by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Sept. 30, 2005
As the facade is pulled away from the stinking mess that has hidden
beneath our self serving delusions, as increasing numbers of people
come to realize that the tidy, sensible, kind and lawful world of their
imaginings does not exist, we face the one threat that we certainly can
not overcome: Panic.
The bad news is that civilization as we know it
is in the early phases of complete collapse. The good news is that
civilization as we knew it is past the point of no return and will
certainly collapse.
Nothing any of us can do will help prevent this total collapse. Do not panic. This is a good thing. The so-called "civilization," that
standard high school texts tell such tall tails about, is nothing any
of us, were we to suddenly be able to see it in its entirety just as it
is, would want to survive.
In fact, if we, as a species, as part of
the complex biological web of mutual dependence of all life, are to
survive at all it will be because this system of violence masquerading
as order, this depravity of indifference to suffering, fails utterly
and completely.
It lives on fear of violence. Threatening to bring it
down with acts of violence only makes it stronger. It must, and it
will, fall of its own weight. It will need no help. Best we do our
best to ignore the agony of its death throws and busy ourselves with
making suitable arrangements for life after its passing.
It is confusing to many, that as this system approaches its final hours
on earth, it seems stronger and more depraved, able to act with more
impunity than ever. Please do not be alarmed. Do not adjust your
sets. We are having technical difficulties that signal the onslaught
of change.
This is just what happens when such a dying system senses
the approach of its own mortality. All the stops are pulled, all
reservations quieted, all restraint becomes sin in a desperate, futile
attempt to survive. This is good news.
It means the slave masters are
desperate, and are willing to risk anything to stave off a threatened
change that they themselves are more attuned to than we decent people
could ever be. No doubt there will be massive suffering during the
transition, but calm reflection can minimize the harm.
There is a really robust literature on this whole subject. Some of it
surfaces here on Unknown News, such as Ran Prieur's writings, but any
even halfhearted attempt to depart from the "main stream" will reward
the reader with a diversity of fact and opinion on the eminent
collapse. But beware, the dominant system exists in large part because
it believes that it can make propaganda use of any stirrings of the
public mind and readily turn insight into delusion.
The recent
bestseller, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared
Diamond, is a case in point. Not that I didn't enjoy the book. I love
scholarly books for the data they present, not necessarily for the
faulty conclusions that they often reach. But for the discerning
reader, even this mass market product will make the point that the text
tries to avoid: Societies collapse because of the way people in those
societies treat each other, and they only seem to collapse as a result
of some sudden severe change in weather or other uncontrollable event.
This is a version of the "life style" problem discussed in medical
circles. Did uncle Harry die from a heart attack, or from a lifelong love of
cigarettes, booze and sloth?
At its core, the dominant system in place today is a very glorified
version of the protection racket. To the person running any kind of
protection racket, fear is where the money is.
Doesn't matter what the
fear is, the job of the racketeer is to enhance and exploit it for
personal gain.
Worried about the afterlife? No problem. Horrendous
images of perpetual torment after death will be provided. Your only
chance of escape will be for you give your money and your loyalty to
your church.
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Worried about crime? Overblown reports of heinous crimes will meet the need, the TV and cinemas will produce elaborate
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terror-filled hours, so that you can feel better about building prisons and employing corrupt police.
There are other rackets, powerful wealth
producing markets of suffering such as gambling, prostitution, drug
sales, war, slavery, and countless others, but even these are
subsidiary to the basic protection scam. All of these organized
criminal activities serve to keep people in power that are able and
willing to cultivate markets dependent on fear and despair.
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The keystone in the protection racket is the belief that "strong men" (or in rare cases "strong women") are needed as leaders, to defend us from harm. The problem is that "leaders" are easy marks. The truly strong ones can be killed, the rest can be used.
