Over and over we hear and read the same divisive propaganda telling us who or what is to blame for the world’s problems.
It’s the Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Whites, Blacks, Browns, Chinese, Russians, Americans, bankers, oligarchs, capitalists, socialists, women, men, young, old, transgender, gay, pharmaceutical companies, and I’m sure I’m missing a few of the common “target” groups.
On the most fundamental levels people are not that different. That is key to understanding how people motivated by lust/greed for wealth and power are able to manipulate people, herd people, into mindsets and actions which only serve those who want to see the common people of the world angry, divided, and politically impotent. However, our fundamental commonalities are also the keys to the solutions.
This absolutely true message is being delivered so often, in so many ways these days that I almost feel wholly redundant in offering it up again. But it still isn’t heard, realized pervasively enough. The old, tired, yet continually successful strategy of “divide and conquer” is still being used against the masses by the organized few. The ones who have acquired enough wealth and power to want to jealously hoard and guard it also have the means to employ the means to manipulate the public. Experts, think tanks, consultants, mercenaries, the media (which they own most of), and beholden, or simply paid off or coerced politicians, dictators, and others in positions of power. These resources help them to know how to keep the masses focused on each other rather than the source(s) of their problems. And provide the avenues through which they run their schemes and scams.
And the masses fall for it. Over and over again. We keep giving them our money, our sons and daughters, our power. For what? Safety” From who? Them? I have to say, if we’ve been paying for protection we haven’t been getting it. We haven’t been militarily invaded and conquered, but, on an ongoing basis over decades disabling incursions have taken place (and still are) into our liberties, personal wealth, security in our homes, the healthfulness of our food, air and water, and even the quality and availability of healthcare (for the common person anyway). Never mind the horror show the pharmaceutical business is morphing into.
As the saying goes: “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” I would add: and the middle class is shrinking like a wet wool sweater in hot dryer. The long and the short of it is that the majority of people are being preyed upon by a relatively small minority. But a clever minority who is smart enough to keep enough of the masses employed and taken care of so that, if needed, they have armies to protect them. You know, some more mature folks along with a whole lot of our youthful sons and daughters. A whole lot of whom primarily enlisted in the military to try to avoid the too often bleak economic prospects that awaited them if they didn’t.
Overthrow them you say? For much, if not all, of the world the possibility of that solution went away with the close of the twentieth century. At least if you’re referring to trying to use violence as an answer. Violence is not the answer. Unless you think wiping out most, if not all, of the human race is the way to go. According to some that may be the solution God envisions, or not. And according to some that is the solution some oligarchs envision.
We’ve got to get smart, wise up. We’ve got to learn to regard one another as brothers and sisters. Or at least with some mutual respect and compassion. Saints and sages have been telling us that for millennia. At this point one solution which is immediately available to all people everywhere is the one Ghandi advocated. We need to refuse to cooperate any longer with the people, programs, and industries engaged in extreme profiteering and/or the polluting or poisoning of the world. And those that are pitting us against one another while they’ve been draining the life out of us. A lot of people in the world know this. If you’re one, I am thankful for your presence here on Earth in this critical time.
We need to focus on the future, the very possible bright future that we can build if enough of us want it and work for it.
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