Jared Yates Sexton - What the Hell is Going On: An Explainer in these Strange Times [View all]

[Nevilledog]

https://jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/what-the-hell-is-going-on-an-explainer

Though I left academia a couple of years ago to write and organize full-time, I’m still a teacher at heart and always will be. In the classroom I learned that effective education is dependent on scaffolding information, meaning you need to build on ideas and expand them, but also take moments to make sure everyone is on the same page. So, with an influx of new readers who are looking for answers and explanations, considering the complicated nature of our present situation, and hoping that maybe you might want to get friends, family members, coworkers, and neighbors up to speed, this is going to hopefully serve as a primer and explainer so that we can meet the moment and begin to create something better.

At the end of this article I will include a host of resources that I have created. The Audio From A Collapsing State podcast is presently going step-by-step in how to prepare one’s self both for the incoming Trump Administration, but, more importantly, in starting to get involved in organizing, coalition and community building, and creating a movement that can fight back and avoid the worst consequences of what I am about to describe.

I hope you find this helpful as you wrap your mind around all of this and will share with like-minded people so that they can get ready and join the fight.

Okay, So, What the Hell is Going On?

All right. The United States of America is currently experiencing what a lot of other countries have experienced over the last few decades. A lot of really wealthy individuals and corporations are co-opting our government through the usage of puppet politicians and political parties in order to line their pockets and expand their power. Using strategies that have worked in those other countries, often with the help of American institutions like the CIA and the military, they are more or less merging with the government so that it can be turned into a weapon to carry out their agendas, which includes redistributing wealth from over 90% of the population to themselves, using bodies like law enforcement and the military as protection arms, slashing programs and spending that helps people in order to lower the standard of living and produce cheap labor, and claiming our natural and created resources for their own private usage.

You Didn’t Mention Donald Trump?

So, for the purposes of this explainer, we’re occasionally going to mention individuals like “Donald Trump” and entities like “the Republican Party” and “the Democratic Party,” but to fully understand our situation it’s necessary to start looking past conventional narratives that obscure the larger picture. What has been communicated to us regularly is what’s called a “pseudo-environment.” If you want to learn more, look up Walter Lippmann. In some ways, it might help to think about American politics like professional wrestling in which you watch two people fight in a ring to settle a fictional storyline rivalry, but what’s actually occurring is that you’re paying a group of people behind the curtain who orchestrated the event.

*snip*