The individual vs. the planned societyJon Rappoport The question it posed was this: could America exist as a self-sufficient nation, or would it have to go outside its borders for vital resources? Predictably, the answer was: imperial empire. The CFR, of course, wasnt just some think tank. It was connected to the highest levels of US government, through the State Department. A front for Rockefeller interests, it actually stood above the government. Behind all its machinations was the presumption that planned societies were the future of the planet. Not open societies. Through wars, clandestine operations, legislation, treaties, manipulation of nations debt, control of banks and money supplies, countries could be turned into managed units. Increasingly, the populations of countries would be regulated and directed and held in thrall to the State. And the individual? He would go the way of other extinct species. Deeply embedded in the social sciences were psychological warfare specialists who, after World War 2, emerged with a new academic status and new field of study: mass communications. Their objective? The broadcasting of messages that would, in accordance with political goals, provoke hostility or pacified acceptance in the masses. Hostility in support of new wars; acceptance of greater domestic government control. Nowhere in these formulas was the individual protected. He was considered a wild card, a loose cannon, and he needed to be demeaned, made an outsider, and characterized as a criminal who opposed the needs of the collective. As the years and decades passed, this notion of the collective and its requirements, in a humane civilization, expanded. Never mind that out of view, the rich were getting richer and poor were getting poorer. That fact was downplayed, and the cover story share and care took center stage. On every level of society, people were urged to think of themselves as part of a greater group. The individual and his hopes, his unique dreams, his desires and energies, his determination and will powerall these were portrayed as relics of an unworkable and deluded past. In many case, lone pioneers who were innovating in directions that could, in fact, benefit all of humanity, were absorbed into the one body of the collective, heralded as humaneand then dumped on the side of the road with their inventions. Their breakthroughs could upset favored monopolies and actually elevate the lives of people. Therefore, men like Tesla and Buckminster Fuller had to be buried. In other cases, there was very little praise before burial. Wilhelm Reich, Dr. William Frederick Koch, Royal Rife. In the planned society, no one rises above the mass, except those men who run and operate and propagandize the mass. In order to affect the illusion of individual success, as a kind of safety valve for the yearnings of millions of people, the cult of celebrity emerged. But even there, extraordinary tales of rise and then precipitous fall, glory and then humiliation, were and are presented as cautionary melodramas. The onrush of technocracy gears its wild promises to genetic manipulation, brain-machine interfaces, and other automatic downloads assuring greater life. No effort required. Plug in, and ascend to new heights. If the individual has any place in this future, it is: working at a job, keeping his or her head down, supporting the family, gradually wearing down, and dying. In more and more cases, the job is within, or attached to, government. Freedom? Independence? Old flickering dreams vicariously viewed on a screen. Individual greatness, imagination, creative power? A sunken galleon loaded with treasure that, upon closer investigation, was never there to begin with. The plan is all that is important. The plan involves universal surveillance, in order to map the lives of billions of people, move by move. In order to design systems of control within which those billions live, day to day. But the worst outcome of all is: the individual cannot even conceive of his own life and future in large terms. The individual responds to tighter and control with a shrug, as if to say, What difference does it make? He has bought the collectivist package. His own uniqueness and inner resources are submerged under layers of passive acceptance of the consensus. And make no mistake about it, this consensus reality, for all its exaltation of the group, is not heraldic in any sense. The propagandized veneer covers a cynical exploitation of every man, woman, and child. Strapped by an amnesia about his own freedom and what it can truly mean, the individual opts for a place in the collective gloom. He may grumble and complain, but he fits in. He cant remember another possibility. Every enterprise in which he finds himself turns out to be a pale copy of the real thing. This is why I have been so critical of the recent ballot initiatives urging labeling of genetically modified food. The group, in this case, is the mass of consumers, people who buy. This is the apotheosis of a movement against a titan, a monster, Monsanto. Know what you buy, know what you eat, and we will triumph over evil. The prospect of victory on these terms is, in the long run, non-existent. Why? Because the deep energies and power and desire for freedom remain untapped. Based on supposed knowledge of what works in the political arena, the men who have been dictating the terms of the good message are shortchanging this opportunity. As businessmen, they are tuned to the marketplace. But that is not where this struggle really lives. It lives in the hidden places of every repressed individual who wants out, who wants to come back to himself, who wants to stride out on a stage and take the battle to the enemy. And these failed political campaigns are an example of what millions of people in this country want on a much broader level. They want freedom and power again. They want to feel alive. They want to feel theyre fighting and winning in the true space where the heart and soul of the struggle can be experienced in the deepest way, where their own amnesia shatters and they remember who they are and they see what evil is trying to accomplish, in order to keep them in a trance. When a political campaign taps into that, it will have legs. It will have legs and wings, it will mean something about victory in this stolen nation. And it will mean that the extinct individual returns. 