In a high-quality dementia care facility, confused residents who are at risk of unsafe wandering are skillfully redirected away from exit doors by staff members who are trained to provide them with the illusion of freedom while still keeping them in the safety of the care home. A propaganda-addled populace wandering around trying to find an escape from its oppressors is redirected in very much the same way.
If you’ve ever visited a loved one in a locked dementia care facility, especially near sunset, you know how agitated the people who live there can become. The impulse to wander and pace is very common, and depending on where they’re at cognitively they’ll often demand to leave the facility at once so they can go “home”.
When this happens, unskillful staff members will take an openly authoritarian position and tell the resident that they cannot leave and that the facility is their home now. This confrontational approach invariably leads to agitation on the part of the confused resident, because in their mind they really do live somewhere else and are being told they need to remain locked in a strange place that they have no memory of. This can quickly lead to a catastrophic response that is unpleasant for everyone, especially the resident in question.
A more skillful staff member will employ a very different strategy. Rather than engaging in futile attempts to persuade someone with severe dementia that they must stay and that their perception of reality is wrong, they will simply say “Ah yes, right away Mister Smith! Let’s go get you ready to leave.” They’ll take him by the hand, ask him if he wants dinner before he leaves, get him talking about his time in the army, distracting him from the thought of leaving and letting the memory loss do the work for them. In a few minutes Mister Smith is happily chowing down on mechanical soft meat and potatoes without a care in the world.
The fancier facilities won’t even have locked doors that are immediately noticeable, with (as weather and daylight permit) the doors left unlocked to a large, enclosed garden area full of circular walkways which eventually guide a wandering resident back indoors. The actual exit point of the facility is through a building on the far end of this large yard with a staff member at the front desk who can redirect any resident who happens to meander their way through the winding paths. This way staff don’t even need to worry about a resident who decides they want to leave, they can just say “Sure thing Mister Smith! Door’s right there!” knowing he’ll just wander around for a bit and come back in.
Anyway, that’s how electoral politics works. The public will periodically become agitated at the way their wealth and resources are being stolen from them and spent on overseas wars, or the fact that they are deliberately kept poor and busy by a plutocratic system in which the relative wealth of the rich is given more political power by the relative poverty of everyone else, and they are redirected.
They are not told “No Mister Smith, you are the property of the oligarchic empire.” They are instead told by the skillful manipulators of the political/media class, “Ah yes Mister Smith, you can have everything you want! Just vote for the Democratic Party right over there!”
And just as the facility’s design intended, Mister Smith goes out the door to the Democratic Party, wanders around in circles for a while, then comes back inside without posing any inconvenience to the staff members who run the empire.
Meanwhile the actual exit from the abusive system is kept carefully hidden. A lot of dementia care facilities will disguise their exits by painting them to look like murals or bookshelves, like this:
That’s where fighting the propaganda machine is hidden. That’s where direct action is hidden. That’s where a critical mass of people waking up from the manipulations and using the power of their numbers to directly force real change is hidden. Cleverly disguised behind a bunch of gibberish about “conspiracy theories”, “Russian propaganda” and “extremism”, with a bunch of staff members pointing the way toward a false exit that cannot ever lead to our escape.
Obviously care homes are a good and necessary thing for protecting victims of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia who can’t be kept safe at home, whereas the system in which we all find ourselves is unforgivably abusive and malignant to its core. But the psychological principles work in exactly the same way: it’s much easier and far more energy efficient to give people the illusion of freedom than to tell them they are locked up against their will. If you let the people know you stand in opposition to their will, they’re going to try to fight you, so it’s best to pretend you’re on their side and willing to give them everything they want.
That’s all electoral politics is. That’s all the Democratic Party is. That’s all we were seeing when Americans shook the earth with Black Lives Matter protests last year while the entire establishment told them “I hear you, I agree with you” without ever actually making any changes. It’s a locked facility we are forbidden from leaving with a bunch of staff members pretending to want what we want.
