The New World Order: "A technologically advanced form of medieval society"

[kpete]

February 1, 2008 at 10:47:59

The Evolution of Evil
by Joel S. Hirschhorn

http://www.opednews.com


Perhaps a global political apocalypse has already arrived.

...................

In this dystopian world all systems are integrated to serve upper class elites and the corporate state, not ordinary people. When ordinary people spend their money to be more shackled to connectivity products, they become unwitting victims of largely invisible governmental and corporate oppressive forces. They are oblivious that their technological seduction exacerbates their political and economic exploitation. Though some 70 percent believe the country is on the wrong track, they fail to see the deeper causes of the trend. And if Americans were really happy and content with their consumer culture, then why are they stuffing themselves with so many antidepressants, sleeping pills and totally unhealthy foods? In truth, the vast majority of people are in denial about the rotten system they are trapped in (aka The Matrix). They are manipulated to keep hope alive through voting, despite the inability of past elections to stop the slide into economic serfdom.

....................

The New World Order is getting what it wants: a stable two-class system, with the lower class serving the elitist upper class. The paradox is that along with rising economic inequality and apartheid is mounting consumerism and materialism that is used to pacify, distract and control the masses. That’s where easy credit and cheap products from low-wage nations are critical. The poor can have cell phones, 24-7 Internet access and increasingly cars, while the bejeweled upper class travel in private jets and yachts, vacation on private islands, and have several gated mansions maintained by servants and guarded by private police. We have a technologically advanced form of medieval society. It is working in the US and China and most other places. Elections just mask economic tyranny and slavery.

The ruling class knows how to maintain stability. Keep the masses distracted, fearful, brainwashed, insecure, and dependent on government and business sectors for survival. Train people to see themselves as relatively free consumers. Maintain the myth that ordinary people can become wealthy and join the ruling class, which theoretically is not impossible, but of no statistical significance for the masses.

.................

Second, because they are more a tool of tyranny than rebellion, the masses should stop giving credibility and legitimacy to faux democracies by boycotting elections. Plutocrats cleverly equate patriotism and good citizenship with voting while at the same time ensuring that no genuine change agents can succeed even if elected. All election results can be subverted by the forces of corruption. Those promising change, like Barack Obama, do not pose a lethal threat to forces of evil and corruption. Sadly, refusing to vote in corrupt political systems is another worthy but unpopular form of civil disobedience. The compulsion to vote is a political narcotic that sustains democratic tyranny.

....................

more at:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joel_s___080201_the_evolution_of_evi.htm

Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government (www.delusionaldemocracy.com). His current political writings have been greatly influenced by working as a senior staffer for the U.S. Congress and for the National Governors Association. He advocates a Second American Revolution, beginning with an Article V Convention to propose constitutional amendments.

[The Traveler]

1. Seems to me like a valid summary

of the current state of things.

Sucks, doesn't it?

[blues90]

2. That sums it all up ,doesn't it .

[Orsino]

23. Conservative elitists have always pined for feudalism.

Even the ones who never stood a chance of owning fiefdoms were loyal supporters. Feudalism was successful for many centuries, and it was only technology and education which crushed it. Now that would-be feudal lords control those things once more, everything old is new again.

What up, serfs? How's that yoke hangin'?

[tanyev]

27. Yep. When they talk about the "good old days", they're not talking about the 1950s.

[blm]

3. Exactly - and the dog and pony shows they put on signal to me that something

is going down they don't want us noticing.

How many thought Whitewater was all about a concocted Clinton crime and how many knew that Rose Law Firm contained many documents on BCCI dealings and other operations (Mena, Arkansas CIA drugrunning) that Poppy Bush and his longtime partner Jackson Stephens needed scrubbed?

That is the way they operate. Throw up a flare at the smallest matter while covering up the worst crimes against this country and its citizens.

[redqueen]

4. *sigh*

I didn't know that.

