Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Decline, Decay, Denial, Delusion & Despair

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Decline, Decay, Denial, Delusion & Despair

Click here to access article by JimQ from Washington's Blog.

This is quite an extended rant, but it is a well informed and articulated rant about what a system has done to a nation. Unfortunately, the author can't quite go that extra step to connect the growing American dystopia to a system--capitalism.

What he and some other sensitive souls are witnessing here in the "land of the free, and the home of the brave" is the end game of capitalism in which a few "own" everything--just like in the game of Monopoly. He appears to mock those who look at this problem in system terms: only "narrow minded ideologues" do that. I think what he fails to understand is that he, too, has been subject to indoctrination by the oligarchs and their agents to avoid any questioning of the system. The author ends up blaming everyone, and this seems to me to be a far too easy way to deal with the problem.

Narrow minded ideologues want a simple answer to a complex interaction of generational, cultural, economic, political, and criminal factors that have conspired to put the country into a predicament that, at this point, will inevitably lead to economic collapse. The truth is the American people have learned to love their servitude. They have willfully chosen ignorance over truth. They’ve chosen to believe what their keepers have instructed them. They’ve chosen to trust the storylines generated by the corporate media rather than think critically and question everything. They’ve chosen obesity and sickness over health. They’ve chosen debt financed faux wealth over savings based real wealth. They’ve chosen safety and security over liberty. They’ve chosen dependency over self-reliance. These choices were aided, abetted and promoted by the Alphas through their ability to manipulate and control the unthinking masses.

But, his conclusion suggests that he does understand that society is ordered a certain way, and that it is possible, even necessary, to change it.

There will be a revolution in this country whether you like it or not. The existing social order will dissolve during the next fifteen years. What replaces it is up to us.