Most everything seems to cost more nowadays. Everyone has to pay more and more for what they want. Even those with relatively unlimited resources like governments and the mega-corporations that run them may not be able to afford all that they want. The thing they seem to want most is control, control of power, control of money and control of you and I. This need for control is not some diabolical plot hatched in the darkness of a medieval manor house by a group of nefarious nascent bankers, it is the logical outcome of the economic and social system we have collectively created. I say collectively for two reasons. One is that we have all participated in it whether we like it or not. Two, unless we admit our participation in it, we have no power to effect it; we have surrendered to the “system.”
Although the current economic system is dysfunctional for virtually everyone, at least it is consistent. In fact, it is machine-like in its operation, completely committed, at least in theory and as managerially possible, to its profit maximization goal. This unconscious single-mindedness has appeared successful to itself. Within the confines of its awareness, the circumspection of its ideology, all is progressing as expected. The efficient are rewarded, the inefficient penalized. The strong get stronger, the weak get weaker. Yes, it all is internally consistent and predictable. However, what is successful in one arena maybe be quite the opposite in another. This success contains the seeds of its own destruction, laying dormant and unnoticed until they find the place of their unfolding.
Since the machine is unconscious and participation in it requires human unconsciousness as well, it is not aware of the danger, it can not sense its own weakness. A predatory system is inherently fearful, this is its code of honor, its central value – to fear and be feared. Thus it sees everything and everyone as either a threat or an opportunity for profit. As we move into the next arena of human experience, one that is wholly unfamiliar and inconsistent with the machine, it senses this new arena as a threat to its continued predation. Consequently, the machine takes action to defend itself. However, the actions that it has available are limited to its own understanding. Not only that, but its power is derived not from its own delusion of grandeur but from the people and planet that it exploits. Its existence depends on things outside of itself and outside of its limited understanding.
As its perception of the threat to itself appears stronger, its defenses also grow. Its claim to the earth and its people is asserted further, wider and deeper. The means of its defense, violence and oppression appear more often. But the machine does not recognize that these defenses are directed at the true source of its existence, at the resource on which it feeds. Oppression succeeds at nothing except the death of life and the destruction of the machine. What else could be the result?
Evidence of its unraveling are mounting. Since money is the language of the machine, it is in this that we can most easily see the indications of its demise. During the last decade particularly, the cost of military, law enforcement, war, security, defense and intelligence operations have dramatically increased in the U.S. And this is increase is not enough, it must increase even more to shield the machine from its own fear, a fear that has no bounds. Its creed is fear and the primary instrument of its control. Consequently, it can only defend itself with fear and secrecy. The cost of its safety has no ceiling.
Its increasing obsession with secrecy is one of the most obvious indications of the threat perceived by the machine. Truth must be supressed at all costs. Even the superficial attention to the facade of freedom must be abandoned in defense of secrecy. For example, the case of Julian Assange and the information revealed by his news organization, Wikileaks, has set off an unprecedented international debacle. It is clear that something Mr. Assange did struck at the heart of power, the he somehow damaged the carefully constructed shroud of secrecy surrounding the machine. Secret, undisclosed activities have been taken by governments around the world to surpress and intimate Mr. Assange rather than refute the information he shared with the world. Now we see that the cost of simply keeping Mr. Assange in his de facto jail cell in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London is becoming prohibitive. Although certainly not enough to break the Bank of England, multiplied by the huge, albeit lesser known, number of similarly persecuted people around the world, the total cost of this oppression is no doubt staggering.
Thus, it is increasingly obvious that the machine is expending its remaining power in an attempt to control the world and thereby save itself. The emperor has no clothes. Huge, unending deficits are epidemic in the world economy. Unemployment is high and rising most everywhere. Hunger, poverty and homelessness is growing. New diseases and environmental threats are arising. Most of us are well aware of this litany problems and more. But the significance of these issues lies not in their devastation of life, but in their deprivation of the source of the machine’s power. Yes, without a host, the parasite can not survive. And it is this inability of the machine to anticipate its own destruction that will bring it to its end. In addition, the trends that are taking it there are exponential. The days of the machine are numbered.
Lest I leave you with insufficient hope, I ask you to consider this. Life is eternal. We are simply spiritual beings having a human experience. Fear is an illusion we ourselves create. If you have trouble understanding this, I suggest you take the time to contemplate your existence. Meditation works for me. Perhaps just thinking quietly, prayer or some other activity works for you. Whatever it is, I suggest you take that on soon. Our salvation lies in our consciousness and our willingness to let go of fear. Fear is the currency of the machine; love is the language of life.