power: enabled by consent, disabled by dissent

billionaires, powerful enablers of power, are not power itself but an effect of power

power cares about power and nothing else: not people, not the planet

power, like gravity, pervades our world, and as with gravity, although we can’t see it, we notice its effects

power is the force that – thanks to the powerful and other enablers – shapes almost everything we care about

power manifests as – and cannot exist without – hierarchy: hierarchies of enablers

power gives more power to those in its hierarchies who play their part well: it promotes them

power takes away power from those who fail to play their part: it demotes them or sidelines them

power grows stronger when we believe stories about ourselves and, spellbound, each play our part like robots

power helps a few people amass or inherit great wealth, and this makes them powerful enablers

power makes the powerful crave even more power: the love of power is an insatiable desire

power concentrates on and is concentrated by hiding from most of us what is really happening

power does untold harm to people and the planet, and gets away with it by manufacturing consent


power decides what happens and decides what people think about what happens: “the narrative”

power won’t quit until we begin to understand it and share that understanding

power is in the mind: once enough of us make a point of understanding power, it can no longer hurt us



Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.
—Aldous Huxley, 1958

power continues to plague us with “war, greed, exploitation [and] systematic indifference to others’ suffering”

power, as a social disease left unchecked, is terminal

power has many symptoms: selfishness, individualism, poverty, racism, militarism, vanity, overconsumption …

power at present looks set to destroy us and almost everything we care about unless we begin to understand it


2021-11-08T17:17−08* / at the about* post – at bit.ly/dateposted – anyone can link to this post from its date: November 8, 2021
*a link – or not; see a note on notes and links and a disclaimer / … and maybe browse or search the archive*

image credit: Caitlin Johnstone, in a satirical piece, archived*

power … is the force that shapes almost everything (!*) / (Jonathan Cook)
hierarchy: hierarchies of enablers / hierarchies of wealth, status, and power* / (David Graeber, David Wengrow)
spellbound*
a few people amass or inherit great wealth*
the love of power is an insatiable desire / Bertrand Russell (!?, !*)
what people think about what happens* / (Caitlin Johnstone)
understanding power (!*)
“Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy … run the show as they see fit.” —Aldous Huxley, 1958 (!*)
“war, greed, exploitation [and] systematic indifference to others’ suffering”* / (David Graeber, David Wengrow)
/ the hallmark of hierarchy: indifference to the fate of those at lower levels – unless that threatens the status quo

“The well off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.* *

symptoms: selfishness, individualism, poverty, racism, militarism, …
(/
MLK’s three evils – poverty, racism, and militarism (!?) – are symptoms;
power is the disease, and the cause of the disease is ignorance,
where the ignorance meant is of things as they really are (!*) (Jacob Needleman)
/ Chomsky – October 2021 – on manufactured ignorance, among other things:
/)

###

it’s up to us, who think we can’t, to confront powers and structures of evil (!?) by getting together and getting it together
“to make the power structure … say yes when they may be desirous to say no”:

video clip from 1968*

see also: Martin Luther King, Jr. / site:nobelprize.org ! (!?) :: The quest for peace and justice* / Nobel Lecture, December 1964
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