AMERICA: THE PERPETUAL BABY CRADLE

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Giordano Bruno

Neithercorp Press

Someone once told me that I was “too serious”, that I needed to “lighten up”. A lot of people take this sort of comment as an offense, but I try on most occasions to give other people’s observations at least some consideration, instead of immediately dismissing statements I don’t like. Normally I feel as though I’m a pretty good-humored person; relatively extraverted, quick to make a joke, easy to talk to, so of course, the comment confused me.

At that moment I had been explaining to some co-workers the very real dangers of our economic situation, and the need to prepare in case something went awry. I talk about these things sporadically, and I feel like its my duty, and every person’s duty, to share the truth with his fellow man when he knows it, and to demand the truth when he doesn’t know it. As long as we maintain a life outside our work in the Liberty Movement, then no harm done, but apparently, this was not completely true. Something was happening around me that I had not taken into account. My words were making people uncomfortable. The ideas I posed made friends and co-workers quiet and sometimes frustrated. Often, they wouldn’t mention a word about it to me directly, but I could easily see it in their faces. Was I “too serious”? Was I inadvertently killing everyone’s buzz? I decided then that I needed to understand the mechanism that was making people shut down in this way, so first, I started by simply listening. What I found upset me greatly.

For weeks, and in some cases months, nearly every person I worked with completely avoided serious topics of discussion about the world around them. Day in, day out, not one moment of concerned conversation or debate took place that had not been first initiated by me. My criteria for “serious discussion” of course excluded childish workplace vendettas and the deaths of meaningless pop-icons like “Wacko-Jacko.” Amazingly, every day had been filled with nothing but sarcasm and light comedy. Every pertinent subject was responded to with a quip. Every conversation was laced with T.V. show and movie quotes carefully memorized for effect. Every personal story avoided thought-provoking conclusions as often as humanly possible. What I soon realized was that I was not necessarily “too serious”, but that numerous people around me were not serious about anything ever!

Of course my comments about the unconstitutional nature of the privately controlled Federal Reserve, or the illusion of the left / right political paradigm, made them squirm in their own heads! All along I had been dealing with emotionally and critically deficient people and I had not seen it, or I had refused to see it. The harsh reality was, I had been talking to overgrown children, and this was not only the circumstance of my little corner of the world, this was going on all over America.

I sometimes refer to it as the “Daily Show Effect”, or, the “Cartoonization” of society. In the past six decades America has become a massive Consumer Culture, and Consumer Culture is the most powerful sedative devised. In a sense, the collective psychological state of our nation can be likened to a schizophrenic on heavy lithium.

You see, when a man’s psyche is shattered by the imbalances of the world, or the imbalances in himself, the unconscious mind works autonomously to put the pieces together, but it cannot accomplish this feat alone. Eventually, the man must consciously help himself to become whole again. Modern psychiatry disagrees with this concept completely. Instead of helping a schizophrenic to understand himself and his role as the eventual savior of his own condition, psychiatrists give powerful sedatives that essentially lobotomize the portions of the brain chemically that reveal the emotional malfunctions as well as the answers to his problem. He no longer outwardly shows his pain, but the imbalance still exists, often for the rest of his life. We have treated the symptoms, but not the disease.

In this way, the average American has also been lobotomized by the consumer-pop carnival they are surrounded by everyday.

In Neithercorp’s film series, “Sons Of Darkness, Sons Of Light”, we show that every human being has inborn knowledge and dualities in the form of “Archetypes” and that these archetypes give us the power of free-will and choice. It also proves that many elements of our personalities are derived from these archetypes, and that environment does not determine who we are. However, what environment can do, is become an obstacle in our path of self-awareness. Environment can be used by others to keep us distracted from the truth of our condition, like a drug that distracts us from our pain.
Example; try shutting off your T.V. and storing it in the closet for one month. If you can make it through that one month without getting the shakes, I will be surprised. Now, plug it back in and watch ten minutes of commercials with an observant eye. If you are a relatively intelligent person, what you will see should astound you. Notice the erratic sound and lights and effects. Notice the disjointed nature of the messages and the narration. Notice how every spokesmodel acts like a crack addict or a nymphomaniac, or both. Its an extravaganza of noise and banality! A frenetic psychedelic mind numbing beauty pagent. A great electronic diorama hanging over the perpetual baby cradle of America. It distracts us from the trappings of the cradle, our desire to get out and roam, our desire to know the world, and grow up a little.

I’ve known people in their early 30′s who don’t have jobs and still mooch off their parents. I’ve known women who fully expect that one day they will fulfill their childhood ambition of becoming a pretty pretty princess, marrying a half-assed pop idol, and never having to work or think another day in their life. I’ve known people who cannot cook rice. I’ve known people who, if left in the middle of the woods to fend for themselves, would be dead within six hours.

Ask your parents, or grandparents, if this sort of thing went on in their era. They will most definitely say “no”. Uselessness was not an ideal state of being then, and it shouldn’t be now. I’m reminded of an old bible verse that I always felt embodied the holier than thou attitude;

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Hell! It makes being responsible and mature sound like being a robot! I certainly want to remain “child-like”, in that I never want to lose that awe and wonder, the joy in the mysteries of life. I won’t give that up when I’m saddled with a prosthetic hip, and I won’t give it up now. But there is a difference between being “child-like”, and being childish. Being childish involves not the innocent wonderings of existence, but the complete avoidance of responsibility, and this is exactly what our society promotes.

The key to undoing this way of thinking is to promote an idea that is diametrically opposed to childishness. Some people believe that “discipline” is the cure, but outside discipline is much like benevolent preaching; we get a lot of it, and it never helped anybody. Instead, America must turn herself towards the concept of self-discipline. Each individual man must be his own driving force. He must challenge his own way of thinking, and his own limits. The New American Man must be willing to push himself as far as possible to accomplish great things, not sit around waiting for others to push him. He must release his apathy, for apathy is simply fear; the fear of taking action. He must embrace knowledge and wisdom, without which any action he does take will only result in folly. And, above all things, the New American Man (or Woman) must become courageous again.

There was a time when America was renowned across the world for the bravery of its people. We stood up in the face of lies, we punched the bully in the teeth when he dared show his face, we spoke our mind when it counted, and we didn’t mince words for fear of “offending” anyone. We were sometimes loud and obnoxious yes, but not afraid, not of anything.

To be alive again. To be defiant and free again. To be young at heart and awake again, but not a child. To lift one’s fist to the sky screaming “I am an American you son-of-a-bitch! And I will not be contained!” To inspire the world again, not through wild military blunder, but through the sheer roaring determination of the individual. The determination to make one’s own destiny. To become a solid piercing mountain, or an ancient and irresistible river. To turn away from distraction, and see oneself clearly, the truth within our grasp, and the untamed will to face it. The task ahead of us is unsurpassed and ominous, but if we ever wish to escape the cradle we’ve built around us and save our culture of individualism from certain destruction, it is a task we can no longer ignore.

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