But the fact that the managers of empire go to such lengths to avoid a direct confrontation with us means that they desperately want to avoid that confrontation. We are not an elderly dementia patient, we are the many. They are the few. If we can ever collectively stop falling for the redirections to the circular pathways and stand and face our oppressors, they do not stand a chance. And they know it.
They cannot arrest us all. They cannot kill us all. All they can do is keep us confused and distracted, and hope we don’t remember our true power. That’s all this is.
_________________________
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55 responses to “Electoral Politics Use The Same Containment Strategies As Alzheimer’s Facilities”
Genius.
What an incredibly useful analogy.
Ask yourself – are you looking for the real exit and trying to mark it for others?
Or are you headed out for another loop around the garden hoping this time it’ll be different.
The US political Punch & Judy charade is fueled by an endless supply of hopium promises & dreams.
Please include the Republican Party in this story. They have done the same to their constituents. Fooled them into believing that they are being threatened by the multicultural rabble rather than the rich who pull their politicians strings with catchy terms like ‘smaller government, less regulation, lower taxes, stronger military, and their culture war issues (abortion, etc. )
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This piece deserves a Pulitzer Prize. Excellent work Caitlin.
Those suffering the worst dementia are the servants and members of the ruling class. If only the 99% would play along with their futile game of artificial reality, all would be well. Mainstream media parrots reinforce each other’s lies as they continue to live in their fragile echo chamber bubble. Meanwhile, the world has to watch how they contort themselves with pretzel logic, like watching an elder parent cling desperately to their fading authority over “the youngsters”.
“Why is the “mainstream media” a closed bubble? Because they always get their information from the same, pre-sorted sources – and that is largely the news agencies that belong to the same bubble. They are like the gatekeepers of published opinion.”
https://off-guardian.org/2021/02/06/the-mainstream-bubble/
But we get hot dogs in a blender, and ice cream!
That historically totally corrupt yet too big to fail once publicly traded entity known as Bank of America has recently been taken private by Warren Buffet and friends. This is a very huge deal in the whole scheme of things. Those who complain about capitalism, billionaires and mankind’s natural tendency towards unquestioned rule by plutocracy might do well to pay attention to such activity. If being properly paranoid it’s quite easy to drop the “Bank of” and go with what’s left. This would explain much.
Ms Johnstone if you have the time, please peruse this:
~
United States politics are already reeling from the events of January 6, and now the Joe Biden administration is weakening them all the more.
~
Sometimes democracies die from corruption, fascism, or a military coup. But other times it succumbs to terminal stupidity.
~
This fine article can be read here:
How Democracies Die by Daniel Lazare!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/02/07/how-democracies-die/
https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/the-strategic-hour-economic-bubbles?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNDcyNDQzMCwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzIyNzUwNjUsIl8iOiI4b1ZJWiIsImlhdCI6MTYxMjcyOTM4NCwiZXhwIjoxNjEyNzMyOTg0LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjYwMDQ1Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.Bw4Xe4xj9GAQKsbjaUeIgXdhS_N4B22eYfZ_oKJ8uZo
Great article.
.
Caitlin Johnstone wrote:
> Meanwhile the actual exit from the abusive system is kept carefully hidden. A lot of dementia care facilities will disguise their exits by painting them to look like murals or bookshelves, like this: . . .
> That’s where fighting the propaganda machine is hidden. That’s where direct action is hidden. That’s where a critical mass of people waking up from the manipulations and using the power of their numbers to directly force real change is hidden. Cleverly disguised behind a bunch of gibberish about “conspiracy theories”, “Russian propaganda” and “extremism”, with a bunch of staff members pointing the way toward a false exit that cannot ever lead to our escape. . . .
> But the psychological principles work in exactly the same way: it’s much easier and far more energy efficient to give people the illusion of freedom than to tell them they are locked up against their will. If you let the people know you stand in opposition to their will, they’re going to try to fight you, so it’s best to pretend you’re on their side and willing to give them everything they want.
