Opinion/Editorial

THE SECRET WARS

by James Strauss

It’s almost impossible to evaluate, think about and discourse on features of our own culture unless we are exposed regularly to the features that present themselves when we are intermixed with, or exposed to other cultures. So many times what we take for an inability of others to have a significant enough intellect to understand, or enough emotion to care about is actually due to preconceived ideas and beliefs ingrained deeply into their psychology. In other words, the very foundations of their beliefs are so different that it becomes almost impossible to communicate effectively, and therefore deal with on any kind of basis the we might feel is right and proper.

Next week the entire culture of America will come together to be apart. The country will split itself into blocks, the west coast being one, the central and southern states being another and finally the eastern states coming in from out there on that coast. Inside each state, county, city, and right on down to towns and villages there will be this same gathering to be different. There are two choices in this coming election. One is to go with a man who is sort of really ‘out there’ and harkens for change even to the point of revolution. The other choice is to go with a woman who’s so much of what’s gone on before that she seems to have made so many citizens angry, but not to the point of their losing everything they have. The voting, and the result of the voting, isn’t nearly as definitive or illustrative about how things in the future of the United States are going to be, as it is in redefining who and what we are as citizens in this country based upon foundational beliefs that are so different, but not seen to be so different, except at certain times. This is one of those times.

The civil war has never really ended, and the divisions across the length and breath of the country cry out to illustrate that fact. Race, right down to defining what slavery really is, still silently resonates deeply inside the hearts and minds of all citizens. Black and white differences in America are as well defined as they’ve been since pre-Civil War days, and there is very little in the way of acculturation accommodation that’s been accomplished. For the most part, however, nothing of this is spoken about. Yet, it’s there and many times right in front of us. The “Back the Badge” signs in yards across the nation are a perfect example of secret beliefs that drive culture while being denied. That program of yard signs is designed to allow people who do not support, like or care for black people to let others know that while, at the same time, being able to very plausibly deny any hint of racism. The program is steeped instead in the deliberate artifice of supporting law enforcement. That almost all citizens support law enforcement anyway is one of the factors that reveals the subtle underbelly of this dark cultural effort.

The other silent war that’s developed over time, and it’s taken some time to fully get under way, is the war between urban and rural dwellers. It’s taken man centuries, in fact, thousands of years for agriculture (that part of the growing of crops that specifically calls for human work) to begin to not need people to accomplish its mission of feeding the public. As the need for human labor on farmland has dropped precipitously over the last few decades, many more people across America have moved into developed areas, be those towns, villages or cities. People who live in towns are different than those that who do not. In rural areas human contact is much less frequent than the daily social circulation of city people. Areas such as; race, attire, religion and uncommon behavior are experienced and accommodated in urban areas. Not so out in the country. Most people who are violently racist, for example, have people of races or culturely different from their own. Expecting a rural farmer to make objective decisions with respect to the relative rights of other races besides their own, is like expecting an urban dweller to make decisions about what kind of crop should be put in to take advantage of soil conditions and weather forecasts for the coming season. But human beings are no strangers when it comes to offering opinions. It is an integrated and genetically embedded part of the human condition for all human beings to have opinions about everything, whether they have any life experience or learning about the subject they might be rendering an opinion about.

With these two secret wars still going on strongly, if not more strongly than in years past, enters the invention of the mass media. The mass media, using television, radio and the Internet have not become the sources and centers for factual information that almost everyone thought years ago they would. No, mass media quickly came to understand that its role was much more effective in leading than it could ever be in educating and informing. In fact, to this day and coming out development just after WWII, the mass media has always deceived the public about what it presents in the way of news. Even before television the newspaper business was filled with the same mission of leading the public by convincing that same public that what it was reporting was fact instead of opinion intended to shape and control the news. Wars have been fought over this kind of deception that have caused the death of millions, the latest of which was seen when the U.S. went to war with Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that the mass media knew full well that country did not possess.

Given the history of mass media, is it any wonder that the two silent but deadly wars presented here have gone almost totally unreported as to what they are and how they are continued? In many southern states racial discrimination is still openly practiced, and beliefs in the righteousness and justice of racial apportioned slavery still abide, a belief system termed ‘confederate’ in this article. In all of the United States rural areas have been gerrymandered so that massively urban dominated areas have become completely controlled by small minorities living out in the country. Country people believe that land ownership gives almost all rights to people who own while denying those rights to people living in cities whom they feel are renters, for the most part, a belief system called ‘rural’ in this article. The two wars are going on each and every day, but they are rarely reported on.

Next Tuesday’s election is all about the confederate and rural wars. The one candidate, Donald Trump, is the representative chosen by the not yet dead confederacy, and the rural areas. Hillary Clinton is the candidate of urban areas. If you don’t believe that then look at any of the networks or party’s pre-election maps where they attempt to calculate who will win the election based upon votes in the electoral colleges of each state. There you will find a revelation of the secret wars being actively engaged and fought, as they have been for the past few hundred, if not thousand years. If Mr. Trump wins, and with the support of the Senate and House which are controlled by confederate and rural forces, the nation as a contiguous whole, will see itself tossed backward, like it was during the Bush Jr. administration, when urban programs like social security and Medicare came under fire, and urban property appreciation was virtually all stolen, and when fake wars allowed for the diversion of mostly urban tax monies to pay for them. If Ms. Clinton wins, and the urban forces can manage any change in the House and Senate, then the reverse will occur. Social programs will be protected and even increased, while urban tax money will be redirected toward moving the majority of the population (urban dwellers) toward greater central civilization and group financed objectives.

There is a brutal life and death battle being fought, as these two secret bodies of confidential warriors attempt to virtually kill one another off. This battle will also be fought across a battlefield where almost all the urban and rural land dwellers have little idea that such a life or death struggle is on. Instead, with the massive assistance of the bought and paid for media they will think this struggle is merely one of ideology, freedom and economics. However, those three things, although evident and much discussed, are only the shell coverings for the real deep and dark belief systems using them as shields and camouflaging cover.
~ James Strauss