So far we've learned that once tyrants take over public office, in order to stay in power and keep everyone from considering alternatives they need to distribute it in brutal ways. But these are power structures we're talking about here - who gets to tell who what to do, and how. Although this helps us see the way that power structures and power attitudes work, it's only half the picture. Power structures define the energetic world, but who among us can deny how many of our motivations stem from the material world?

On the corruption page we described the corruption of the four systems as dominoes falling, and the corruption of one system after another as almost automatic. This suggests that once the power structures have fallen to a corrupted state, then so will the material structures. This is expected, is it not? How satisfying would it be for tyrants to push people around, without it ever resulting in their material gain? How many wars are fought without pillaging? How many empires without dominating the resources as well as the people?

On the philosophy page we saw that both power and wealth structures are ideologically separated, but can be fused by an unscrupulous few. We also saw how both power and wealth structures can be further divided up into two more categories: ascending structures and descending structure - in other words, power is built and distributed, and wealth is built and distributed.

It's going to be tempting to rush ahead and get to the final 'prize', which is the corrupted distribution of wealth; but on this page we're going to slow down a little and explore how wealth structures are built, and how the building of these structures is also corrupted.

Again, it's only reasonable to expect this order of events. For example, brutalizers would have a hard time doing what they do (subterfuging the rule of law) without gaining a hold on the system in the first place. First they need to become the system, and then in a kind-of assembly-line way they create, distribute and enforce their rules.

The same mechanisms will come into play regarding the material world. In order to end up with all kinds of stuff being made for them, and directed to them, they first need to become the top rungs of the wealth structures and determine the rules that will govern how the economic engine will run. First let's take a look at the way that the economic engine should be built, and then we'll see how it ends up looking once it too has been corrupted. If you've read any of our other pages on corruption, you won't be surprised to learn that the two different ways of doing things work as either pyramids (ideal), or hourglasses (dysfunctional).

 

Rising with Ability: The Opportunity Pyramid

Power structures - representation and rule of law - are the ways in which we humans shape our environment and each other... but that's only half the equation. We do this shaping in order to experience it and each other. This experiencing is then done through wealth structures. So the economy also plays a very very important role; and an out-of-control economy can be just as dangerous as an out-of-control state or army.

First we should rid ourselves of the idea of a completely 'free' market. Markets are made up of business arrangements, contracts, understandings, certificates, referrals, degrees and most of all, confidence. None of these operate freely - they are all based on some kind of mutually accepted, underlying organizing principle. To thrive, the economy must be built up by combinations of these arrangements.  Ideally, we each add our own talents, ingenuity and productive capacity as building blocks into the arrangement in place; which in turn makes the entire economic structure stronger.  That is, we all contribute value to society based on what we do best.

The ultimate goal of the opportunity system is to put the most talented, ambitions and responsible people into higher positions of authority. That way the decisions which run the economic engine are wise and beneficial. When lazy, selfish and short-sighted people climb the opportunity ladder, then the dangers are real enough, and we start to collectively devour our environment, our power structures, and each other in order to satisfy their mismanagement. There's enough to go around, for a long time, but without proper management by intelligent people there's also the ability for misery and self-destruction. It's a fine balancing act that we need to obey.

We also need to address is the commonly repeated misnomer of 'equal opportunity'; because the whole notion of equal opportunity is an oxymoron (it contradicts itself). Perfectly equal opportunity (like pure socialism - no classes, so people can't 'boss' each other around) doesn't function as a healthy economy - it stagnates competition and breeds a very dysfunctional kind of patronage all by itself. This we witnessed in recent history by the collapse the USSR. As with power; in order to have opportunity, and a healthy economy, we're going to need inequality. The big question that remains is: How specifically are we to organize this inequality in a fair manner? And as with building power - representation - the danger is that some institutions for establishing this fair inequality are just as necessary as they are susceptible to corruption.

When we have a fair system of opportunity operating, then what we find is that each progressive step of the economic ladder is totally within everyone's reach - and each of us has the maximum possible control over our own destiny.  This kind of model allows for the most possible individuality, responsibility and contribution. Not only that, but the beauty of an opportunity pyramid is that with it in place our own priorities are reflected in the system at large. This produces the same kind of functioning stable inequality that we find in the system of proper representation. Equality comes in when we talk about offering each person the chance to add the most value he can - offering each person as many building blocks as she can use.  That way the only factor limiting ascension within a proper opportunity system is oneself.

