THE MINDLESS AMERICAN: A TRAGEDY IN THE MAKING

[Guest guest]

The Mindless American: A Tragedy In The Making

 

By Doug Soderstrom

 

10/18/05 " ICH " -- -- As a result of nine-eleven's jarring impact

upon our nation, journalists have discovered a near paranoid rise in

retaliation against individuals attempting to expose governmental

malfeasance. Increasingly government officials have begun punishing

individuals for nothing more than reasoned attempts to inform the

American public concerning: How the military has systematically

abused (tortured) foreign detainees; How the government intentionally

withheld evidence suggesting that an attack upon the United States by

Al Qaeda had been eminent; How the military has begun to wage war

upon soldiers who, in good conscience, have come to believe that it

is wrong for them to kill in a war that, according to international

law, is illegal, one that, the reasons for going to war, were

fabricated by the President of the United States; How the United

States has a sixty-year history (1945- 2005) of assassinating foreign

leaders who have chosen not to support the government's foreign

policy goals, initiating the overthrow of duly-elected foreign

democracies, while simultaneously supporting brutal authoritarian

dictatorships all in order to fill the coffers of America's military-

industrial complex, an egregious imperialistic force with but one

goal: To take command of the world economy.

 

As a result, many of these individuals have been incarcerated,

accused of being a traitor, of having sided with the enemy, told that

their career will be destroyed, and threatened with extended

imprisonment. Accordingly, on September 21, 2005, U.S. immigration

officials banned Robert Fisk*, an internationally renowned British

journalist, on his way to deliver a speech in Santa Fe, New Mexico,

from entering the United States of America due to incisive criticism

of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war. No doubt such

a scenario has, and is, being repeated many times over in our

country. A rather sad fact for a president who has chosen to make

such a big deal about the oft-quoted ideals of " freedom and

democracy! "

 

But even more shameful is the fact that there are people who seem not

to care that such things are taking place in our country; a rather

ignorant crowd of jingoes more comfortable choosing to sit back

pretending that everything will be just fine, a people with

apparently little regard for the facts. As a behavioral scientist, I

am grieved at what appears to be a near pandemic of disinterest in

what is happening to our country.

 

Given the election of George Walker Bush as our president, our

country made it quite clear that it is pleased to have as its

president a scoundrel, a true terrorist, one more than willing to

bully the rest of the world, as opposed to having chosen a real man,

one that humanity might embrace as a man of true character (someone

like Jimmy Carter), an individual committed to doing what is best for

the world (rather than what is most profitable for those running the

petrol, armament, pharmaceutical, and construction industries), one

with a desire to do what must be done in order to create a more

humane world, one of peace, justice, and love. Although we claim to

be a Christian nation, having chosen George Walker Bush to be the

leader of our nation is a scandal beyond belief, one that mocks the

very name of one whose life embodies that which we have been said to

believe.

 

However, now that I am well into my seventh decade of life and very

near retirement, I have come to the conclusion that the world

basically sucks, that there are few who seem to have the

investigative courage to take a good hard look at things that, if

discovered, would no doubt destroy one's image of a land that can do

no wrong, one that they believe has somehow received the eternal

blessing of God. So I must ask: How is it that we have become such a

mindless nation, a society populated by deadheads, folks who seem to

have little desire to look beyond the thinly-veneered surface of life?

 

As a behavioral scientist, it appears that a vast share of folks in

our nation have chosen to relinquish a quality no doubt essential to

authentic human life….. an existential responsibility to think for

themselves, an ontological need to discount the petty concerns that

drive the minds of those directed by triviality. It seems that such

individuals have become so fantastically preoccupied with,

essentially enamored by, the norm of what others think, they have

effectively relinquished, through a process of cognitive foreclosure,

the capacity to think for themselves. Having become so extremely

alienated from the core of their own being, they have little choice

but to follow the crowd's madding need to forge a symbiotic

attachment to, in essence relationship with, a society, that for all

practical purposes has become the basis of their own identity, the

bedrock of their very being. Having done so, the image they have

forged for themselves (who they believe themselves to be) has become

every bit as fabricated, every bit as disconnected from reality, as

their image of society. So in wanting to have at their disposal a

more a positive image of themselves, they have been left with little

choice but to construct a glorified image of society; an image of

what they wish society would have been rather than what it has, in

fact, turned out to be. Something like having chosen to have built an

ego-incased frame constructed upon the shifting sands of inane social

rumor and outright public lies…… truly a flight of fancy bordering on

the absurd!

 

Very few would disagree with the proposition that in Hitler's Germany

there was a determined effort to brainwash the people so they might

support Mein Fuhrer's efforts to conquer the world. However, what if

one were to suggest that much the same is occurring in the United

States of America, that there has been a determined effort through

the socializing influence of our schools, the government, the mass

media, the churches we attend, even that of our own parents, to

pressure us into believing (just as Hitler) that our country has

received the blessing of God, and because of this, we therefore have

not only the right, but more importantly, through the use of military

weapons, a divine responsibility to see that the world acquiesces to

our needs and expectations. Just as Hitler in the 1930's prepared his

countrymen to accept the authoritarian control of the Nazi

government, much the same may well be occurring in the United States.

Just as Hitler indoctrinated his people to believe that Germany had

the right to conquer the world, George Walker Bush " in the name of

freedom and democracy " may well be doing the same (preparing the

American people to support his administration's imperialistic drive

to dominate the world).