[AnneD]

63. Google BCCI...

it is a smoldering ember. Do some sleuthing. And I wish I could have ask Saddam Hussein some question not about WMD-that was the smoke screen. I would have asked him about the Iran contra deals and how that connected to the Bush family.

[AntiFascist]

8. Great point blm....

who knew that Clinton and Foster (with the help of the NSA) introduced a worldwide tool of corruption for the Shadow Government serving the MIC elites.

[flashl]

5. K&R n/t

[havocmom]

6. Haves and Don't Counts

yep it is getting like an old Star Trek episode, the cloud city dwellers and the miners below making it all possible but living in near neolithic ghettos.

edit for typo

[blm]

9. During his presidency, GHWBush mentioned New World Order over 40 times

in various speeches and statements, yet today anyone who brings it up along with the record of its implementation is usually accused of being a fantasist.

[havocmom]

10. Just call me Cassandra. Been trying to get people to see the truth since 1980

No body wants to face the realities. Even as they slide into personal and cultural poverty, no body believes what is so clear to a few.

They did try to medicate me into their club once. It didn't take.

[MsLeopard]

28. Lately, I've been thinking it's more like

the old Star Trek episode where the planet had developed its society according to Mafia doctrine, having found an book or movie or something showing a thriving "civilizaton" run by mob bosses and thugs. I watched it as a child and now live it as an adult.

[Echo In Light]

7. K&R

[MisterP]

11. it's PLANTATION society! each country is devoted to a few cash crops at the expense of food crops,

capital is highly mobile between nations, poor individuals and nations get actively poorer, and the Golden Calves of free trade and markets let food pour out of famine areas à la 1870s and 90s India!

[Leopolds Ghost]

38. "Darwin's Nightmare" talks about this. Good movie... see it. n/t

[kaybea]

67. Yes. The Company Store analogy works too. . . As does the

white Republican sharecropper mentality, which is hat-in-hand, bowing and scraping and saying, "As long as there's someone below me, Boss, someone I can kick around, I'll be happy with scraps."

It's trickle-down incarnate, from economics to social heirarchy. Shit rolls downhill.

[BeHereNow]

12. Ah... a drink of truth water in the desert of delusions... Recommended.

Thanks for posting this Kpete.
It always gives me hope to come across some
TRUTH on DU.

BHN:thumbsup: :hi: :hug:

[Richard Steele]

13. K&R

[Donk Yore]

14. bookmarked your link

From my mind to someones words and typing fingertips.

[earth mom]

15. How many of us have been warning people here on DU of this?

Glad to see it posted by someone that DU respects so much. Thank you! :thumbsup:

[Swamp Rat]

16. NeoGore is the One

[Octafish]

17. The best slave doesn't realize he is one.

The World's New Feudalism.

Rats. Looks like I'm a sub-peasant.

[Deja Q]

35. Well, if everybody here feels that way, why do nothing more than moan?

Maybe the issue is, at worst, overrated. I mean, there must be a good reason why people who say there's a problem don't do anything like even offer a solution, regardless how asinine...

This thread should be in GD-P...

[bvar22]

51. There is only one REAL social solution:

It is occurring in South America, but won't happen here in my lifetime.

There is a personal solution:
Stop contributing to the problem.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=246x5729


Edited to add:
After 2004, I became concerned that working within the current system to produce any real change was futile. In fact, it was counterproductive.

2006 confirmed my fears.
There is no longer an avenue within the Democratic Party to get REAL Progressives elected to positions of power within the Party.

[druidity33]

65. my personal solutions

that i think could help any community, here they are:


-Create a regional Resource guide. Who are the producers in your area? The workers? Identify the needs and skills of neighbors.

-Investigate creating a Local currency. EF Schumacher Society is a good source of info here. http://www.schumachersociety.org /

-Or consider starting a Time Bank in your area. Time Dollars is a tested and exciting way of valuing members of a community and bringing them together. http://www.timebanks.org /

-Insulate your home! Get a free energy audit from your utility company and take advantage of any and all rebates and subsidized programs to install solar panels, upgrade insulation, make Energy Star, etc.

