This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
The US political system is not designed to be moved to the left. It is not designed to facilitate a revolution. It is not designed to reflect the general will of the public in any way. The US political system is designed to keep the public placid and obedient while the imperialists run the empire. Nothing else is allowed. Nothing else will ever be allowed.
Self-described progressives who advocate supporting the Democratic Party while slowly taking it over from the inside and moving it to the left argue that doing this is much easier than trying to fight the system from the outside, because activism isn't enough and the US Constitution is written in a way that makes third-party voting unworkable. So they pour massive amounts of energy into supporting a political party that is expressly designed to ensure they never attain any of their goals.
They are searching in the lamplight for keys that aren't there. They are walking away from the Great Valley because that direction is an easier journey.
How To Defeat The Empire
"What I do advocate, in as many different ways as I can come up with, is a decentralized guerrilla psywar against the institutions which enable the powerful to manipulate the way ordinary people think, act and vote."https://t.co/4F5dWaURdq
- Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 10, 2019
Arguing that you should wage the revolution from within the system because it's easier than fighting the system from the outside is like saying you should journey to the top of the mountain by going downhill because that's easier than climbing. Sure you'll meet up with a lot less resistance, but that's not how you get there. It's the wrong way.
Ruling power structures are all too happy to let us keep marching into the mirror maze of establishment politics which always spits us out right back where we started. They'll let us do this until their blinkered agendas have turned our planet into a lifeless rock. This is true of US politics, and it's true of the political systems in any government which plays a significant role in the globe-spanning US-centralized empire.
Yes, the way to the Great Valley is far less easy than casting a few votes and stanning AOC. The way to true revolution and drastic, meaningful change is not just challenging, it's a way that has never been traveled before, by anyone. It's going to mean trying things that are completely unprecedented, because we're trying to create a society that is healthy in a way that it's never been before.
Ultimately, we need to wake up. We need to awaken from the mental prisons that have been deliberately designed to keep us searching under the streetlight instead of where they actually are, and then we need to wake up the others. Only then will we ever stand a chance at using the power of our numbers to force real change. Until that happens people are going to keep entering the mirror maze and never getting anywhere while the noose on our species gets tighter and tighter.
Society Is Made Of Narrative. Realizing This Is Awakening From The Matrix.
This is the clearest I've been able to sum it all up so far. https://t.co/JqbZMKn7ov
- Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 22, 2018
The powerful are screwing us, and there are more of us than there are of them. That's why we have a rigged political system. It's why plutocrats and government agencies pour immense fortunes and manpower into manipulating the way we think, act and vote by mass media propaganda. It's what keeps us crawling around searching for keys that aren't there.
It's not that you can't beat the machine, it's that you can't beat the machine using the tools the machine has given you. But the first step is getting people to stop searching under the streetlight for solutions using those tools and realize they're misperceiving the situation. We need to awaken people to the reality that the world is not happening the way they were taught in school.
Luckily, with trust in the mass media at an all-time low and our ability to network and share information at an all-time high, we have every opportunity to begin doing that. We just need to stop pouring our energy in inefficient directions and strike while that iron is hot.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
5
5
4
