Beware the Growing Evil in
Our Midst
October 29, 2019
“You see them on the street.
You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they’re
people just like you. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.”
We’re living in two worlds,
you and I.
There’s the world we see (or
are made to see) and then there’s the one we sense (and occasionally catch a
glimpse of), the latter of which is a far cry from the propaganda-driven
reality manufactured by the government and its corporate sponsors, including
the media.
Indeed, what most Americans
perceive as life in America—privileged, progressive and free—is a far cry from
reality, where economic inequality is growing, real agendas and real power are
buried beneath layers of Orwellian doublespeak and corporate obfuscation, and
“freedom,” such that it is, is meted out in small, legalistic doses by
militarized police armed to the teeth.
All is not as it seems.
This is the premise of John Carpenter’s
film They Live, which was released more than 30 years ago, and remains unnervingly,
chillingly appropriate for our modern age.
Best known for his horror
film Halloween, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark
that it can’t be killed, Carpenter’s larger body of work is infused with a
strong anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to the
filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our
government.
Time and again, Carpenter
portrays the government working against its own citizens, a populace out
of touch with reality,
technology run amok, and a future more horrific than any horror film.
In Escape from New
York, Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America.
In The Thing, a
remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter presupposes that
increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.
In Christine,
the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a demon-possessed car,
technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes on a murderous
rampage.
In In the Mouth of
Madness, Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose “the ability to
know the difference between reality and fantasy.”
And then there is
Carpenter’s They Live, in which two migrant workers discover that
the world is not as it seems. In fact, the population is actually being
controlled and exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic
elite. All the while, the populace—blissfully unaware of the real agenda at
work in their lives—has been lulled into complacency, indoctrinated into
compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized by subliminal
messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards
and the like.
It is only when homeless
drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by the late Roddy
Piper) discovers
a pair of doctored sunglasses—Hoffman lenses—that Nada sees what lies beneath
the elite’s fabricated reality: control and bondage.
When viewed through the lens
of truth, the elite, who appear human until stripped of their disguises, are
shown to be monsters who have enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on them.
Likewise, billboards blare
out hidden, authoritative messages: a bikini-clad woman in one ad is actually ordering
viewers to “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Magazine racks scream “CONSUME” and “OBEY.” A
wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR GOD.”
When viewed through Nada’s
Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden messages being drummed into the
people’s subconscious include: NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY
ASLEEP, BUY, WATCH TV, NO IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.
This indoctrination campaign
engineered by the elite in They Live is painfully familiar to
anyone who has studied the decline of American culture.
A citizenry that does not
think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does not challenge
authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be
entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled.
In this way, the subtle
message of They Live provides an apt analogy of our own
distorted vision of life in the American police state, what philosopher Slavoj
Žižek refers to as dictatorship
in democracy,
“the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.”
We’re being fed a series of
carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to reality.
The powers-that-be want us
to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, shooters, bombers).
They want us afraid and
dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and
well-being.
They want us distrustful of
each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats.
Most of all, they want us to
continue to march in lockstep with their dictates.
Tune out the government’s
attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us and tune into what’s really going
on in this country, and you’ll run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable
truth: the moneyed elite who rule us view us as expendable resources to be
used, abused and discarded.
In fact, a study conducted
by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S.
government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is
ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover,
the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite
nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.
In other words, we are
being ruled by an
oligarchy disguised
as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government
where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people
are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.
Not only do you have to be
rich—or beholden to the rich—to get elected these days, but getting
elected is also a surefire way to get rich. As CBS News reports, “Once in
office, members of Congress enjoy access to connections and information they
can use to increase their wealth, in ways that are unparalleled in the private
sector. And once politicians leave office, their connections allow them to
profit even further.”
In denouncing this blatant
corruption of America’s political system, former president Jimmy Carter blasted
the process of getting elected—to the White House, governor’s mansion, Congress
or state legislatures—as “unlimited
political bribery…
a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who
want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is
over.”
Rest assured that when and
if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will
remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session.
There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the
entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no
longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite
controlling the government behind the scenes.
Sound familiar?
Clearly, we are now ruled by
an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests.
We have moved into
“corporatism” (favored by
Benito Mussolini),
which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.
Corporatism is where the few
moneyed interests—not elected by the citizenry—rule over the many. In this way,
it is not a democracy or a republican form of government, which is what the
American government was established to be. It is a top-down form of government
and one which has a terrifying history typified by the developments that
occurred in totalitarian regimes of the past: police states where everyone is
watched and spied on, rounded up for minor infractions by government agents,
placed under police control, and placed in detention (a.k.a. concentration)
camps.
For the final hammer of
fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of
the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary.
But why would a people agree
to such an oppressive regime?
The answer is the same in
every age: fear.
