Never trust a politician

The subterranean traveller reports

Führer International had been heavily spraying the glorious blue morning sky for over an hour when I entered the roof garden with a brand new orgonite in my hands. I put the shiny cone made of crystals, copper spirals and scrap held in transparent resin in the full sun and started preparing some vegetable beds, adding earth and water, the works. Stretching my back after some time I looked up and noticed how the milky veil above my head was pulling away. There was a hole growing and soon the haze over my part of town had completely gone. Were these truly the workings of my little pyramid? More planes came and their thick, double trails just flew away like they had never been laid. Finally the sun turned behind the apartment building next door, leaving my garden in the shade. Soon enough the thinnest of veils came growing back. Führer International is a mighty adversary, too strong for sure to take on alone.

To extend its power to the furthest corners of the planet, Führer International relies heavily on lies and intimidation. A wide spreading web of propaganda and publicity has been set up to this end. In virtually none of the countries already under its spell even a single independent news outlet can be found. All newspapers, radio and TV stations repeat the same made-up stories, carefully crafted in the most inner circles of power. In fact, so well-hidden are these sources of information that nobody knows where any given day's headlines originate from. They are spread through press releases and spokespersons, but clearly these people, hungry for attention as they are, haven't got a clue what they are talking about. They simply repeat whatever is put under their noses and when a journalist has the nerve to ask for clarification or proof, they shrug off the nuisance and simply start all over again, rephrasing the same line, and again, until the news hunters in front of them give up and duly write down whatever is fed to them. Come to think of it, when there is no alternative voice available to offer even the slightest deviation to the original statement, what is the point of verifying the claims?

And so the people of the world are given the impression that the empire is a benign force bent on spreading prosperity and safety around the globe when in fact Führer International is a murderous monster, killing people, animals, nature and the rules of life alike in its quest for dominance and destruction. It's a clever scheme, no less. The inhabitants of the world are neatly stratified with regards to their income and chances of finding work, making sure that most people have no idea what life is like outside their particular social environment. The poor dream of the lies they know from their televisions, the rich wait for their parents to die. Whereas the poor seem to have a general understanding of how the system is preying on their labour, leaving them unable to improve on their circumstances, the middle and upper classes in the core countries mostly in all honesty believe that poverty is caused by a lack of industrial intent. They also go along with the gotspe that the numerous wars fought all over the planet by Führer Intl are without exception instigated by local adversaries of the golden rule of competition. Even in a time when Führer has grown so powerful and all-encompassing that the opposition feels compelled to resort to desperate rebellion, the lie is perpetually swallowed. Over the course of half a century, Führer International has been fighting communists, anarchists, religious fanatics, nationalists and terrorists and people generally in its way. With every next war, next intervention or show of force, Führer has managed to expand its sphere of influence, not just territorially but in hearts and minds as well. At the time of writing there are hardly any independent countries left. This has steered the empire's insatiable thirst for violence onto its own sacred middle classes.

As the reader may recall, over the second half of the twentieth century the peoples of the core countries enjoyed growing prosperity and liberty (at least a sense thereof), reaching a point where citizens began openly questioning the righteousness of their respective governments once again. So a crisis was invented. An easily solvable financial problem was used to cast austerity on the masses, taking away their incomes, their job security and whatever real influence they still had. Under the guise of fighting terrorism, nome du jour of the frequent and well-orchestrated atrocities the classes have to endure, a military style police force is mounted, to be deployed wherever people take to the streets to demand justice and practical solutions to their predicaments.

After five dark years, some say seven, people seem to be gathering steam for a final wave of protest. Further away the 20 teens have been uproarious all along, still further people are dying, but now at last the western masses are moving. Unfortunately, many of the widely springing grassroots movements are not to be trusted. Invariably such uprisings either lead the populace into a dead end, succumbing to the so-called realities of power, or they are seen as the perfect excuse for military intervention. The colour revolutions of the 21^st century have all led to levels of destruction and repression, leaving one to wonder whether the perpetrators were genuine local madmen or rather the worst scum to go around in a well-written psyop. Führer International is everywhere and everything, inventing new realities while people are wondering about the nature of old ones, always a step behind, always trying to protect what little joy and possessions they have left.

Where I live, people have been encouraged to dream of independence from the repressive and at times outright fascist state apparatus they resort under. For many years they have been crowding the streets of their capital city, demanding the right to take care of themselves, yet their political leaders fail at every opportunity to engage in what they were hopefully chosen for. Slowly the city is losing its faith in the dream. And behold, suddenly there's a new ideal, a nationwide uprising, rendering the wish to go it alone empty, even elitist. Unfortunately, once again, the leader of the new movement is not to be trusted. He hijacked an honest beginning and proclaimed himself sole heir to its principals. Soon the local councils are polled, with later this year the chance to ditch the current president of the state apparatus, a highly corrupted servant of power who promised his voters a cure to their financial woes and ended up instilling a return to the mentality of this country's darkest days. I will be allowed to vote for my council, but not for the country. So I watch. I hope my countrymen will make the right decision for the betterment of all, without fear of how Führer International will react. Because react it will.

With love,

the subterranean traveller