> That’s all electoral politics is. That’s all the Democratic Party is. That’s all we were seeing when Americans shook the earth with Black Lives Matter protests last year while the entire establishment told them “I hear you, I agree with you” without ever actually making any changes. It’s a locked facility we are forbidden from leaving with a bunch of staff members pretending to want what we want.
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Very clever, and thinkers, etc. like Aldous Huxley have agreed:
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“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers. But their methods are still crude and unscientific.”
— Aldous Huxley, 1946 foreword to Brave New World, 2nd edition
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Foreword to “Brave New World”
http://www.wealthandwant.com/auth/Huxley.html
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“I feel a good deal less optimistic than I did when I was writing Brave New World. The prophecies made in 1931 are coming true much sooner than I thought they would. . . .
.
“Mass communication, in a word, is neither good nor bad; it is simply a force and, like any other force, it can be used either well or ill. Used in one way, the press, the radio and the cinema are indispensable to the survival of democracy. Used in another way, they are among the most powerful weapons in the dictator’s armory. . . . As lately as fifty years ago, every democratic country could boast of a great number of small journals and local newspapers. Thousands of country editors expressed thousands of independent opinions. Somewhere or other almost anybody could get almost anything printed. Today the press is still legally free; but most of the little papers have disappeared. . . . In the totalitarian East there is political censorship, and the media of mass communication are controlled by the State. In the democratic West there is economic censorship and the media of mass communication are controlled by members of the Power Elite. . . .
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“The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective. . . .
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“The older dictators fell because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles and mysteries. Nor did they possess a really effective system of mind-manipulation. In the past, free-thinkers and revolutionaries were often the products of the most piously orthodox education. This is not surprising. The methods employed by orthodox educators were and still are extremely inefficient. Under a scientific dictator education will really work — with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown.”
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— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, 1958
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Brave New World Revisited, by Aldous Huxley — Project Gutenberg Canada
https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/huxleya-bravenewworldrevisited/huxleya-bravenewworldrevisited-00-h.html
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As already commented:
.
“We’ve become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy, and I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.”
— Former President Jimmy Carter, Sep 27, 2015
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This is confirmed, for example, by the Gilens and Page study:
.
Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy — BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
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or the Kalla and Porter study:
.
Study: Politicians Don’t Really Care What Voters Want… Because They Don’t Have To — Independent Voter News
https://ivn.us/posts/study-politicians-dont-really-care-what-voters-want-because-they-dont-have-to
.
“Look, I think, you know, we know how politics works in the United States. Whoever, whatever political party gets into government is going to merge with the bureaucracy pretty damn fast. It will be in a position where it has some levers in its hand. And so, as a result, the corporate lobbyists will move in to help to control those levers.
“So it doesn’t make much difference in the end. What does make a difference is political accountability, a general deterrence set to stop political organizations behaving in a corrupt manner. That can make a difference.”
— Julian Assange, interview on Democracy Now!, Jul 27, 2016
Julian Assange; isn’t he in a British super max jail? Aren’t the war criminals he exposed living large? I forgot who first said it but…”one priest is better than a hundred soldiers, cheaper and more effective”! Of course, substitute teacher, journalist, parents etc.; all of whom believe wholeheartedly in the propaganda they’re indoctrinating you with. That’s the trick, get them believing the stuff and they spread it better. Edward Bernays, the amerikan father of modern propaganda has been improved on with modern science and technology. Of course, the Pharoah knew much of it and it worked then as it works now. Only then, a new Pharoah would have a jubilee and forgive debts; think Biden is gonna do that. Actually, that’s the biggest thing that helped the Germans to recover so quickly after WWII because we didn’t want them to be Commies. Also, when Pharoah sent you out to rape and plunder, you got to keep some of the plunder… not anymore. “There are none so enslaved than those who believe they are free”; truer words never spoken. Thatcher, the sociopath British PM coined the phrase “there is no alternative”; of course, that’s a lie but if all around you believe it, for all practical purposes, it’s true. She also said, “there’s no such thing as society, only individuals and later added families”; she was one sick puppy but she got to be PM. Nature will have her revenge on us, glad I won’t see the worst of it.
