the myth of freedom

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Homie-Banoo sent me this link. I had to snap off the video after a little while because it's a goddam sappy AT&T ad, Hallmark Greeting Cards, Barack Obama... sniff, sniff, tug at yer heartstrings, every one of your yearnings and fond memories... for cash... for votes... to sell you anything they want to sell you. We have perfected the art of making people want whatever we want them to want. It's terrifying.

We walk around in our Western "civilization" -- which still would be a good idea, but we're further from it now than when Gandhi waxed sentimental about the notion -- seeing pretty much what we want to see, ignoring pretty much what we want to ignore, and getting fed this constant diet of inducements from every portal into our awareness. We cannot conceive of the death and destruction inhering our comfortable lifestyles. We don't even think they are comfortable! We suffer plenty, and while we still can abstract about how uncomfortable billions of other people are, it still mostly doesn't dampen our resentments for our own suffering. We are blind to the FACT that our lifestyles come at the price of literally millions of lives, billions if you count the quality of their lives.

Oh, oh, what could be wrong with Iranians being free to wear what they want to wear, show affection, date, do what people do everywhere? Mostly nothing could be wrong with it. Mostly everything could be right with it.

Except the part about all the millions who suffer because some can have these great lives. The thing about the Iranian theocracy that is indispensable is that they don't let the multitudes suffer for the lifestyles of the few... or, not to the same extent, that's for sure. It would be lovely if they didn't impose all the religious fundamentalism on their population, but the very fact of helping the poor is PART of that fundamentalism. So you have the transcendentally good at the cost of observing some strictures that aren't fun, aren't so relaxed and moderate, so even-tempered about the things that lead to our Western-style bacchanalia.

It's a damn mess.

And the people who put out videos like this one are fuckers... mind-fuckers... mind-fuckers who can make you want anything it serves them to make you want. They've perfected the technique on three hundred million Americans, and millions more across the globe. It's rampant in India now. It's kicking up in China. Just hold out that carrot and the winners of the world will ignore the billions suffering for their designer shades and doctorates....

Well, let me be more blunt about it: You want more relaxed relations with the West, you give us access to your wealth-generation. THAT fucks the poor people AND the working class. Period. End of story. End of revolution. So this gauzy video with such a clean-looking, handsome even, guy, talking so reasonably and virtuously, is just a pack of evil lies, no different than the bullshit campaign spots done to catapult Obama to stardom.

It's no different than convincing you that softer toilet paper is the ONLY stuff to have, even though it costs the planet more trees and gets wads of fiber sticking to your twat. Do you realize that at least half of America hates this billowy soft toilet paper, but can't bear to buy anything more sensible because people might look down on them for it when they use their toilets? That's a fact! That's asinine! But we can't stop. It's the same mental conditioning as being used in this video that makes it reality.

It's everywhere.

And WE put it there.

On purpose and this is hardball.

Which makes it IMPOSSIBLE to fairly assess horrific news items like this... beside even the most successful attempts not being able to change the hard reality of the meta-situation that keeps Iran, all Iran, squashed like a bug, no matter which way they turn, no matter which eyes they look out of, no matter what they do.

But... they are insulted when you suggest this way that they are victims! Iranians are not victims! They're intransigent! They're full of fire! They ROCK! The problem is 100% vicious plutocrats wanting their resources, and far from being victims, they have been the most successful at keeping those pigs' mitts off them. It is a fact, though, that political instability there will bring them down, all the way down... not just the theocrats, but all Iranians....

[I'm probably going to get another blast from someone bitching about me betraying progressivism, or being an Ahmadinejad-loving protest thwarter, or something equally as irascible... but... dammit... World War Three hangs in the balance. This is NO time to be flipping out about this stuff. Eyes on the ball! Eyes on the ball! Eyes on the nuclear football....]

[Maybe part of my incredulity comes from knowing how roughly we are treated for lesser disruptions and just can't fathom how they think they have it so bad in light of the multifarious little-noted-but-horrifically-real cruelties here. Maybe my brain defaults to the notion that they don't have it nearly as bad as it's being made out to be. I don't think that is it, but I recognize it factors into my thoughts on the matter sometimes. Lots of times I'm just certain that even in the countries on earth that hate us the most, they still think life here is a million times better than it actually is.... I know a lot of those "jihadi" detainees were pretty shocked by the lack of due process. So was I. So maybe this bears on the mental processes of Iranians across the world who seem to think we're the good society and Iran's is the bad society.

So much is involved! So many mistaken conceptions all around. So little understanding for people who truly would rather NOT be subjected to the ugliness in modern Western "culture". How to live together...? How to maintain individual cultures when technology threatens to turn the whole planet into one flavor? Maybe there's no bucking it, even without evil people running the show. I just know the flavor is going to be completely unpalatable for the multitudes if we keep going this way.]