Renewed and “Modernized” in 2012, the Smith-Mundt Act officially made it okay for the United States government to use propaganda on its own population. This wouldn’t be a surprise to many, except that it is now institutionalized.
It would be hard to make it more clear that the US Government does NOT represent and/or exist for its citizens. It exists absolutely to serve a ruling class, and that is it.
How and when should you fight back? My mind moves between many thoughts. Said many ways over many millennia, from Sun Tzu to Buckminster Fuller, there is often no need to engage the enemy directly. Sometimes in fact the most effective thing to do is to simply plot your own course, to move in your own direction, to develop a new paradigm that renders the old one obsolete. To let go of things that no longer matter. Protecting your flank, but no longer giving the enemy charge of your actions.
Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies who pretended to be sincere. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said, so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. So the spies questioned him: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” He saw through their duplicity and said to them, “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
He said to them, “Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
In the end, your only decision, as a regular person, may be whether you choose to participate in this facade or go about your own life the best way you can. At least be conscious about it. It is only this that separates us from the sheep. Enjoy the wonder of the world as it is. Acknowledge the evil and resolve to be separate from it. Be educated, but don’t make that your mission. Time is short enough, and we are dealing with principalities against which we have little power.
I leave this short essay as it is, having scratched on it through the morning and trimming it up enough to hopefully be readable.
Have a great weekend!
John