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Like many of our addictions and afflictions of consumption, I suspect
that there is a biological cause hidden below the surface of this
dilemma. We evolved in an environment where salt was scarce. Hence,
we overindulge ourselves in the presence of the modern plenitude of
salt because our desire thermostat for salt is set to maximize salt
consumption. Same can be said for the abuse of sugar and a whole host
of deleterious desires. But where can we look to try to understand our
seemingly insatiable appetite for abusive leadership?
My understanding of this is that we evolved to become dependent on coercive leadership when
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facing fearful threats. Like all understandings, and unlike any dogmatic belief, this understanding is a work in progress.
But why pursue this understanding at all? Is it useful? I think so, but by all means, question what I, what anyone has to say, because locked in fear, verging as we are on panic, the urge, if I am right about this, will be to look for the "strong" explanation, the evidence to our senses that a "strong man" is speaking.
I see my own weakness at work whenever I am fearful, or helplessly angry. My impermeable mental skin fails and I am as vulnerable to bullshit as anyone else. For a brief time, for instance, I even believed in the air war against Serbia.
We are all, and every one of us, subject to becoming
instant fools when we consult authority to order our
thoughts, rather than settling for the illumination of
personal experience. Our personal experience is that
most of the people we know can be trusted and will
come to each other's aid when needed. Try to go with that, rather than the images of film and screen.
If my perception is correct, what is needed is leaderless organization,
an organic approach to organizing that will produce the very organic
solutions that we will need to
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good storm, remember). What is needed is a conscious sociological
change that makes the old dependent way of thinking,
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the leader and
follower paradigm, as obsolete as the button hook.
The Quakers pioneered this approach to nonhierarchical organization.
In fact, they used it to successfully administer the Pennsylvania colony
peacefully and effectively for many years, until replaced by the
gangster set that had come into power everywhere in the "new" world.
Unfortunately, our thinking has become so completely conditioned by
millennia of protectionist propaganda that, for most of us, leaderless,
nonhierarchical forms of organization seem only a fanciful, utopian
dream and certainly nothing to be considered in an emergency. However,
as pointed out by Ran Prieur, and many other thinkers, the exact
opposite view turns out to be true.
As an introduction to this sort of thinking I suggest Daniel Quinn's
book, Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure. As a
practical guide I suggest the movie Fight Club.
What's coming will be like
instrument flying is to visual flight rules. If you insist on looking
through the windshield and fly by the "seat of your pants," you will
only see the fog of frightening images projected there by the gangsters,
and this will result in a fatal crash. On the other hand, if you
monitor your fears and resist panic, trust your intuition and your
neighbors, we may yet pull out of the dive that our demented gangster
system has taken us into.
Faith in our inner goodness will save us.
Nothing else will.
And if we fail it will work out for Mother Earth
anyway, who will be purged of useless parasites, or so the nihilist
approach goes. But I never understood the nihilist way of thinking. Why bet
against yourself in a race?
© by the author.
What do you think?
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Hitler
Stalin
Mussolini
Bush
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At its core, the dominant system in place today is a very glorified version of the protection racket.
To the person running any kind of protection racket, fear is where the money is.
Doesn't matter what the fear is, the job of the racketeer is to enhance and exploit it for personal gain.
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Previous articles by this author:
Trying to control your emotions "can make you pretty stupid"
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The gangsters' mentality
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Nietzsche, New Orleans, and 'Nam
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Four decades in five minutes
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Habits of successful modern cannibals
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Yet another, higher dose of pain
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The war of one against all:
The roots of our enslavement
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Class warfare, anyone?
Why class war is not a fiction but a fixture of our lives
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Why "Free Speech" does not matter
by Herb Ruhs, MD
When all else fails, try the truth
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Childhood abuse and the role it plays in maintaining coercive power
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Murder by medical device
by Herb Ruhs, MD
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Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
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Say it with a bumper sticker:
$3 each, or two for $5
We are all, and every one of us, subject to becoming instant fools when we consult authority to order our thoughts, rather than settling for the illumination of personal experience.
Our personal experience is that most of the people we know can be trusted and will come to each other's aid when needed.
Try to go with that, rather than the images of film and screen.
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