Pulling the Strings

Professor J, 

 "What if our semi-sedated society is incapable of changing itself in time WITHOUT experiencing a mega-unravelling?" 

  Important question.


We almost saw in 2008 the beginning of the potential unraveling you think may be necessary. You could be right about that. At the time, when most Americas were completely unaware of the precariousness of the situation, it would have been mentally and emotionally devastating. The danger of letting the ship sink so we can build a better ship (to paraphrase Glenn Beck at the time) was that a majority of people were (and still are) psychologically unprepared for the series of events that would follow. Our lives are ones of such ease that being stuck in rush hour traffic is something many can't cope with. The realization that entire systems could collapse is at least something that people are aware of now, however vaguely. That idea had probably occurred to few before. 

Entertaining thoughts about that is a healthy first step. Thinking how a worst case scenario might be handled is empowering. Unfortunately I think you may be right about it having to come to that. As you pointed out at the end of your post people will put up with quite a lot, overlook red flags, and willingly ignore warning signs to retain some semblance of an ordered and comfortable life, the life they once knew, up to and including, boarding a cattle car.

Side note: To harken back to an earlier point in the book, I wonder how many optimistic/positive thinking Jews thought that each new injustice would be the last one and that they could adapt? Those fleeing while they had time were most certainly observant realists with little hope for improvement in the situation. 

Modern life seems to carry with it something akin to the fog of war. The fog of routine, or accumulation, the fog of distraction. It keeps us from seeing clearly, and in an age of instant communication, from putting information together in a way that gives us a clear overall view of the battle at hand.  So yes, while we would hope that people could be educated into unplugging their own matrix connections, it is highly unlikely.


One result of the trend of people wanting to learn HOW to do things that I've harped on before (which we could categorize as education) is that the level of self reliance in a community goes up. Those skills learned out of a for a hobby or interest in some trendy activity may be invaluable during a "mega-unraveling." This kind of education won't lead directly to change but is likely to make surviving the matrix unplugging more likely and tolerable. It is complete dependence on the corporate matrix that will keep people fearful enough to continue to be complicit in their own imprisonment. When every single thing we need/use is provided by a corporation it creates powerlessness and dependence.

Worst Case Scenario Girl was especially struck by everything Hedges quotes and says on p. 179 and much of it goes along with my previous comments and yours. I'm not going to skip ahead to that just yet however.

On page 175 Hedges attacks the press and other groups as courtiers, whose role he says is to "parrot official propaganda."

"The rise of courtiers extends beyond the press. Elected officials govern under the pretense that they serve the public, while, with a few exceptions, actually working on behalf of corporations. In 2008, a Congress with a majority of Democrats  passed the FISA bill, which provides immunity for the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the National Security Agency's illegal surveillance over the previous six years. Such a bill endangers the work of journalists, human rights workers, crusading lawyers, and whistle-blowers who attempt to expose abuses the government seeks to hide."

"We trust courtiers wearing face powder who deceive us in the name of journalism. We trust courtiers in our political parties who promise to fight for our interests and then pass bill after bill to further corporate fraud and abuse. We confuse how we are made to feel about courtiers with real information, facts, and knowledge. This is the danger of a culture awash in pseudo-events." (176)

Throughout the last chapter Hedges seems to echo your question about whether there is a path we could take at this point that could avert an all out crisis and bring things back under control short of something akin to anarchy. The author doesn't appear to hold out much hope for such a solution. Massive amounts of unvarnished truth would be necessary.

If we could get the media to give us the truth, I wonder if they wouldn't deliver it doing a Jack Nicholson impersonation. Could we, as a nation, handle it?

We probably won't get a chance to find out the answer to that one...