Besides using words like broad, fair, inclusive, etc. - how else can we describe this system of open and available opportunity? Well, like other healthy systems, it functions as a pyramid. Within the pyramid is a stable inequality: the fact is that some people contribute more value to the economy than others whether it is determined by choice or by ability; not by who you know or how manipulative you can be.  Each person's place is directly correlated with the value that they add to society -higher value-adders occupy higher positions, and greater responsibility, within the economic pyramid. They will be the ones who decide what will be produced, how it will be produced, how the goods and services will be distributed, and how much it will cost (we'll discuss the latter two in our greed page).

The opportunity pyramid is modeled much like the representation one - by finding out what people want and making ourselves indispensable; we can climb much higher up the economic food chain than where we began.

In its ideal form, the opportunity pyramid allows each of us to contribute to the economy to our maximum potential; to create goods and services that on whole benefit us all - including when the cost of producing is accounted for.

The opportunity pyramid provides steady ascension into positions of authority to those who earn it.

Opportunity differs from representation in two main ways: opportunity works in conjunction with income, not votes; and opportunity dictates the distribution of wealth, not power.

Doing No Wrong: The Patronage Hourglass

However, as we've discussed in, well, almost every other page in this website, the economy does not exist in a vacuum. In fact, preceding its formation are the systems of power - built by representation and distributed through rule of law. So when corruption takes hold and distorts power into tyranny and brutality, there are no sound mechanisms to regulate the formation of wealth structures; and so they too fall into a state of corruption.

Corrupted opportunity is patronage. A corrupted opportunity pyramid is a patronage hourglass. A patronage hourglass is good for slackers and cheaters, bad for workers. No longer is each step of the ladder within any person's reach, as patronage creates a business environment with far more snakes than ladders. With a corrupted patronage hourglass in place, access to key economic positions remains totally beyond our control, and the market becomes driven not so much by what needs it can satisfy, but by what needs it can produce. Within patronage dictating economic policy, it doesn't matter what value we have to offer society - it matters who our parents are and how much money we already have.  It is no longer up to us how we are going to add value to society; and we no longer provide the blocks to build the machine, but the fuel to keep it running. The human spirit no longer builds the machine, but feeds it. We work, but it gives us no meaning. 0ur work is not a contribution, it's a sacrifice.  We add energy - but not value. The patronagic hourglass consumes us.

Instead of the united dynamic force of an opportunity pyramid, the corrupted patronage hourglass leads to regression and a hostile working environment.

Within the patronage hourglass access to the building blocks is restricted in the most backward and discriminate manner. Access to opportunity is defined by who we know, what our religion is, what our last name is, where we shop, what we drive, whether we speak with an accent, who our parents are, parental and grand-parental pressure what we'll inherit when they die - all factors we have little if any control over.

Ability is nothing without opportunity. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

People don't side-step the opportunity system simply because they are lazy and don't feel like working (while that may well be a result, it's not the cause of patronage). They do it because everyone else is doing it and patronage encourages obedience. In other words, if you're an aspiring business mogul, tycoon, boss, or just regular rich guy, you have to compete with a field of aspiring cheats to get there - so if you play it fair, you'll lose. What do you do? Jump in and cheat, of course. Tyranny creates tyrants, brutality creates bullies and patronage creates cheaters.

While the rest of us are working hard climbing up the ladder one step at a time, patronage encourages cheaters to belittle all our efforts and just hop on their own private elevator.

We're all in a great big car driving at a brick wall at 100 km/h and everybody is arguing over where they want to sit. My point is it doesn't matter who's driving. Somebody has got to say, 'For God's sake, put the brakes on and turn the wheel.' ~ David Suzuki, Scientist

The bottom line (where most of us find our collective necks) is that in a patronage hourglass; the most intelligent, efficient, effective, environmentally friendly, socially conscious of us will have to look elsewhere for the key to unlock that ivory tower's doors - and instead the economy is controlled by elitists who focus on gearing production towards the manufacturing of un-intelligent and unnecessary goods and services - in irresponsible and short-sighted ways.