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And the ” SPAMMERS ” just keep it up!! May the heavens bring them great MISFORTUNE!!
So,
About this super bowl thing,
A bunch of men in tights playing with balls on live television is totally patriotic,
Right?
Have a nice day ladies…
Yes, and they have “wide receivers” and “tight ends.” Sounds just a bit gay.
Yeah; not even a good circus. Lots of time between plays for those with short memory spans and of course to sell you something. Amerikan bread, now, that is definitely unfit for human consumption but it will contribute to bad health so your Dr can make money
We are at the stage of all circuses no bread. The article is an interesting metaphor, I shared it with my s.o. who has much experience in the field of dementia care. She doesn’t have time to read it though, which is a great example of work schedules being designed to exhaust workers so their scope of thought is limited to their immediate surroundings and short term situation. We also have a major impediment to any sort of change based in the popular mass culture creating desires that translate into beliefs and actions which manifest socially corrosive ideals negating any possible imagination of a better social system from the dereliction that surrounds us. The absurd split of politicized left, center or right thinking where each side holds a few key human values coupled with a significant amount of antisocial bullshit each sector internalizes and normalizes all lumped into the ideology of all sides.
I would mildly assert the key values of the right relate to the need to work and have mobility to the level of your competence and the antisocial parts relate to the quasi fascist requirements relating to antisocial traditions that should be abandoned to history.
The left has a regard for life whether animal, plant or human which is required to evolve past the set of problems, and the antisocial set is disregard for actual people CJ noted how leftists habitually seem to be right about everything and horrible people as if their correct belief justifies being a total asshole.
The center weakly attempts to reconcile both, but usually trying to reconcile both antisocial values from either extreme and demonstrating from its shit and vomit cake recipe that the whole concept is impossible.
Meanwhile the masses feed their minds “safe” and “non political” mind candy from health and wellness routines, to video games, to sports, to porn, to streaming video, to consumer addictions, and measure their material well being separate from the earth that carries all of us, we are caught in a trap with little hope of change, regardless of which show you watch. If you want to have a conversation and be taken seriously by “normal” people you must speak the language of these distractions. And distraction is necessary based on the base of trauma in a million of ways that an empire has to muster to exist, and as people become aware of this reality, it’s left hanging in the air without any way to address let alone reconcile. Escape becomes the path of survival, for the short term at least.
It’s a great “Deleuze-Foucaldian” analogy – and extension of the discliplinary-control corporate-state apparatus!
But I don’t think Johnstone fully captures what is really going on right now in the current tag-team approach of liberal-conservative politics (which has been developing since the French Revolution as you will see if you read the history contained in various nyrb essays for example). It is not that the theory of conspiracy theory is “gibberish” – in fact no part of political analysis today is more important! It’s how the Corporate Conspiracy works that is the key to our present political-economic stasis and intellectual morass.
Both parties are fronts for Corporate control and the superelite who benefit). They co-operate by relaying, distorting, and contradicting each other’s gibberish. Conspiracy is especially important right now because it enables the “angry mob with AKs” to focus their anger on those fake exit doors and wander the labyrinth of the conspiracy webscape. It is those conspiracy theory consumers who are being systematically distracted from the real issues that affect them economically and environmentally; while the consumers of the “liberal” press, who are also angry and fearful, are disabled from focusing on the real issues as well, as they too are distracted from inquiring into their real conditions of existence by superficial analyses of conspiracy theory and not looking behind the scenes into the real Conspiracy that is controlling their lives. Instead they lunge for their own fake exit doors (as if voting for Biden were going to liberate them).
Meanwhile Biden’s focus on eg immigrants and even on a stimulus package distracts people from the reality of their health care and the rentier plutocracy that is fleecing them systematically. Soon we will be asked ie required to pay higher taxes for this shit!
