Deconditioning

75 percent of Americans are proud of their country, while only a third of Germans and Japanese are. Half of Americans consider a public safety net important while 75 percent of Europeans do. Two-thirds of Americans believe success comes from individual effort, while the same proportion of Europeans believes success is the result of forces beyond their control. Half of Americans believe God is essential to morality, while only a third of Europeans do. Forty percent of Americans go to church once a week, while less than 10 percent attend in Europe.

Compared to the G8, the U.S. has the highest infant mortality, the most mothers who die during childbirth, the most lives lost that could have been saved, and the worst in treatment of cancer. The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th among nations in healthcare performance in 2000, even though Americans pay more for less service- two and-a-half-times more than the world average.The U.N. rates the U.S. 74th in healthcare performance. And in 2009, the C.I.A. ranked the U.S. 49th in life expectancy in the world.

The U.S. is second after the European Union in GDP, 41st out of 130 in public debt, has the worst balance of trade of any country.

32nd in student math, reading and scientific performance.

The greatest wealth disparity in the world. In 2007, our top ten percent controlled 72 percent of the wealth, while the bottom 50 percent controlled 2.5 percent.
The poverty rate increased from 12 to 14 percent since 2004, and the current recession has left over a quarter of the working population either under-or un-employed.

The largest arms and military expenditure, more thn the resy of the world put together

The capitalist system, through command of research, media and political institutions, expands upon and disseminates only that information which generates money and transactions. It avoids, neglects or spins the hell out of information that does not. And if none of those work, the information is exiled to some corner of cyberspace where it cannot change the status quo, yet can be sanctimoniouly cited as proof of America's national freedom of expression. Why was Julian Assangeand Wikileaks forced to do what the world press was supposed to be doing in the first place? However, WikiLeaks affair will not change the way global politics, money and war have done business since the feudal age.


Since the industrial revolution, the struggle has been between capital and workers. Capital won in America and has spread its successful tactics worldwide. We watch global capitalism wreck the world and attempt to stay ahead of that wreckage clutching its profits. A subservient world kneels before it, praying that planet destroying jobs will fall their way. Global capitalism, with all the power on its side and motivated purely by a lust to harvest profits will reduce the faceless masses in its path to slavery, a human regimentation process, and the ruthlessness of everyday competition, which leaves no time to contemplate anything.There is still money to be made by the already rich. So the million or so people who own the country and the government use their control to convince us that there is just economic and political problems that need to be solved. Naturally, they are willing to do that for us. Consequently, the economy is discussed in political terms, because the government is the only body with the power to legislate, and therefore render the will of the owning class into law.

Despite the way it looks in the news, most Americans remain untouched by foreclosure, bankruptcy and unemployment. So risking loss of their work-buy-sleep cycle in a revolution looks like lunacy to them. Like cows, they are cosseted to be milked for profit and it kills all thoughts of revolution. about as individual and personal act as is possible. Maybe the only genuine individual act. So if we are talking change through revolt, we're necessarily talking about deconditioning because the thing we fear already has a life deep in our own consciousness. Deconditioning is at the heart of any revolutionary politics.