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The unrest in the Middle East, the convulsions in Ivory Coast, the hunger sweeping across failed states such as Somalia, the freak weather patterns and the systematic unraveling of the American empire do not signal a lurch toward freedom and democracy but the catastrophic breakdown of globalization. The world as we know it is coming to an end. And what will follow will not be pleasant or easy.
The bankrupt corporate power elite, who continue to serve the dead ideas of unfettered corporate capitalism, globalization, profligate consumption and an economy dependent on fossil fuels, as well as endless war, have proven incapable of radically shifting course or responding to our altered reality. They react to the great unraveling by pretending it is not happening. They are desperately trying to maintain a doomed system of corporate capitalism. And the worse it gets the more they embrace, and seek to make us embrace, magical thinking. Dozens of members of Congress in the United States have announced that climate change does not exist and evolution is a hoax. They chant the mantra that the marketplace should determine human behavior, even as the unfettered and unregulated marketplace threw the global economy into a seizure and evaporated some $40 trillion in worldwide wealth. The corporate media retreats as swiftly from reality into endless mini-dramas revolving around celebrities or long discussions about the inane comments of a Donald Trump or a Sarah Palin. The real world – the one imploding in our faces – is ignored.
The deadly convergence of environmental and economic catastrophe is not coincidental. Corporations turn everything, from human beings to the natural world, into commodities they ruthlessly exploit until exhaustion or death. The race of doom is now between environmental collapse and global economic collapse. Which will get us first? Or will they get us at the same time?
Carbon emissions continue to soar upward, polar ice sheets continue to melt at an alarming rate, hundreds of species are vanishing, fish stocks are being dramatically depleted, droughts and floods are destroying cropland and human habitat across the globe, water sources are being poisoned, and the great human migration from coastlines and deserts has begun. As temperatures continue to rise huge parts of the globe will become uninhabitable. The continued release of large quantities of methane, some scientists have warned, could actually asphyxiate the human species. And accompanying the assault on the ecosystem that sustains human life is the cruelty and stupidity of unchecked corporate capitalism that is creating a global economy of masters and serfs and a world where millions will be unable to survive.
We continue to talk about personalities – Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama or Stephen Harper – although the heads of state and elected officials have become largely irrelevant. Corporate lobbyists write the bills. Lobbyists get them passed. Lobbyists make sure you get the money to be elected. And lobbyists employ you when you get out of office. Those who hold actual power are the tiny elite who manage the corporations. The share of national income of the top 0.1 percent of Americans since 1974 has grown from 2.7 to 12.3 percent. One in six American workers may be without a job. Some 40 million Americans may live in poverty, with tens of millions more living in a category called “near poverty.” Six million people may be forced from their homes in the United States because of foreclosures and bank repossessions. But while the masses suffer, Goldman Sachs, one of the financial firms most responsible for the evaporation of $17 trillion in wages, savings and wealth of small investors and shareholders in the United States, is giddily handing out $17.5 billion in compensation to its managers, including $12.6 million to its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein.
The massive redistribution of wealth happened because lawmakers and public officials were, in essence, hired to permit it to happen. It was not a conspiracy. The process was transparent. It did not require the formation of a new political party or movement. It was the result of inertia by our political and intellectual class, which in the face of expanding corporate power found it personally profitable to facilitate it or look the other way. The armies of lobbyists, who write the legislation, bankroll political campaigns and disseminate propaganda, have been able to short-circuit the electorate.
Our political vocabulary continues to sustain the illusion of participatory democracy. The Democrats and the Liberal Party in Canada offer minor palliatives and a feel-your-pain language to mask the cruelty and goals of the corporate state. Neofeudalism will be cemented into place whether it is delivered by Democrats and the Liberals, who are pushing us there at 60 miles an hour, or by Republicans and the Conservatives, who are barreling toward it at 100 miles an hour.
“By fostering an illusion among the powerless classes that it can make their interests a priority,” Sheldon Wolin writes, “the Democratic Party pacifies and thereby defines the style of an opposition party in an inverted totalitarian system.” The Democrats and the Liberals are always able to offer up a least-worst alternative while, in fact, doing little or nothing to thwart the march toward corporate collectivism.
It is not that the public in the United States does not want a good healthcare system, programs that provide employment, quality public education or an end to Wall Street’s looting of the U.S. Treasury. Most polls suggest Americans do. But it has become impossible for most citizens in these corporate states to find out what is happening in the centers of power. Television news celebrities dutifully present two opposing sides to every issue, although each side is usually lying. The viewer can believe whatever he or she wants to believe. Nothing is actually elucidated or explained. The sound bites by Republicans or Democrats, the Liberals or the Conservatives, are accepted at face value. And once the television lights are turned off, the politicians go back to the business of serving business.
Human history, rather than being a chronicle of freedom and democracy, is characterized by ruthless domination. Our elites have done what all elites do. They have found sophisticated mechanisms to thwart popular aspirations, disenfranchise the working and increasingly the middle class, keep us passive and make us serve their interests. The brief democratic opening in our society in the early 20th century, made possible by radical movements, unions and a vigorous press, has again been shut tight. We were mesmerized by political charades, cheap consumerism, spectacle and magical thinking as we were ruthlessly stripped of power.
Adequate food, clean water and basic security are now beyond the reach of half the world’s population. Food prices have risen 61 percent globally since December 2008, according to the International Monetary Fund. The price of wheat has exploded, more than doubling in the last eight months to $8.56 a bushel. When half of your income is spent on food, as it is in countries such as Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Somalia and Ivory Coast, price increases of this magnitude bring with them widespread malnutrition and starvation. Food prices in the United States have risen over the past three months at an annualized rate of five percent. There are some 40 million poor in the United States who devote 35 percent of their after-tax incomes to pay for food. As the cost of fossil fuel climbs, as climate change continues to disrupt agricultural production and as populations and unemployment swell, we will find ourselves convulsed in more global and domestic unrest. Food riots and political protests will be frequent, as will malnutrition and starvation. Desperate people employ desperate measures to survive. And the elites will use the surveillance and security state to attempt to crush all forms of popular dissent.
