He talks about the manufacture of consent dating back to the Wilson era. About 2/3rds of it is quite interesting. Then you realize that he, too, is selling something.
But I am seeing with increasing clarity how the American Dream, as we have inherited it, is a chimera. It is an economically useful myth; it is propaganda, formulated for the purpose of training people to be useful drones.
I think of the movie “They Live” and have to say it does sometimes feel like this whole world is a big inside joke, played on most of us, by a very small number.
But the joke isn’t very funny. I think of Chekhov’s story “A doctor’s visit”
“Fifteen hundred or two thousand workpeople are working without rest in
unhealthy surroundings, making bad cotton goods, living on the verge of
starvation, and only waking from this nightmare at rare intervals in
the tavern; a hundred people act as overseers, and the whole life of
that hundred is spent in imposing fines, in abuse, in injustice, and
only two or three so-called owners enjoy the profits, though they don’t
work at all, and despise the wretched cotton. But what are the profits,
and how do they enjoy them? Madame Lyalikov and her daughter are
unhappy — it makes one wretched to look at them; the only one who
enjoys her life is Christina Dmitryevna, a stupid, middle-aged maiden
lady in pince-nez. And so it appears that all these five blocks of
buildings are at work, and inferior cotton is sold in the Eastern
markets, simply that Christina Dmitryevna may eat sterlet and drink
Madeira.”
It is always better to be on the inside, I suppose, but at what cost? We can assume there are power elites, obviously. The only question is how unified they are, and what purpose or purposes they pursue, other than more of everything: money, power, influence, pleasure.
I did the logical analysis on all this some time ago in my post “Perfection”. What is interesting, or might be interesting, to aspiring tyrants is the process of seduction. Chasing women is something I’ve always found interesting myself. But I find that once I catch one, quite usually I no longer want her. This is why I have done little chasing for some years. I was once good at it, but no more.
Is Fidel Castro a Christina Dmitryevna, able to enjoy his food and wine because he is a moral imbecile, incapable of seeing much less caring about the suffering all around him? Is he a clinical sadist, and if so, how often does he get the sorts of pleasures such people enjoy? Does he go to his political prisons often?
But even that must be tiring after a time. Both Castro’s must often be bored. There is little to do. What energy they may expend must be devoted to corrupting and ruining other nations. I know they have agents of influence in the United States. Again: chasing, not catching, is the pleasure.
I’m rambling. I just wonder how worth it the lust for power and wealth is for the power elite. I cannot believe it satisfies well, and to the extent it does, it is due to their mental and emotional sickness, both of which make true satisfaction and pleasure quite impossible.