Fear is the method most
often used by politicians to increase the power of government. And, as most
social commentators recognize, an atmosphere of fear permeates modern America:
fear of terrorism, fear of the police, fear of our neighbors and so on.
The propaganda of fear has
been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control, and it is
working on the American populace.
Despite the fact that we are
17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist
attack; 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a
terrorist plot involving an airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car
accident than a terrorist attack, and 8 times more
likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist , we have handed over control of our lives to
government officials who treat us as a means to an end—the source of money and
power.
As the Bearded Man in They
Live warns, “They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and
more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for
slavery.”
In this regard, we’re not so
different from the oppressed citizens in They Live.
From the moment we are born
until we die, we are indoctrinated into believing that those who rule us do it
for our own good. The truth is far different.
Despite the truth staring us
in the face, we have allowed ourselves to become fearful, controlled, pacified
zombies.
We live in a perpetual state
of denial, insulated from the painful reality of the American police state by
wall-to-wall entertainment news and screen devices.
Most everyone keeps their
heads down these days while staring zombie-like into an electronic screen, even
when they’re crossing the street. Families sit in restaurants with their heads
down, separated by their screen devices and unaware of what’s going on around
them. Young people especially seem dominated by the devices they hold in their
hands, oblivious to the fact that they can simply push a button, turn the thing
off and walk away.
Indeed, there is no larger
group activity than that connected with those who watch screens—that is,
television, lap tops, personal computers, cell phones and so on. In fact, a
Nielsen study reports that American screen viewing is at an all-time high. For
example, the average
American watches approximately 151 hours of television per month.
The question, of course, is
what effect does such screen consumption have on one’s mind?
Psychologically it is similar to
drug addiction.
Researchers found that “almost immediately after turning on the TV, subjects
reported feeling more relaxed, and because this occurs so quickly and the tension
returns so rapidly after the TV is turned off, people are conditioned to
associate TV viewing with a lack of tension.” Research also shows that
regardless of the programming, viewers’ brain waves slow down, thus
transforming them into a more passive, nonresistant state.
Historically, television has
been used by those in authority to quiet discontent and pacify disruptive
people. “Faced with severe overcrowding and limited budgets for rehabilitation
and counseling, more and more
prison officials are using TV to keep inmates quiet,” according to Newsweek.
Given that the majority of
what Americans watch on television is provided through channels
controlled by six mega corporations, what we watch is now controlled by a corporate elite
and, if that elite needs to foster a particular viewpoint or pacify its
viewers, it can do so on a large scale.
If we’re watching, we’re not
doing.
The powers-that-be
understand this. As television journalist Edward R. Murrow warned in a 1958
speech:
We are
currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant
or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up
off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used
to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who
finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally
different picture too late.
This brings me back to They
Live, in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the shots but
the populace who are content to remain controlled.
When all is said and done,
the world of They Live is not so different from our own. As
one of the characters points out, “The poor and the underclass are growing.
Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive
society and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests
with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance. They
have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our
own gain.”
We, too, are focused only on
our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our poor and underclasses are also
growing. Racial injustice is growing. Human rights is nearly nonexistent. We
too have been lulled into a trance, indifferent to others.
Oblivious to what lies
ahead, we’ve been manipulated into believing that if we continue to consume,
obey, and have faith, things will work out. But that’s never been true of
emerging regimes. And by the time we feel the hammer coming down upon us, it
will be too late.
So where does that leave us?
The characters who populate
Carpenter’s films provide some insight.
Underneath their machismo,
they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity. Their
beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the establishment,
but they are nonetheless freedom fighters.
When, for example, John Nada
destroys the alien hyno-transmitter in They Live, he restores hope
by delivering America a wake-up call for freedom.
That’s the key right there:
we need to wake up.
Stop allowing yourselves to
be easily distracted by pointless political spectacles and pay attention to
what’s really going on in the country.
The real battle for control
of this nation is not being waged between Republicans and Democrats in the
ballot box.
As I make clear in my
book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People, the real battle for control of this nation is taking
place on roadsides, in police cars, on witness stands, over phone lines, in
government offices, in corporate offices, in public school hallways and
classrooms, in parks and city council meetings, and in towns and cities across
this country.
The real battle between
freedom and tyranny is taking place right in front of our eyes, if we would
only open them.
All the trappings of the
American police state are now in plain sight.
Wake up, America.
If they live (the tyrants,
the oppressors, the invaders, the overlords), it is only because “we the
people” sleep.
This article was originally
published at The Rutherford Institute.
Category: Free Society
This post was written by: John W. Whitehead
John W. Whitehead is a
constitutional attorney, author, and founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. This
article is a revised version of a piece that originally appeared on the
Rutherford Institute website, www.rutherford.org, and is reprinted by
permission.
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