-Reduce Consumption! Use a laundry line. Use power strips. Use CFLs. Practice sharing. Carpool. Walk or ride a bike or take a bus when you can. Whittle a stick on your porch instead of turning on the TV.

-Volunteer at a farm nearby! start your own garden. join a community garden.

-Start building cold-frames (i've grown winter Kale in 2 feet of snow)!

-Be a seed-saver! Know your local foragable greens! (dandelion, purslane, chickweed, early poke, etc)

-Find the nut trees in your area, compete with the squirrels (they're taking over the parks anyway)!

-Test your soil... plant appropriate (native) berry bushes and fruit trees in abundance.

I've harvested beach plum, black cap raspberry, salmonberry, mulberry, blackberry, blueberry, strawberry, black walnut, elderberry, sour cherry... all in the wilds of Western Massachusetts. And the plants that grow naturally in their own domain are much more power packed with flavor and nutrients. Yeah, it's work. But it's fun work... and you get to know your local eco-systems real well. I'm compiling my own regional resource guide... it will be a years long project for me and my child (she's six now)... but she'll know plants and will get wilderness training, and she loves the heck out of picking wild berries and fruits. Not all food needs to come from the store.



If we all try to act like "survivalists" we won't survive. We will need cooperation, not competition in order to rebuild after the fall.


as an afterthought
Some good books:

In the Absence of the Sacred by Jerry Mander
Cradle to Cradle by McDonough/Braungart
The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry
Dwellers in the Land by Kirkpatrick Sale
Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language by Chris Alexander
Walden Two by BF Skinner
No More Throw-Away People by Edgar Cahn
Money by Tom Greco
Mortgage Free by Rob Roy
Small is Beautiful by EF Schumacher
Gaviotas by Alan Weisman



I'm going to be WORKING for local candidates this cycle. I'll vote for the Dem nominee, but without Edwards or Kooch as the Front-runner, my heart just isn't in it.

:shrug:

[wolfgangmo]

73. HypnoToad - you have them right where you want them...

...standing behind you with your pants around your ankles. Enjoy the ride.

As for the rest of us, what makes you assume that we are not doing something about it? Or are you really only speaking for yourself?

Speaking for myself and my wife we are setting up clinics that offer low cost medical care for those the system has forgotten in America. We aren't getting rich doing it, but we aren't starving. I volunteer for progressive candidates and we support worthwhile causes when we can. There is an alternative economy in America which can be tapped into. We barter before buying and recycle and reuse before replacing.

Pray tell, sir what, if anything, are you doing for the betterment of your fellow citizens? Or is the problem that you have abdicated your citizenship and only consider yourself a taxpayer these days?

Lead, follow, or get out of the way. But don't stand on the sidelines and heckle those of us who are doing something.

[soothsayer]

37. eh, we've still got the master-slave dialectic working for us

They're lost without us to do their dirty work!

[Fiendish Thingy]

18. kick for one of the most depressing, but accurate and articulate essays ever! n/t

[jonnyra]

19. Two Words...

NAILED IT!

[TexasObserver]

20. "Keep the masses distracted, fearful, brainwashed, insecure"

Indeed.

I call it HERDING.

Right now it is happening as the recession becomes apparent. You can't let the lower classes become too comfortable, too adjusted to having homes, cars, jobs and extra money. No, they have to be slapped down every 7-15 years, so they don't get too uppity. Squeeze out their savings, and make them happy just to have a job, any job.

Yeah, I'm kind of perma-pissed about it.

[biermeister]

21. has anyone here read

Dr John Coleman's Conspirator's Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300?

It was recently recommended to me and I found it very interesting. I think it's out of print but I was able to get a used copy. Even used it was $30

pdd 51- the end is near

[Orsino]

22. Systems integrated to serve upper-class elites and the corporate state?

It'd be awful if that happened.