But the democrats’ policies do more. They in turn fuel the conspiracy industry by further inflaming the rightwing mobs and their media. While Corporate sits behind the curtain and feeds money to both the liberal and the extremist media to fuel both teams of the tag team relay, with the ultimate purpose of propagating a generalized state of distraction, the Alzheimer State. (here again Johnstone’s excellent metaphor takes us back to the general strategy of Corporate Control –)
Dont omit Guattari, lol. My fear isnt higher taxes. The powers that be can still wipe out debt if they choose to at any time. My fear is that at that point the great reset will lead to a biopolitical cutoff of the masses theyve purposefully lead into this abattoir of false ideology. The 20th century was notable for the great population reduction efforts of the great wars and all the proxy wars and internal programs on both sides of the cold war after. Maybe a billion dead all together? Beyond the casualties of the great wars and the great depression, Add the war on drugs, the carceral state, the impacts of unmitigated or mildly mitigated poverty domestically and internationally as globalists fought decolonizing states and imposed neoliberal/ neo colonial doctrines after. Add the various Chinese and Soviet purges, plus victims of actual wars, including genocides( as in Guatemala, or Kurdistan) that occured after ww2. The climate will only get more hazardous and aggressive. The workers are increasingly superfluous in the age of AI and automated everything. The rich will be on their bunker islands or watching the total meltdown show from space if nothing stops this trend. This is one reason I tend to harp on localized community based self sufficiency themes. Its the only antidote to the trends of vulnerability to a system that couldn’t demonstrate its disregard for life any clearer. The more capacity any given area can produce for itself, the more relatively insulated they will be from future shocks.
Brilliant, brutally accurate simile. Yet as dementia patients, when they reach a certain stage of decline, are better off living in a sheltered, paternalistic environment, what about people in general, when they also have reached a certain stage of decline? Have human beings now devolved to the point, under neoliberalism, where they are incapable of coming together, thinking things through, and governing each other? Having tried to live through the last 50 years as a thoughtful, observant adult, I believe that a good case could be made for such a devolution in human capacity during this period of time. If, for our own good (among other less humanitarian reasons), we’re going to be “resetted” into a sheltered, paternalistic environment, maybe we can continue to cause enough disturbances to get the most pleasant living space possible and tastier food than “mechanical meat and potatoes.” Perhaps that’s all we can hope for after allowing ourselves to sink to this point.
“I was once like you, idealistic and full of hope until the weight of the world crushed my spirit” – Homer Simpson
Interesting thought. It’s just the conclusion that those in power would like us to formulate and to a large degree many already have, consciously or not. For multiple reasons our current situation; excessively large population, fragile food supply chains, ecological damage, mammoth propaganda systems, near complete divorce from the natural world, complete reliance on technology and entertainment, puts us in this position where we are required to be ‘looked after’. Like you said it is necessary for “our own good” at this stage. We have devolved. We are useless and impotent. Most of us would last less than a week thrown into the natural environment. Not only would we starve but worse than that we’d get bored. Rocking the boat happens now and then and the system throws us a few piecemeal scraps to keep us quiet again (Occupy Wall Street, BLM etc…). I could accept what you’re saying and you certainly have put your finger on our current situation. I guess two things bother me: 1. Our current situation of being ‘cared for’ is destroying the planet. It’s a finite game that is rapidly coming to a head. They wave more and more brightly coloured things in front of us to distract us all the while the Earth dies. This is completely wrong and unacceptable. Secondly, I’m not much into the idea of deception. I’d much rather live in an authentic reality. Having had a taste of real community and living closer to the rhythms of nature I can attest that, despite its more simple and ‘boring’ aspects, it’s a far richer experience. So whilst I see where you’re coming from (and I’m not suggesting that you are advocating for us to simply give up the struggle) and applaud your insightful observation, I would rather not live this way. I know that there is a better way, a way that would allow us to live fulfilling lives and keep our beautiful blue home.
