Unplugging Americans From the MatrixPaul Craig Roberts As readers know, from time to time I raise questions about the validity of the Wests extreme hubris. (See for example, the following articles: Washingtons Insouciance Has No Rival and Is Western Democracy Real or a Facade? ) China is often a country about which Washingtons moralists get on their high horse. However, Chinas authoritarian government is actually more responsive to its people than Americas elected democratic government. Moreover, however incomplete on paper the civil liberties of Chinas people, the Chinese government has not declared that it can violate with impunity whatever rights Chinese citizens have. And it is not China that is running torture prisons all over the globe. For some time I have had in mind a realistic comparison of the two countries instead of the standard propagandistic comparison, but Ron Unz has beat me to the task (see, Chinas Rise, Americas Fall and Chinese Melamine and American Vioxx: A Comparison ). Unz provides a chance for an education. Dont miss it. Unz has done an excellent job. Moreover, he cleverly understates the case for China and overstates the case for America so as not to unduly arouse the flag-wavers. Nevertheless, the conclusion is clear: The Chinese are less threatened by their extractive elites than Americans are by their counterparts. In the last decade Chinas industrial output quadrupled. China now produces more automobiles than America and Japan combined and accounted for 85 percent of the increase in the worlds production of cars in the past decade. In 1978 the American economy was 15 times larger than Chinas. In the next few years Chinas GDP is expected to exceed that of the US. This is heady stuff providing astonishing details of how poorly Americans are served by their elites. America has failed, because political elites represent only the powerful special interests that write the countrys laws in exchange for funding the political campaigns of lawmakers. To divert attention from their failures, American elites point fingers at external scapegoats. China, for example, is accused of manipulating its currency. As Unz says, the scapegoating is political theater designed for the ignorant and gullible. Americas economists, or most of them, have so prostituted themselves that propaganda has become wisdom. Most Americans believe that if China would simply let the value of its currency rise more rapidly relative to the dollar, Americas economic woes would be at an end. It is beyond belief that any economist could think that Americans with stagnant and declining incomes would be made better off by a sharp rise in the prices of goods manufactured in China on which Americans are dependent, or that the US dollars role as reserve currency, the main source of American power, could survive such a manifestation of Chinese economic superiority. Americans associate lawlessness with unaccountable governments and view Chinas government as unaccountable. However, Unz points out that it is the Bush/Obama Regime that has declared itself to be unaccountable to both US and international law. The demise of the War Powers Act and the Geneva Conventions, and the asserted power of the executive to imprison without trial or charges or to assassinate any American whom the executive thinks might be a national-security threat are indicative of a total police state masquerading as an accountable democracy. In America six-year old little girls who misbehave in school are handcuffed, jailed, and charged with felonies. (see, 10 Disgusting Examples of Very Young School Children Being Arrested, Handcuffed and Brutalized By Police ) Not even Hitler and Stalin went this far. Americans have lost control of the government, and governments that are not controlled by the people are not democracies. In America today, Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, and the entire social safety net are threatened by the vociferous desire for war profits by armament plutocrats and by financial institutions determined that ordinary citizens bear the cost of the banksters incompetence and fraud. Unzs comparison of how the Chinese media and government handled the melamine or infant formula scandal and how the American media and government handled Mercks Vioxx scandal is especially damning. It was Chinas controlled media and unaccountable government that punished the infant formula wrongdoers, while Americas free press and accountable government allowed Merck to walk. Unzs conclusion is that it is in America, not China, where life is regarded as cheap. Ron Unz is an American hero, and a very courageous one. As George Orwell said, In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. It is an even more courageous act when no one wants to hear the truth. As Frantz Fanon said, Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesnt fit in with the core belief. Or as it is explained to Neo in the film, The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when youre inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. Most of the people I know personally are not willing to be unplugged. I assume my readers are, so seize the opportunity to be further unplugged and read Ron Unzs comparison of America and China. Then do what you can to unplug others. This article first appeared at Paul Craig Roberts new website Institute For Political Economy. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His Internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. 