent livelihood.
4. Every man, woman, and child, regardless of income, have the right to live in an environment that is safe and clean. Our current welfare system spends nearly 400 billion dollars a year, but, thanks to the cronyism and the failure of our political leadership, a large portion of our society is condemned to live in ghettos of despair. This must change.
5. Our leaders must be held accountable. We will demand results in place of tough talk and programs that do not deliver. We will not allow our leaders to pay lip service or make meaningless gestures in order to divide us over the plights of the poor, people of color, and the victimization of individual rights while not delivering actual results to solve these problems.
6. An end to crony capitalism. This can only happen if every voter, regardless of party, adopts a zero-policy tolerance to politicians who misdirect funds to political supporters and back-door lobbyists.
7. Reform and simplification of our legal system. Legal documents should be made available and categorized for easy access to the public. Legal costs should be standardized and capped, so the poorest among us can have the same outcomes under the law as the rich.
8. All publicly funded research should be easily categorized and made available to the public at no charge.
9. To assure truth in media, foreign ownership of our media must be abolished, and corporate media monopolies must be broken down.
10. There should be independent and actionable citizen oversight for all authoritarian branches of the government. The members of this oversight must be publicly elected, not appointed; and members must span across the spectrum of race, religion, and income.
We can do this by voting out all incumbents (both Republican and Democrat) unless they make these core values a reality. Doing so will effectively cut the financial power of the elites out of our political system. Furthermore, it will force those who seek political office to represent individual rights. If you spent your life being highly partisan, then you will find this difficult. Especially when the media mobilizes to have you vote to send a message. Before doing so, consider this: If the Democratic party takes over, then we will be under the thumb of a crushing dictatorship. If the Republican party takes over, then we will be under the thumb of a crushing dictatorship. Like tic-tac-toe, partisan politics is a no-win game. That in mind, you may tell yourself that you must stay partisan to keep the scale balanced. However, partisan politics will not balance the scale - holding every politician accountable regardless of party will.
In George Orwell's book, Animal Farm, Old Benjamin - the oldest and longest living animal on the farm - professed that he remembered every detail of his long life and knew that things never had been, or ever could be much better or much worse - hunger, hardship, and disappointment being the unalterable law of life. He said this because he lived long enough to see the right in power and then the left in power, and he was wise enough to see that nothing ever changes regardless of who is in power. The same is true in the real world. Those who controls us hold the pendulum above our heads and we constantly swing it from left to right and back to left again with the same outcome. Our mistake is working to swing the pendulum instead of joining together to take the pendulum out of their hands in the first place.
You have your lower animals to contend with and we have our lower classes.... The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
George Orwell
CONCLUSION
Let us make one thing perfectly clear. We are not fighting a war. The war was lost before we were born. We were defeated not with a boom but with a whisper. Fighting the new tyranny is not a war but a revolution – a peaceful revolution for us to join by cutting the strings from our masters. We accomplish this revolution not by fighting each other but by waking up and joining together. We can continue to be distracted by the small things and have our leaders throw us a bone every now and then, or we can join together to make a better world for everyone. The choice is ours.
A first step: Talk to your neighbors, friends, and associates, not about the small things on which we may disagree but about the big things on which we do agree.
A second step: Open the eyes of others by sharing and discussing this blog post with everyone within your sphere of influence.
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Happiness, Health, and Wealth
are only a click away!
No Filler
No Repetition
No Nonsense
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