> Feb 04, 2008
>
> By: Joel S. Hirschhorn
>
> Perhaps a global political apocalypse has already arrived.
>
> Activists and dissidents should understand that evil forces and
> tyrannical governments have evolved. Just as human knowledge and
> science expand, so do the strategies and instruments used by rulers,
> elites and plutocrats. By learning from history and using new
> technology they have smarter tools of tyranny. The best ones prevent
> uprisings, revolutions and political reforms. Rather than violently
> destroy rebellious movements, they let them survive as marginalized
> and ineffective efforts that divert and sap the energy of
> nonconformist and rebellious thinkers. Real revolution remains an
> energy-draining dream, as evil forces thrive.
>
> Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain
> sight as democracies with free elections. The toughest lesson is that
> ALL elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than
> elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a
> two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The
> steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer
> freedoms.
>
> Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of
> denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to
> believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control
> will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and
> false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy.
> Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change
> agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.
>
> The tools of real rebellion are weak.
>
> Activists and dissidents look back and see successful rebellions and
> revolutions and think that when today´s victims of tyranny experience
> enough pain and see enough political stink they too will revolt. This
> is wrong. They think that the Internet spreads information and
> inspiration to the masses, motivating them to revolt. This is wrong.
> They await catastrophic economic or environmental collapse to spur
> rebellion. This too is wrong.
>
> Why are these beliefs wrong? Power elites have an arsenal of weapons
> to control and manipulate social, political and economic systems
> globally: corruption of public officials that make elections a sham;
> corporate mainstream media that turn news into propaganda;
> manipulation of financial markets that create fear for the public and
> profits for the privileged; false free trade globalization that
> destroys the middle class; rising economic inequality that keep the
> masses time-poor and financially insecure; intense marketing of
> pharmaceuticals that keep people passive; and addictive consumerism,
> entertainment and gambling that keep people distracted and pacified.
>
> The biggest challenge for dissidents and rebels is to avoid feel-good
> therapeutic activism having virtually no chance of removing evil and
> tyranny. Idealism without practicality tactics without lofty goals,
> and symbolic protests pose no threat to power elites. Anger and
> outrage require great strategic thinking from leaders seeking
> revolution, not mere change. And social entrepreneurs that use
> business and management skills to tackle genuine social problems do
> nothing to achieve political reforms. To the extent they achieve
> results they end up removing interest in overthrowing political
> establishments that have allowed the problems to fester.
>
> What is the new tool of tyranny?
>
> Technological connectivity achieved through advanced communications
> and computer systems, especially the rise of wireless connectivity.
> The global message to the masses is simple: Buy electronic products to
> stay plugged in. Connectivity may give pleasure, but it gives even
> more power to elites, rulers and plutocrats. It allows them to
> coordinate their efforts through invisible cabals, to closely monitor
> everything that ordinary people and dissidents do, and to
> cooperatively and clandestinely adjust social, financial and political
> systems to maintain stability and dominance.
>
> In this dystopian world all systems are integrated to serve upper
> class elites and the corporate state, not ordinary people. When
> ordinary people spend their money to be more shackled to connectivity
> products, they become unwitting victims of largely invisible
> governmental and corporate oppressive forces. They are oblivious that
> their technological seduction exacerbates their political and economic
> exploitation. Though some 70 percent believe the country is on the
> wrong track, they fail to see the deeper causes of the trend. And if
> Americans were really happy and content with their consumer culture,
> then why are they stuffing themselves with so many antidepressants,
> sleeping pills and totally unhealthy foods?
>
> In truth, the vast majority of people are in denial about the rotten
> system they are trapped in (aka The Matrix). They are manipulated to
> keep hope alive through voting, despite the inability of past
> elections to stop the slide into economic serfdom.
