Surviving Institutional Reality
  by Charlie Webb

"Only truth can hurt the Devil. That's why honesty has been banished from almost every existing institution: corporate, religious, and governmental." (Tom Robbins)

Most of us can recognize Big Brother when he's dressed up in a government uniform, but we have great difficulty in picking him out from a lineup that includes corporate, religious and other institutional costumes.

Sometimes we are all pawns in the virtual reality games of life created by the modern triad of devilish institutions. Our president kisses the cross while bombing Muslims and bestowing billions in fat contracts to his favorite corporations. We fall to our knees begging him to take away our money and our rights so long as his crusade protests us from weapons of mass destruction. Many of us even believe him when he changes his justification for war from "Al Qaeda and Weapons of Mass Destruction" to "Iraqi freedom." Almost none of us recall the words of Hitler's minister of propaganda:

"Of course the people don't want war. But…voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism, and for exposing the country to greater danger." (Hermann Goebbels)

We have let ourselves be dominated by flag-waving "patriots" and self-righteous, trigger-happy Bible-thumpers. We don't even protest when we learn that our leader is tragically influenced by religious fundamentalists who "can barely wait for the earth to be destroyed. Doomsday is the jackpot on their golden slot machine, the day they'll be allowed to dig their quivering fork into all that pie in the sky." (Tom Robbins) How pathetic and gloomy is that?

Meanwhile the corporations create our cultural fairy tales through media propaganda. We waste billions of dollars on ineffective and dangerous diet pills while we pork up in front of the screens that tell us what to think and what to buy. Our culture is replaced and defined by consumerism, our happiness defined by shopping. We need help!

Is there any hope for escape from the thought control of powerful institutions? After all, we all feel the inborn need to "belong" to a protective group, and in order to belong we must, to some degree, conform.

But we really do not have to be mental doormats and thoughtless sheep. If we simply stay awake and remain aware that governments, religions and corporations care almost nothing for truth but care nearly 100% about power, perhaps we will learn to judge them by their actions rather than their words. Wars are never started for altruistic reasons. Religious people who preach love for their own believers and hate for the nonbelievers are simply tribal warriors. And corporations will always be happy to take your money any way they can. Let the believer beware.

Send us an Email

Or write to us at:
Freethinkers of Colorado Springs
P.O. Box 62946
Colorado Springs, CO 80962-2946
Phone: 719-594-4506