The last people who should be in charge of our food supply or our social and political life, not to mention the welfare of sick children, are corporate capitalists and Wall Street speculators. But none of this is going to change until we turn our backs on the wider society, denounce the orthodoxies peddled in our universities and in the press by corporate apologists and construct our opposition to the corporate state from the ground up. It will not be easy. It will take time. And it will require us to accept the status of social and political pariahs, especially as the lunatic fringe of our political establishment steadily gains power as the crisis mounts. The corporate state has nothing to offer the left or the right but fear. It uses fear to turn the population into passive accomplices. And as long as we remain afraid, or believe that the formal mechanisms of power can actually bring us real reform, nothing will change.
It does not matter, as writers such as John Ralston Saul have pointed out, that every one of globalism’s promises has turned out to be a lie. It does not matter that economic inequality has gotten worse and that most of the world’s wealth has become concentrated in a few hands. It does not matter that the middle class – the beating heart of any democracy – is disappearing and that the rights and wages of the working class have fallen into precipitous decline as labor regulations, protection of our manufacturing base and labor unions have been demolished. It does not matter that corporations have used the destruction of trade barriers as a mechanism for massive tax evasion, a technique that allows conglomerates such as General Electric or Bank of America to avoid paying any taxes. It does not matter that corporations are exploiting and killing the ecosystem for profit. The steady barrage of illusions disseminated by corporate systems of propaganda, in which words are often replaced with music and images, are impervious to truth. Faith in the marketplace replaces for many faith in an omnipresent God. And those who dissent are banished as heretics.
The aim of the corporate state is not to feed, clothe or house the masses but to shift all economic, social and political power and wealth into the hands of the tiny corporate elite. It is to create a world where the heads of corporations make $900,000 an hour and four-job families struggle to survive. The corporate elite achieves its aims of greater and greater profit by weakening and dismantling government agencies and taking over or destroying public institutions. Charter schools, mercenary armies, a for-profit health insurance industry and outsourcing every facet of government work, from clerical tasks to intelligence, feed the corporate beast at our expense. The decimation of labor unions, the twisting of education into mindless vocational training and the slashing of social services leave us ever more enslaved to the whims of corporations. The intrusion of corporations into the public sphere destroys the concept of the common good. It erases the lines between public and private interests. It creates a world that is defined exclusively by naked self-interest.
Many of us are seduced by childish happy talk. Who wants to hear that we are advancing not toward a paradise of happy consumption and personal prosperity but toward disaster? Who wants to confront a future in which the rapacious and greedy appetites of our global elite, who have failed to protect the planet, threaten to produce widespread anarchy, famine, environmental catastrophe, nuclear terrorism and wars for diminishing resources? Who wants to shatter the myth that the human race is evolving morally, that it can continue its giddy plundering of nonrenewable resources and its hedonistic levels of consumption, that capitalist expansion is eternal and will never cease?
Dying civilizations often prefer hope, even absurd hope, to truth. It makes life easier to bear. It lets them turn away from the hard choices ahead to bask in a comforting certitude that God or science or the market will be their salvation. This is why these apologists for globalism continue to find a following. And their systems of propaganda have built a vast, global Potemkin village to entertain us. The tens of millions of impoverished Americans, whose lives and struggles rarely make it onto television, are invisible. So are most of the world’s billions of poor, crowded into fetid slums. We do not see those who die from drinking contaminated water or being unable to afford medical care. We do not see those being foreclosed from their homes. We do not see the children who go to bed hungry. We busy ourselves with the absurd.
The game is over. We lost. The corporate state will continue its inexorable advance until two-thirds of the nation and the planet is locked into a desperate, permanent underclass. Most of us will struggle to make a living while the Blankfeins and our political elites wallow in the decadence and greed of the Forbidden City and Versailles. These elites do not have a vision. They know only one word: more. They will continue to exploit the nation, the global economy and the ecosystem. And they will use their money to hide in gated compounds when it all implodes. Do not expect them to take care of us when it starts to unravel. We will have to take care of ourselves. We will have to rapidly create small, monastic communities where we can sustain and feed ourselves. It will be up to us to keep alive the intellectual, moral and cultural values the corporate state has attempted to snuff out. It is either that or become drones and serfs in a global corporate dystopia. It is not much of a choice. But at least we still have one.
It's awesome that America is
It's awesome that America is finished and that the white trash population that shops at Wal-mart buying crap from China will only face poverty and slavery in their futures. By electing criminals like Obama bin laden, they are getting EXACTLY what they deserve. I hope the entire population ends up living in the gutters fighting dogs for scraps from restaurants catering to tourists from other countries. The world will laugh at your misery, America.
Dear Anonymous: Yes, the
Dear Anonymous:
Yes, the great unwashed,uneducated
and unembraced you see at Wal-Mart may
make you wince and fear for the future of
the republic.....so what have you done to make of them a better people ?
Well.....you can hold your nose and pray
you and yours don't end up in some similar 21st century version of a 1930's breadline orally yourself with them and do what has helped us survive as a people forthe last 300 or so years...unite and REBEL !!!
ARM yourself with a will to shut down the corporatist wars and try to support a candidate like Congressman Paul. We must
attempt to change the rules of the game.
At first by vote and if that fails....we must
take up arms and forge our own future.