>
> Increasingly, the little-discussed phenomenon of economic apartheid
> ensures that elites live their lavish lives safely in physically
> separated ways. Concurrently, economic inequality rises, as the rich
> extract unusually high fractions of global wealth. When the rich get
> richer, the powerful get stronger. Does some economic prosperity
> trickles down to the poorest people? Perversely, the middle class is
> moved into the lower class. In this new physics of evil, wealth
> transfer is not from the rich to the poor, but from the middle class
> in wealthier countries to the poor in developing nations, where a few
> new billionaires join the global plutocracy.
>
> Some data on economic inequality: The after-tax income of the top 1
> percent of Americans rose 228 percent from 1979 through 2005, while
> middle class income remained flat over the last 4 decades. The richest
> 0.01 percent of earners made 5.1 percent of all income in 2005, up
> more than 300 percent from just 1.2 percent in 1960. Bad economic
> times like the present just exacerbate inequality. Even as most Wall
> Street companies lost billions in the sub-prime mortgage debacle after
> they had already made billions, they gave obscene bonuses to their
> employees: the average topped $180,000 for 2007, tripling the $61,000
> in 2002. Scholars used to predict that high levels of economic
> inequality like we have today would lead to rebellion. But there are
> now insufficient tools and paths for rebellion, because the plutocracy
> has eliminated them. Instead, citizens are offered elections whose
> outcomes can be controlled and subverted by the ruling class.
>
> The New World Order is getting what it wants: a stable two-class
> system, with the lower class serving the elitist upper class. The
> paradox is that along with rising economic inequality and apartheid is
> mounting consumerism and materialism that is used to pacify, distract
> and control the masses. That´s where easy credit and cheap products
> from low-wage nations are critical. The poor can have cell phones,
> 24-7 Internet access and increasingly cars, while the bejeweled upper
> class travel in private jets and yachts, vacation on private islands,
> and have several gated mansions maintained by servants and guarded by
> private police. We have a technologically advanced form of medieval
> society. It is working in the US and China and most other places.
>
> Elections just mask economic tyranny and slavery.
>
> The ruling class knows how to maintain stability. Keep the masses
> distracted, fearful, brainwashed, insecure, and dependent on
> government and business sectors for survival. Train people to see
> themselves as relatively free consumers. Maintain the myth that
> ordinary people can become wealthy and join the ruling class, which
> theoretically is not impossible, but of no statistical significance
> for the masses.
>
> There are no easy paths to restore power to the people. But here are
> three strategies worth considering.
>
> First, the real power of the masses is as consumers, not as voters,
> workers, activists, or Internet users. Weakened unions, globalization,
> technology, and illegal immigration have sapped the power of workers.
> National economies, especially the US, depend on consumers.
> Suspensions in discretionary consumer spending used as a political
> weapon could force reforms. But curbing personal spending and saving
> money has become a rare form of civil disobedience. Consumers buy
> stuff when they want it, not when they can afford it. Rulers have
> replaced chains with debt and no political leader in a very long time
> has championed economic rebellion.
>
> Second, because they are more a tool of tyranny than rebellion, the
> masses should stop giving credibility and legitimacy to faux
> democracies by boycotting elections. Plutocrats cleverly equate
> patriotism and good citizenship with voting while at the same time
> ensuring that no genuine change agents can succeed even if elected.
> All election results can be subverted by the forces of corruption.
> Those promising change, like Barack Obama, do not pose a lethal threat
> to forces of evil and corruption. Sadly, refusing to vote in corrupt
> political systems is another worthy but unpopular form of civil
> disobedience. The compulsion to vote is a political narcotic that
> sustains democratic tyranny.
>
> Third, people must seek forms of direct democracy that give them
> political power. National ballot measures and initiatives are needed
> to make laws, impose spending mandates and recall elected officials. A
> most important tool is constitutional conventions outside the control
> of status quo preservationists to obtain systemic reforms that
> governments will never provide, as explained for the US
atwww.foavc.org. No greater example of ruling class power exists than
> the absence of massive public demands for using what the Founders gave
> Americans in Article V: the convention option to circumvent and fix
> the federal government that, Â amazingly , has never been used, and
> that no presidential candidate has supported, including constitutional
> champion Ron Raul.
