2.11.2009

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Point fingers at Atter Eves

Posted at 4:22 PM

2 comments:

ThoughtPolice said...

A question that I often struggle with in my mission to spread the word is "Why has the general public not woken up to the situation that they face? I came from the same or a similar background, and I changed my mindset. I began to realize our world’s problems, and gradually and through honest examination and a willingness to accept what is wrong I have become determined to change it because of a moral imperative to make the world a better (or at least livable) place from my children.” The answers are there, staring us in our faces, yet collectively, we turn the other cheek.

My answer that I have arrived at over time is one that makes me very upset. And beware of some big-time generalities that I must use in an effort to describe my take on the situation. It is apparent to me that it is not simply a lack of information or education that we face (Campaign for Liberty, Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and other honest, educated, and selfless voices), it is the prevalence of an apathetic, willfully ignorant mindset, coupled with people's stunning inability to believe in and understand the reasons for the economic disruption and hardship that our country now faces. And the methods I’ve seen implemented for achieving these goals of creating a better, sustainable and free world, so far, have focused on trying to educate people, which is doubtlessly noble, when I believe we should be working more towards changing the mindset itself to even first open the door through which we can educate and inform. Again, I believe the immediate issue that we face is not simply education but awakening. The latter must lead to the former, and that requires highly educated loud voices, widely reaching techniques, and sometimes startling tactics to achieve - of course all while not scaring people away. It’s a difficult task, but the whole point is to awaken them from a dream that does not represent reality, and this means opening people up to things that are sometimes scary or hard to swallow. You cannot be weak and yielding with educating those who are blind to the truth, for it is more important than any blissfully ignorant existence, it is all that we have to guide us in our ever-emerging reality.

Changing the mentality of the populace is a goal that is much harder to achieve than education, for a person's outlook or philosophy in life is created over a long period of time experiencing life in a certain way. And our movement faces an audience with a lack of understanding of the way the world works and what it really takes to get by. Indeed it has been easy for us. Our generation (really baby boomers on up) was raised, in large part, in a "strong" economy and by parents that were financially capable. And financial capability even now is the most important aspiration for most people, even though it often means nothing about what the person actually contributes to the benefit of society or themselves. (eg. farmers, manufacturing personnel, construction workers, and programmers actually contribute whereas day traders, fractional reserve bankers, and speculators only leech off of the rest of us, prolonging the pyramid scheme we call our world banking system and making society as a whole worse off) It is even worse that this financial capability of our countrymen (even the productive ones) is inflated by a system of economic imperialism that creates artificial prosperity through a false currency and by the theft of resources from the rest of the world. Of course it is apparent to any sane, moral person that it must stop. But anyway, if you look at it hard enough, you'll see that it will stop, and not necessarily (read: probably not) from the intervention of the enlightened minority, but based on inherent flaws in the system inevitable making life very difficult for the sheepish majority. Among these flaws are the aforementioned false economy, what will be an eventual acknowledgment of TRUTH that has been unknown to the masses all along, and the consequence worse than any other, resource and environmental degredation.

So we face the task of educating a generation of people that have no understanding of what’s really going on to give them the life that they live, and have adopted an expectation of given success without true enlightenment of the world's workings (eg. science, economics, world events). Of course this problem is deeper than simply the lack of acknowledgement of the situation, as mentioned above. It is contributed to also by a system of primary education and other ineffective or often irrelevant institutions which conveniently leave out or poorly cover a few important things (basic economics, science, math, technology, critical thinking, reason, logic, a real and not biased overview of history) and that don’t do enough to educate effectively or nurture psychological growth. Why is it that kids going through school simply don't seem to enjoy it? No one wants to go to school, do homework, or even read books for cryin' out loud! It's not some inherent quality of human beings, it is created in the system in various ways, and it doesn’t have to be this way, but still continues to get worse in our country.

Some folks simply don't know how important it is for them to be educated on the important issues that directly influence them regardless of their intervention in it, and so they must first be reminded of this. And how do we do that? That's a toughie, and one for which I am beginning to think the answer is, "just let the excrement hit the oscillator, they'll understand in time."

And that's why I'm slowing down my involvement in the liberty propaganda machine to get ready for what is surely to come. This is no "the sky is falling" madness. This is history staring us in the face and saying, "learn from me or you'll be sorry." And our elected leaders are either absolutely ignorant of said history and economic fact or think that they stand to gain in some way from the ensuing chaos. And I'd argue that they're probably right in the latter attitude. The Obama administration's big government policies, for instance, will surely have more backing from the populace when they are scared and hungry and actually I'd say this is already true in our current economic state, I only fear for what it might mean when things get worse. And it is my belief, and I think this is shared by others, that even if all government officials were switched out for those with the people's interests in mind TOMORROW, we would still be heading down a dark road, the exit for which is miles away.

So off I go to use the system for as long as it still stands to get prepared, so that I can live beyond the chaos and work to emerge as an educated, morally sound, and inspirational leader so we can get back on our feet again and actually move forward as a civilization. We have the ability to succeed as a species, to maintain this earth for future generations of individuals to enjoy, if we only apply the knowledge and technology we have gained though the past. We cannot allow our past mistakes to be repeated once again in the future. The answers to our economic ails have already been discovered, but we have yet to re-implement them. History tells us a lot about monetary systems that work, but we have allowed contrary interests to take hold each time we have had a good chance to get on track. Never again. A good monetary system is the foundation for the responsible and prosperous growth of society, and we must work towards this goal with all our energies, for this is the means by which resources are effectively distributed and sets the foundation for liberty. (Inflationary economic practices (bailouts) transfer money from the poor to the rich or to the government, while at the same time affecting the rich’s substantial real capital such as houses, boats, gold, etc. very little, while decimating the value of what is typically the only significant asset of the poor, cash money.)

This system will fall, without question. What is important now is that we nurture within ourselves a very, extremely, immensely thorough understanding of why it is failing and how to best tackle the issues in our future efforts to rebuild society with the goals of equality of opportunity, liberty, strong education, and sustainability guiding every single decision. As I always say, the answers are there, whether it be economy, technology, or government; the groundwork is laid for us to build upon. This is right now the most frustrating part of it all, but later it will be the most uplifting force humanity has ever seen, if we promote it effectively. It would be easy to foresee the economic crisis turning into a rationalization for greater government influence on our lives, as a member of our current administration, Rahm Emanuel called it, “an opportunity to do things you could not do before.” In the same way it is also our chance to forego the status quo and rework some of our foundational institutions in ways people never thought plausible before.

Let us continue to educate ourselves, as I know we have all been doing, and focus hard on determining the most effective use of our energy, time, and intelligence on fixing these problems. We all have different ways of doing this, for sure, and that is what makes things so interesting. In the next issue, I’ll get together a list of reading material on a variety of topics I have found to be important in understanding the overall world we find ourselves living in and how to approach it. Until then, keep (or start) questioning the world around you, because it’s the first step to making change for the better.

“It starts when you’re always afraid. Step out of line, the man come and take you away. You better stop! Hey, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s goin’ down!” – Buffalo Springfield

2/12/2009 4:35 PM
ThoughtPolice said...

Oh, title.... um

Wake Up!

2/12/2009 4:40 PM

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