Have you ever seen a webpage, thread, or post about how some such thing is a "conspiracy?" I'm not saying that there aren't kernels of truth in statements such as those, but I don't know that it's helpful to state such things in such a fantastical, dramatic way. First of all, it sounds like you are selling something. If people are presented with facts and reassured against paralyzing emotions, they will draw their own conclusions and then *really* own those beliefs.
OTOH, something like this I feel can paralyze people who read it and don't know what to make of it or how to react. I noticed this with "Farenheit 911". Perfectly reasonable people would enter into this state where they were suspended between believing that Bush was part of this giant conspiracy to "get us", or Michael Moore was a completely full of shit con man. I'm sure they are back to 8 to 5 wage slavery marking time until they are dead.
We are socialized to internalize the belief that the "people on top" are better than us. Better looking, more popular, stronger, faster, and that all important human characteristic of smarter! Something like this piece doesn't really challenge that notion. It just adds "more evil" to the list of things they do better than us. Personally, I think it is hogwash.
To read some of the things people say (even Anarchists and other radicals), you would think that "the powers that be" were so brilliant, so deceptive, so ultimately in control that little to nothing could be done about it. If that were the case, then the fact that such a message even appears on "their" internet means they must have crafted that, too! OMG, I should turn off my computer right now and go fill out an application to be a security guard at my local Bank of America before the Thought Police find out!
I don't buy it. These people are not better and certainly not smarter than other people. I once heard Einstein made a crack about compounding interest being the most powerful force in the universe. These people had a little bit more than the rest of us a long time ago and over time and generations it has snowballed. The Fed, the Treasury, the OMB, they can't figure out this financial mess even with the power to make money out of thin air and regulate what people do under penalty of the law. Can you imagine these people trying to feed three kids between a disability check, AFDC, food stamps, and a late child support payment? But we scapegoat the "welfare mother" and we act like these others are some kind of gods walking amongst us.
They're the same jerks as the rest of us. I bet Ben Bernanke gives out some of those blankets with the sleeves for Xmas.
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This is a really excellent point about crediting those on top and keeping them there. It's interesting to think about how within language (at least in radical communitities) we are granting our oppressors a sort of pat on the back, a general "good job" for getting there, staying there, and so obviously doing it "better than us". When in reality we should be thinking beyond the fact of whoever is on top is better than whoever is on bottom and need to be critically thinking about why we still use these dynamics, why someone alwasy has to be better/worse, and how we can step outside of this and take the almost celebrity-esque thinking out of our brains.
ReplyDeleteidk...just some thoughts :)