I used to be confused and distracted – but that was many years ago. Eventually, it became quite obvious to me that all of the fighting between political parties (acting as the inducement for the people to follow suit) were nothing more than acts of distraction, similar to that of a magician who does not want the audience to see how the trick is made to work. except, in the real world, it permits the oligarchs to steal more and more of our country, our freedoms and the world every day. we are definitely on a slow slide toward complete, Mordor-like, totalitarianism.
However, what we the people are not permitted to see is that regardless of political preference, we all have much more income with one another than even any one of us has with any one of the oligarchs. The real problem is that, by allowing those in power to abuse us and to then fight back, is still permitting them to control us. Collectively, we must recognize what we the people actually need and then take back the power from those in charge.
It won’t be easy, but it is so much more than just worthwhile. It is demanded, if we are to make the world safe for the next generation and those that follow. The motives of the insurrectionists of 1/6/2021, at the U.S. Capital building may, in a way, have been an example of the understanding needed. However, it was their behavior AND lack of planning that made their action futile and stupid. It is unlikely that an armed insurrection against the U.S. government in the near future, if ever, could be successful. So, serious discussion and planning must take place that results in the current political and social systems fall by the wayside and are replaced by a system that puts the needs of the people first and foremost. I may see a piece of the answer, but collaborative discussion – among those of divergent views and concerns – is an absolute necessity.
https://images.app.goo.gl/6bSqbaws6cd5yWh77
A pure example of reality vs following “dementia”:
“If a mandate was a solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everyone buy a house.”
Funny, Caitlin, that you are thinking about dementia patients at a time when U.S. “democracy” just voted to replace a psychopathic narcissist with a psychopathic dementia patient. Imperialists are now “electing” dementia patients to oversee the other dementia patients. A popular meme is that the fences being erected in D.C. are intended to keep Biden from getting lost.
Dementia patients running the old folks home is the updated cuddly version of the lunatics running the asylum. I suspect Netflix is considering this concept for a new comedy series. I can’t wait.
BTW, this is a great time to revisit the novel or movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
BTW, we are right now in “Brave new world” for the middle and upper classes as Caitlin describes the LTC world if you have good people and a good facility. The working class is in “1984” and it is not so nice, quite brutal in fact but the brainwashing works well and the Iron fist is there when the ruling classes feel it necessary.
BLM won the Nobel like Obama and the European Union. Nobel invented dynamite and tried to hind behind the prize
$$$
Lazy propagandists try to hide their sophistry behind lazy metaphors. Atheists think they hide their religiosity behind politics. Bourgeois socialists try to hide their filthy lucre behind keyboards.
Having recently lost a spouse to Alzheimer’s and spend much time in a County LTC and trying to learn the “therapeutic lie” after a lifetime of minimizing my lying I can confirm what Caitlin writes. Personally I maintain a healthy lifestyle to minimize the risks of dementia..yes Virginia, you can do that, the science is In and the same lifestyle works with Cancers, Cardiovascular, Diabetes etc. Matt Taiibi’s book on Media “Hate incorporated” is well worth the read. I believe that you could write a successful book expanding on this piece. I can’t do poetry but I would buy it.. Kudos to you for exposing the naked emperor!
Let us get more basic. We are the ones who place the aged and senile in these facilities in the first place. We push the responsibility for care onto the state because we cannot be bothered. Families no longer care for their own but rely on the state. We have become a society of takers instead of givers. So why be suprised when the system looks upon thr electorate as something to be taken care of within a controlled system. We blame the system instead of ourselves. We are the system. Destroy the system and something just as bad will arise to replace it because we failed to change ourselves.
Yeah right; families all function so well, not abusive, caring and all good stuff. That’s why the divorce rate is so low.
You just listed good examples of failure within society at the most fundamental level, ourselves.
