No one really cares enough, now, to remember how it was.
They wanted everything to remain the same, while destroying what had already been in place for longer than anyone could remember.
It had come to this then, the complete eradication of all things that made this place they lived great, once. It was all so long ago now, how could they ever get it back?
This was not a sudden change, it was a cancer eating away gradually from the heart, or the heart land as it was once called. The values shared were soon eroded as one by one the fervour in peoples hearts died. When people stopped thinking for themselves and being reasonable. Yes, the age of reason was a thing of the past.
They were not going to be shoved around by people in fancy cars and houses with fancy clothes and enough healthy food on the table to sustian normal brain function.
They were not going to be dictated to with regard for their continued health and well-being.
They would not stand idly by while their country became like those older European civilisations! What happened over there, those foriegners who lived life well under what they were so afaid of, socialism. no, they wouldn't be dragged down that road, to be well off, healthy and happy!
No the important thing, or so they had been told by the radios and televisions, and the church leaders, was to propigate the species, make more and more of the same sort of ignorant by-products of a society living in the fears that their pundits told them to be afraid of.
They drove themselves further and further into this pit of despair on a daily basis.
Soon they didn't have an original thought about it all, they relied on quoting from the big book they didn't understand, they had but two books, Mother Goose and Father, Son and Holy Ghost, both found in the same section of the long ago disused libraries.
One day questioning their leaders, then the total anarchy they had no wisdom nor knowledge to sustain.
"Get the government off our backs!" They would yell and rant. For a while they could congregate in unruly crowds, no better than the rabble they were, but somewhat organised by the users who saw them as a disposable tool to achieve their greed and avarice through. "Oh, the people will gather and come to our tea parties!"
If you can convince enough people that they are being harmed by 'outsiders', by golly, you can turn governments on their ears!
Keep preaching to the clueless long enough and they will sell their own grand-mothers for the cause! But what do they get in the end?
NOTHING!
It was a slow erosion, so it wasn't seen until too late. The schools had to close first, who wanted their progeny tainted by the heathens. They pulled children one-by-one and then in droves, from the institutions of learning. After all, who wanted to have kids learn the truth about their origins and where they might be going? Who would allow them to eat from this tree of knowledge? It was all Satans, doing so the kids suffered, the earth suffered. The valuable vaccines to promote health and well-being, to prevent catastrophic illness from spreading, were shunned by the ignorant, the conspiracy theorists who were so sure their government wanted to kill them off, or worse, mind control! They never got over themselves! No one is that important!
There was no problem with pollution they were told, so everybody kept using the Earth's resourses, pouring filth and decay into the atmosphere, the 'dead' automobiles dotted along the infrastructure of the non-maintained highways and by-ways were an early sign, there were no social services to maintain them, and so-be-it. No one wanted taxes, so oil was not refined or made available, the pumps long ago gone dry, along with the heating oil and other sources of energy.
Many died as a result of the rampant crime that took over, no one there to police them, and the vacant and looted buildings soon fell victim to the homeless and their disregard for safety with their open fires burning all hours.
All the social services were abolished! No one wanted to pay their fair share, they had, after all, worked for thier money and no one less fortunate or down on their luck was going to benefit, hell, even live, not if they had to pay for it, no sir-eee!
The waters were so long ago polluted that bathing was ill achieved, if someone remembered to catch some rain water that is, they might get a rub down.
Food was scarce as well, as the liberal souls who tried to help had long ago stopped trying to keep the food supplies free of poisons and the staple was of unhealthy varieties provided by the corporate chain restaurants to the masses of the morbidly obese and tragically emaciated. And they worry about mind control!
The non-tainted organic varieties were shunned as being new age. Only a few frugal 'hippies' were still thriving from their supplies and home grown nutrients.
So, on and on they waited for their prophecies to come true; No End of times! But they wre promised, now they would just die an ignominous death, dust to dust, no great revelations, no glory.
They had lived all their lives expecting the lie to come true and now, the disheveled remnants of planet carried on, while they all achieved nothing but the destruction of civilisation as it could have been.
If only they had listened and been patient and trusted the one leader who meant good to come from his works. If only!
But thier leader, the fat white man with the addiction to reality blurring pain killers had killed off their common sense, their sense of justice, of what is right and what is so terribly wrong in this country. The news channel they all tuned to for a while spit out lies meant to cajole them into thinking they were on the side of right, no matter what, alongside ther inane comedies that mirrored their way-of-life while the actors portraying them would sooner be dead than to be like them.
The tall and regal black man, with the promise of hope and change, the one who only was trying to help people in desperate need, they would not heed. Even their own leaders came to know this, but it was all too late.
The people on the right, the people on the left, the people in the middle of it all faded into obscurity. The once great cities were no more than dust and ash, insanity reigned down upon them all.
They moved further and further into the back woods and hills to avoid being found by the curious tourists who marvelled at the fall of the once powerful empire that desroyed itself from within.
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!
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Comments: 37
I have been mulling this over in my head a few days, I started with the idea of an old Twilight Zone. Remember the one with Agnes Moorhead? The hillbilly woman who was so frightened of the space men outside her cabin and she becomes obsessed with killing them off, and at the end you see, she had been the alien, the flying saucer on her porch she destroyed said US Air Force on it!
It had no dialogue, just a few grunts from the marvelous Ms. Moorhead.
Great article.
I was trying to write science fiction, but the truth will out!
They want to repeal the "Magna Carta" and return to the 'good old days' of Lords and serfs.
The rich live lavish lives on the planet's surface while the vast majority of mankind work underground 'tending' the machines that sustain the 'masters'.
You are good! Wish others could see so clearly.
Yes, the fact and fiction lines here are thin!
