As corporate and military power have taken over society in the past decades, a culture has had to be dismantled in the process. Basic values of a functioning society-solidarity with the poor, a sense of obligation toward one’s neighbors, the necessity of privacy and free speech-have been dismantled by a totalitarian capitalist state which terrorizes and mass-surveils the people to protect corporate profits. Margaret Thatcher announced this attack on community by saying the poor can’t blame society for their struggle, since “There is no such thing as society.”
To destroy society, intelligence itself has had to be destroyed. The kind of intelligence that allows people to question authority, consider issues in detail, and think beyond fear or hatred. This state of consciousness is always a threat to despotic regimes, so it’s been suppressed. The media has been consolidated so much that fifteen billionaires own most of it. Education has been de-funded and largely turned over to corporate control. The arts have been demonized and de-funded. Corporate brands have become ubiquitous. The CIA has expanded its psyop program so that covert state propaganda agents can infiltrate media posts. Even the major sports stadiums have long had their names changed into company labels, their original titles faded from most people’s memories.
When a civilization’s art, cultural centers, basic institutions, and values are made into tools for a power elite, it’s not a civilization anymore but a prison. Its consciousness is fixated against an endless series of threats-invading foreigners, hostile enemy nations, looming crime and terrorism, the holders of corrosive dissenting ideas-with no room for focusing on what’s joyful or beautiful. It’s corralled into mindlessly worshipping symbols, slogans and personalities. Its prisoners are conditioned to see the omnipotent corporations, the bloated military, the all-intrusive surveillance state, and the terroristic law enforcement as protectors and providers.
The propaganda used in this prison tends to lack in creativity and passion, since it’s created not for enlightening people but for advancing a hollow power agenda. Teams of paid staffers produce vapid political buzz phrases, like the 2016 Clinton campaign’s “I’m With Her” or the Democratic Party’s call this year to “Pokemon Go to the polls.” Political comedy is done by millionaires whose job is to fit official state propaganda into their constrained humor. When the corporate state’s propaganda isn’t bland, it’s saturated in hatred for the vulnerable, like the vile racism and classism spewed by the neo-fascist group Turning Point USA.
“The plutocrats have no reason to support an artist who is constantly taking swings at them,” writes Caitlin Johnstone. “The artists who do get advanced lose themselves trying to advance a worldview where it makes perfect sense that they’re doing so well while so many others are doing so badly, an atmosphere where true art cannot possibly thrive. You can’t create transcendent beauty and simultaneously advance the corporatist agendas of your masters. You just can’t.”
History won’t forgive us for our shallowness and ineptitude. The decay of our democracy has opened the government to a feuding group of racists, criminals and kleptocrats, most of whom come directly from elite corporate executive positions. Aided by two corrupt and dysfunctional political parties, this week they’ve passed a bill that radically reduces the tax code for the wealthy and large corporations, dismantles public healthcare and oil drilling restrictions, and raises taxes for middle and working class people. Their next victory could be the elimination of net neutrality, which would crush online alternative media.
Nakedly plutocratic measures like these, correlating with the president’s recent endorsement of a British anti-Muslim hate group, is how our society enters the logical conclusion to embracing despotism. Genocide is openly discussed in our discourse through the neoconservative plans to strike North Korea, a completely unnecessary action that would kill 25 million people or more. ICE agents and heavily armed police are freer than ever to harass or kill black and brown people. The drone wars have been expanded dramatically this year, along with the military budget and the amount of generals in the White House.
Fascism has come to America, both in the twisted false patriotism espoused by groups like Turning Point USA and in the hollowed out centers of liberalism. Tech and social companies use the cover of the Democratic Party’s Russia fear mongering campaign to ban, blacklist and restrict dissenting voices. Outlets like the New York Times glorify Wall Street and the CIA. As the ruling oligarchs destroy the climate and biological diversity, they fortify themselves for the coming cataclysm by building luxury survival bunkers in rural land and on the ocean.
“There will be rebels,” wrote Chris Hedges last year while anticipating the fascism we’ve now entered into. “They will live in the shadows. They will be the renegade painters, sculptors, poets, writers, journalists, musicians, actors, dancers, organizers, activists, mystics, intellectuals and other outcasts who are willing to accept personal sacrifice. They will not surrender their integrity, creativity, independence and finally their souls. They will speak the truth. The state will have little tolerance of them. They will be poor. The wider society will be conditioned by mass propaganda to write them off as parasites or traitors. They will keep alive what is left of dignity and freedom. Perhaps one day they will rise up and triumph.”
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