Have you ever been a caregiver for a dementia victim? I spent 5 years caring for my parents, and another 3 years caring for an uncle. There came a point for me when it just became too much. The final stages are extremely gruesome. They require nursing care. In the end they do not even know how to swallow or speak. I thank God for all the professional help I received.
Yes. My mother lived with us with dementia. Getting professional help is good, sticking them in a ltc and basically forgetting about them is not. No one said it was easy. The final stages are indeed sad but guess what, families looked after and revered their aged for centuries, something we do not do today.
No one said you had to sacrifice your life as a martyr either. Your loved ones if they loved you would not have wanted you to miserable. Frankly, if and when the time comes, my plan is to end it. If it ain’t fun and it can’t be made fun..ever, then you need to be a fool, a coward or a masochist to continue the misery. There’s no point in life other than that which you make up.
I commend you for your duty. You are the silent exception.
You must have a lot of to speak that way…
Wonderful timing for this article- Super Bowl Sunday! Bread and circuses for the masses! Let them eat cake!
Until people unplug their TV sets and awaken from their mass hypnosis, the flimflam game will continue. Unfortunately we commenters and Caitlin are also a different “few.” The few who understand the charade. Most of the people I know would only get angry with me and accuse me of “talking down” to them were I to explain the state of Empire and its propaganda tools. Thank God for comment sections and websites like this one where we can feel that we aren’t completely alone.
Amen Skip !!! “The Evils of Govt are directly proportional to the tolerance of the People (Sheeple) ” ~
This article is SO powerful. Thank you.
It should be mandatory reading globally, as it is applicable to the Great Reset strategy affecting us all.
Thank you, Caitlin, for such an astute and impactful analogy to which everyone can easily understand and relate.
You are a true messenger for our times; focusing us all on the fundamentals that underpin ‘the agenda’ and reminding us how powerful we really are.
Let us not only be inspired, as we’re informed, but let us all take action accordingly as we stand in our individual and collective sovereignty.
Thank you.
Perhaps TOO similar in one regard. The people are dementia addled to some degree, by public education. They are taught that the state is all, and the state is good, and little else, 5 days a week, 6-7 hours a day, for 12-16 years.
The major difference is there ARE armed guards in the pay of the state, and they will kill you if you get too far out of line. Of course the existence of the state requires them. Dementia facilities do not, since those who determine their loved ones need such care most often voluntarily obtain their services. No such thing occurs regarding the “services” of the state. The state assumes your “consent” the day you are born. You don’t get to decide if you are a party to the states “social contract”, a gun is pointed at your head to insure you are. And the trigger will be pulled if you don’t agree.
Very good analogy. Excellent choice for comparison.
Well said, indeed.
“It’s a locked facility we are forbidden from leaving with a bunch of staff members pretending to want what we want.” Well, that’s nice that you said, “we”, this time, because that’s important. During America ‘s uprising against the British, we weren’t alone, the British were also fighting an uprising in India, if it hadn’t been for their help, and it was intentional, they spelt their own blood for us, and I know that crap is still going on in not only Australia and Canada, but other places in different ways, so maybe you can do more than just say, “wake-up America “. Maybe, but probably not; I only need to look at my closest friends and family to see that nothing means more to them than having pocket money. Our religious leaders are for the most part nothing more than murderous low-life scum, so too our politicians. We are really already dead. Maybe if enough of us stop the bull and talk to God as though he/she were nothing more than just another one of our bullshit, backstabbing friends he’ll actually talk back to you, or just wait till you take your last dying breath. Anyway, other than that we’re all wasting our time, because even those who are closest to us are more than willing to cut our throats for pocket change. Nothing has changed in over 2000 years, people are still hibocrites, nobody, not even God loves us if we won’t even lift a finger to save ourselves. Good Night.
a “GOD” was one of the EARLIEST means of CONTROL over us. You seem, understandably, not to realize that. From trhat we REGRESSED to GOVERNMENT
Gods were the creation of individual minds. The monopolization of Gods was done by those with sickened minds, our acceptance of that was our fault for fearing death. But, as it is those meek people who will inherit the Earth must be those who will be buried underneath its surface. I haven’t found where, for the most part the so-called street urchins are the only ones worthy of God’s love ❤ because they were, almost without exception dealt a shit hand at birth, and we for the most part did nothing toward their benefit so most rightfully these filthy things that want us dead will make it so.
