All weekend, I debated with myself about what this Part Five would be. After many fits and starts, I've decided. I'm not going to research any more past lies for you. From the non-existent WMDs to 9/11, to various parts of the cold war, you know they're there. You've heard them referred to by the 'lunatic fringe' and the 'moonbats,' of which I guess I'm now a member. If you are interested, you have the most powerful research library ever known to man sitting right in front of you, and all you need is a slightly open mind and a few hours to find pretty convincing summaries of them.
Ultimately, though, thinking about lies in the past serves only one valid purpose--to make one skeptical about the lies to come, so that you don't fall for them too. So, instead of focusing on the ones behind us, today I'm going to focus on the lies we're going to hear in the near future.
Lie No. 1: Be Afraid. We're being bombarded with messages that tell us that some comet/asteroid/space station/etc. is going to hurtle into the earth and destroy everything, that the financial system crashing will be a cataclysm of vast proportion, that WWIII is inevitable, that we need to 'prepare' for the end of the world/life as we know it, and we'd better get an early start on being terrified, because the stores may run out of terror soon, and you don't want to be the only calm one on the block.
To start with, I'm pretty sure that the end of this bloodthirsty, oligarchical, corporate meat grinder of a system is a GOOD thing. After all, we're the meat, and people who think we're scum (remember the people in the Wall Street windows drinking martinis with their "we are the 1% " signs and wearing Halloween costumes mocking the people whose homes they'd been foreclosing on?) have been the ones turning the handle all these years. The end of that sounds a bit like wrenching the door open after you've slammed your finger in it. It's going to hurt like hell--for a minute. And then it'll start to feel better.
Second, if that system ends, WWIII ain't a happenin'. Wars haven't been driven by people like you and me. When have you ever woken up in the morning and said, "I think today, right after I do the laundry, I'll start a nuclear holocaust"? Well, big news--the regular people in China, Afghanistan, Russia, and everywhere else don't think that either. The same people turning the handle on the financial and political and corporate systems are the ones who want wars. They need them--to steal resources in other countries, to corporatize countries that haven't yet succumbed to their 'greed is good' mentality, to get contracts to destroy other countries and then more contracts to rebuild them, all with a profit built in. So, if their money-printing government machine (whether it prints Euros or Dollars or Yuan) is out of order, the chances of wars breaking out is vastly reduced.
Third, there's not a darn thing that any of us can do to 'prepare' if indeed an asteroid or something is going to decimate the earth. At that point, we're all well advised to have NOT spent our last days worrying, and instead to have enjoyed those days, a LOT.
Fourth, you can always jump on the terror bandwagon later. They tell you that they're going to run out of room, but don't worry--they'll make more space if you're one of the stragglers. You see, terror is great for the meat grinder. Terror makes people march calmly and sheeplike into ridiculous situations, like being surveilled and scanned and patted down everywhere you go (to be safe from the looming danger), or being interred in prison camps because of your nationality or your political views. So, there's always enough terror to go around, and you can get yours later.
So, don't be afraid. We're ok. We're much stronger and smarter than we give ourselves credit for, and we can figure out how to run a world without a few power-hungry sadistic maniacs telling us what to do.
Lie No. 2: You Are Helpless Victim of the Powers that Be. This one's a doozy. This is the one that TV and news reports and basically every aspect of western culture tells us, again and again. You can't change anything. You need NCIS, or Jack Bauer, or the FBI/CIA/NSA/TSA/HUD/SSA to address the threats you face.
Horse puckey. Most of the biggest threats are the ones they (the elite ones and their junkyard dogs in the government) are creating, so we're really only helpless because they've got us afraid of everything except what we really should be worried about--them.
We've got laws and regulations out the wazoo, and yet there are still drug cartels and mine disasters and massive oil spills and e. coli outbreaks and lead tainted toys and housing bubbles and massive unemployment and MF Global stealing billions of dollars and paying it to JP Morgan/Chase. If all that corruption and beauracracy is supposed to be protecting us, it's doing a damn poor job. So, we've just got to stop being afraid that we're too stupid and lazy to handle our own business (at least better than that), and viola! We're not helpless anymore.
Now, here's the big secret--the people at the top are scared spitless that one day we'll all wake up and recognize that they're the problem, and say, "you know, I've had enough, and I'm not playing anymore." No one of us can't resist them by force, but every one of us can resist their ideas. And a whole bunch of us, coming to the conclusion that we're tired of being grist for their mill, is a tide they can't turn back. Stop being a sheep, and you can't be herded anymore.
Lie No. 3: You aren't important, and what you do doesn't count. The biggest one of all. Every system that people regularly buy into reinforces this one. Religions tell us that we're spiritual dirt that can only be redeemed through some outside intervention--a savior, reading the right book, bowing at the right time in the right direction, or some combination of standing up, sitting down, reading archaic words and singing. Governments tell us that we're stupid--that we can't understand all the complex workings of the political system or the world economy, or whatever, and so we'd better just stand aside and let the real experts handle things. Baloney.
It should be rather apparent by now that the guys in charge are royal screw-ups. If they're so damn smart, why do we have financial crises, poverty, famine, violence, drug abuse, disease, and other scourges dominating our world? Our governments have had "wars" on these things for decades. Allow me to observe that if our world today is the result of the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on hunger, etc., then our "warriors" suck, and they need fired, and they need never to be elected to any position again, including dog catcher.
Likewise, if churches are so wonderful, then why are their buildings and their trappings the thing they're spending most of their money on? Why is their so-called 'social ministry' where they purport to help 'others,' such a small portion of their time and budget? Do you really think that God (all-knowing, all-powerful, eternal being who "is love") really needs for people to build 100,000 square foot shopping malls with stained glass windows in His honor? Or is that all something that the people in charge want, to show how holy they are, and how much power they wield?
We need to get clear on one thing--we're the ones who matter, not the people in charge. We're the ones who can fix stuff, if we start thinking for ourselves and stop following behind the parade of people who claim to know what's best for us. We are, in fact, the only things that matter--the saviors, if you will. If we decide to change our little corners of the world, by being generous, kind, and forgiving, then the world becomes generous, kind and forgiving, one little corner at a time.
So, now what? Some of you have been reading this blog since the beginning, and I hope you'll forgive me if I get in my wayback machine for a minute, and recall why this blog is named as it is. It was a reference to how big the world's problems are--elephantine, really, and to the old quip about how to eat an elephant--one bite at a time.
We just need to stop believing how powerless we are, and do something. Remember how in science we learned that energy never ends? That's true whether it's good energy or bad energy. We can sit around in fear and worry, anger and disgust, and pollute the atmosphere around us like a rotten onion in the cosmic soup, or we can start to make a positive difference. When you toss a rock into the water, the ripples reach the banks of the pond. The ripples from our choices, good and bad, can reach to the banks of eternity. So get rippling already. And don't forget to check their lips.
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