“People will listen when they’re ready to listen and not before. Don’t waste time with people who want to argue. They’ll keep you immobilized forever. Look for people who are already open to something new.” Daniel Quinn. What we experience is our perception. What we perceive is our experience. We have a fixed loop of illusions meant to keep us in place. They who control the perception control the experience. Once you see the wizard at the controls you can make new choices. This is important – once you wake up to the illusions we are continually presented with through our mainstream media – usually negative frames – you can focus on a more on more positive perceptions. Look up news that talks of the positive things going on all the time. Recognize how the negative framing is designed to make you fearful and disempowered and to ‘let’ the hierarchy control everything. Start to identify different alternatives to modern hyper-consumer living. It’s not about given up technology, which has much good about it in making our lives more comfortable, but rethinking what technology is appropriate and what is not. It’s more about how we live together. I’ve said this often already and will continue to do so as I explain more of this trip down the rabbit hole.
When I was young the comic ‘MAD magazine’ had a two-panel cartoon describing the Russian Revolution of 1917 that describes the hierarchy we live within wonderfully. The first panel had three downtrodden Russian peasants and the smiling monarchy of 1916 with the caption “Peasant, peasant, peasant, Tsar.” In the second panel were three revolutionary downtrodden Soviet workers of 1920 and a high ranking smiling soviet officer with the caption, “Peasant, peasant, peasant, Commissar.” Throughout human imperial history (since the Sumerian Empire), we have put up with elite hierarchies that have oppressed the majority of the population. I say we put up with it because We the people allow it to happen and continue. We go through wars and revolutions to remove oppressive hierarchical regimes and replace them with more hierarchical regimes that eventually become oppressive. In the last 5000 years I cannot think of a large hierarchical regime that has ever been egalitarian or fair to all its people. There has been the elite desperately holding on to their power at all costs and then the rest of us – cannon fodder to fulfill the elite agendas. The amazing thing about all of this is that we the people help them with almost religious fervor to keep their control. We complain and moan but we still maintain their control. Fairy stories often end with the Prince becoming King and ruling wisely and justly. Fairy stories are how we fantasize things ought to be The elite do not want us to think freely. The U.S. founding fathers knew this and tried to set up a system where the hierarchy was minimized by ‘common people’ being able to serve as part of the governing body. We all know how that has turned out today – a pseudo hierarchy of the wealthy – a form of Oligarchy. A point of light here – the oligarchy need us, we don’t need them!
Let’s have a quick look at indigenous cultures. Some were large and powerful systems (e.g. The Iroquois Confederation), yet in that system everyone had an equal voice. Chiefs might make the big decisions but if they became despotic they were simply removed or the people walked away from them. Typically, with true tribal situations chiefs were chosen because they exhibited deep wisdom and compassion for all members of the tribe. Often, they were the ‘elders’ of both genders, and took responsibility for imparting wisdom and knowledge to the younger members of that tribe. While they may have some social-status structure, egalitarian behavior and sharing was the norm. Benjamin Franklin was locked into a European frame of mind, yet based the emerging U.S. republic on the Iroquois Confederacy system. At the other end was the so-called Communism of the Soviet era. Globally we have spent over a century extolling one system while vilifying the other (from both sides). On the surface it looks like a simple dichotomy with the Nazi’s thrown in as a contrast in the mid-1900s. Forget how the media characterize political regimes. Take a serious look for yourself. The ideals of the Russian revolution in 1917 most closely described the democratic libertarian Republic system of the U.S., yet the U.S. supported the Tsar’s white army, an imperialistic regime that the colonies fought against in their own revolution, over the Bolshevik Red army that proposed to give power to its people. Once the red army took control it then became a totalitarian hierarchical regime. China the same. China still claims communism as their control but look at that nation – capitalism controlled by elites that oppress their people. We don’t do that in the west – no, we just do it differently. After wasting some 60+ million lives in a second world war fighting the fascist powers, we then turned out attention on a previous ally – the USSR. Fascism was bad and had to be stamped out, and then Communism was bad, and then…Terrorism is bad, and then …. Have you got the gist yet of how this works? We always have an enemy to fight to justify reasons to safeguard ourselves and remove freedoms. The elite use all manner of distractions to keep us occupied and at each other’s throats while they work the controls from behind the curtain. The Romans used the incredibly elaborate Games to keep peoples minds off the Huns beating at the gates. What distracts us today? What we get is a lot of ‘False Flags’ designed to create a non-existent problem which now has to be solved. As a side note, once WWII was over, the U.S. with Operation Paperclip rounded up Hundreds of top ranking Rabid German Nazi scientists and high-ranking (useful) personnel, kept them safe from what was going on in Nuremberg and let them keep top control of many secret projects in the U.S. and around the world. We all know Werner Von Brown and how he ran the U.S space program, but almost nothing about all the other ‘Paperclip’ refugees of the third Reich. For instance, Reinhard Gehlen was head of Nazi German Intelligence for Foreign Armies East in 1942. He became head of the West German BND in 1956 after spending time with the CIA. Nothing conspiracy based here – it’s all in the records. Friends and Foes become interchangeable in the name of security and the interests of the hierarchy. What exactly does the hierarchy do for us all? It’s a bit like answering, “what good is pollution, besides giving us a few jobs in cleaning it up?” At this time, we seem to be heading for a world government, a world currency, and a world army to police us all – a complete homogenization of humanity with one prescribed way to live. I’m NOT advising a revolution to replace it with … yet another hierarchy. I just saying that we don’t need the hierarchy. Just like tribal chiefs, we need people good at being able to manage things, but then if they are not doing a good job they can be simply removed. Supposedly that is what a democracy is meant to do – the reality – career politicians and civil servants. One aspect of how we live is to treat the natural world as something nasty and out there beyond ourselves. As such we have spent millennia ‘dominating’ the natural world and trying to control it. In my worldviews text I begin with this idea with quotes like, ““I constrained the mighty river to flow according to my will and let its water to fertilize lands that had before been barren and without inhabitants.” Sammuramat (Semiramis), Queen-regent of Assyria, c. 811-806 B.C.E. The idea that humans can always improve on nature is one we will see throughout our story after the agricultural revolution”.” Once we change our story to live within and in harmony with the natural world, things will naturally change ‘organically’ (poor pun) for the better.
“There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as ours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will ACT like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.”.Daniel Quinn. To be continued in next post with thoughts on how we got to this story.
0 Comments