{"id":2426,"date":"2018-07-28T13:05:08","date_gmt":"2018-07-28T18:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/?p=2426"},"modified":"2018-07-28T13:07:21","modified_gmt":"2018-07-28T18:07:21","slug":"prison-planet-com-american-society-would-collapse-if-it-werent-for-these-8-myths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/prison-planet-com-american-society-would-collapse-if-it-werent-for-these-8-myths\/","title":{"rendered":"Prison Planet.com \u00bb American Society Would Collapse If It Weren\u2019t For These 8 Myths"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Source: Prison Planet.com \u00bb American Society Would Collapse If It Weren\u2019t For These 8 Myths<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

No society should function with this level of inequality (with the possible exception of one of those prison planets in a \u201cStar Wars\u201d movie). Sixty-three percent of Americans\u00a0can\u2019t afford a $500 emergency<\/a>. Yet Amazon head Jeff Bezos is now\u00a0worth a record $141 billion<\/a>. He could literally end world hunger for multiple years and still have more money left over than he could ever spend on himself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Worldwide,\u00a0one in 10 people<\/a>\u00a0only make $2 a day. Do you know how long it would take one of those people to make the same amount as Jeff Bezos has? 193\u00a0million years<\/em>. (If they only buy single-ply toilet paper.) Put simply, you cannot comprehend the level of inequality in our current world or even just our nation.<\/p>\n

So \u2026 shouldn\u2019t there be riots in the streets every day? Shouldn\u2019t it all be collapsing?<\/strong> Look outside. The streets aren\u2019t on fire. No one is running naked and screaming (usually). Does it look like everyone\u2019s going to work at gunpoint? No. We\u2019re all\u00a0choosing<\/em>\u00a0to continue on like this.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Well, it comes down to the myths we\u2019ve been sold.<\/strong> Myths that are ingrained in our social programming from birth, deeply entrenched, like an impacted wisdom tooth. These myths are accepted and basically never questioned.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to cover eight of them. There are more than eight. There are probably hundreds. But I\u2019m going to cover eight because (A) no one reads a column titled \u201cHundreds of Myths of American Society,\u201d (B) these are the most important ones and (C) we all have other shit to do.<\/p>\n

Myth No. 8\u2014We have a democracy.<\/strong><\/u><\/h3>\n

If you think we still have a democracy or a democratic republic, ask yourself this: When was the last time Congress did something that the people of America supported that did\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0align with corporate interests? \u2026 You probably can\u2019t do it. It\u2019s like trying to think of something that rhymes with \u201corange.\u201d You feel like an answer exists but then slowly realize it doesn\u2019t. Even the Carter Center and former President Jimmy Carter believe that America has been\u00a0transformed into an oligarchy<\/a>: A small, corrupt elite control the country with almost no input from the people. The rulers need the\u00a0myth<\/em>\u00a0that we\u2019re a democracy to give us the illusion of control.<\/p>\n

Myth No. 7\u2014We have an accountable and legitimate voting system.<\/strong><\/u><\/h3>\n

Gerrymandering, voter purging, data mining, broken exit polling, push polling, superdelegates, electoral votes, black-box machines, voter ID suppression, provisional ballots, super PACs, dark money, third parties banished from the debates and two corporate parties that stand for the same goddamn pile of fetid crap!<\/p>\n

What part of this sounds like a legitimate election system?<\/p>\n

No, we have what a large Harvard study called the\u00a0worst election system in the Western world<\/a>. Have you ever seen where a parent has a toddler in a car seat, and the toddler has a tiny, brightly colored toy steering wheel so he can feel like he\u2019s driving the car? That\u2019s what our election system is\u2014a toy steering wheel. Not connected to anything. We all sit here like infants, excitedly shouting, \u201cI\u2019m\u00a0steeeeering<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n

And I know it\u2019s counterintuitive, but that\u2019s why you have to vote. We have to vote in such numbers that we beat out what\u2019s stolen through our ridiculous rigged system.<\/p>\n

Myth No. 6\u2014We have an independent media that keeps the rulers accountable.<\/strong><\/u><\/h3>\n