Thank You Ms Johnstone; you have hit it ” out of the park ” once again. That is a brilliant article.
@meh raises a point. I’d like to go further. Democracy isn’t possible via periodic voting for representatives. Apart, maybe, from the initial transient when **all** were giddy with idealism, or where absolutely everyone in the system knows each other personally. After a generation or two, this version of “democracy” will inevitably become a charade of factions of an empowered political elite organising decicions on new wallpaper and furniture for the system.
Democracy that works wont involve cliques determined to perpetuate their wealth/control.
How to implement an actual democracy – don’t have a clue. But we should hve at least an awareness that democracy exists in name only, and that this is not the next best thing.
Brilliant, CJ! Spread this one all over the Earth.
It’s like art. pure truth. not that you aren’t always true. but in this kind of metaphor ?
i got to say this one is special in its width, range ,and understanding. Most essays are focused like pinpoints, this covers the entire culture.
so, great! now we know we have to learn how NOT to be sheeple…
does anyone know the percentage of the electoraate did not vote.
and the % who never knew who what when?
an educated democracy is the only democracy possible. The CIA is killing any other nation that decides to count the votes. cause and effect: three states send us immigrants AFTER we threw out their elected officials: Tottijs, Arbenz, and Zelaya. then also but too far away for emigration. Lumumba, Bosch, Aristide, Qaddafi, Noriega, Bosch, Ho Chi Minh, Mossadeq, Evo Morales, plus these assassinations here:
JFK, RFK, MLK, MALCOLM X, LINCOLN, ALLENDE, LUMUMBA, FRED HAMPTON, and so many black american heroes i can hardly list them….
if people knew…
Well and humorously said Caitlin. It is a joy to read your articles. Until the thieves managed to legalize bribery I thought we had a chance to turn this bus to lunacy around. At that point it became obvious that it could not be done through the charade of electoral politics. Now many (50%) have turned to Neo Fascism as their chosen vehicle for opposition to “the system”. We saw that in the support for the con man Trump for the last four years. The Dems quickly co-opted the Black Lives Matter movement (the usual methodology…as you have pointed out, it is much easier to pretend to agree than to oppose), thereby pretty much neutering that movement. The laughable and hypocritical donning of Kente cloth by Pelosi and Schumer is emblematic of the standard operating procedure. These people have no shame, no soul and no decency. The pot is going to continue to simmer. The foreclosures are going to mount. The suffering is going to get worse. Biden is obviously not going to do anything meaningful to address the core issues. If a charismatic Neo Fascist with good intellect comes along, our goose is cooked. The majority of people are, finally, aware that neither political party is on their side. I see no organized leadership on the left (the unions are finished) to counter the very strong right wing movement. The Dems do have the MSM propaganda machine and the Deep State backing it up. But I don’t think the people are buying their bullshit now. I fear that we are in for some very hard times.
check!
Anyone want the long form of this excellent portrayal Ms. Johnstone wrote about, email me for a copy of the book “The Reality Creators” in pdf format. chris.dancefarm@gmail.com
Excellent!
You’ve hit the target squarely… Again!
Cate, you mentioned the “illusion of freedom” – this reminded me that we also have the “illusion of being a democracy.” This brings to mind Sheldon Wollin’s definition of inverted totalitarianism -this country is an oligarchy pretending to be a democracy. Your analogy to us being treated like Alzheimer’s patients was spot on. We’re told – yes, we hear you and we want what you want! Everything will be okay – don’t worry. As you said, there are more of us than our oppressors.
Frightening. Undeniable.