Revolutions, in the context of human history, are indeed small blips on the screen of control, minute corrections from which the elite learn how to better manipulate and control us. Through these manifestations of discontent, the elite sacrifice the short term so that they can better prepare for the long term, knowing full well that the memory of man is only as long as the death of one generation and the birth of another. With adjustments and gained wisdom, the elite become aware that they must offer more crumbs, bones and scraps to the people, in order to control them for the next stage of civilization's evolution, or devolution, until that time the people rise up again in frustration and hunger for more crumbs and scraps picked off the table of the elites' gluttonous appetite.
The elite are also aware, consciously or subconsciously, that the masses rise up on rare occasions and indeed, much less today than in the past. The masses, especially in the lands of the north and those wealthier, semi-developed nations of the south - excluding much of Latin America which has undergone great social change - today live under better conditions than ever before, as hard as it is to think that true, and is the main reason why these populations have become obedient and complacent creatures. The levels of comfort granted them - as a result of the elite loosening the spigot of greed and actually increasing the size of the crumbs and bones given the masses - have enabled the aura of comfort to control the very emotions and frustrations that once served as catalysts for animosity and dissatisfaction. Thanks to the genius of credit cards and debt created by the elite, the masses can fully absorb the hypnotizing powers of consumerism and materialism, purchasing to their hearts content, filing their worthless and unhappy lives with the substitute goods and services that will add meaning and comfort to their lives. Through the consumption of goods the masses feel less inclined to complain about their lot in life, and thus less willing to confront the elite in revolution.
Meanwhile, the accumulation of debt enslaves the masses even further into slavery, making the elites even more powerful masters of the state. With so much comfort, with so much escapism through television and distraction through sports, music and video games, the populace is contained, deluded into thinking their lives are better than they actually are. Revolution cannot arrive through the comfortable existence of the masses, nor through the unbeknownst delusion of the people. And so, while the nation is gutted of its treasury and of its youth, while its education is eviscerated in favor of the instruments of war, while new Pearl Harbors are created and Mesopotamia is destroyed, while the state is becoming the fiefdom of the corporate world, while the government murders 3,000 people in New York and contributes to the death of 3,000 more in Iraq, the mass of the population sits on their couch for hours at a time, picking their collective butt hole, their bodies expanding in obesity while their minds shrink into oblivion as they are fed a diet of bread and circus, watching television and escaping into fantasyland, obsessed with the gossip of celebrity and of so-called perfection, not knowing why they are so unhappy, why they are so overworked, yet unable to pay the bills, why they must pop pill after mind-altering pill, why their children have the intelligence of a sock puppet, why their home is on the verge of foreclosure, why their health has become a liability, asking why they are made to fear of an ambiguous dark-skinned enemy.
To many, their beautiful minds cannot be bothered by suffering or death or war, nor by the burdensome consequences of seeking change or truth or accountability; many more are too busy pursuing the ultimate charade, the greatest fiction of all, namely, the American Dream, a genius concoction by the elites to manufacture entire generations of exploitable slaves and brainwashed consumers. For entire lifetimes millions chase this unreachable dream, thinking one day they too will join the ranks of the elite, if only they can work hard enough, long enough, selling their souls to the evils of capitalism, becoming the unscrupulous carbon copy of many elites, bleeding, sweating and crying for a dream that ultimately will become a nightmare.
Power of the People has been made extinct in the land of the free and the home of the brave, its strength gutted by years of methodical conditioning of the masses by the elite. Only a minute few take to the streets these days, a virtual hiccup of brave patriots that barely makes noise on the national stage and hardly ever surfaces beyond the echoes of city streets. This group is almost non-existent, with clusters and groups spread throughout the nation, unable to force change, unable to inspire a now lost generation, unable to stop a most ominous course. To the elites, they are mere pests, easily swatted away by a few dozen police officers. The land of the complacent and the cowardly thus continues its inevitably slide into decadence and authoritarianism, without so much as a whisper or a yawn from its apathetic population.
Without care, without concern, indifferent to anything except the next episode of American Idol, 300 million individuals will forever be known as the generation that lost America to the plague of neo-fascists living among us. The "no-sacrifice, no-care, always-me" generation will not know what it has lost until it is too late, until they become nothing more than the army of good Americans. By then, 300 million people will be impotent creatures subservient to authoritarianism and repression, their rights and freedoms taken away, their liberties eroded, their lives further manipulated by the elite. The nation that once had the capability, indeed the momentum, to break free of the eternal chain of bondage called our hierarchy pyramid, that natural evolutionary mechanism that has enslaved us to its unyielding control, has failed miserably in its monumental opportunity, instead becoming yet one more victim to our human nature, our evolutionary psychology, our inner demons, the bastards called the elite.
The pyramid that assures the elite remain at the top, basking in the glow of bright and warm sunshine, while the mass of humanity remains shackled at the bottom, freezing in the nadir of darkness, remains an unbreakable and omnipotent force. It cannot be cracked, it seems, nor can it be shattered. Atop the apex of this design of the human condition is the ever-watchful eye of the powerful, forever looking down at its subjects, for millennia sitting at the throne of control, for millennia unable to be usurped by the large majority of humankind. From time immemorial it sits comfortably at the helm of civilization, expanding the wealth and power of the few, subjugating and oppressing the many, ruining the lives, opportunities and fates of the same masses that after all this time have yet to make a dent in the system.
Perhaps this is as it should always be, as it has always been. Perhaps this is how humanity wants to live, how we are predisposed to become. We have yet to stop its momentum, its sinister reality, becoming accepting of its consequences on our lives, never once thinking what our society would be like under different, under truly human, and not mammalian, behaviors and instincts. Perhaps one day we will awaken, fully awaken, ready to be reborn, ready for an enlightenment away from what we have been and currently are, into a realm of what we are capable of becoming.
Perhaps the day will soon arrive when the masses, the People, will awaken from their slumber, realizing that if the course of history is not changed, human history itself will cease to exist. Too many people are suffering; too many people are dying and living in misery. Levels of inequality and injustice keep increasing; the gap between the rich few and the poor masses continues expanding. This pyramid of subjugation and submission cannot sustain itself, it will collapse from under its own weight, bringing humanity down with it. It is only a matter of time, an inevitability given our growing population, our growing frustrations and anger, our diminishing resources, and our continued disregard for the health of the planet.
The question thus arises, does it fall on its own or with the help of six billion human energies? Can we defeat our comfort and materialism and greed and indifference and declare a new course for human endeavors? Can we rise united, of fall individually? Can we exorcise our evolutionary demons and make extinct our linear dominance hierarchical pyramid, or are we condemned to live divided, stratified and segregated by class and caste? In our answers to these and many other questions lies our destiny, as well as the future of our children. To them we will bequeath either the ruins of a failed society, or the blueprints of a new civilization.
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