[bluerum]

24. Excellent essay - I have some additional observations that extend this line of thought.

The ruling classes, or business classes, for I think that they are for the most part the same group of people, use fear as their primary weapon for keeping the workforce under control. Fear of death, poverty, starvation, social stigma, lack of an i-phone or college education. Certainly we have all been indoctrinated to have our own personalized fears, but the ruling classes have learned that one of the ways to control the masses is through fear. The lure of desire, money, power, religion, drugs and fame are also popular means of control.

But the ruling classes have fears as well - the fear that they will lose their control over the masses. The fear that at some point they will be stripped of their power and wealth and be forced to see themselves for the greedy, unhappy, corrupt beings that they are. They need their piles of money and wealth to maintain their lies and illusions. They are convinced that they are somehow more worthy, inherently more deserving of good fortune than the masses. They are compelled to perpetuate the class structures that support their social illusions.

Our electoral process is a sham because our candidates are tools of this social structure. All revolutionary candidates are culled from the electoral process quickly and early on. They are marginalized by being driven from debates and not given television or radio time. People don't know about them, what they stand for or what they have to offer. This how the ruling classes continue to rule. By imposing the illusion that a challenge to the status quo is unpopular and something to fear and loathe. Because that is their greatest fear.

[salinen]

55. Why would the ruling class fear losing control?

They've always had it. The power and money they have is insulated and cannot be diminished because the government is the board of directors that prevents them from being exposed.

[wolfgangmo]

74. The rich have always had power but they do lose it.

When the barbarians invaded Rome, when the sun king lost his head to Dr. Guillotine. There are many examples, but you will notice a thread running through each example.

When the poor stand up and take what the rich have it has usually been at the point of a knife. The rich fear their loss of control for the simple reason that they usually lose their lives at the same time. Is it any surprise that the public teaching of history in America is a joke.

There are lessons we can and should learn from history. This is one of them. Now go home and sharpen your pitchforks.

[The Backlash Cometh]

25. That's precisely correct.

It's definitely a feudal system. But the modern lords are vulnerable, because what keeps them in power are secret alliances. It is not as overt as in the early centuries. So, you expose their secrets and you take away their advantage.

[soothsayer]

41. you can't expose them without being called a nutty conspiracy theorist

[The Backlash Cometh]

53. We certainly have our work cut out for us.

[baldguy]

26. When the RW talks about an "ownership society" this is what they mean.

And they think its a GOOD thing.

[jonnyra]

29. It is no coincedence

that at the same time Bush started referring to this "ownership society", lenders were ready with "creative" financing schemes to con people into becoming part of this exciting new society. When you control the message you control the masses and this criminal administration has played that card better than any before it.

[lunatica]

30. I think this feudal system is as old as the hills

But in many ways the growing awareness of it is new, and that changes everything. And it's not about whether one is part of the elite or of the slave class that matters as much as how people start to perceive reality. When the insanity of it starts to register in people's awareness, as I think it is (as shown by threads like this one)then the system starts to break down because it takes all sides to maintain the illusion. I wonder though what the response to such an awakening might be. More insanity through the transfer of power from one side to another which would just keep the system going? Or will we have enough imagination and vision to end the feudal class system. Would we leave it to chance, hoping for the best of all possible worlds, or would it take some real thought and planning?

I guess my point is, so we know we're living in a cage. Now what?

[RadioactiveCarrot]

34. Start rattling the cage.

Realization starts with you.
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, howl like a wolf to anyone and everyone who will listen, the more who know, and the more that come to the realization and awaken to the current realities of the present, is one more they have to worry about. Spread the knowledge. :D
And the ones at the top sure do hate economic serfs with knowledge.

[lisainmilo]

31. K&R

Yes, you nailed it!

[MetaTrope]

32. Another parallel: The effort to make long-distance travel as difficult as possible

I read of all the roadblocks Homeland Security is attempting to put up on air travel, and the continuing evisceration of passenger rail service, and recall the lines from JABBERWOCKY:

"When I was in Muckley the other day--"

"Muckley? That's a ways."

