Good morning, friends,
I had these thoughts this morning, before I read Julio Vincent Gambuto’s article submitted by James Landis last evening. I wrote down my thoughts (in response to Caitlyn Johnstone’s piece which I had just read). So my thoughts (in italics) below and Caitlin Johnstone’s piece are my contribution today, all as my expression of profound appreciation for Gambuto’s article (see it here https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0) and James sharing it with us.
In my view, we did not come to a place of believing the words of billionaire oppressors of common people overnight. We have been conditioned into this over a long period of time. Just ask yourself one thing: How important do you think it is to billionaires to have common people believe that they (the billionaires) care about everybody? How important? If it is important to them, what would they invest in psychology, sociology and advertising (propaganda) to make it happen? Please linger at some length on your own thoughts about these things. (For me the importance of all this goes way beyond presidential races,)
I hope we are not already at a place where we cannot (it is not safe to) ask such questions.
What follows is just the voice of one common person who does not have much money. I became aware of Caitlin Johnstone a few years ago. I was then and continue to be impressed by her courage. Maya Angelo said “Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”
Courage, and hope,
John
from Caitlin Johnstone
Manufacturing Normality
“By ‘manufacturing normality’ I mean the way the plutocrat-owned political/media class pour massive amounts of energy day in and day out into making the ridiculous, horrific status quo seem normal.”https://t.co/ebZ9QjWQJS
,,,,,
This is the case not just with this bullshit US presidential race, but with all bullshit everywhere. A world where powerful governments attack, destroy, starve and undermine weaker governments which refuse to bow to their interests, a world where the wealthy continue to steal more and more wealth from an increasingly impoverished working class and use the leverage that wealth gets them to steal more, a world where governments demand more and more opacity for themselves and more and more transparency from ordinary people, a world where police are becoming increasingly militarized and speech is becoming increasingly restricted, a world where the response to a global pandemic is not to rally together and overcome but to advance pre-existing authoritarian agendas and manufacture support for new cold war escalations against China.
None of this bullshit would have been possible without all of us having been raised in an atmosphere of mass-scale obfuscation and manipulation. None of us would ever accept such a world without having been manipulated into it, which is why they have done exactly that.
______
John K. Stoner
4/13/20
I remember, back in the 70’s, using the word “conscientization” (popularized by Paulo Freire). The ruminations of Julio, Caitlin, and John help us further the process of conscientization. It is an ever-necessary activity. I think as we become more self-aware of the contradictions in our society and in our own lives, we move toward altering the status quo for the better.