261) Day 29 -- Reason #29 to revolt against Predatory Capitalism: Manufacturing Consent, Part 1: Skibidi toilet and a submarine implosion
In Aldous Huxley’s presciently brilliant dystopian novel, Brave New World, the population was placated with a pervasive, readily-available, socially normative drug — soma. The constant ingestion of soma kept people from ever really FEELING just how fucked their society was. Replacing traditional opium-of-the-masses institutions like the Church, soma was a way of escaping responsibility for, and even awareness of, one’s shitty circumstances.
“A gramme is better than a damn” was one slogan.
242) Day 10 -- Reason #10 to revolt against predatory capitalism
If you give people something, like a button to press, that they BELIEVE exerts some control over an outcome, people will press that button and CONVINCE THEMSELVES they actually have control. Even when the outcome is completely, utterly, uncontrollably random.
232) The beginning of revolution is knowing what the hell is actually going on: Let's start with the Military-Industrial Complex and how it controls our governments
Civil society at large (i.e., you, me and the rest of us) needs to start learning in-depth about the way that the “state” (i.e., our governments) is controlled by war.
216) Having a great summer weekend
How do we live with this dissonance?
How do we have “good weekends” with a heart-at-peace, knowing our fellow humans are being exterminated as if they are vermin?
16) Murdering terrorism
The “terrorism” language, which is directly traceable in its modern incarnation to George Dubya Bush after 9/11, reinforces a particular way of thinking. Geoff Lakoff calls it “Strong Daddy”, referring to a centralist, patriarchal, hierarchical way of organizing power in families, traditionally speaking. The entire rhetorical structure that comes from Strong Daddy ways of thinking, makes it easier to contemplate certain courses of action (e.g., war) rather than other courses of action (e.g., community empowerment, basic income and housing plans, ecological restoration, permaculture and local-scale farming projects). Basically, “terrorism” leads to “war” in people’s minds.