"Two miles or more, easy."

"Gosh, I'd like to travel someday."

[jeanruss]

33. Iran's cable cut

Internet has been totally cut off to Iran. Are we going to war against Iran? Why is no one reporting this?

[NYC]

69. 3 cables cut in 3 days.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7222536.stm

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[Liberal Dose]

36. Growing up in Western PA, I was taught in 6th grade social studies

that Republicans were anti-middle class, wanting to reduce us to the very very rich and the very very poor. It was further depicted in a cartoon drawing on the wall of the classroom. I remember wondering how anyone could want to be a Republican. Their war on the middle class is very real, and they are winning.

:hi:

[Deja Q]

39. And yet they are building up the middle classes in India and China...

No H1B is being forced here...

MSN has a huge series of articles pointing out China's 1.3 billion consumers... China itself had announced a couple years ago they have more than 1/3rd their population out of poverty (400,000)... that's easily half a billion people by now...

I'm no economist, but if their economies are booming, how aren't the workers benefiting - much less wanting to learn and be more? That's what optimism gives people.

[earth mom]

59. Yes because they are consumers they can exploit for MUCH MORE PROFIT. nt

[TheMadMonk]

68. Because the Republican rhetoric has a way of speaking to...

...the greedy little black duck(coward) that resides in far too many of us who can't otherwise be bought/swayed with issues of hate (colour/religion/sex & or orientation/whatever).

We go along because there's something in it for us, even if it's only an illusion. We may not be republicans, but we can be persuaded to listen. Even if only for a moment. It can be hard to think of the bigger picture if an immediate personal gain is dangled like a carrot under our noses.

When the political climate shifts, we overlook/excuse characteristics and performances in our own, that earned our near universal condemnation in theirs, in order to claim any sort of victory at all.

[AzDar]

40. Jeebus.

:kick:

[Deja Q]

42. I thought "peak oil" was going to reduce the world to that state?

[Leopolds Ghost]

46. Why the scare quotes?

Oil is already past peak and the price of oil will continue to climb.

Unlike diamonds and gold, there is no vast stockpile of oil thsat is kept
off the market in order to stabilize the price and keep people from
noticing that the quahntities left in the ground are steadily diminishing.

The purpose of corporate feudalism is the same as the purpose of the
western Roman bankruptcy act, to prepare the ruling classes for future
economic shocks resulting from oil famine, etc. It worked for Rome,
that's why they authorized serfdom by statute.

[soothsayer]

43. Indentured servitude is going to make a comeback. Just watch. You won't be able

to vote unless you own property. Watch, too, for the non-chattel mortgage. It's coming!

[Leopolds Ghost]

47. I hope you weren't being facetious because these things are already here.

** My extremely liberal home town has had a long running dispute between tenants and homeowners where the Harvard liberal elected officials came down on the side of homeowners, saying that they were taxpaying citizens and their vote was more important because they owned property in the neighborhood. In fact, the US was founded on property restrictions.

** Indentured serrvitude already exists in America. I know one of them. She is H1-B. She is not allowed to leave her current employer; he is her sponsor and in fact she must live in his house to do her job. The program HypnoToad says has produced so much "hope" for the people of India and China (that live in a mix of vast hand-built shantytowns unapproved by the government and subject to condemnation at any time, so Western developers can throw up dreary Stalinist apartment blocks built to Western US building code.)

** See the late Roman bankruptcy reform bill that introduced the concept of Serfdom to Roman Europe.

[malaise]

44. Put simply what exists today

is capitalism against democracy. The only say the majority of people have is to elect the representative of the special interests selected by a conglomerate of media owned by said special interests. Even this process is so corrupt that the media can declare the winner (2000) and then have the Supreme Court back them up. All laws apply only to the poor and unrepresented.

It's a fucking mess, but people do eventually wake up.

