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till kingdom come
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2021-07-13
The wave started in earnest in the late 90's.
As it moved across different parts of culture, it did what all liberty waves do, it broke apart centralzied power structures.
The first one that the general population noticed was the music industry. There, two things occured:
1. the distribution and consumption of music increased.
2. the centralized control of music diminished.
Those whose fortunes were based on centralzied control, were very unhappy. Those who wanted their music to be heard, were not.
This serves as a case example of what the internet liberty wave does to each system it encounters. It demolishes existing control structures, and returns much of that power to the people. We have more examples to consider:
The document industry.
The publishing industry.
The movie industry.
The advertising industry.
There are more, but this serves to illustrate that there is an observable pattern that has occured each place the internet wave has rolled over.
The evangelical philosopher Francis Schaffer described what he called the "Line of Despair". This was the line, according to Schaffer, upon which all new ideas entered culture. He claimed all new ideas enter the philosophers sphere first, and if the idea took hold, it would move into the artists sphere. And then the entrepenurial sphere. Then the big business sphere. And finally the administrative sphere.
Personally, I think Shaffer was wrong to label this as a negative thing. I would call it the Line of Ideas. It is neither negative, nor positive. It is simply a function of society.
To bring this into a more practical view, ideas originate in the groups where that generations decision making is centered. In this generation, I would say that was early Silicon Valley. The Valley is largely corporate now, but it wasnt. In the early 2000's, it was the center of the world. All new ideas of what the world would look like were centered there. And as it grew in influence, the artists came. The artists created all kinds of new technology centered art. Then came the entrepeneurs. Alot of them. And this led to Big Business, and is now giving way to the administrators. Or perhaps better labeled, bureaucrats.
I say all this to lead up to this point...
Right now, the internet liberty wave is crashing through the bureaucratic world. And this means, the political world, and the banking world. Or, the real centers of societal control. And as with all systems before it, the bureaucratic system is doing all it can to maintain control, as it slips from their fingers.
But perhaps the most interesting part of all of this is learning what the levers of control are for the bureaucratic establishment. With the music industry, as they were being disrupted, we learned that it was controling distribution. Because music had been largely analog up until that point, the people who could control the distribution of each record, or CD, could control the whole industry. So it is with the bureaucrats. And there lever of power is information itself. Or more specifically, media.
Before the internet wave, all media was centralized. It was controled by just a few media companies. Today, the entire corporate media is controlled by just 6 companies. What most people dont realize is that the Political and Banking world survive by being able to control what people percieve. Our entire economy is not based on the dollar, it is based on the perception of what the dollar is, and how much value it has. The political world is likewise based on public perception. What most people dont grasp, is the the political world, the corporate media world, and the banking world, are all the same entity. They have different faces, but they are the same beast. And this beasts continued power relies ENTIRELY on controlling public perception. I could be argued that there was a greater integriy that motivated this world in times past, but I question the validity of even that statement. I think most people would be suprised to learn just how many things they believe about their history, especially in the U.S.A., are in fact crafted narratives, for the purpouse of controling public sentiment.
Be that as it may, what we are learning now, as the levers of power for the political/banking/media world are being shaken by the internet wave, we are learning just how far they are willing to go to keep power within their grasp. And to summarize what we are learning, they will lie their asses off. And I mean, BIG lies. Without hesitation.
To put it another way, what President Eisenhower called the Military Industrial Complex, is a merger of the Political World, the Banking World, and the Media world. Sure soldiers fight their wars for them, but the real decisions are made in this sphere alone. And as their control is being shaken, they are turning all their intent toward undermining the thing that is causing the shaking... the free flow of information on the internet.
This has happened before you know. Its not a new phenomenon, or a new idea. This same shaking occured 500 years ago with the invention of the printing press. As the centralized powers that controlled the flow of information (at that time the Monarchies and the Roman Catholic Church) lost their ability to control what people read, they began to fight back. At first they would try to discredit publishers. Then they moved to discrediting them, and destroying their printing presses... or what we would call today, "deplatforming". Then they got smarter, and tried buying off or threatening publishers into speaking well of the Monarchies and the Church in what they printed. The publishers that were compliant, would be promoted by the establishment. This phenomenon is particulally visible in Facbook, Youtube, and Twitter. These platforms used to be freedom centered. Even social revolutionary. But now, they do the establishments bidding, and enforce their desires, censoring anything that contradicts the establishments desired narrative. It is no coincidence that so many political campaign activists and former corporate media employees went to work for Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other Big Tech firms, after Hillary Clintons loss in 2015. It was, and is, a focused attempt to regain control of the flow of information.
If at this point, you are thinking that this is a discussion about Trump vs. Clinton, you are missing the point. Entirely. Neither of them as people matter in this discussion. Nor does their charachter. What matters is the observation of what the bureaucrat establishment will do, to stop the loss of power that is resulting from the free flow of information across the internet. And there is no question that Hillary Clinton was the establishments choice to keep the ball rolling and the gravy train flowing at that time. Trump may have been extreme, or even unstable in both word and action. But it is quite clear that he was not the establishments choice. This is the point of including them at all in this discussion.
An interesting part in all of this is the response of the people. As it was 500 years ago, you see some people wanting to preserve the status quo establishment. Those people would join in the smearing of printers for "distributing dangerous ideas". Some Monarchies even established "Fact Checkers" of sorts, to combat those who spoke out about the tyranny of the Crown. Did some printers print inaccuracies? Probably. What is more important is the historical pattern we can see being repeated.
As it was then, much of what we see and hear now is slanted and needs to be questioned. Even though many people seem to be content to be led to "choose a side", without fully understanding what is really happening around them and why, its important for thinking people to stay alert and realize that much of what is presented as "opposing sides" are actually a part of the same apparatus. The consequences are high for missing what is really happening in a larger context. Now, as it was then, estabishment power creates labels to discredit their detractors. Back then, they called them "Anarchists, or Satanists, or Protestant Revolutionaries against the Church and the Crown. Today they are called "Far Right, Far Left, Anarchist, Domestic Terrorist, or Russian Bot". Its all the same. As the free flow of information now threatens the control of power structures, we see the patterns just like they did 500 years ago.
So. In the time ahead, we can expect to see the establishment come up with all kinds of ways to combat the freedom of the internet. It is in their vested interest to do so. And while they still fear the perception of the people, they fear the loss of power even more. They will claim their loss of power is "the loss of democracy". It isnt. They will claim "our economy is collapsing". It isnt. Their economic control is collapsing. They are collapsing.
As we move forward, unless you are one of those who wishes for their establishment to stay in control, it will become increasingly important to liberate yourself from dependency on their systems. FLOSS software, Crypto currency, offgrid technology, growing your own food, all of these things will become increasingly important. And perhaps the most important, community with like minded people, and a belief in something or Someone larger than yourself...
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