This is a work in progress – please proof and critique.
How To Destroy A Nation From Within
[ With the exception of invasion or armed rebellion, nations rarely crumble overnight. It almost always takes a slow, subtle, insidious campaign of undermining the philosophical bedrocks on which the nation rests. For some excellent pointers, read about how Hitler and Mussolini (and a more-than-willing populace) did it in record time. ]
This will outline a few of the strategies you will need to take over the United States by political means. Learn the use and misuse – and those strategies most suited to the situation. Be creative – this is by no means an exhaustive list.
First, commit yourself rabidly to the destruction of the status quo, knowing in advance that your vision of the country’s future is so much more intelligent than anyone else’s – and it must be imposed as soon as possible. Be very aware that the opposition will fight back, strongly at first, but as you ridicule their motives and destroy their credibility bit by bit, much less so. Count on it.
Put your morals, ethics, and concern for your fellow citizens in mothballs, and convince yourself that the end always justifies the means – a necessary exercise before you can master the Big Lie technique. Only by lying and distorting the facts can you ever hope to neutralize the arguments put forth by your opposition. When faced with ideas you must oppose, do not present intelligent counter-proposals. Poke holes in their proposals, but do not propose alternate solutions. This will only lend credence to your opposition’s original ideas. Pretend the problem doesn’t exist and ridicule any attempt to solve their silly non-existent problem. (See the debates on Global Warming.)
Commit yourself to replacing the current amoral, atheistic leadership with people who believe in the absolute necessity of Theistic Government. First, neutralize the First Amendment by completely denying its original purpose. Keep repeating the Big Lie that there was definitely no intent to create a “separation between church and state”. This will guarantee support from the religious folk who are used to slavish conformity to unsubstantiated claims (no matter how ridiculous) AND they have a book they can use to justify anything. If you can stir up their intolerance and hatred sufficiently, they will get a fire in the belly that will sustain your crusade with time, energy, and lots of money (Lots!).
Learn to mystify these gullible people with misdirection, obfuscation and half truth – or learn to manufacture and manipulate mythology of your own invention. (See the reports of the opposition to a health care proposal in 2009 for some excellent examples.) Create slogans, catchphrases, and sly innuendos that are simplistic, jingoistic, and militaristic – something your constituents can easily grasp and parrot. Never underestimate the gullibility of the Americans who will allow themselves to be influenced by your propaganda. They are just begging for a lie or half-truth to replace their need to think.
Learn to manipulate the language by assigning terms with nebulous (and usually opposite) connotations. For instance, if you’re planning to increase pollution, call it The Clear Skies Initiative. As you begin to interpret the news in your own convoluted way, call it something like The No Spin Zone. Label your opponents’ perfectly reasonable attempts to provide end-of-life counseling as Death Panels. Once you get into it, this kind of double-speak will become second nature to you.
Buy up and/or dominate as many media outlets as possible. Then claim loudly and often that the media is biased toward your opposition. The more often you announce it, the more likely it will be accepted as fact. Insist that there is a lack of bias in your reporting and commentary, but make sure to slant the facts (and opinion) in your direction only. Create demigod-like commentators who can lie with a straight face, distort the facts consistently, and command a personal following (Google “dittoheads”). Do not expect honesty or consistency in their rant-like commentary. If you must, refer to them as entertainers, not journalists.
Strangely enough, your pronouncements to the world don’t need to make sense – they only need to “sound like” they make sense. It seems counter-intuitive, and it will take you some time to get proficient at it. If your words make sense, the opposition can refute them with logic. If your words don’t make sense, your opposition will be left with muttering repeatedly “But that doesn’t make sense”. They will sound woefully inadequate to the task of governing a nation.
Learn to create and foster rancor, resentment, and ill will. One of the most effective ways is to call people names (like Nazi) instead of refuting their positions with intelligent arguments. Or just belittle, ridicule, and scoff at their ideas by assigning indefinable but negative connotations (like Socialistic). Accuse them of hating America and trying to destroy what’s good about her. Sooner or later, they will tire of your slurs and will most likely just give up the fight. (They will feel too smug and superior to stoop to such tactics.) As the Independents grow increasingly tired of the constant mud-slinging, they will turn off, tune out, and become too apathetic to pay the slightest attention.
Learn about the Birthers, Birchers, and other fringe (and is some cases, lunatic) groups. If the right kinds of groups don’t exist, create some and give them cutesy names. Nurture people in these extremist groups – they can make your radical actions look reasonable by comparison.
Good luck and good hunting.
I think we get such a microcosom here at Gather that we actually think the Religious Right are that big in number. But they are, nonetheless, dangerous, as dangerous as the Taliban and other Fundamentalist religious fanatics. God is NOT on thier side,and soon, if they have their way, no one will align themselves with a country of straight-laced radicals!
I could no more try to get through to some of the people in this country to explain their radical behaviour as I could explain it to my dog Caesar!
Sophistication goes a long way to reason and evolution that some sects refuse to embrace. You can't talk to a rock! They resist learning and formal education of the most rudimentary levels to falsely protect their pitiful ways-of-life. Some have never been outside a ten block area from where they were born!
These people, deluding themselves that they are patriots and God fearing people are pathetic 'unfinished' human specimens, inbred and under-educated, bad nutrition getting their already over-taxed brain matter more confused.
They are causing the division of the haves and have-nots. But the sad thing is they align themselves with the overly-rich fat cats, they have been indoctinated into thinking they have to agree with these lying thieves, Shunning the people who really mean to help them. It is incongruous! They don't see the damage they are doing because factions controlling them are stroking them into thinking they are righteous!
Thanks for posting to my group, Anythingwriting