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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 3/19/14

Life in Kochistan

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Why not call it what it is?
Why not call it what it is?
(Image by Danny Antonelli)
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You have nothing at all to fear
I think we're gonna like it here
I know we may seem pretty strange to you
But we got know-how and a golden rule
We're here to see Manifest Destiny through

-- Humans From Earth by T-Bone Burnett

You may laugh, you may cry, but the future is looking grim for those of you who live in the emerging country of Kochistan.

And yes, it actually does have something to do with the Ukraine debacle, where the U.S. was plainly exposed as scheming to overthrow the government of that eastern European country, as the tape of the telephone conversation between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt clearly indicates (http://youtu.be/r5n8UbJ8jsk). But it's not as directly linked as your common-garden conspiracy theorist might like it to be. The Ukraine debacle and the Koch brothers taking control of the United States is linked by the old concept of Manifest Destiny.

The people who power the engine of the United States, and the people who have given power to that engine since the colonies broke away from England, believe that the destiny of the U.S. is to be the preeminent country in the world and to thus rule the world. I'm not kidding. Nor are the people who believe it!

Vladimir Putin, the oligarch leader of the Russian plutocracy believes in the Manifest Destiny of Mother Russia to dominate the European continent. And then to rule the world! And he is putting his beliefs into action through military power. Money is not important when you have all your energy needs covered, manufacturing capacities covered, and total control over information. Money is only important until you get that control, after that, money is just an interesting and sometimes useful concept needed to keep the masses under control. Political power can be bought, but once it is bought, money becomes secondary. Putin knows this. And the Koch brothers know it too. Only the Koch brothers haven't gotten there yet. Though you can't say they aren't trying!

If you want to know what life in Kochistan will look like, look at life in Russia. No freedom of the press, no personal freedom, the means of production gathered into the hands of a few oligarchs who "compete" in the same way our western banks "compete," with rigged LIBOR rates, underwater mortgages, state bailouts. These oligarchs like to impose a state religion: Orthodox Catholic in Russia, Evangelistic Christianity in Kochistan. Not that atheist Putin or the Mammon-worshiping Kochs actually believe in that crap. They just know how useful it can be to inject it into societies that prefer porn to prayer. By making a radical religious movement the standard-bearer of morality, then all deviations from that rigorous standard are criminal deviations, as P*ssy Riot discovered, and as Dr. George Tiller also found out after he was denounced in public by the religious ranters from the right.

Once the tipping point is reached, there is no return to a free, liberal society without first going through the painful process of a bloody revolution, a civil war, where the minions of the rich few fight against the dispossessed many. Unfortunately, as we have seen in Guatemala, Honduras and Columbia, there are enough hungry people ready to join the ranks of the rich, to fight for them, because that way they get some bread and at least a feeling of power. All this is besides the fact that due to the perfection of the advertising industry it has now become easy to implant lies into the minds of the ignorant, making them believe things that are against their own interest, like "unions are wicked" and "climate change is a hoax" and "universal healthcare is unhealthy."

The Guardian has recently pointed out (click here) that ALEC, the right-wing group that frames laws for state governments to implement, the group that was behind the stand-your-ground laws and other disastrous policies, is now ready to move down to the city and county level through a new organization, the American City County Exchange (ACCE). The police has already been militarized at the state and county and city level. Only those pesky laws which allow for a more liberal life-style now need to be tweaked into submission. The ACCE is going to take care of that. And thus, Kochistan is being created, one little piece at a time, from state level, to county level, to city level. Until it's checkmate! The federal government is rendered powerless. And you, poor citizen of Kochistan, are as much of a serf as the poor citizen of Putinstan.



What can be done to counter the immense power of endless money and a military machine that is backed by an all-seeing, all-hearing intelligence apparatus? That is the 100-billion dollar question! History, up to now, has told us that only through vast expenditures of blood will despotic systems be torn down. Orwell wrote about how difficult the struggle can be in Homage to Catalonia (click here). And Spain was lost. Franco won. And for almost 40 years he rode roughshod over the country. Are you prepared for a 40-year struggle? Are you prepared to struggle at all? And who knows, it might take more than 40 years to emerge from this New World Order of Kochistan, Putinstan and let's not forget the Eastern Empire, where the newly appointed emperor is always a billionaire. What are you prepared to do? What sacrifices are you prepared to make? Will you give up Facebook, Google, your new flatscreen TV? Will you destroy your iPhone? Will you head to the hills and take up arms with the rebels? Are there any rebels left in our industrialized world? I doubt it.

If your don't believe in the Manifest Destiny of the people, in their ability to manage their own affairs without Masters like the Kochs and Putins and Emperors of this world, then you will not struggle. You will creep quietly into a corner, shoulders against the walls and pray that nobody comes looking for you, nobody reports you as a dissident, so that your income is safe and your children can live and perhaps sometime, in the not-too-distant future, hopefully while you are still alive, a savior or a disaster-as-savior will render the new Ozymandias (http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/672/) powerless.

Dream on!

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Danny Antonelli Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Expatriate living in Europe. Host of the radio program FREE WHEEL on FSK in Hamburg,a non-commercial community-sponsored station. FREE WHEEL is also on the following stations in Germany: Freies Radio Freudenstadt, RundFunk Meißner, Radio (more...)
 

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