Our media outlets are funded by weapons contractors, big pharma, big banks, big oil and big, fat hard-on pills. (Sorry to go hard on hard-on pills, but we can\u2019t get anything resembling hard news because it\u2019s funded by dicks.) The corporate media\u2019s\u00a0jobs<\/em>\u00a0are to rally for war, cheer for Wall Street and froth at the mouth for consumerism. It\u2019s their mission to actually fortify belief in the myths I\u2019m telling you about right now. Anybody who steps outside that paradigm is treated like they\u2019re standing on a playground wearing nothing but a trench coat.<\/p>\n

Myth No. 5\u2014We have an independent judiciary.<\/strong><\/u><\/h3>\n

The criminal justice system has become a weapon wielded by the corporate state. This is how bankers can foreclose on millions of homes illegally and see no jail time, but activists often serve jail time for nonviolent civil disobedience. Chris Hedges\u00a0recently noted<\/a>, \u201cThe most basic constitutional rights \u2026 have been erased for many. \u2026 Our judicial system, as Ralph Nader has pointed out, has legalized secret law, secret courts, secret evidence, secret budgets and secret prisons in the name of national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not part of the monied class, you\u2019re pressured into releasing what few rights you have left. According to\u00a0The New York Times<\/a>, \u201c97 percent of federal cases and 94 percent of state cases end in plea bargains, with defendants pleading guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the name of the game. Pressure people of color and poor people to just take the plea deal because they don\u2019t have a million dollars to spend on a lawyer. (At least not one who doesn\u2019t advertise on beer coasters.)<\/p>\n

Myth No. 4\u2014The police are here to protect you. They\u2019re your\u00a0friends<\/em>.<\/strong><\/u><\/h3>\n

That\u2019s funny. I don\u2019t recall my friend pressuring me into sex to get out of a speeding ticket. (Which is essentially still\u00a0legal in 32 states<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The police in our country are primarily designed to do two things: protect the property of the rich and perpetrate the completely immoral war on drugs\u2014which by definition is a war on\u00a0our own people<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We lock up more people than\u00a0any other country on earth<\/a>. Meaning the land of the free is the largest prison state in the world. So all these droopy-faced politicians and rabid-talking heads telling you how awful China is on human rights or Iran or North Korea\u2014none<\/em>\u00a0of them match the numbers of people locked up right here under Lady Liberty\u2019s skirt.<\/p>\n

Myth No. 3\u2014Buying will make you happy.<\/strong><\/u><\/h3>\n

This myth is put forward mainly by the floods of advertising we take in but also by our social engineering. Most of us feel a tenacious emptiness, an alienation deep down behind our surface emotions (for a while I thought it was gas). That uneasiness is because most of us are flushing away our lives at jobs we hate before going home to seclusion boxes called houses or apartments. We then flip on the TV to watch reality shows about people who have it worse than we do (which we all find hilarious).<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re lucky, we\u2019ll make enough money during the week to afford enough beer on the weekend to help it all make sense. (I find it takes at least four beers for everything to add up.) But that doesn\u2019t truly bring us fulfillment. So what now? Well, the ads say buying will do it. Try to smother the depression and desperation under a blanket of flat-screen TVs, purses and Jet Skis.\u00a0Now<\/em>does your life have meaning? No? Well, maybe you have to drive that Jet Ski a little faster! Crank it up until your bathing suit flies off and you\u2019ll feel\u00a0alive<\/em>!<\/p>\n

The dark truth is that we have to believe the myth that consuming is the answer or else we won\u2019t keep running around the wheel. And if we aren\u2019t running around the wheel, then we start thinking, start asking questions. Those questions are\u00a0not good<\/em>\u00a0for the ruling elite, who enjoy a society based on the daily exploitation of 99 percent of us.<\/p>\n

Myth No. 2\u2014If you work hard, things will get better.<\/strong><\/u><\/h3>\n

According to\u00a0Deloitte\u2019s Shift Index survey<\/a>: \u201c80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs\u201d and \u201c[t]he average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime.\u201d That\u2019s about one-seventh of your life\u2014and most of it is during your most productive years.<\/p>\n

Ask yourself what we\u2019re working for. To make money? For what? Almost none of us are doing jobs for survival anymore. Once upon a time, jobs boiled down to:<\/p>\n

I plant the food\u2014>I eat the food\u2014>If I don\u2019t plant food = I die.<\/p>\n

