“We have acclimated well to our conditioning” - Zerowedgie

[Zenaan Harkness]

Top posting FTW YeaH BaBy, yEAh!  (Please don't top post.)

Who holds back from speaking the truth about the system subjugating
us with debt and fear, for the possibility of some small temporary
benefit, or some longer, yet still pathetically materialistic
"benefit"?

Who can even consider whether or not they are doing this themselves?


(Trigger warning, the following contains some Trump bashing, though
 in context of the system of which he is a product (as are, one could
 dare say, most of us), of he and Hillary a certain case could
 perchance be made that he was the least worst option of the
 dichotomy of two which dichotomy is consistently presented to us by
 "Democracy".)



We Prefer Our Sociopaths Well Dressed and Spoken
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-22/we-prefer-our-sociopaths-well-dressed-and-spoken

 …Absent the passage of memory dulling time, how does one forget or
 actively deny a persistent reality that insists on making its
 presence known? How do we ignore an ugly truth, a clear and present
 existence that doesn’t fade away into the ether?

 Simple! We call it something else, thereby putting lipstick on a
 pig.


 …From a socioeconomic point of view no one wishes to address, let
 along even admit, the country is run by embedded (like tics)
 powerful moneyed special interests that do not have our best
 interests at heart. Or more accurately, whose only interest in us is
 their desire for us to remain productive and under control in
 exactly the same way plantation owners of the past viewed their
 slaves.

 Edmund Burke is purported to have said “The only thing necessary for
 the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The art of
 subjugation (let’s call it seduction to make it easier to swallow)
 is to convince the object of our attention not to resist our
 advances. This is most effectively done by convincing the resident
 population they are homogeneous, yet alone and powerless. As in you
 can’t fight city hall.

 Or better yet, to convince us there’s something in it for us (the
 mafia call it getting a taste) if we’d just go along to get along.
 The field slaves would rather be promoted to kitchen duty while the
 kitchen slaves would prefer an upgrade to domestic help or even the
 butler or handmaid.

 Sun Tzu wrote “Engage people with what they expect; it is what they
 are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them
 into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while
 you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot
 anticipate.” The art of propaganda, in America concocted, distorted
 and repeated as mainstream media nonsense, is to confirm prior
 beliefs while constructing new or follow on narratives.

 Ultimately it all comes down to a simple and unassailable fact, at
 least if viewed logically and dispassionately. In an environment
 ruled by sociopaths, eventually one either becomes one or is
 controlled by one. Stress a society to the point where resources are
 spread too thin and conditions become increasingly harsh and the
 subdued and suppressed begin to turn on one another. This is the
 ultimate utility, at least for the sociopaths and their enabling
 minions, of a two party political system.

 Pick a side, any side, just as long as you pick. Freedom of choice
 and all that! It’s all right there in the Constitution and the Bill
 of Rights. At least that’s what we have been taught to believe. In
 reality, long ago the sociopath controllers realized we must consent
 to our cognitive control if we are to be our most productive.

 Regardless of our (deftly stage managed) point of view, either
 you’re with us or you’re against us. Everything is presented as
 black and white in a decidedly grayish world. And it really doesn’t
 matter if you choose black or white, just as long as you are given,
 and accept, the illusion of choice.

 Of course, a little bit of wiggle room is offered to allow us to
 think it’s our decision to swallow. Just as long as we stay safely
 within the confines of the cattle chute, big brother will not come
 knocking on our front door. That pleasure is reserved for
 malcontents, radicals and non conformists. You’re not one of those,
 are you?

 If this view appears excessively harsh, unfair or simply wrong, may
 I gently suggest we have acclimated well to our conditioning. This
 is not to say we are treated as poorly or as harshly as slaves were
 two hundred years ago. At least not yet. Our improved standard of
 living in many ways goes a long way towards enabling our denial of
 the socioeconomic reality unfolding before us.

 Our capacity for denial is only exceeded by our capacity to endure
 hardship. Come to think of it, in practice both capacities are one
 and the same.

 Just because we can, and do, engage in mindless consumption of
 material, media and mind numbing propaganda doesn’t mean we are free
 in any significant sense of the word. Then again, after many
 generations of cumulative socioeconomic conditioning, the vast
 majority of “We the People” prefer -not- to be free in any literal
 or figurative sense.

 The prevailing sense of entitlement has been deliberately
 conditioned into the unwashed masses. Thankfully the elite were born
 into it. Once we become dependent upon the system for our
 entitlements, we will support any system that feeds us our keep.

 Emphasis on ANY.

 In a nut shell, we want our cake and eat too. And admittedly, for
 several decades it appeared we actually could. The illusion of
 endless upward mobility and material goods, as well as the money to
 purchase them, was indelibly etched into the American psyche as
 proof of our manifest destiny and imperial right.

 But the party is now over, at least for the middle class, and the
 piper is demanding his due. So when the bottomless wine bottle
 begins to empty, what does the ruling class do? Easy, they ramp up
 the propaganda meme stream while pursuing an escalating divide and
 conquer domestic suppression campaign, all while keeping the façade
 minimally maintained. One must keep up appearances after all.