 

Behaviorally, it is clear that citizens, from cradle to grave, are

primed to conform to the dictates of those in power, instructed never

to question the validity of what those who would like to take control

of our lives have to say. Most Americans have no idea; that what we

are fed by the news media (televised and paper-print news) is nothing

more than a portrayal of what powerful corporations (those who pay

the salaries of those who run mass media) want us to believe, that

what happens to pass as education is as often as not mere propaganda

(e.g. that Americans are the good guys and their enemies are, without

exception, always the bad guys), that what we learn in church may

have very little or nothing to do with the truth, that what our

parents teach us may be nothing more than an accumulation of their

own personal biases…… no doubt a rather subtle modification of what

they were taught by their parents. And through such a process,

governments and nations around the world wield control as to what

their citizens, believe, value, and do.

 

And, of course, in our own society, the primary way most of us are

controlled, the way the vast majority of us are forced " to tow the

line, " is through the ominous threat of being fired. Something like

this: If you are interested in keeping your career on track, that you

would like to keep your job, then you ought to consider the following

in order to assure your employer that you deserve the right to keep

your job; get married and have a couple of kids, become a member of a

social club (such as the Lions Club, the Kiwanis Club, or the

Rotarians), be a good capitalist, be a patriotic citizen who loves

his country, and make sure that you attend a local church so that

everybody will know that you believe in God almighty. However, if,

for whatever reason, you decide that you would like to become a

rebel, that you would like to begin thinking for yourself, then you'd

better brace yourself for trouble, because there is a reasonable

likelihood that you will be fired! You see, in America, there is a

rule of thumb concerning the working world which basically says that

those who do what they are told to do are likely to keep their jobs,

whereas those who tend to think for themselves, tend to buck the

system, (tend not to do what they have been told to do) end up

jobless, powerless, and left to fend for themselves on the mean

streets of society.

 

But why? Why does such a thing occur? Why would America the

beautiful, land of the free, do such a horrible thing to its own

citizens? The answer is quite simple: Knowing that knowledge is

power; the secret is control, controlling the out flow of

information, making sure that citizens know no more than they " are

supposed to know, " making sure that they remain relatively

uninformed, making sure that they are given " just enough " that they

will go along with, peacefully accept, the premise that they are well

informed, that they have a good idea of what is going on. It is

necessary then that the government keep the people from learning the

truth. Keep them from even wanting to know the truth. Put the fear of

God into them to the extent that they will never question what they

have been told to believe. You see, those in power may say that they

want their citizens to be educated, to be well informed as to what is

going on, however, such is simply not the case. Ask yourself this

question: What happens to those of us (teachers, preachers,

philosophers, writers, journalists) who do not " tow the line, " those

intent upon proposing alternate ways of looking at the world? Look at

what happened to Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi,

even Socrates. I mean, really now, who among us wants to be

crucified, assassinated, forced to drink hemlock……. wants to risk the

possibility of losing one's job, the ability to put food on the table

for one's family? However, just in case you do not believe me, try

this on for size…… the next time you go to work tell the boss that

you are an infidel (that you have grown up and no longer believe in

God), that you have decided to become a socialist (that capitalism

essentially sucks), that you no longer give a shit about your country

(that you have decided to become a rebel, an actively-participating

antiwar protestor), and then see what happens. Do you get the point?

 

There are many (Robert Fisk, Cindy Sheehan, Sybil Edmunds, Bunnatine

Greenhouse, Coleen Rowley, Captain Ian Fishback, Col. Anthony

Shaffer, Kevin Benderman, Jeremy Hinzman, Brandon Hughey, Camilo

Mejia, among others) who have illustrated the courage to risk their

jobs, their careers, their reputations, their marriages, their

wealth, imprisonment, and, in some cases, even that of their own

sanity. But the sad fact is that for every hero out there, there are

literally thousands of citizens (each who no doubt consider

themselves to be conscientious, hard-working individuals who have a

sincere belief in God and a loyal commitment to their country) who

yet, for whatever reason, detest men and woman such as these who have

shown the moral gumption to put their lives on the line for no other

reason than to make a stand for that which is right, a willingness to

tell anyone, everyone who is willing to listen, that it is a far

better thing for one to have sacrificed his own life so that others

might see, than to have chosen to remain silent ensuring the blind

pretense that all is well, that there is nothing to worry about, that

Big Brother will no doubt take good care of us as long as we simply

keep our mouths shut and do exactly as we are told.

 

Postscript: The most dangerous thing one can do is to tell the

truth…… the sentence for which, one way or the other, is always death!

 

Doug Soderstrom, Ph.D.

Psychologist

 

Note from the author. 10/24/05

 

" Recently, it was brought to my attention that Robert Fisk, the

renown reporter of The Independent, was not banned from entering the

United States. Such was no more than an unfortunate rumor multiplied

many times over on the internet. If I had pursued the information a

bit more diligently, I would have realized that Mr. Fisk had not been

banned from entering the United States, but was, in fact, simply

detained from entering the U.S., at that particular moment in time,

due to the solitary fact that Mr. Fisk did not have a " biometric

passport, " which is now required of all citizens from nations like

that of the UK on a visa waiver program. For that mistake I offer a

sincere apology first of all to Mr. Fisk, for whom I have the

greatest degree of respect as an investigative journalist, and

secondly to those who so diligently took the time to read my

article........ all in order that I as an undoubtedly fallible human

being might continue to do my best to tell " the truth " the best that

I can. "

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10653.htm