Good Luck,
Dr Ronald J Janesh
Anchorage, Alaska
I started to read this
I started to read this post,hr hoping to learn something from it. But there's too much environmental cant in it.
If you don't realize that ANTHROPOGENIC global warming is preposterous, then I don't think you're worth reading.
You're right. My eyes glazed
You're right. My eyes glazed over a short while in...I skipped to the last paragraph...read it and was happy I didn't read the whole thing.
The 9/11 truth is out on the
The 9/11 truth is out on the internet.
This is the truth: The WTC was destroyed by 3 underground thermo-nuclear
explosions. They were detonated by the US government who used this as
an excuse to lead the US and its allies into invading Afghanistan and
Iraq. All these wars and deaths were based on a lie.
Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people
will eventually come to believe it.”
Will you help to tell the truth to the world?
www.mathaba.net/news/?x=625926
www.911-truth.net/
Be sure to watch the 26 part video there.
#4 is on the built-in nuclear demolition scheme of the WTC
www.911-truth.net/911_WTC_nuclear_demolition_Dimitri_Khalezov_part04.mp4
#14 in on Building 7, which collapsed even though no plane hit it.
www.911-truth.net/911_WTC_nuclear_demolition_Dimitri_Khalezov_part14.mp4
#24/25 is on the chronic radiation sickness of the WTC responders)
www.911-truth.net/911_WTC_nuclear_demolition_Dimitri_Khalezov_part24.mp4
www.911-truth.net/911_WTC_nuclear_demolition_Dimitri_Khalezov_part25.mp4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNh1Isb20tw&feature=player_embedded
careandwashingofthebrain.blogspot.com/2011/05/911-comparing-building-implosions.html
haha ^^ Nut job ^^ Dude!! an
haha ^^ Nut job ^^
Dude!! an underground nuclear explosion what's next a UFO with invisible gravity pressure point technology, FFS go back to school and get an education......fyi I dont believe the end story either, but FFS just get over it! you life would be over and you wont prove it one iota! Try stopping the next catastrophe if ya wanna be useful...because right now your a mental case candidate!!
What an interesting
What an interesting combination in the comments of interesting insight and understanding and complete nuttery. Mr. Hedges has great and unique insight into our current situation. Also, he understands this historically. We are back in a pre-progressive pattern in our society. The last Gilded Age ended because of the sheer damage and chaos inflicted upon the citizenry. A kind of "enlightened self-interest" took hold as a means of elites continuing in power. However, this time it is like the former process on super steroids. The elites are far more sophisticated in their use of the system, and far more reckless and sociopathic. Also, instead of having somewhat savvy small farmers, business people, professionals and artisan/craftsmen pushing back, we now have armies of Wal-Mart and Burger King service workers and a middle class that is very delusional about where it stands in all of this. What will finally seal the damage is when the elites gat to really attempt to profit from the chaos and the "shorting" of everything that makes for a subsistance society for everyone else. I believe there are very interesting and dangerous times ahead.I am very worried for my children.
I'm curious. Which part(s)
I'm curious. Which part(s) of Chris Hedges's piece do you find to be "nuttery"?
Not Hedges--the comments.
Not Hedges--the comments.
Your voice is sounding like
Your voice is sounding like Worm Tongue's.
I haven't experienced a great
I haven't experienced a great writer, of great intelligence and great experience, producing such elegant political baloney since the sixties. It is a tragedy and an intellectual crime that a person of your stature would insult the collective intelligence of humanity and repudiate the manifest, astonishing accomplishments of the human spirit, the results of which are obvious but which you choose to ignore. You've become a connoisseur of political fads, and a damn good one. Such a waste.
While I applaud your
While I applaud your optimism, based in the demonstrated "collective intelligence of humanity," we humans are clearly into a cultural cul de sac.
Capitalism, in any form, with even the best of regulating forces, is not only doomed, but damning us all. Our "collective intelligence" needs to aim outside this current context, our current box.
Though we used to live in caves, and a strong argument can easily be made for remarkable positive change: human progress, there have been many dips. Capitalism is one. Stepping beyond this context will not be easy. Hedges is certainly right with much of what he directs our attention to.
My question of his thinking is really only regarding two aspects: time and degree. When does the proverbial stuff hit the fan? and, How deeply will the crash affect us?
Our collective intelligence will require lots of time, and much trial and error to move back into the arc of human progress. My sense is that it is you and the masses, and our global leadership who choose to ignore the obvious results of our current context, the obvious results of how the astonishing accomplishments of the human spirit have been by and large the insights of the few, followed later by the many.
Global warming has been a lie
Global warming has been a lie from the beginning to cover up Planet X aka Nibiru aka The Winged Globe which has come through our solar system every 3657 years forat least a billion years. It will cause pole shift within a year or shortly thereafter. Read http://www.zetatalk.com to find out how the elite have covered it up but are now finding they will have to join survival communities if the unselfish will have them. Do a google search on me and listen to my C2C interview. Everything cited in this article is just rearranging deckchairs on the titanic. Blessings
The Dinosaurs had their day.
The Dinosaurs had their day. So did Man. We are essentially bugs occupying a giant turd, or mold spreading on a loaf of bread.
We sealed our fate when oil became god. Now, because we are entering the post petroleum age, the giant pyramid scheme of a paradigm we call our own is imitating the downward plunge of the roller coaster I saw last night at the fair. We consumed what facilitated growth... who can blame us? Vonnegut said the only thing that separates today from the dark ages is oil. Our foreign policy since the post war period, accelerated by the coup it 2001 is unquestionably attributed to this.
I actually dont blame the "elite" for their actions. It is we who were dumb enough to not call bs on all of the nonsense peddled to us for the last century (ie infinite growth etc). So now, because the game is up the zombies want to try and take charge. Huxley warned we would actually come to love our slavery. And we do. Right now im typing on a oil based computer, on my oil based desk that got in my room from an oil fueled truck made of oil.