[Leopolds Ghost]

45. The Medieval Era did not need feudalism. It was invented.

Do you knoew how serfdom came about?

The late Roman Empire, desperate for a farm policy to keep people on their farms and keep rural areas from emptying out as people crowded into vast urban slums, passed a LAW which was never overturned (because the Empire went out of existence before it could be.)

The law was -- get this -- a BANKRUPTCY ACT.

It allowed landowners to loan money to tenants at high interest rates and
in return, tenants were not allowed to forgive past debts. Instead, they
were bound to their land and their land became forfeit, property of the
State, who dispensed control over the title to favored investors (fiefs).

The result was a massive infusion of debt-based cash which the Empire used
to hire German mercenaries to fight off the Vandals and Huns. The German
mercenaries, whose families were relentlessly mistreated in border shanty
towns, turned around with the money and overthrew their generals,
inheriting title and land law from the Romans via church courts.

Sound Familiar?

Only in Germanic areas such as England and Germany was this moderated
somewhat by the ability of freeholders to farm un-enclosed land (known
as the "commons") under tribal (common) law.

When the aristocracy in Britain enclosed the common peasant land and
privatized it, it caused the English Civil War which led to the rise
of the Puritans and Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange (who invented
the concept of the stock market as a way to make money outside of the
feudal system.) Oliver Cromwell, an early Lenin, was known for running
through King's men who were sent to fence off common property.

The Irish Potato famine happened during a time when Ireland was a
net exporter of food. But 100% of the land, which was previously
common land under title to the Irish lords, was privatized and given
to British earls who used it as plantation land, allowing the Irish
tenant farmers to grow only potatos for their personal consumption.

Similarly in Lake Victoria, Africa, a massive famine is occurring
because all the fish have been eaten by Western factory-fish which
are raised for export. The locals can afford to eat only the heads,
and the returning planes are filled with weapons and machetes
(see "Darwins Nightmare".)

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

48. K & R. I appreciate hanging out in a place where truth eventually rises to the top.

:kick:

[Jed Dilligan]

49. Medieval society was technologically advanced

The technology, unfortunately, was mostly militaristic.

[Raster]

50. The parallel with today is striking. Our society is amazingly technologically advanced.

Unfortunately, most of that technology serves the Military Industrial Complex ("MIC") or as I like to call it, "The Machine."

[Jed Dilligan]

52. The Enlightenment French are our Greeks,

The 19th century English our Romans. It seems that Western history is just as cyclical as Chinese history--we just haven't been around long enough to notice.

[Raster]

54. I agree. Humanity in general has not learned to identify our destructive cycles...

and learned to escape them. The next 50 years will decide whether humanity as we know it continues to exist or becomes a minor secondary species.

[CrispyQ]

56. Not to overshadow this excellent article, but

in his book "We the People: A Call to Take Back America" Thom Hartmann covers America's slide into 21st century feudalism nicely. He states:

"...when the wealthiest in a society take over government and then weaken it so it no longer can represent the interests of the people, the transition has begun into a new era of feudalism. Whether the agent of power and wealth that takes the place of government is a local baron, lord, king, or corporation, if it has greater power in the lives of individuals than does a representative government, the culture has dissolved into feudalism.

"It doesn't mean the end of government, but instead, the subordination of government to the interests of the feudal lords. The transition from a governmental society to a feudal one is marked by the rapid accumulation of power and wealth in a few hands with a corresponding reduction in the power and responsibilities of government.

"Once the rich and powerful gain control of the government, they turn it upon itself, usually first eliminating its taxation process as it applies to themselves."



"We the People: A Call to Take Back America" by Thom Hartmann

http://www.amazon.com/We-People-Call-Take-America/dp/1882109384/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201975267&sr=8-1

This is an excellent book -- sort of a civics class refreshers class but with topics I know weren't covered in my 5th grade civics class, such as our Commons, corporate personhood & more. It's written in a comic book fashion, so it's a quick read. Great for adults & children alike!

