It is with the deepest regret that I announce my withdrawal from active participation in the political aspect of citizenship in the United States of America, Inc.
Please note: “…of America, Inc.” That is not a misprint. It is a simple acknowledgement of the reality of life in this country today; our society is now nothing more than an extension of the corporatism which truly controls all endeavors of the citizenry. All of our great collective energy is nothing except the fodder upon which our corporate enterprise feeds, 24/7/365.
Essentially, our country has been stolen from us while we were lulled into complacency by the omnipresent video tube that is now in more than 99% of American homes. Additionally, many of those homes have multiple viewscreens. I refer to them as viewscreens as a tribute to one of the great unsung social critics of the 20th century, Eric A. Blair, writing under the pseudonym of George Orwell. I was fortunate to read both of his (in my humble opinion) greatest, most trenchant works, “Animal Farm” and “1984”. As a High School sophomore, my understanding of those tomes was a simple one, totalitarian governments like the Soviet Union and China controlled their citizenry through unending campaigns of deliberate lies, half-truths, innuendos and fear-mongering. These campaigns were relentless. They never stopped. The society was subjected to these campaigns every moment of every day, 24/7/365 in order that the populace would strive to ‘defeat’ their perceived enemies. Those enemies would often change even within the 24-hour ‘news cycle. The daily “15 Minutes Hate” was the propaganda mechanism by which the state focused the collective energy against those perceived enemies. The people would gather, as sheep, before the viewscreens to learn of the “outrages” perpetrated by “Eastasia” or “Oceania”, then proceed to their workplace in, say, “The Ministry of Truth”, which was, needless to say nothing more than a propaganda factory where history was re-written constantly to insure that the subject of the day’s “15 Minutes Hate” was conclusively ‘proven’ to have been guilty of the great outrages previously witnessed. “War is Peace”, “Slavery is Freedom” you get the picture, right? I’m not going to go any further along this line. As I said earlier, being a naïve teenager, my perception was that “1984” and “Animal Farm” were written to educate us in “the free world” as to the duplicity of the collectivist nations who “threatened” us. Now I know better. All governments seek to control their citizenry through whatever forms of chicanery are available to them.
Today in America, corporations control the “information” spoon-fed to us by the lapdog “Mainstream Media” through it’s lackeys via Fox News Channel (Rupert Murdoch’s personal propaganda machine, ABC (owned/controlled by the Disney multiglomerate), NBC (General Electric’s “made men”), CBS (Viacom, now an international propagandist organization), ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Not a one of these organizations exists any more except to motivate you to give your eyeballs and your brain to them for programming.
“We have met the enemy and he is us”. So said comic character Pogo, Walt Kelly’s quiet little non-hero back around 1970. Ironic, isn’t it that Kelly honed his artistry by working for…Disney. As is often the case, artists recognize treachery long before the rest of the populace. So it was with Al Capp. Remember “Lil Abner”? Lived in “Dogpatch”. Perfect metaphor for the land of illusion that was (and still is) Washington D.C.
Yet, even in those days, there was a faint glimmer of honesty and integrity visible on our “viewscreens”. In my humble opinion, it reached it’s zenith when a true newsman and journalist Edward R. Murrow exposed Joe McCarthy before the watchful eyes of this country as the predecessor of Richard Milhous Nixon and draft-dodging chicken-hawk Richard Bruce “I-got-five-deferments-so-I-wouldn’t-get-my-ass-shot-off-in-Viet Nam- like-those-less-privileged” Cheney. I remember that the next day, Saturday, in hushed tones people were incredulous. ”Did you watch Ed Murrow’s show last night?” But that was in the days when CBS had integrity and a genuine news-gathering organization that spanned the globe. So did the other networks before they were swallowed up by the multiglomerates that now consider them mere ‘profit centers’.
That’s all for Today, so Good Morning America. Go watch your Morning Shows. We’ll be back tomorrow with Part Two – The Great Pretender and Freedom’s death knell.
