The Poor-Man's Guide to Modernity - Independent Media Center

“Public opinion polls suggest that only a small minority (13 percent) of Americans
favor the proposition that 'as the sole remaining superpower, the US should continue
to be the preeminent world leader in solving international problems'. ... Moreover, as
America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to
fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly
massive and widely perceived direct external threat. .... More generally, cultural
change in America may also be uncongenial to the sustained exercise abroad of
genuinely imperial power. That exercise requires a high degree of doctrinal
motivation, intellectual commitment, and patriotic gratification. ... Mass
communications have been playing a particularly important role in that regard,
generating a strong revulsion against any selective use of force that entails even low
levels of casualties .... In brief, the U.S. Policy goals must be un-apologetically
twofold: to perpetuate America's own dominant position for at least a generation and
preferably longer,...” (211-215)
So, how to embark on “imperial mobilization” when the American white man (and the Western
white man in general) are no longer themselves “infected by imperialist emotions ...a quest for
national glory, 'the white man's burden', 'la mission civilisatrice',” kept engaged, and ensnared,
as they all are, in chasing their respective 'American Dreams'? Which, for the vast majority of
'white trash' among them, have their dollars, pounds, and euros, sucked out of their pockets
even before it can reach their dinner tables and their perpetual debt collectors? The political
science principle of achieving “imperial mobilization” under such conditions is to engineer
consent – just as one might engineer technology, or engineer the voyage to the moon. It takes
a great deal of expertise, and very deep pockets. This social technology is examined in the
Preamble of my 2008 report Weapons of Mass Deception, where it is explained how consent,
as well as dissent, both must to be manufactured in order to be effective, employing different
categories of deceptions tailored to the different audiences and their mental acumen.
This variance of having a differing audience, also necessitates making the manufacturing
process, and its products, different at every level. From simple big lies for the vast majority, to
complex layered ones which mix verifiable empirical truths, half-truths, and outright lies
characterized by clever omissions, layer by layer, so that the remaining few, as well as
institutions and organizations with group-think, can also find something believable to suit their
own individual propensities. Myths and mantras are cleverly fabricated and presented to each
audience according to their own limited world views and selfish priorities which are often
shared with their respective political, social, cultural, and religious groups. These engineered
The Poor-Man's Guide to Modernity 264 / 334 Zahir Ebrahim