And our egos buy into the collective ego of empire. It's so hard for people to get unstuck from the good guy/bad guy stories empire creates. Our collective belief in the goodness of our empire can create so much misery.
We get that collective belief starting in kindergarten when we are told that we need to learn things so that we can grow up to get a good job and make lots of money. We aren't born with those egos. We are taught them.
We're made to believe the world can't work that way, and we must all just scratch out a living desperately, while allowing one individual to become a trillionaire.
Then there has been a more recent intellectual assault on faith and spirituality. It is often looked down upon as anti-science and irrational. We are now to believe life came about randomly and the Universe is basically a mechanical process where we just happened to have found ourselves in (for a very brief time). Love is just a biological evolved mechanism based on survival and nothing more.
So people alive today have two things to deal with: your life is just a grunt for the machine (for the majority of people), and reality itself is just a machine. And how do you like those cookies?
Those who are lost seek themselves in the world. The United States, like every empire, is certainly preoccupied with control. But it is also an age old power system devised by those who forever seek greater material gains, because the present moment is obviated by mental noise, and so unsatisfying. Oligarchs seem to have a deep sense of personal impoverishment because direct experience is reduced to abstractions - which includes other people. The trauma produced by such a society results in the sort of damaged, shattered individuals that dangerously wield power.
We've been controlled by psycopaths for a long time in varying degrees. Now, as more and more of us wake up and see it, the same creatures are building the ultimate cages for us once and for all.
"But we’re waking up. Strangely, awkwardly, stumbling forward like a toddler, we are moving to become a conscious species".
I hope so.
Sometimes we sleep through the alarm. And the repeat alarm. Sometimes we need a rude shove in order to wake.
For those in the west, we could remember the ten plagues of Egypt.
After the initial shock of each plague, Pharoah became complacent and went back to his old ways.
We had Covid. Now we have had the failed war against Iran.
The first two plagues.
I am not thinking of the great crimes committed by the West, such as the Gaza genocide. I am thinking only of those events which have at least temporarily disrupted the course of our culture of violence, our gross exploitation of our fellow human beings, and our cavalier disregard for the earth and the oceans which sustain all life.
Do we need eight more such plagues before our rulers see sense, or our peoples topple them from their thrones of iniquity?
But, empires are collective. They arise out of constellated unempathic egos, formations of individuals who come together to define others as less than they are, therefore deserving to be subjugated and used.
If a person has enough ego to believe he/she can rule a people, they need to know, or learn, that it takes hard work, understanding of the humans they plan to rule and needs their heart and soul to be in the job. Without these they are in it for themselves -- just like Drumpf and his cabinet and the party that supports him. And it will fail because they may take the people for fools, but they certainly are not - at least not all of them.
That toxic "We" again that has nothing to do with 90% of humanity. But 1. Current empires are not created by humans. Which is why they have been serving anti-human agendas ... Older empires is a different matter. 2. Actually the suppression of the authentic instinct for power results in the various later perversions around control. So it is the opposite of your infantile theory above. Only a small percentage of humans have that authentic need for power. Who are the natural leaders. It is no surprise that people in the teaching and creative professions generally have that authentic instinct for power.
And our egos buy into the collective ego of empire. It's so hard for people to get unstuck from the good guy/bad guy stories empire creates. Our collective belief in the goodness of our empire can create so much misery.
We get that collective belief starting in kindergarten when we are told that we need to learn things so that we can grow up to get a good job and make lots of money. We aren't born with those egos. We are taught them.
Thank you for sharing with us. stay safe, stay blessed. 💜
If only we could all just learn to relax and love and care for each other... What a wonderful world it would be.
We're made to believe the world can't work that way, and we must all just scratch out a living desperately, while allowing one individual to become a trillionaire.
Then there has been a more recent intellectual assault on faith and spirituality. It is often looked down upon as anti-science and irrational. We are now to believe life came about randomly and the Universe is basically a mechanical process where we just happened to have found ourselves in (for a very brief time). Love is just a biological evolved mechanism based on survival and nothing more.
So people alive today have two things to deal with: your life is just a grunt for the machine (for the majority of people), and reality itself is just a machine. And how do you like those cookies?
Those who are lost seek themselves in the world. The United States, like every empire, is certainly preoccupied with control. But it is also an age old power system devised by those who forever seek greater material gains, because the present moment is obviated by mental noise, and so unsatisfying. Oligarchs seem to have a deep sense of personal impoverishment because direct experience is reduced to abstractions - which includes other people. The trauma produced by such a society results in the sort of damaged, shattered individuals that dangerously wield power.
We've been controlled by psycopaths for a long time in varying degrees. Now, as more and more of us wake up and see it, the same creatures are building the ultimate cages for us once and for all.
Great write-up Caitlin!
"But we’re waking up. Strangely, awkwardly, stumbling forward like a toddler, we are moving to become a conscious species".
I hope so.
Sometimes we sleep through the alarm. And the repeat alarm. Sometimes we need a rude shove in order to wake.
For those in the west, we could remember the ten plagues of Egypt.
After the initial shock of each plague, Pharoah became complacent and went back to his old ways.
We had Covid. Now we have had the failed war against Iran.
The first two plagues.
I am not thinking of the great crimes committed by the West, such as the Gaza genocide. I am thinking only of those events which have at least temporarily disrupted the course of our culture of violence, our gross exploitation of our fellow human beings, and our cavalier disregard for the earth and the oceans which sustain all life.
Do we need eight more such plagues before our rulers see sense, or our peoples topple them from their thrones of iniquity?
But, empires are collective. They arise out of constellated unempathic egos, formations of individuals who come together to define others as less than they are, therefore deserving to be subjugated and used.
They are the nature and result of tribes.
Actual strong individuals might go other ways.
Collaboration and cooperation is empathy based. Narcissism and selfishness is fear based.
The Empire freaks are always screaming about "Security" and "Defense" in the name of control. It's all fear based.
Actual strong individuals realize there is real Strength in Unity.
If a person has enough ego to believe he/she can rule a people, they need to know, or learn, that it takes hard work, understanding of the humans they plan to rule and needs their heart and soul to be in the job. Without these they are in it for themselves -- just like Drumpf and his cabinet and the party that supports him. And it will fail because they may take the people for fools, but they certainly are not - at least not all of them.
Thank you Tim Foley and Caitlin Johnson.
That toxic "We" again that has nothing to do with 90% of humanity. But 1. Current empires are not created by humans. Which is why they have been serving anti-human agendas ... Older empires is a different matter. 2. Actually the suppression of the authentic instinct for power results in the various later perversions around control. So it is the opposite of your infantile theory above. Only a small percentage of humans have that authentic need for power. Who are the natural leaders. It is no surprise that people in the teaching and creative professions generally have that authentic instinct for power.
Say what?
I can't agree with you even if you wrote gently and with kindness.
I speak to Vesco B in my reply. I agree with Caitlin.
Of course, the stupid will always agree with each other.
https://indi.ca/hezbollahs-greatest-hits/