But nowadays, if you work at a caf\u00e9\u2014will someone\u00a0die<\/em>\u00a0if they don\u2019t get their super-caf-mocha-frap-almond-piss-latte? I kinda doubt they\u2019ll\u00a0keel over<\/em>\u00a0from a blueberry scone deficiency.<\/p>\n

If you work at Macy\u2019s, will customers\u00a0perish<\/em>\u00a0if they don\u2019t get those boxer briefs with the sweat-absorbent-ass fabric? I doubt it. And if they do die from that, then their problems were far greater than you could\u2019ve known. So that means we\u2019re all working to make other people rich because we have a society in which we\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to work. Technological advancements can do most everything that truly must get done.<\/p>\n

So if we wanted to, we could get rid of most work and have tens of thousands of more hours to enjoy our lives. But we\u2019re not doing that at all. And no one\u2019s allowed to ask these questions\u2014not on your mainstream airwaves at least. Even a half-step like universal basic income is barely discussed because it doesn\u2019t compute with our cultural programming.<\/p>\n

Scientists say it\u2019s quite possible artificial intelligence will take away\u00a0all human jobs in 120 years<\/a>. I think they know that will happen because bots will take the jobs and then realize that 80 percent of them don\u2019t need to be done! The bots will take over and then say, \u201cStop it. \u2026 Stop spending a seventh of your life folding shirts at Banana Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n

One day, we will build monuments to the bot that told us to enjoy our lives and \u2026 leave the shirts wrinkly.<\/p>\n

And this leads me to the largest myth of our American society.<\/p>\n

Myth No. 1\u2014You are free.<\/strong><\/u><\/h3>\n

And I\u2019m not talking about the millions locked up in our prisons. I\u2019m talking about you and me. If you think you\u2019re free, try running around with your nipples out, ladies. Guys, take a dump on the street and see how free you are.<\/p>\n

I understand there are certain restrictions on freedom we actually desire to have in our society\u2014maybe you\u2019re not crazy about everyone leaving a Stanley Steamer in the middle of your walk to work. But a lot of our lack of freedom is not something you would vote for if given the chance.<\/p>\n

Try building a fire in a parking lot to keep warm in the winter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Try sleeping in your car for more than a few hours without being harassed by police.<\/em><\/p>\n

Try maintaining your privacy for a week without a single email, web search or location data set collected by the NSA and the telecoms.<\/em><\/p>\n

Try signing up for the military because you need college money and then one day just walking off the base, going, \u201cYeah, I was bored. Thought I would just not do this anymore.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Try explaining to Kentucky Fried Chicken that while you don\u2019t have the green pieces of paper they want in exchange for the mashed potatoes, you do have some pictures you\u2019ve drawn on a napkin to give them instead.<\/em><\/p>\n

Try running for president as a third-party candidate. (Jill Stein was\u00a0shackled and chained to a chair by police<\/a>\u00a0during one of the debates.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Try using the restroom at Starbucks without buying something \u2026 while black.<\/em><\/p>\n

We are less free than a dog on a leash. We live in one of the hardest-working, most unequal societies on the planet with more billionaires than\u00a0ever<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0Americans supply 94 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the paid blood used worldwide. And it\u2019s almost exclusively coming from very poor people. This abusive vampire system is\u00a0literally<\/em>\u00a0sucking the blood from the poor. Does that sound like a\u00a0free<\/em>\u00a0decision they made? Or does that sound like something people do after immense economic force crushes down around them? (One could argue that sperm donation takes a little less convincing.)<\/p>\n

Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers\u2014most of the time\u2014don\u2019t need guns and tear gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for us all to buy into, hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to wake up.<\/strong><\/em><\/u><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: Prison Planet.com \u00bb American Society Would Collapse If It Weren\u2019t For These 8 Myths No society should function with this level of inequality (with the possible exception of one of those prison planets in a \u201cStar Wars\u201d movie). Sixty-three percent of Americans\u00a0can\u2019t afford a $500 emergency. Yet Amazon head Jeff Bezos is now\u00a0worth a … Continue reading Prison Planet.com \u00bb American Society Would Collapse If It Weren\u2019t For These 8 Myths<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,21,13,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2429,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426\/revisions\/2429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}