21^st Century, Bottom-Up, Caste System

Like the other corruption hourglasses (tyranny, brutality, greed) patronage is made up of three classes of people: A compressed bottom (here defined as the iron age), a squeezed middle (petroleum age) and ruling top (information age). The currency which will delineate these levels will usually be some mixture of the way people look, their gender, ethnicity, lineage and ability to acquire and control information; and with this kind of regimented patronage in place, any attitudes about the way the economy should be structured, what needs need to be met first, and what part of our world should be preserved are completely overshadowed. Let's take a look at how this cultish kind of economy establishes itself from the ground up:

Iron-Age Bottom

The majority of people on earth, whose work consists of some kind of hands-on manual labor, can quite easily refer to the world they work in as the iron age.  Often consigned to do the jobs that no one else wants to do (clean, grow, pick, tend, build, cook, assemble, fix and haul) these workers actually make up the backbone of developed and developing societies alike - and yet their contribution receives little recognition in a patronage system. Janitors, field workers, line cooks, factory workers, housewives and the like are easily brushed under the rug and forgotten because they fall so far below patronage's radar.  And because we're taught to regard them as inferior members of society, any complaints they may voice simply fall on a sea of deaf ears.

Here is a brief list of some of the people you'll meet in the iron age bottom of the patronage hourglass:

[no-glossary]Refugees[/no-glossary]

For refugees and migrants, the act of leaving their country automatically puts them in the lowest caste; regardless of what skills they have and why they had to flee in the first place. These people are often labeled as pariahs who do nothing but drain our resources; when the evidence shows that in reality more often than not they do just the opposite and form the backbone of our society. Migrant workers are usually highly motivated and hard-working people, eager to reap the rewards that countries of opportunity claim to offer. Those fleeing persecution are often also not just hard-working, but very honest people who contribute more to the developed countries' infrastructure than those who are there by birthright.

[no-glossary]Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs)[/no-glossary]

Actually, we have gotten ahead of ourselves... Even below refugees are the unfortunate people who are not able, or not willing, to abandon the land they call home; and so when they flee instead of crossing national borders they become refugees like the group above, but inside their own country. This group experiences the worst of everything, often entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance to provide the most basic necessities like food and clean water. Unfortunately, when other counties and international organizations do offer this aid it often fails to reach the most needy, being caught first in the trap that is a patronage system and used up by those on top, and then mutated and delivered to them as yet more brutality to attract more attention. In fact, all too often national crises are exacerbated by cheats who intentionally fuel the destruction in order to direct well-intentioned aid in their direction (more about this in the Unfair Subsidies / Loans / Trade / Aid section).

[no-glossary]Homelessness[/no-glossary]

IDPs can just as easily be created from lack of economic opportunity in developed countries as from violence in underdeveloped ones. Whoever cannot function within our patronage hourglass and is unable to find steady work is looked upon with even greater disdain than manual laborers and service workers and even refugees. Yet most families who have to subsist on income from labor-intensive, low-paying jobs are rapidly thrown into homelessness by illness, injury, or downsizing ... and those least able to fend for themselves - their children - get it the worst. Homelessness is most prevalent in cities where there are more workers than jobs and a much higher cost of living than in rural communities. Thanks to foreign self-subsidies, as fewer and fewer people around the world are able to survive as farmers, more and more people migrate to the cities and jack up the value of the land - to the land speculators delight. And then as urbanization spreads, more homelessness follows.

[no-glossary]Externally Organized Labor[/no-glossary]

(Under construction)

Petroleum-Age Middle

The people in the middle of the patronage hourglass live in a petroleum age (chances are that's you and me). We are the energetic worker-bees whose lives center around burning fossil fuels in order to move ourselves and everything within reach to and fro, hither and yonder. Hanging just above our heads is the information that's been promised to us as our salvation, but in fact many of us close enough to this fire have reached the sad realization that this incredible amount of technology can easily be used to bury us in useless information to incessantly research, compile, chart, analyze, catalogue... and move around too.

[no-glossary]Ye Old White Boy's Club[/no-glossary]

Just because you might be lucky enough to have steady employment and live in a country that legally accepts you doesn't mean that you will necessarily be offered the same opportunities as everyone else. For going along with the patronage mentality comes the belief that women, ethnic minorities and people with without the right last name shouldn't have the same access to high-paying, intellectually rewarding jobs as people with 'superior' genes.  In the topsy-turvyness of the patronage hourglass competent women and minorities are kept down to form a formidable barrier against the rise of competent iron agers attempting to ascend while incompetent coasters float up to another front where women and minorities just breaking in to the hourglass top are faced with difficult task of having to work with.

