The first lethal cynicism is the conviction that the people are too stupid, too susceptible, and too selfish to be counted upon to do the right thing. It's really a lack of faith in the whole concept that the Will of the People, as expressed through a majority (or plurality) vote, will give us satisfactory results.

This is not cynicism if it proves out to be true. The problem here is that there are percentages involved, and those percentages can, have been and are presently being manipulated by the ruling class through the use of education (miseducation might be a better word) and media/religion/other brainwashing techniques.

Oscar Levant once said "There is a fine line between genius and madness. I have erased that line." Well, there is also a fine line between dominant numerical percentages of the population and their relative abilities and awareness, and those who control the educational system and the media here...both of which have essentially the same function in the U.S. today, to socialize a majority of the population into acquiescence to the will of the ruling class...have if not erased at least succeeded in moving that line far enough rightward that an ongoing half of the country allowed BushCo to take power here. This is nothing new; it has been going on since Reagan was in office and the basis of it was established as early as the late'40s/early '50s by CIA actions such as Operation Mockingbird. (Look it up. folks. It's in there...)

This system is not new, but it is evolving. And if a functioning majority of the population remains as sheepishly unaware of what is up here as  has been the case over the past 50 years or so, then this first "cynicism" is indeed a simple, demonstrable fact.

Can this situation be changed?

Yes.

Circumstances can change it. The failure of the system to provide sufficient levels of bread, service and circuses...and don't hold your breath waiting for the failure of  the circuses part because they are MUCH cheaper to maintain than are the other two factors...will cause that percentage of sleepleness to change. Hunger and danger are two really good alarm clocks, and you don't even have to set them. They go off all by themselves.

But short of that...and who wants a nationwide Katrina or food riots in the streets of major cities...I see only one other option.

Three, actually.

NEWSTRIKE!!!

MEDIASTRIKE!!!

and

CULTURESTRIKE!!!

Yeah. I know. The eyes glaze over at this constant repetition. But there it is. If we cannot free this country of its hypno-media addiction, then we are lost. Doomed to repeat the same economic imperialist tactics that have led us to become the enemy of the majority of the people in the world. A majority that has now discovered economic weapons (Economic insurgencies, to coin a phrase.)  that can be effectively used  to combat our own economic imperialism. Effectively used  on the evidence of Iraq, Afghanistan and the resultant inflation that is ruining the economy of the U.S. as we speak.

Bin Laden wanted $144/barrel oil several years ago. And here we jolly well are, aren't we. The headline in the NY Daily News today?

New shocker from Con Ed: Forget 13% hike, now it's 22% thanks to soaring oil

THAT will turn down a few circus receptors, especially amongst the economically challenged 70% or so in the NY metropolitan area. Say 8 million people or more? Multiplied by every other economically challenged area in the U.S.? If you listen closely you can hear the circus receptors clicking off as we speak.

Sounds like locusts.

But how many "shockers" can we handle before the locusts come out of their hidey-holes are tear this place down?

Then you write:

The second lethal cynicism assumes the premises of the first, but believes that we can tap into the stupidity, susceptibility, and selfishness of the people by learning how the brain processes messages, and then apply what we've learned to turn people's innate shortcomings to our political advantage.

This is both lethal (long term) and demonstrably successful .(Shorter term, Again, on the evidence of what has happened in the U.S. since the day that a coup d'etat bullet blew JFK's brains all over his nice, shiny convertible)  I mean...it's worked here, hasn't it? So far? Who's still running this country, again? After impeachable offenses in the thousands? And who got run out of town on a rail for getting his dick sucked in the middle of the most prosperous two presidential terms that we have seen since Ike was President?

Hmmmmmm...

Stupidity and susceptibility don't even come close to describing that shit.

Your third lethal cynicism?

The third lethal cynicism despairs that power can ever be exercised benevolently, and slips easily into the conviction that all power is bad, and all power is equally unworthy of support.

An understandable position if not entirely correct. Again, on the evidence. It is almost outside of living memory in the U.S. that power has been exercised benevolently, at least on the federal level. Carter and the Clintons tried to do so, and they failed miserably. Eisenhower also tried, to some degree. FDR's early terms were the last ones to actually succeed in that attempt, and then came the war and the ascendancy of the secret police.

Nixon? Ford? Reagan? The Bushes?

Please.

Your fourth lethal cynicism?

Apathy?

Same as the third. Unless of course one becomes an active anarchist or at the very least, a nonarchist. (A nonarchist. One who resides in any given system with no belief in that or any other system other than a desire to survive systemic depredations. Also known as a criminal in many instances.) Anarchists are assholes, but at least they are not apathetic. Not the bomb-throwing kind, anyway. And nonarchists? They're too busy dealing with systems that are hostile to the individual to be apathetic.

You want cynicism?

The refusal of the so-called left to separate itself from the cultural apparatus that maintains this fictional democracy.

Cynicism?

Some call it sleep.

Or perhaps better...addiction.

NEWSTRIKE!!!

MEDIASTRIKE!!!

and

CULTURESTRIKE!!!

They would work. This country's controlling mechanisms could be reformed by the simple expedient of economic sanctions. An economic insurgency just like the one that is being waged by the Third World on the U.S. now, only smaller.

Drive them broke until they reform.

But without an effort on the part of the "best and brightest"...that's y'all, folks, God save us...on the part of those who have the capability of stepping out of the hypno-sleeple box first?

Naaaaahhhhh.

We are headed down, down down down, down

Bet on it.

Your choice.

New Hampshire's state slogan?

Live Free Or Die?

Well...

Wake The Fuck Up Or Die.

Howard Beal knew.

In 1976.

This is not hyperbole.

It's just the facts, ma'am.

Just the facts.

AG