It reminds me of a quote David foster Wallace once paraphrased, "Irony is the song of a bird that has come to love its cage." We did this to ourselves. Period.
Sing sing sing if it makes you feel better. And dont forget to enthusiastically update your status on what Julian Assange called the greatest intelligence database the world has ever known. With consent, of course.
Your last sentence was pure
Your last sentence was pure irony. It proves that irony doesn't have to be a cage, but be can one instument of awakening from a monocultural (manufactured consent) monlogical culture (fed to us.)
This article drips with irony
This article drips with irony in that the perspective of the author reflects and sustains the very sickness he so desperately tries to point out. Just like the corporate media this article is infused with a deep negativity bias which does not reflect reality. Don't get me wrong, he points to a great deal that is happening now that is of great, very great concern. However he goes beyond simply pointing at these things and draws conclusions of failure and disaster. This article does not reflect reality because the things he points out are not all thats going on.
There are many many many positive things happening in our world but due to a bias which we're conditioned into we don't see or focus on these things, much to our detriment. When paradigms shift as I believe they are today you see great dysfunction and sometimes destruction as old systems crumble and fall apart resulting in chaos at first. But destruction is necessary for true change as the old systems must come down to make way for the new.
Change for the better is happening --- people are revolting and fighting for their rights in the middle east and that energy is spreading, new energy technologies are being developed, women are coming into their power and equaling or surpassing men in the west in education, people are learning to grow their own food and form coops to create local sustainable organic food supplies, the internet is being used very effectively to disseminate alternative media and self expression and allowing a global exchange of ideas.....I could go on for dozens of pages.
Why would we not focus on the equal reality of all the positive change that is happening right now? Especially if we want to create more of it, you tend to create more of whatever you focus your attention on.
This kind of article is part of why people don't want to listen to warnings of what is happening and what needs to change. Why should they? If we've already failed and the world is dying what difference does it make. This kind of negative outlook does nothing but make people more apathetic and it breeds more cynicism, anger and negativity. This is not a state of mind that creates positive change. We don't want to be ignorant, in denial or blindly positive but there needs to be balance. When one is in a crisis it does no good to despair and succumb to that crisis. To effectively deal with a crisis one must acknowledge it but also step out of the crisis mentality so that solutions can be created. We need new innovative ideas and those ideas don't come from a defeatist mentality, they come from an empowered optimistic mentality.
We need to acknowledge and address what is happening in our world now including the most destructive things but we need to have the courage, imagination and energy to envision a future where we overcome these things or there is no way we can.
Well put, I couldn't agree
Well put, I couldn't agree more
Again-- Nothing will CHANGE
Again-- Nothing will CHANGE in America until there are massive, physical protests in the streets.
WHY would the global elite change a thing when it has all worked so well thus far??
Lloyd Blankfein is laughing his head off--yes, all the way to the BANK.
not until there is actual
not until there is actual blood in the streets will Americans wake up to the shell game the banksters and politicians have played on them. the inherent stupidity of the masses in the USA, is testament to what the oligarchs have been creating for 40 years. without an illiterate base, the back door dealing, and wholesale destruction of the middle class, could not have happened....
when America stops worrying about the latest pop culture distraction, and starts to worry that their morbid obese lifestyle is gone, then change can happen... the constitution has been shredded, and no one gripes about it. i see billions dying soon, before sheeple wake up.... good...
One must hope such
One must hope such predictions by Anonymous don't come true. Women are increasingly overcoming force by men. Maybe, eventually women will forbid men from wielding their power. The Woman's movement may speak louder in the end than patriarchs.
History is not on your side.
History is not on your side. All great powers, be they super or not all have fallen and often by their own hands. Our country is much like ancient Rome, wrapped up in its own self-interest fighting for control of wealth and power. And one day capitalism, much like communism will be seen as a failure. It is not a matter of if, but when and how. We as a culture lack the enlightenment to reverse course and that enlightenment will come at a cost.
Hedges divines our remnants
Hedges divines our remnants and unravels the twists of global riot and resource pillage. He reads a liver dripping oil at the rotting centre of our most irresponsible, psychotic and amoral civilization. We don't live here with a future anymore. Instead we persist awhile and then collapse un-futured of an unlabelled disease diluted of compassion where brutality is as admired as once was courage. We who don't live now are ordered consuming, observing as ranks of pissant pretend citizens to in increment die sequentially watching each more terrible serial episode of blockbuster shock and awe and the globally assured industrial destruction of the shimmering legacy of dying and living diversity more scarce, more precious than love. The all who once were living had short lush comfort from our earth and in this late expeditious civilizing brief we've made another mars and sacrificed her soil, soul, water and atmosphere to the dry cold wind. If there were a warmer hell it could not punish our kind of irresponsibility. M\\
I've read "this essay" for
I've read "this essay" for the past forty years... Some individuals made personal shifts in that time; others didn't. Some communities have moved beyond the role of feeding the capitalist machine; others haven't. I am fortunate to live in one that has-- "the least fashion conscious community in the USA"-- where values are quite different from the society you write about. Sadly, when you write for alternative press, you're preaching to the choir.
you are very right. i love
you are very right. i love hedges but he is preaching like his father that came before him.
I'm glad to know more than a
I'm glad to know more than a handful of hippie/postmodern/Integral Aquarian Age communes/communities are flourishing. Very glad - there's been a lot of push back from the old-consciousness reactionaries/the corporate plutocrats Chris speaks of.
Can you give us a bit of info on yours?
agreed and agreed. tell us
agreed and agreed. tell us more about your community, if you please. where/what is it? what is your role?