[no-glossary]Bribes & Nepotism[/no-glossary]

Many people looking for a career in the hourglass know that if they can in order to succeed they must stop climbing stairs and hop on elevators. For them, bribery is an attractive way to circumvent important educational and competency checks and balances; and get ahead. In these situations workers bribe prospective employers to secure work; and then to pay-off their losses need to extort money from their clients (with interest) for carrying out their jobs. Of course, this kind of behavior perpetuates the disintegration of the economy and further entrenches the corruption hourglasses.

 Another great way for those in the middle to hitch a ride to the top is to take advantage of patronage's favorite son - nepotism. Sometimes called sucking up, brown-nosing, or being a teacher's pet, cultivating relationships with authority figures (bosses, teachers) solely for the upward mobility they offer is one way petroleum agers can ascend.

The Heavy Toll - Pollution

When we finally get the chance to slow down and look at scenery, we may want to take a peek back at the massive wake of destruction following behind all our progress; for its not like we get a free ride for all the effort we put into this energetic activity. The carbon chain - from underground billion year old corpses to combustible engines to the atmosphere and back to the earth and oceans - forms a very delicate part of nature; and we really ought to take the time to appreciate it more. Anyone who lives in a hot climate knows that left in the sun, a black car gets a lot hotter than a white one; well the same simple science goes for planets. So as we dredge up all our buried carbon deposits, stick them in engines and spew them into our atmosphere and waterways, we are, in fact, painting our entire rainbow-colored ecosystem black. Industry scientists tell us that it's only a mere drop in the bucket compared to the already existing forces of nature, which might be true, but the reality is that this heat bucket we call planet earth is very precariously balanced and it may not take too much of a shove to tip it into becoming say, an overheated Venus or a freeze-dried Mars. Sure, these amazing vehicles of ours allow us to live tens or even hundreds of miles away from each other, our jobs, and the goods we wish to consume; but we also ought to consider what it means to pave, occupy and alter every available inch of real estate regardless of what was there first - and do we really to inhabit a planet full of slums and sprawl?

Information-Age Top

If we cast our gaze way, way, way up, to the clouds floating high above; we just might catch a glimpse at a way of life that resembles our own in only the slightest amounts - for here we'll find all kinds of access to the jobs, wealth, perks, and almost unlimited opportunity. The fundamental difference between the people who live in this realm, and our own, is the way in which we deal with money. Although those of us who are trapped in the lower parts of the patronage hourglass spend just about all our time diligently shuffling goods, services and ourselves around, and engage in ferociously competitive self-promotion and self-spin; we remain merely working and middle class. Those residing in the top of the hourglass work differently - their income comes from moving their money around, so we'll call them the investor class. How come they can they afford to do this, and we can't? Because those people living in the inverted top of the economy have - or control - more money than they could possibly spend on themselves. As the saying goes, we work for our money, while their money works for them. But how, specifically, does this all happen, and what divides us? ...Information!

First, it may come as a great surprise to those of us in the super-informed parts of society, but the vast majority of the world's citizens remain completely locked out of the technology loop.  As the ability to acquire and control information can be the dividing line between classes of people; it means that they will be left in the dust.  In fact, if the road to riches is paved with influence, via information; then most of the world's population remains off of the map.

The so-called digital divide is actually several gaps in one. There is a technological divide -- great gaps in infrastructure. There is a content divide. A lot of web-based information is simply not relevant to the real needs of people. And nearly 70 percent of the world's web sites are in English, at times crowding out local voices and views. There is a gender divide, with women and girls enjoying less access to information technology than men and boys. This can be true of rich and poor countries alike: some developing countries are among those offering the most digital opportunities for women, while some developed countries have done considerably less well. There is a commercial divide. E-commerce is linking some countries and companies ever more closely together. But others run the risk of further marginalization. Some experts describe the digital divide as one of the biggest non-tariff barriers to world trade. ~ United Nations Secretary - General Kofi Annan, Speech to the World Summit on the Information Society

Secondly, we need to unravel some common misconceptions about how, once in play, information works to maintain a patronage hourglass. Most importantly, we need to understand that it's not the quantity of information that matters, but the quality. For all our endless searching, compiling and deciphering the virtual tones of digital data that course through our daily lives, none of it furthers our interests like the private phone number of the editor, the line on tax forms for the latest loophole, the name of the investor behind the money, the department that's really responsible for your case or how much the stock is really worth. This is the kind of information that works at the upper levels of patronage.