Buy a copy & have your entire family read it. Buy one for friends & family. Besides the pocket Constitution, I have not given out more copies of a book than this one.

Free excerpts here: http://www.we-the-people-book.com/main/free_excerpt.htm

The Loss of the Commons is especially good.

[femrap]

57. Thanks, kpete for

posting this....a real eye opener. All of the activism is tiring and inefficient.

I wish progressive people wouldn't buy items Made in China....I haven't since 1989 except for an alarm clock, a fireplace lighter, and xmas lights. I have been on a Consumer Strike for quite a while...just buy food and personal necessities like soap, shampoo, etc. If I do buy, I like to go to the locally owned shops...but that is getting difficult.

Put your $$$$ where your soul/heart is!

[bbgrunt]

58. the matrix is real. k and r.

[pleah]

60. "the vast majority of people are in denial" DING!

[cloudythescribbler]

61. Add to these other trends (eg ecocide) and it's WORSE -- read W hitman's "Respondez! Respondez!"

If someone could figure out WHERE on the web that poem is, I could post it

The triumph of Tory Horseshit -- rightwing elite rule with a mask of sheer irrationalism & supposed rock n roll.

[Forrest Greene]

62. The Work Of But A Moment

http://www.bartleby.com/142/320.html>

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

320. Respondez!


RESPONDEZ! Respondez!
(The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled beyond recall;)
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?
Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles; 5
Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which was behind advance to the front and speak;
Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions!
Let the old propositions be postponed!
Let faces and theories be turn’d inside out! let meanings be freely criminal, as well as results!
Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery! 10
Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your destination?)
Let men and women be mock’d with bodies and mock’d with Souls!
Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass stillborn to other spheres!
Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other spheres!
Let contradictions prevail! let one thing contradict another! and let one line of my poems contradict another! 15
Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands! let their tongues be broken! let their eyes be discouraged! let none descend into their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love!
(Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private corruption!
Smother’d in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, mountain-high;
Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean’s waves around and upon you, O my days! my lands!
For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of the war, have purified the atmosphere;) 20
—Let the theory of America still be management, caste, comparison! (Say! what other theory would you?)
Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the rest! (Say! why shall they not lead you?)
Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! let the days be darker than the nights! let slumber bring less slumber than waking time brings!
Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all made!
Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from the heart of the old man! and let the heart of the old man be exiled from that of the young man! 25
Let the sun and moon go! let scenery take the applause of the audience! let there be apathy under the stars!
Let freedom prove no man’s inalienable right! every one who can tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his satisfaction!
Let none but infidels be countenanced!
Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate, greed, indecency, impotence, lust, be taken for granted above all! let writers, judges, governments, households, religions, philosophies, take such for granted above all!
Let the worst men beget children out of the worst women! 30
Let the priest still play at immortality!
Let death be inaugurated!
Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists, moralists, lawyers, and learn’d and polite persons!
Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!
Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee—let the mudfish, the lobster, the mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish—let these, and the like of these, be put on a perfect equality with man and woman! 35
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses of those who have died of the most filthy of diseases!
Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none but fools!
Let men among themselves talk and think forever obscenely of women! and let women among themselves talk and think obscenely of men!
Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public, naked, monthly, at the peril of our lives! let our bodies be freely handled and examined by whoever chooses!
Let nothing but copies at second hand be permitted to exist upon the earth! 40
Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth be mention’d the name of God!
Let there be no God!
Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom, authority, precedents, pallor, dyspepsia, smut, ignorance, unbelief!
Let judges and criminals be transposed! let the prison-keepers be put in prison! let those that were prisoners take the keys! Say! why might they not just as well be transposed?)
Let the slaves be masters! let the masters become slaves! 45
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling! let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands!
Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the American, and the Australian, go armed against the murderous stealthiness of each other! let them sleep armed! let none believe in good will!
Let there be no unfashionable wisdom! let such be scorn’d and derided off from the earth!
Let a floating cloud in the sky—let a wave of the sea—let growing mint, spinach, onions, tomatoes—let these be exhibited as shows, at a great price for admission!
Let all the men of These States stand aside for a few smouchers! let the few seize on what they choose! let the rest gawk, giggle, starve, obey! 50
Let shadows be furnish’d with genitals! let substances be deprived of their genitals!
Let there be wealthy and immense cities—but still through any of them, not a single poet, savior, knower, lover!
Let the infidels of These States laugh all faith away!
If one man be found who has faith, let the rest set upon him!
Let them affright faith! let them destroy the power of breeding faith! 55
Let the she-harlots and the he-harlots be prudent! let them dance on, while seeming lasts! (O seeming! seeming! seeming!)
Let the preachers recite creeds! let them still teach only what they have been taught!
Let insanity still have charge of sanity!
Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds!
Let the daub’d portraits of heroes supersede heroes! 60
Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself!
Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptive and genteel persons!
Let the white person again tread the black person under his heel! (Say! which is trodden under heel, after all?)
Let the reflections of the things of the world be studied in mirrors! let the things themselves still continue unstudied!
Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself! 65
Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself!
(What real happiness have you had one single hour through your whole life?)
Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitless years of death! (What do you suppose death will do, then?)

