Moreover, "doomer" labeling demonstrates a lack of capacity for comprehending paradoxes such as: Yes, civilization is collapsing, and that is an opportunity for rebirth-or one of my favorites from Derrick Jensen: "We're fucked, and life is really, really good." Paradox, two apparent opposites being true at the same time, complexity, holistic rather than black and white, either/or thinking appear to elude those who simplistically slap the unwarranted "doomer" label on whomever they choose.
Most egregiously, however, "doomer" labeling replicates the style of superficial mainstream and sensationalist journalism which refuses to deal with complexities and applies labels so that readers will not have to grapple with multi-layered reality. The prime motivation in this style of journalism is speed and brevity. As a result, readers are unable to view the rich and convoluted tapestry of an event, a story, a person, or a concept. Hence the old paradigm endures with no willingness to construct a new one!
Refusal To Admit That We Have No Government
A careful study of recent American history which I have endeavored to convey in my book U.S. History Uncensored reveals that although we may have a bureaucracy in Washington that operates myriad departments and provides services, in reality, we have no government. That is to say that what used to be the function of government has been usurped by corporations and centralized financial systems. Repeatedly, icons of the progressive left such as Jeremy Scahill in his brilliant book Blackwater, Naomi Klein in Shock Doctrine and in her latest article "Outsourcing Government", and Arianna Huffington as she appeared on Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" on October 19 are telling us that it is now virtually impossible to determine where government ends and corporations begin. Only a few years ago, these same individuals probably would not have acknowledged this reality which actually has its roots in the late-nineteenth century and came to fruition in the Reagan and Clinton administrations.
Perpetually rigged elections are one glaring characteristic of this reality. If there is no government, then there are no authentic choices in terms of political candidates because a candidate cannot even be nominated for the presidency unless she/he is owned by the plutocracy. The progressive left loves to deny the extent to which candidates are owned and persists in rationalizing: "But he/she has done so many wonderful things; he/she is so sincere; he/she has to appear conservative, but when he/she really sits in the Oval Office, everything will be different. She/he is the lesser evil." Anyone who does not buy into this delusion must then be marginalized by labeling that person pessimistic, doomish, or even crazy. Moreover, this kind of marginalization mirrors the exclusion of individuals and groups by the political right that it finds intolerable, and thus I return to the thesis of Harvey Wasserman's article: Why would neocons need Karl Rove when they have the Democrats?
Participation in the federal election process sanctions the lie that authentic choices exist in presidential politics and condones the use of the election chimera for the purposes of maintaining social control. It is progressive America's method of choice for maintaining the dirty little secret of the toxic system-that Daddy is raping the kids, but we can't talk about it! If we do admit this to ourselves and each other, we will feel hopeless, angry, sad, disempowered-unless, we accept that all of this is the result of the collapse of civilization, and that the most powerful act for any of us is admitting that collapse is real and beginning as soon as possible our preparation for it.
Overall, the Democratic progressive left refuses to acknowledge that not only do presidents and political parties not govern the United States, but they are in fact, irrelevant. The sovereignty of nations has been irreversibly eroded by corporatism and organizations such as the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission whose agenda is the dissolution of nation-states and the global dominance of corporations. Almost all of the candidates progressives tout as capable of reversing America's descent into fascism are prominent members of one or more of these hegemonic organizations.
As Mike Byron states in the quote at the beginning of this article: People must first be made to give up on the existing system before they will become receptive to fundamental change. As long as we cling to the teddy bears of progressive politics, we embrace the old paradigm of civilization and paralyze ourselves so that we are unable to explore deeper layers of our current predicament. As a result, we allow ourselves to be distracted from the dire exigencies of collapse and any possibility of rationally preparing to navigate it, which only increases the severity of its repercussions.
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