If I may ask, what is "this
If I may ask, what is "this essay" and what community are you referring to?
Forget politician saviors.
Forget politician saviors. Convene with your neighbors. We are the saviors we have been waiting for. Physicians are collaborating with citizens to create sustainable, community-designed clinics and hospitals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YJz5wvt2bk
Pamela Wible MD
IdealMedicalCare.org
As great as Chris Hedges'
As great as Chris Hedges' article was, it does not constitute a strategy but an end-game mindset or paradigm. Here's strategy:
THE SUM
I. THE THIRD WAY For Fundamental Social Change
A) The Grand Unified Strategy (GUS) Of Evolutionary Transformation as overall framework
1. Change of Consciousness (Mind shift from Modernism To Neo-Transcendentalism)
2. Cultural Change (Transforming Our Values, Lifestyle/Way of Life)
3. Structural Change (Transforming our Social System: Institutions & Societal Structure)
4. Global Change (Worldwide Decentralization Through A Hydrogen Energy Web)
B) The Seven-Fold Strategic Initiative (SFSI) as sweeping enterprise scaffold by THE GUS
1. Supplant the Superstructure (the dominant worldview and values of the modernist
consumer culture) through “change of consciousness” campaigns.
2. Create new alternative institutions by joining the efforts of the “Global Transition
Movement,” in doing so we would be constructing the much needed sustainable-activist-
infrastructure to support a long-lasting, unified mega-movement campaign as described in
strategic initiative five.
3. Create counter-institutions to challenge the power elite by democratically selecting a
parallel government cabinet and 535 “citizen legislators” for Congress in order to
concretely visualize the political alternative.
4. Convene a Constitutional Convention to sever to corporate strangle-hold of our
government and restore our democracy.
5. Launch a nationwide general strike of social, political and economic non-cooperation
to “pull the plug” from the corporate machine of the economic oligarchs until the political
establishment concedes to the parallel government cabinet and the 535 citizen legislators
for a political clean sweep of Congress, the Presidency and the Supreme Court (especially
since the 2010 legal decision to give corporation more power to buy elections).
6. Enact immediate and comprehensive legislation like FDR’s “Second Bill of
(Economic) Rights,” Repealment of Corporate Personhood and all other corporate means
of economic dominance, Bill Mckibben’s 350 carbon reduction measures and Lester
Brown’s PLAN B within the first 100 days of the new administration.
7. Launch a global second “Apollo Project/Marshal Plan/Manhattan Project” in the
form of the “Oil Depletion Protocol” and a decentralized, bottom-up, worldwide
“Hydrogen Energy Web” (HEW) that has “the potential to end the world’s reliance on oil
by creating a new energy regime to remake civilization along radically new lines” and will
elevate human existence to the next evolutionary rung of our collective development.
C) Cultural Creatives Convergence Quest (C3Q) as Galvanizing force to accelerate SFSI & GUS
1. 50 Guerrilla Art Projects on 50 States in 50 minutes to Establish New World’s Record
2. Worldwide notoriety & funding thru live webcasts, TV Reality Show & 3 Documentaries
3. Illustrate “Real Utopias” & new institutions of US Transition Movement as a real alternative
4. Engage imagination of the masses to mobilize into a Unified Movement Campaign (UMC)
D) The Economic Independence Movement To Restore Democracy as the UMC
THE GRAND UNIFIED STRATEGY
OF EVOLUTIONARY TRANSFORMATION
By Zevin X. Cruz
PHASE I: CULTURAL EVOLUTION
(Challenge Societal Codes, Paradigm Shifts, Supplant Superstructure & Subvert The Social System)
A) CONTINUUM X: SEPARATION—Cultural Divergence From Dominant Culture
(Individual Transformation, Alternative Culture & Preconditions for Collective Behavior)
1. Personal Evolution: Inner Departure, Setting Out, Confronting Critics w/Values
2. Interpersonal Activism: Revolution of Everyday Living Through a New Life Path
3. Redefining Progress: Experimenting w/New Economic, Social, Political Alternatives
4. Resocialization of Society: Massive Mind-Shift by Exposing the False Map of Reality
5. Swaying Opinion Leaders: Fostering Discontent Among the Power Elites
6. Raising the Expectations of the Masses: Inciting Hope for a Better Quality of Life
7. Protest, Resistance & Defiance: Illuminating Injustices & Illegitimacy of The System
B) CONTINUUM Y: TRANSITION—New Worldview, Vision, Grand Unified Strategy
(Cognitive Activism: Mapping the Journey thru the Abyss & Into the New Territory)
1. Identify Common Values, Foundational Principles & Common Code of Conduct
2. Research Past Cosmologies, Future Scenarios, Metaphysical Truths, Intuitive Wisdom to Merge Best Aspects of Spiritual & Secular Realities To Form New Mythos
3. Analyze Root Causes of Problems & Obstacles, Identify Common Opposition
4. Synthesize Alternative Solutions, Successful Strategies, Sustainable Modes of Living
5. Create Audio, Visual & Literary Narratives of What That Society Would Look Like
6. Create a National Unifying Purpose to Mobilize Implementation of Vision ( SFSI)