 Dress up the manikin to appear real while repeatedly telling us it
 is real, as well as our only choice, and soon enough we will accept
 what we are told as truth.


 …Regardless of what we believe it might have been several hundred
 years ago, for the last fifty years our education system is little
 more than a finely tuned propaganda and conditioning machine
 stamping out proper thinking corporate widgets.

 Ever wonder why our children must be force fed at least six years of
 history, math and social studies, yet they are never introduced to
 real world tasks such as balancing a checkbook, preparing a budget,
 navigating legal documents, negotiating a deal or even offered a
 passing introduction to critical thinking?

 Our job is to do and die, not to question why.


 …Trump is the polar opposite of the smooth and polished Obama and
 people don’t like their leaders raw and vulgar. It tends to ruin the
 illusion of a beneficent leader devoted to his or her sworn duty to
 the people.

 …A confidence game depends upon artificially induced confidence to
 elicit consent from the conned. And the consent is almost always
 gained by convincing the conned they will receive an unearned gain
 in exchange for their consent. In other words, the con plays off the
 conned person’s greed and vice.

 Other more complicated cons (such as those played by the sociopath
 powers that be) may introduce fear and anger into the equation.
 Regardless of the leverage applied, the conned plays an integral
 part in the con. While we helpfully label the conned as an ego
 soothing victim of a crime, the word ‘victim’ begs the question of
 what exactly is a victim if the victim played into, and along with,
 the overall con.

 Maybe we should say we were seduced. You know, change the name to
 make it more palatable. It sounds so much better thinking we were
 compelled beyond our control by an irresistible force to give our
 consent.

 There is an implicit and (usually) unspoken agreement between those
 running the con and those taken by the con which promises the conned
 will be rewarded for his, her or their participation. And the word
 rewarded doesn’t necessarily mean receiving a gain. The reward could
 actually mitigate or remove an already expected or threatened loss,
 real or imaginary.

 If we were to give those last few sentences some deeper thought, the
 reader might begin to understand how governments, multinational
 corporations and even so-called nonprofit organizations, controlled
 by a few key sociopaths, manipulate our artificially inflated fears
 along with our dreams (aka the carrot and the stick) to induce
 consent, or at least no resistance, to their destructive (and
 profitable) socioeconomic policies.

 Well, more accurately, destructive to the many and rewarding to the
 few. I don’t see Boeing, Raytheon or McDonnell Douglas getting too
 worked up when Trump fires off another round of cruise missiles at
 some second, soon to be third, world country. And neither do the
 majority who work for those companies. It’s not nice to bite the
 hand that feeds you. Dependency has a way of enabling our denial.

 Above all else, America is in the business of destruction and
 construction, though not necessarily in that order. Do I really need
 to make a list of all the different ways the wealthy and powerful
 benefit while the many pay the bills and do the dying?



On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 12:03:18PM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> So this is perhaps a tough question for folks round here :D
> 
> Well, at least for the statists.
> 
> This question - which should be master, individual or state, is posed
> as a dichotomy, as though it's one or the other.
> 
> Any anarchist worth his salt is firmly on the side of the individual,
> and so in these quarters a statist stands out like Brennan
> photographing Hillary giving Obama a golden shower. (Ugh, damn!
> Strike that thought already‼)
> 
> Thankfully Zerowedgie firmly observes the third aspect of the trinity
> in this realm - the middle ground:
> 
> 
>    STATE        MIDDLE         INDIVIDUAL
> 
>  ∙ Plato        Alexander      Aristotle
>    Republic    “The Great”
> 
>  ∙ Maoists      Confucian      Taoists
> 
> 
> In the face of this thought, that which arose for me personally a few
> years ago as "an alternative noun/label for anarchy" namely "direct
> democracy" appears now to be the middle ground - that balance
> between:
> 
>  ∙ the very real potential chaos of anarchy, and
>  
>  ∙ the very real potential crystalline death of most of that which
>    makes life worth living, in the extreme conformity and death of
>    the individual, when the state is taken to its limit.
> 
> Notwithstanding the (correct as it is) appearance of direct democracy
> as a form of individualism, direct democracy also be a recognition of
> both the tribal nature of individuals and the consequent inherent
> need for us to communicate in respect of our apparent disagreements
> and possibly find resolutions, thus:
> 
>  ∙ the state    direct democracy    anarchy/ism
> 
> 
> Perhaps it might be useful to consider the 'problems' at the extreme:
> 
>  - Can we say that the particular absolute authority and power which
>    is inherent and existent within the individual, ought or must
>    NOT EVER
>    be (involuntarily or voluntarily for that matter) surrendered to
>    the authority and power of the family, tribe or "state" etc?
> 
>  - Can we say that the particular absolute authority and power which
>    is inherent and existent within the individual, ought or must
>    ALWAYS
>    be (involuntarily or voluntarily for that matter) surrendered to
>    the authority and power of the family, tribe or "state" etc?
> 
> 
> Dichotomies eh?
> 
> Perhaps the middle ground, the third principle forming the reality of
> this particular trinity, could be useful after all?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> State Or Individual?
> https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-22/state-or-individual
>