[earth mom]

64. From the article: Three strategies to restore power to the people:

There are no easy paths to restore power to the people. But here are three strategies worth considering.

First, the real power of the masses is as consumers, not as voters, workers, activists, or Internet users. Weakened unions, globalization, technology, and illegal immigration have sapped the power of workers. National economies, especially the US, depend on consumers. Suspensions in discretionary consumer spending used as a political weapon could force reforms. But curbing personal spending and saving money has become a rare form of civil disobedience. Consumers buy stuff when they want it, not when they can afford it. Rulers have replaced chains with debt and no political leader in a very long time has championed economic rebellion.

Second, because they are more a tool of tyranny than rebellion, the masses should stop giving credibility and legitimacy to faux democracies by boycotting elections. Plutocrats cleverly equate patriotism and good citizenship with voting while at the same time ensuring that no genuine change agents can succeed even if elected. All election results can be subverted by the forces of corruption. Those promising change, like Barack Obama, do not pose a lethal threat to forces of evil and corruption. Sadly, refusing to vote in corrupt political systems is another worthy but unpopular form of civil disobedience. The compulsion to vote is a political narcotic that sustains democratic tyranny.

Third, people must seek forms of direct democracy that give them political power. National ballot measures and initiatives are needed to make laws, impose spending mandates and recall elected officials. A most important tool is constitutional conventions outside the control of status quo preservationists to obtain systemic reforms that governments will never provide, as explained for the US at www.foavc.org. No greater example of ruling class power exists than the absence of massive public demands for using what the Founders gave Americans in Article V: the convention option to circumvent and fix the federal government that – amazingly – has never been used, and that no presidential candidate has supported, including constitutional champion Ron Raul.

[porkrind]

66. K&R!!!

Excellent post; spot on!

[Zorra]

70. An essay relative to the OP:

The global power of the financial centers is so great, that they can afford not to worry about the political tendency of those who hold power in a nation, if the economic program (in other words, the role that nation has in the global economic megaprogram) remains unaltered. The financial disciplines impose themselves upon the different colors of the world political spectrum in regards to the government of any nation. The great world power can tolerate a leftist government in any part of the world, as long as the government does not take measures that go against the needs of the world financial centers. But in no way will it tolerate that an alternative economic, political and social organization consolidate. For the megapolitics, the national politics are dwarfed and submit to the dictates of the financial centers. It will be this way until the dwarfs rebel . .

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

From an old essay by Subcomandante Marcos.

[I work for workers]

71. LOL @ the Alex Jones stuff.

Has anyone else watched Endgame? Google video it for more NWO fun.

[AlertLurker]

72. Droits de Seigneur, anyone? Primae Noctis?