7. Disseminate the Vision to Forge Collective Identity & Coherent Alternative Culture
C) CONTINUUM Z: INTEGRATION—Convergence For An Activist Infrastructure
(Interweaving All of the Social & Consciousness Movements for Unified Strategic Action)
1. Create Cultural Centers of Social Change & Relocalization for Community Resilience
2. Build Various Collaborative Networks for Coalescence of Social Change Agents
a) Create National Directory/Electronic Database to Map Cumulative Assets
b) Power Map the Global, National, Local Elites To Cut Off Their Source of Power
c) Organize Regularly Scheduled County, State, National Change Agents Summits
d) Consolidate All Alternative Communications to Create a Citizen-Based, National
Mass Media Network: Print, Television, Radio, Internet & Pop Culture
e) Create National Coordination Center to Negotiate & Implement Unified Program
3. Develop Alternative Institutions To Create New Social System of Art, Activism, Business & Spirituality for Cultural, Social, Economic & Political Self-Development
4. Create Counter Institutions & New Political Force of Citizen Legislators & Leaders
5. Convene Leaders Of All Movements To Develop A Common Ground Agenda
6. Create A Tipping Point By “Drawing A Line In The Sand”: THE ULTIMATUM
7. Launch Mega-Movt. Campaign of Social, Political & Economic Non-Cooperation
PHASE II: STRUCTURAL REVOLUTION
(Redesigning the Social System into a Sustainable Society)
A) CONTINUUM A & B: DECONSTRUCTION & RECONSTRUCTION
(Systemic Cleansing of Maladaptive Institutions & Reengineering of Our Societal Structure)
1. The Ecology, Energy & Economy
2. The Political System
3. The Legal System
4. The Mass Media
5. The Health Care System
6. The Educational System
7. National Security & Foreign Policy
PHASE III: GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION
A) CONTINUUM C: EQUALIBRIUM—Ecologically Sustainable Reglobalization
1. The Oil Depletion Protocol
2. The Worldwide Hydrogen Energy Web (HEW)
3. The Earth Charter
4. The New Millennium Development Project
5. The New Declaration of Universal Human Rights
6. The Global Initiative For Creating A New Civilization
7. The Alternatives For The Americas
THE STRAW MAN PROJECT 2000
MILLENNIALISM: Mission-Oriented Strategic Art—Breaking The Trance of False Consciousness
I. The GRAND UNIFIED STRATEGY (GUS) Of Evolutionary Transformation
A) PHASE I: Cultural Evolution (Challenging Societal Codes)
1. Continuum X: Separation—Cultural Divergence
2. Continuum Y: Transition—Worldview, Vision, Culture
3. Continuum Z: Integration—Convergence for Action
B) PHASE II: Structural Revolution (Redesigning The System)
1. Continuum A: Deconstruction (Systemic Cleansing)
2. Continuum B: Reconstruction (Re-engineering Society)
C) PHASE III: Global Transformation (H2O Energy Web)
1. Continuum C: Bottom-Up Ecological Reglobalization
II. PHASE I: Cultural Evolution (Continuum X: Separation #4)
A) Exposing Seven Societal Myths From False Map of Reality
1. “Sermon on the Mount I—Myth 1: Progress”
2. “Sermon on the Mount II—Myth 2: Efficiency”
3. “The Arrival of Cross & Cruz—Myth 3: New Beginning”
4. “Opposing the System—Myth 4: The Free Market”
5. “From Juarez to Lincoln—Myth 5: Free Trade"
6. “Sermon on the Mount III—Myth 6: Organized Religion”
7. “Sermon on the Mount IV—Myth 7: Democracy”
The Neo-Transcendentalists For The Society Of The Third Millennium (S3K)
Presents
THE ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT
TO RESTORE DEMOCRACY
2010-2012 STRATEGIC OVERVIEW OF
“THE THIRD WAY” FOR THE NON-VIOLENT SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION
YEAR 1 (2010) FOUNDATION: Intellectually Paving Path Towards True Transformation
• Grand Synthesis Book To Galvanize Cultural Creatives & Millennials
• Monolithic Milestones Guerrilla Art Project to Breakthrough into Mainstream
• S3K: FOUNDATION Documentary 1 to Present the Cultural Creative Vision, Strategy & Philosophical Pillars of Neo-Transcendentalism for Transformation
YEAR 2 (2011) GROUNDWORK & UNIFICATION: Cultural Creatives’ Convergence Quest
• The Grand Synthesis Book Tour & Workshops For Recruitment
• S3K: FOUNDATION (Documentary 1) Film Distribution & Viewings
• Cultural Creatives’ Convergence Quest (C3Q) Recon (50-State Guerrilla Art)
• Leadership Development For New Political Force for Post-General Strike
• Recruitment Of 535 Citizen Legislators & Parallel Government Cabinet
• Create a Sense Of Urgency for the Transition Movement to Prepare Nation By Accelerating the Infrastructure Building of Counter & Alternative Institutions
• Coalition Building with Political Third Parties & Independents
• Trans-partisan Outreach to sensible libertarians in We The People orgs
• Begin Developing “The Common Ground Agenda For The Common Good”
• Commence Planning the Second Constitutional Convention
• Write First Self-Fulfilling Novel of the Second American Revolution to capture the imagination of the people & demonstrate feasibility
• Conceptual Development of Possible Television Reality Show of C3Q
• S3K II: INTEGRATION (Documentary 2) Begins Shooting All of the Above
YEAR 3 (2012) TRANSFORMATION: Non-Violent Second American Revolution
• Publish 1st Self-Fulfilling Novel: The Society Of The Third Millennium (S3K)
• Launch C3Q of 50 Guerrilla Art Projects, in 50 States in 50 Minutes
