By Caitlin Johnstone
July 31, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" -
I had a weird dystopian dream recently where I was
running away from these evil Agent Smith-type characters
who looked just like normal people, so there was no way
to recognize them; they could be an old man or a child
or a librarian, or anyone.
The only sign that allowed
me to tell them apart from real people always came too
late: if I ever talked about the dark forces I was
fighting, at some point they would say the words “Well,
what did you expect?”
As in, what did you expect when you disobey us? What
did you expect when you try to stand against our power?
Did you think we wouldn’t come after you? Did you really
think you could win?
It was a really scary, trippy dream, and I’ve been
thinking about it ever since.
I’ve been thinking about it because it’s such an
accurate reflection of how subservience to power
actually manifests in our world. You talk about abusive
power structures in our world, from police brutality to
corporate predation to imperialist military
interventionism, and many people are receptive. But you
always wind up standing across from some freaky empire
zombie saying “Well, what did you expect?”
|
No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media
|
It really is like a zombie infection, like a virus of
the mind which spreads through propaganda and toxic
ideologies and leads people to support the abuse of the
disempowered by the powerful.
Whenever there’s an act of police brutality caught on
video, no matter how brutal or inexcusable it may be,
when that video circulates online you will always see
comments saying “Well, what did you expect? That person
was disobeying.”
Literally always. Always, always, always, without a
single solitary exception. There’s a certain type of
mind virus whose victims literally cannot help
themselves. They absolutely cannot resist the impulse to
start making excuses for the authority figure explaining
why it’s okay for them to assault and abuse the
disobedient weaker party. You get the impression that
they’re not even really thinking about it; it’s an
entirely mindless reflex for them. Like robots. Or
zombies.
And it’s the exact same mind virus which justifies
literally any violence by the powerful against those who
disobey them, from the smallest to the largest of
scales.
Those who respond to videos of police brutality with
“Well what do you expect? They were disobeying!” aren’t
just defending the police, they’re defending every power
structure in the world where the weak are attacked for
disobeying the powerful. From governments which attack,
subvert and destroy weaker nations which disobey them,
all the way down to parents who hit their children for
annoying them.
It’s the same mind virus, and it’s the same dynamic,
and it all funnels upward in support of the same power
structures. The doctrine which says it’s okay for the
powerful to use violence upon the disobedient
disempowered applies anywhere else one might choose to
apply it. Which is why there’s so much overlap between
defenders of police violence and supporters of various
kinds of US imperialism.
Don’t side with the powerful against the
disempowered. Just don’t.
Learning to distinguish between empowered parties and
disempowered parties can be a little tricky, even for
relatively awake people, because nobody likes to think
of themselves as siding with the powerful against the
weak. It’s something we all know intuitively to be
wrong, so we’ll often find clever ways of using an
incomplete analysis of the power dynamics at play which
allows us to feel as though we’re fighting the power
when we’re really doing the exact opposite.
And propagandists are of course all too eager to help
us do this.
Israel is a perfect example. You can squint at it in
such a way that lets you feel as though you’re defending
a disempowered religious minority with an extensive
history of persecution that is surrounded by enemies,
but really it has nuclear weapons and the full might of
the US empire on its side. In reality the Palestinians
are the down-power ones, but people who want to believe
the Israeli government is a poor widdle victim will do
mental gymnastics to contort the power dynamics.
These compartmentalizations ignore where the actual
power is at on a global scale and just zoom in to a
local analysis which ignores all else.
Whenever you see the western mass media and their
propagandized followers talking about “The people of
[insert targeted nation here]”, they’re cheerleading a
US empire-backed movement against a weaker government
which has resisted absorption into that empire. But
they’re posing as supporters of the little guy.
- Juan Guaido is the brave rebel fighting the
powerful Maduro regime! No, he’s backed by the
US-centralized empire which is trying to stage a
coup in the nation with the largest proven oil
reserves on the planet.
- Yay, the freedom fighters in Syria are fighting
the tyranny of their oppressive ruler! No they’re
not, they’re jihadist extremists who were backed by
the US and its allies with the goal of toppling
Damascus in order to seize control of a crucial
geostrategic region.
- Yay, the brave people of Hong Kong are
liberating themselves from the tyranny of Beijing!
Well really China is far less powerful than the
US-centralized power alliance and the US government
is unquestionably intervening in the HK protests.
But people make believe it’s just the people vs the
big bad Chinese government.
This impulse to pretend you’re fighting the power
instead of fighting for power is so pervasive I’ve seen
people do ridiculous things like say Julian Assange is
actually the power because WikiLeaks is influential.
He’s one guy!
That’s also what you’re seeing when people try to
spin these US protests as a Deep State color revolution
backed by George Soros and “the Chicoms”. No it’s not,
you just don’t want to admit that you support the
government and its armed goon squad against people who
are sick of the brutal US police state, so you’re doing
ridiculous mental gymnastics to make it feel like you’re
actually punching up.
Online forums are full of self-described “anarchists”
who constantly wind up on the same side as the CIA and
the US State Department on foreign policy because they
act like every “revolution” in every nation is the
people vs power while ignoring a global-scale analysis
of real power. If your “anti-authoritarian” worldview
frequently leads you to supporting agendas which make
the biggest power structure on the planet more powerful,
then you’re not anti-authoritarian, you just want to
feel like you are. You’re fundamentally no different
than any other MSM-brainwashed tool.
Learn to see clearly where the power is, and refuse
to side with it. Expunge the “What did you expect?” mind
virus from your system and you’ll be doing all of
humanity a big favor.
Caitlin's articles are entirely
reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please
consider sharing it around, liking her on
Facebook, following her antics on
Twitter, checking out her
podcast, throwing some money into her
hat on
Patreon or
Paypal, or buying her book
Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
Post your comment below
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
