Living in a world of fantasy success and boogey-man fear? Welcome to the world of Inverted Totalitarianism. Chris Hedges explains.

VP Nominee's Dance of Veils Hits Thin Ice As David Sirota Asks "Who Is Paul Ryan?"

 “A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom.”― Chris Hedges

War is Peace. Selfishness is a virtue. Only the wealthy know what is good for the rest of us. Democracy is tyranny, if we let the poor take part in it. Charity is an evil weakness. The wealthy deserve everything, including our tax money; the rest of us can live off the crumbs they leave along the road to the next Wall Street crash.

A cynical take on life? A stark political landscape? Welcome to world view of Ayn Rand. It is also the enthusiastically held world view of Paul Ryan, chosen this week as the Republican party's vice-presidential nominee for 2012.

Ryan has gone pubic on video many times promoting the ideas of Rand, 20th century author of Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and The Virtue of Selfishness. Her rather lengthy books pit self-made characters against the forces of Collectivism. The rich do everything for the poor, and the poor have no gratitude. Government poverty programs not only are a problem, they are the enemies of liberty. You get the picture.

Flash forward to 2012, and Ryan the VP candidate now has to bring forth a "regular guy" image and and deny his real plan to take our elders' Social Security and Medicare and throw it down on the Wall Street gambling table. Get ready for lots of veils to be thrown over us.

Several well-researched reports have come out during the past week about Paul Ryan's strange ideology and radical actions in Congress. Enjoy as David Sirota pulls a veil from Paul Ryan's "I'm For the Little Guy" song & dance.

Understand here, that ShiftShapers takes very little interest in the daily, ugly, money-engorged horse race of 2-party campaign politics in the U.S. Candidates on both sides have broken promises. Some get in office and make so many concessions to their opponents that we may as well have voted for their opponents and been done with it.

What concerns us and interests us is the work of pulling apart our denial of the disasters we are creating, and tearing away the veils put over us by people who would have us create even new ones. 

We aren't dealing any more with old-time corruption- being hoodwinked by snakes in the grass, working in cahoots. We've got people picking our pockets while leaving us - and much of the world - sick, broke, hungry, and one suspicious look away from pepper spray or prison.

Posted by: Jor-El

Riot Police Arrest Protesters Outside Disneyland
Something is happening in Anaheim - Why the Media Blackout?


 “The corporations that profit from permanent war need us to be afraid. Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear permits the government to operate in secret. Fear means we are willing to give up our rights and liberties for promises of security. The imposition of fear ensures that the corporations that wrecked the country cannot be challenged. Fear keeps us penned in like livestock.”
― Chris Hedges, The Death of the Liberal Class

The New LAW Enforcement Execution Style

Here's an everyday scene in the 'hood: Police in Anaheim see a young man running away from them, and shoot him in the hip. He goes down. Had this been 20 years ago, an ambulance would have been called and that would have been the end of the story, other than making up some excuses for discharging a weapon on a fleeing suspect. 

Here's what things have come to, in the United States of today: Police shoot the young man, he goes down, then they come up from behind and finish the job by putting a bullet in the back of his head. 

No ambulance is called. For a brief eternity, witnesses in the neighborhood shout pleas to the officers to call an ambulance. More neighbors gather, astonished by the scene. 

Police do make a call, but it is for the riot squad and a SWAT team. The neighbors, including children, are subjected to a barrage of rubber bullets and the attacks of a police dog. 

Later, on the news, the report is all about how the police "stood off an unruly crowd."

Welcome to the new century. Or, as the narrator in this video says, welcome to the New World Order.

Events are still unfolding in Anaheim, but this is by far not the only community to experience execution-style police shootings. 

Try googling on "police shoot unarmed man in head", and you will see dozens of incidents across the country. Only in one of those incidents - the BART shooting of Oscar Grant - is an officer charged with anything more than an improper procedure.

Some questions are waiting to be asked, like why the executions? 

Are all those officers lone gunmen, or are they performing hit-man duty?

Just askin'...

“Violence is a disease, a disease that corrupts all who use it regardless of the cause.”
― Chris Hedges

- Posted by: Jor-El