• Live Webcasts of C3Q Guerrilla Art Projects
• Reality TV Show Production of C3Q Guerrilla Art Projects
• Convene Second Constitutional Convention (July 1-4)
• THE ULTIMATUM: Drawing A Line In The Sand For Tipping Point (July 5)
• S3K II: INTEGRATION (Documentary 2) Finish Filming All of the Above
• Electronic Book Version Of Novel Released
• General Strike Of Social, Political, Economic Non-Cooperation (Nov. 5)
• S3K III: INSURRECTION (Documentary 3) Begins Filming (Nov. 5)
I. 2010—Grand Synthesis Book, Monolithic Milestones Project, Documentary 1—S3K: Foundation
A) JANUARY-DECEMBER, 2010 (FOUNDATION)
1. Grand Synthesis Book (Version 0.1—Preface: Cultural Creatives’ Convergence Manifesto)
a) The Contents of the Book provides the Philosophical Pillars of Neo-Transcendentalism
i. New Cultural Creatives’s Worldview
ii. Core Values (moral principles, beliefs or standards)
iii. Principles (standard of moral or ethical decision-making)
iv. Common Code of Conduct to Maximize Potential for Transformation
v. New Mythos (Our Cultural Story/Legacy/Legend)
vi. New Cosmology (ideas of the origins, structure & nature of the universe)
vii. Cohesive Vision: The Society of the Third Millennium (S3K)
viii. Coherent Strategy: The Third Way—Grand Unified Strategy (GUS)
of Evolutionary Transformation & Seven-Fold Strategic Initiative (SFSI)
ix. New Social Contract (Economic Bill of Rights)
x. Redefinition of Social Change, Progress & Success
xi. A New Way For The People To Fight Back Non-Violently
xii. Propose New Constitutional Amendments to Restore Democracy
xiii. New Belief System
xiv. New Political Compass/Politics: The New Progressives
xv. National Unifying Purpose: Economic Independence
xvi. Unifying Theme: Social Empowerment
xvii. New Alternative Institutions
xviii. New Mass Media Reforms
xix. Rallying Call For Activation Of The Three Year Plan—The Third Way
xx. New Ecological Economics Alternative
xxi. Critique and Analysis of Capitalism
xxii. New Theory of Social Change
xxiii. Unified Mega-Movement Campaign
xxiv. New Map of Social Reality
xxv. New Idealism
xxvi. New Way of Life/Culture of Simplicity
xxvii. Critique & Analysis of Obama’s Administration
xxviii. Critique & Analysis of Democrats & Republicans
xxix. Present New Era & Art Movement: THE NEW MILLENNIALISM
xxx. Identify Common Opposition
xxxi. Illustrate The System’s Means of Control
b) The Purpose of the Book
i. Unify & Mobilize Cultural Creatives (CCs) & Millennials (Mills) by
providing a new “Third Way” for Societal Transformation
ii. Make CCs & Mills collectively aware of each other and their large
numbers—at least 80 million—in order to maximize our social potential
iii. Forge a collective group identity & cohesive culture as an alternative
option to the dominant consumer culture of Modernism
iv. Make the CC subculture visible to the mass media and mainstream
society as an example of an alternative & sustainable new way of life
v. Provide a new Cultural Creative philosophy—Neo-Transcendentalism—to
transcend the emptiness of Post-Modernism and Capitalism
iv. Supply A Grand Unified Strategy of Evolutionary Transformation to
effectively bring about the fundamental change needed.
v. Address the root causes of our social problems to attack societal ills at
the source instead of applying symptoms-oriented-solutions
ix. Awaken the Masses By Breaking The Trance of False Consciousness
x. Supplant the Superstructure (Worldview) of the Consumer Culture
xi. Subvert the social system by offering new ideas to redesign the societal
structure and institutions that support the superstructure
xii. Encourage convening a new Constitutional Convention to update our
founding documents in order to sever the stranglehold that the
economic oligarchy has over our two party system
xiii. Create a sense of urgency to accelerate the construction of a sub-
economy and activist infrastructure to prepare the way for a nationwide,
general strike of social, political and economic non-cooperation
xiv. Mend the Fragmentation of Progressive Forces Everywhere
B) NOVEMBER, 2010
1. Monolithic Milestones Project, 2010: The Year We Make (Mainstream) Contact
a) Purpose Of Guerrilla Art Project
i. Provide a Visual Art Representation of the Cultural Creative Vision, Strategy, Values, Worldview and Principles of Neo-Transcendentalism
ii. Promote the Tenets from The Grand Synthesis Book & Its Website
iii. To Coincide With ADBUSTERS Magazine’s “Carnivalesque Rebellion Week” Campaign Of Culture Jamming
iv. Mark the 11th Anniversary Of S3K’s Straw Man Project 2000
v. Produce A Cultural Creative Breakthrough Media Event
vi. Create An Internet Buzz To Mobilize Cultural Creatives & Millennials
vii. Begin Filming of S3K: FOUNDATION (Documentary 1)
C) DECEMBER, 2010
1. The Society of the Third Millennium (S3K): Foundation—The Cultural Creative
Vision, Strategy & Philosophical Pillars Of Neo-Transcendentalism
a) Purpose Of Documentary 1
i. Showcase The Straw Man Guerrilla Art Projects to Inspire the Youth
ii. Provide a Visual Critique of Capitalism & Analysis of The System
iii. Break The Matrix of False Consciousness & Provide New Map of Reality
iv. Illustrate Ideas in The Grand Synthesis Book
v. Create A Collective Awareness Of Cultural Creatives In The Mainstream
vi. Become Aware Of Each Other & Our Large Population Size—80 Million
