March 3, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - New Eastern Outlook) - Karl Marx said of religion:
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
When Karl Marx wrote this, organized religion was very much the solace of so many people -people who might have otherwise sought more effective means of alleviating their daily suffering had this opiate not been available. Overtime, that solace was slowly eroded and replaced by an entire medicine cabinet full of “opiates.” From sports to TV, to video games and social media, there is a vast multitude of illusions we cling to today that provide a “soul to soulless conditions.”
Among them, it can easily be argued, is modern Western-style “democracy” which is perhaps one of the most insidious. Perpetually offering the promise of a better tomorrow, never actually delivered but always just one elections away from being realized – it is the strongest of all the opiates we sedate our anger, dissatisfaction, and will to effect change ourselves with.
US 2012 Elections
US elections in 2012 pitted “conservative Republican” Mitt Romney against “liberal Democrat,” Barack Obama. To so many millions of people, it was a pivotal moment in American history, with the fate of the nation, and in many ways the world, at the mercy of the electorate. In reality, the same corporate-funded policy think tanks were authoring the agendas of both men, who, while holding the position of “commander in chief,” would ultimately be at the mercy of an unelected “board of directors” consisting of corporate-financier interests that hide behind the facade of “democracy.”
Indeed, the wars, geopolitical maneuvering, and extraterritorial economic pursuits of the United States unfolding for 8 years under US President George Bush, continued or were expanded in earnest under President Obama. Wars engineered years ago under Bush were rebranded and sold under Obama. Instead of being a component of the unending “War on Terror,” they took on a more suitable “liberal,” “humanitarian” theme, however, these conflicts were nonetheless part of a predetermined, decades-spanning geopolitical campaign to maintain and expand US hegemony across the planet.
What then did the 2012 elections accomplish? They gave people the fleeting hope that the policies they’ve held in contempt under Bush would somehow be reversed, that justice would be served, and that progress would be made. Instead of effecting real change, locally and pragmatically, the people turned to their opiate of voting booths, campaign slogans, and the promise of a quick fix and in the end simply compounded their problems further.
The Arab Spring
