The posts below, Outliers, as expected, drew few reads and but one comment. Perhaps the biggest deterrent to anyone reading it is that it is long. But beyond that, there is a divide, and it is an interesting one to observe. Americans are kept under a bubble and fed shit, and have so learned to trust what they are fed that they regard anything outside it as aberrant. (“Conspiracy theory,” they are taught to think.) There is precious little freedom of thought in this country, and the most astounding thing is that this is so even as people are free to access any and all information from any and all sources … and don’t! They wait to have it dropped in their lap.
And then I realized because I have stepped out of traffic and read and read and tried to figure things out … that I am an outlier. I am not a radical in that I don’t have any solutions to our problems, and so have no proposals. There is no ‘ism’ that will fix us. I don’t support anarchists or syndicalists or libertarians or any of that nonsense, and certainly do not think that either of our two parties, the People’s Front of Judea or the Judean People’s Front, are any kind of solution.
So screw ideology. I just operate on a different set of evidence-backed convictions.
If more people were to free their minds, we might have meaningful change. But I don’t see it ever happening. The forces of thought control as manifested by news and entertainment and schooling is far too powerful to overcome. We’ll just have to see where it takes us. We have not really suffered much, not as suffering goes on a world-wide scale anyway. Other countries have suffered deeply because of American insulation. Millions have died, millions more are homeless and trapped in poverty. But we have not suffered. So I guess there’s not much hope for change from within.
Piece of Mindful 
However, I believe within each individual there is “the small voice” or “light within” which holds the power to change, to progress. Maybe I suffer from Quaker indoctrination. Or maybe each person holds incredible powers greater than the ubiquitous deceit that engulfs us all. All political, economic, social, military, etc. doors and passages have been possessed, closed and locked. What remains uncontrolled is a moral/spiritual energy within each one of us. Yes, dormant in most instances. Activate that power and I believe anything is possible.
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After all of these years of blogging, I am fairly well inured to the idea that anyone ever changes their mind about anything. I am told that I only need soften my approach, as hard confrontation does not work. The problem is that soft confrontation doesn’t work either. I see only two possibilities:
It is interesting to note that the public relations and advertising industries are built on psychological persuasion, undermining people and implanting ideas in their minds. As Bernays said, the key is to deal not with the outer shell of a person, which is fraught with deceit and self delusion, but the real inner person. So advertisers, propagandists and the like, to be effective, have to know how to reach that inner person, and know true motives and desires. They have studied us for a century now. They have us at a disadvantage.
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