[Occupymendocino] ON DICTATORS AND MISINFORMED CITIZENS

[John]

The Perpetual Recipe for Tyranny—Refused!

 Dear Mr. Schneider, 

I attended your elementary school almost thirty years ago and I'm very sure that you will remember me. My name is Suzy. I'm that hyperactive girl from the Egyptian family who used to always play dead on the playground during recess. You used to keep me after school a lot, and then my father would force me to make the long walk home in the cold or rain. Sometimes I would arrive after dark.

 I'm writing to tell you that I was bored as a kid. I was bored by your curriculum and the way I was always taught a bunch of useless junk. I did not like being locked up in a prison of scheduled time learning about irrelevant material, and watching belittling cartoons and shows approved by academia that made me even more bored.

 As a kid who was constantly growing, evolving, and being shaped by all around me, I wanted to travel, see other kids in the world like me, to understand what was going on amongst us and around us, to know what we were here for, and what was our real purpose for existence.

 I have some questions I would like to ask you, Mr. Schneider, now that I know that you are no longer a school principal, but the new superintendent of the entire school district. I want to know why racism today was not clearly explained to me even though we covered events that happened long ago. I want to know why you never shared with us why other countries never liked us, why we are taught to compete, to be divided in teams, and why conformity is associated with popularity, while eccentricity is considered undesirable?

 I want to know why my cafeteria lunches were slammed packed with bottom-tier processed junk food only suitable for pigs? And why is it that whenever a bully slammed a kid into a locker for his lunch money, nobody explained to us that egotism, selfishness and greed were the seeds of war?

 I want to know why we were never taught to stick up for each other, to love one another, and that segregation sorted by the occupations of our fathers, the neighborhoods we lived in, our houses, choices of sport, wealth, clothing, color of our skin and the texture of our hair should never, ever divide us? And lastly, I want to know why is it that whenever I pledged allegiance to the flag, I was never told that I was actually hailing to the chief?

 You used to say that I was a troubled child, a misfit, and that I needed obedience training, but you never acknowledged that I was the fastest runner in the district, and that I took the school to State and Nationals to compete in the Spelling Bee among kids grades higher than me. And that it was me, who won that big trophy that sat in your office when you used to detain me for hours and tell me I was no good.

 Mr. Schneider, if we are not taught truths as kids, then how do you expect us to grow up to be truthful citizens? if we are only being taught the written way, and it has not shown positive effects in societies of yesterday or today, then how can we progress as a united and compassionate nation? What good is it, to memorize the histories of our forefathers, without learning what could be gained from their lessons and mistakes to improve our future tomorrows?

 And finally, I want to thank you, for I know you have a tough job dealing with rebellious children like me. Your job of mass processing and boxing the young minds of America has not been an easy one, and I congratulate you on your recent promotion But I sincerely want to thank you, thank you, and thank you, for always pointing out that I was different.”

                                                            ―  <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4551735.Suzy_Kassem> Suzy Kassem,  <http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/14994756> Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

 

“You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”

                                                            ―  <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14033.Winston_S_Churchill> Winston S. Churchill,  <http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/14542628> Blood, Sweat and Tears

  

“It is the fate of great achievements, born from a way of life that sets truth before security, to be gobbled up by you and excreted in the form of shit. For centuries great, brave, lonely men have been telling you what to do. Time and again you have corrupted, diminished and demolished their teachings; time and again you have been captivated by their weakest points, taken not the great truth, but some trifling error as your guiding principal. 

This, little man, is what you have done with Christianity, with the doctrine of sovereign people, with socialism, with everything you touch. Why, you ask, do you do this? I don't believe you really want an answer. When you hear the truth you'll cry bloody murder, or commit it. … You had your choice between soaring to superhuman heights with Nietzsche and sinking into subhuman depths with Hitler. You shouted Heil! Heil! and chose the subhuman. 

You had the choice between Lenin's truly democratic constitution and Stalin's dictatorship. You chose Stalin's dictatorship. You had your choice between Freud's elucidation of the sexual core of your psychic disorders and his theory of cultural adaptation. You dropped the theory of sexuality and chose his theory of cultural adaptation, which left you hanging in mid-air. You had your choice between Jesus and his majestic simplicity and Paul with his celibacy for priests and life-long compulsory marriage for yourself. You chose the celibacy and compulsory marriage and forgot the simplicity of Jesus' mother, who bore her child for love and love alone. 

You had your choice between Marx's insight into the productivity of your living labor power, which alone creates the value of commodities and the idea of the state. You forgot the living energy of your labor and chose the idea of the state. In the French Revolution, you had your choice between the cruel Robespierre and the great Danton. You chose cruelty and sent greatness and goodness to the guillotine. In Germany you had your choice between Goring and Himmler on the one hand and Liebknecht, Landau, and Muhsam on the other. You made Himmler your police chief and murdered your great friends. You had your choice between Julius Streicher and Walter Rathenau. You murdered Rathenau. You had your choice between Lodge and Wilson. You murdered Wilson. 

You had your choice between the cruel Inquisition and Galileo's truth. You tortured and humiliated the great Galileo, from whose inventions you are still benefiting, and now, in the twentieth century, you have brought the methods of the Inquisition to a new flowering. … Every one of your acts of smallness and meanness throws light on the boundless wretchedness of the human animal. 'Why so tragic?' you ask. 'Do you feel responsible for all evil?' With remarks like that you condemn yourself. If, little man among millions, you were to shoulder the barest fraction of your responsibility, the world would be a very different place. Your great friends wouldn't perish, struck down by your smallness.” 

                                                                                     ―  <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/118694.Wilhelm_Reich> Wilhelm Reich,  <http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/414183> Listen, Little Man!

 

It is through our abject apathy and acquiescence to the dictates of a system that processes us into good, obedient, ignorant, uninformed citizens, who are very happy to stay that way for the promise of receiving the minimum of creature comforts and the toys for fun. In just that way we have again arrived at the threshold of tyranny with the ascent of Donald J. Trump. We have only ourselves to blame. Finger pointing is useless, unless we indignantly stab the air while looking into a mirror. Neither the Republicans, nor the Alt Right, nor southern rednecks have done this to us—we have done this to us!

                                                                                                                          —Matthew Yrigoyen

 

 

 

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