vii. Unfurl Cohesive Vision (S3K) & Master Plan (The GUS & SFSI)
viii. Unveil Next Strategic Course Of Action—Groundwork & Unification
II. 2011—Book Tour, C3Q Recon, Infrastructure Building, Leadership Development, Unification A) JANUARY & FEBRUARY, 2011
1. The Grand Synthesis: Version 0.1—The Preface is Submitted for Self-Publishing
2. Plan Book Tour Itinerary To Coincide With C3Q Route of Guerrilla Art Sites
3. S3K: FOUNDATION Documentary 1 (Post-Production)
4. Design S3K Website (Promote: Book Tour, Doc 1, Doc 2 Filming, YouTube)
5. Edit Two Shorter Versions of The Grand Synthesis : Version 0.1—Preface
a) The New Millennialism: Version .02—Prologue
b) Common Sense III: Version .003—Epilogue
B) MARCH, 2011
1. The Grand Synthesis Book Is Published (MAR 1)
2. S3K: FOUNDATION Documentary 1 is Finished & Submitted for Distribution
3. Smaller Book Versions (.02 & .003) Finished, Submitted for Publishing & available immediately for purchasing as e-Book on S3K Website
4. Launch S3K Website on YouTube with “V” for Vendetta-type Broadcast
5. Start Promotional Book Tour Postering Campaign
6. Book Release Party & Send Off At The Blue Frog Café In Cortland
7. Book Tour Begins
8. Cultural Creatives Convergence Quest (C3Q) Recon Begins
9. GROUNDWORK & UNIFICATION Efforts Begins
10. Filming Begins on S3K II: INTEGRATION (Documentary 2) on all of the above
C) MARCH to JUNE, 2011 (4 Months)
1. Book Tour
2. S3K: FOUNDATION (Doc 1) Viewings
3. S3K II: INTEGRATION Filming
4. C3Q Reconnaissance Of 50 Chosen Guerrilla Art Sites
5. GROUNDWORK: Encourage Volunteers, Leadership Development,
Infrastructure Building of Alternative & Counter Institutions, Inspire the
Creation of New Political Force Of 535 Citizen Legislators & Parallel
Government Cabinet
D) JULY to DECEMBER, 2011 (6 Months)
1. S3K II: INTEGRATION (Documentary Pre-Production & Editing)
2. Write The First Self-Fulfilling Novel: The Society Of The Third Millennium (S3K)
3. Begin Design Phase of Electronic Version of Novel (Create-Your-Own-
Adventure-Type of Semi-Artificial Intelligence to Revolutionize Literature by re-
reading the same book with various social situations & virtually infinite endings)
4. C3Q Networking for Reality TV Show Production and/or Live Webcasts
5. S3K One Year Countdown Guerrilla Art Project (Nov. 5)
6. GROUNDWORK: Assist Transition Movement on Infrastructure Building,
Leadership Cultivation & Recruitment of 535 Citizen Legislator & Parallel
Government Cabinet, Development of Sub-Economy to Endure General Strike
7. Coalition Building with Libertarians of We The People (WTP) organization
8. Transpartisan Outreach with Third Parties
9. Co-Create “A Common Good Agenda” As A Grand Unified Platform
10. Constitutional Convention Planning with WTP
III. 2012—THE YEAR OF TRUE TRANSFORMATION: “This Is The Year!”
A) JANUARY & FEBRUARY, 2012
1. Submit Self-Fulfilling Novel for Publishing
2. Electronic Book Production
3. Secure C3Q Network, Reality TV Show Production and/or Live Webcasts
4. Continue Coalition Building w/WTP & some Tea Party Members in Congress
5. Continue Planning of Constitutional Convention
6. Continue Co-Creating “The Common Ground Agenda For the Common Good”
7 Continue Vetting All 535 Citizen Legislators & Parallel Government Cabinet
B) MARCH to JUNE, 2012 (4 Months)
1. Launch C3Q
2. S3K II: INTEGRATION (Documentary) Filming
3. Launch Reality TV Show and/or Live Webcasts
4. Self-Fulfilling Novel is Published
C) JULY, 2012
1. C3Q Ends
2. Constitutional Convention Convenes (July 1-4)
3. Present THE ULTIMATUM: Declaration Of Economic Independence (July 5)
4. S3K II: INTEGRATION Documentary 2 Filming Ends
D) AUGUST & SEPTEMBER, 2012
1. S3K II: INTEGRATION Doc 2 Editing, Marketing & distribution
2. Nationwide General Strike & Political Purge Preparations
3. Electronic Novel Marketing, Distribution & Sales
E) OCTOBER, 2012
1. S3K II: INTEGRATION Doc 2 Release & Viewings
2. Electronic Novel Release
3. Continue Nationwide General Strike & Political Purge Preparations
4. Promotional Campaign of Doc 2, Electronic Novel, Economic Independence
F) NOVEMBER (Launch Unified Mega-Movement Campaign of Civil Disobedience)
1. Nov. 5—Stage 1: Social Non-Cooperation (Some Examples Cited Below)
a) Social Boycott
b) Suspension of Social & Sports Activities
c) Boycott of Social Affairs
d) Student Strike
e) Withdrawal from Social Institutions
f) Stay At Home
2. Nov. 6—Stage 2: Political Non-Cooperation (Some Examples Cited Below)
a) Boycott National Congressional Elections
b) Boycott Presidential Election
c) Boycott of Government Employment & Positions
d) Boycott of Govt. Depts., Agencies & Other Bodies
e) Refusal To Accept Elected & Appointed Officials
3. Nov. 7—Stage 3: Economic Non-Cooperation (Some Examples Cited Below)
a) Withdrawal of Bank Deposits, Refusal To Pay Late Fees, Service Fees
b) Refusal To Pay Mortgage Payments, Fines, School Loans, Income Taxes
c) Workmen’s Boycott, Producer’s Boycott, Suppliers’ & Handles’ Boycott
d) Nationwide General Strike: Ports, Harbors, Refineries, Mines, Coal Plants
4. S3K III: INSURRECTION Documentary 3 Begins Filming Stages 1-3
Books, documentaries, book
Books, documentaries, book tours, art projects...this sounds like (gasp) a business strategy!?!? You want to make (gasp) money!?!?