Finally we see that access to information is limited.  To ensure that status continues to determine opportunity, information agers mold information into a story that suits their needs and disseminate it as they see fit. And by inundating us with all kinds of legalese and bureaucracy, the hourglass ensures that only those who can afford to pay for the best lawyers and accountants get the real information behind the story.  In this way information can behave much like water: It can be used just as easily to quench the thirst of a parched person as drown him. Those living in the information-age top understand this, and manipulate the taps at will to keep the rest of us from understanding how they really work it.

So only these people truly live in an information age. The information (like property and force) that they use to increase their power and wealth comes from the researching, cataloguing, analyzing, and moving around that the rest of us have been busy doing.  Taking a closer look into the top of the patronage hourglass we find:

[no-glossary]Revolving Doors[/no-glossary]

Revolving doors swing wide and fast between government and business; and they're quite efficiently designed to keep all the information and power in the family. While we're told that a close relationship between government and business is essential to policies that support a healthy economy, in reality it's an incestuous relationship. This kind of inter-connectedness exists within the business world as well. Board members may be involved with several different corporations at once and swap companies at will. This allows the concentration of power in a few related hands, which are all in each other's pockets too, of course. And there's a good reason why family members should not be allowed to marry: Inbreeding leads defective offspring. An economy rife with these sorts of these relationships is dysfunctional and defective, and more so with each passing generation; or patronagistic business deal.

[no-glossary]Lobbyists[/no-glossary]

Where do a lot of these revolving doors above lead? The lobbying industry itself has increasingly become the go-to industry for former political leaders. If they can't get reelected, (which is almost impossible with the way that they district), then they can get another cushy job in the capital influencing political leaders. Many fat-cats have found bigger payoffs, and much less scrutiny, paying lobbyists to influence policy than to make campaign contributions - though they still do that, too.

[no-glossary]Unfair Subsidies/Loans/Trade/Aid[/no-glossary]

(Under construction)

[no-glossary]Corporations[/no-glossary]

Most amazingly of all, when we look at the modern day caste system we'll find that in the upper echelons of patronage entitles that don't even exist, but are themselves made up of pure information. Corporations are truly just pieces of paper that don't create anything, don't serve anyone and don't have a conscience, yet have become the rulers of the business world. Under the guide of freedom of speech, twisted legislation paved the way for corporations to consolidate their influence by taking the over of the political process, the media and, in the end, their original obligation to serve the people.

Patronage's Henchmen

It is the media and the academia that are supposed to provide us with the blocks to strengthen our economy - through education we cultivate those activities that we do best and learn to use our talents to add value to society, and through the media we receive unbiased information that helps us gauge how we can best add that value and measure whether others are holding up their end.

You can guess by now, though, that how things are supposed to be is not how things are.  Instead of fostering opportunity, the media and academia school us in the lessons of patronage.  Let's take a look:

[no-glossary]Academia[/no-glossary]

Any social hierarchy, especially in the economic sectors, depends very much upon, and is reinforced by, the system of education in place. Historically, conquering and occupying armies and colonists have devoted much of their attention to silence or direct the educated; and to ensure that the rest of the masses remain illiterate and ignorant. By keeping the population deprived of knowledge, they can limit their subject's ability to organize, and more importantly, reinforce in them a deeply held belief in their own inferiority.

The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. ~ Steve Biko

In today's corporate and lobbyist dominated economic reality, the same doctrine holds fast. To keep those above all in place, the educational system above all other actions continually hammers home in us how inferior we are in thought to the systems in place and the people in higher ranking positions. This is done, quite openly, through a long series of carrot and sticks (read 'grades') to discourage mischievous questions and dissent, and reward thought patterns of teacher or institution knows best. So some of the first lessons we're taught are the strict rules of a cult's indoctrination: Do what you're told. Don't talk back. Don't ask questions... otherwise you'll be singled out and castigated in front of your peers. These lessons extrapolated into whole sectors of the educational system by the use of stereotyping and discriminatory funding - to keep the "riff-raff" scratching their heads, away from the classroom (or at least the good, extra-curricular, safe ones) and held away from any channels of influence.

From the earliest stages in our lives, the education system plays a key role in determining whether an opportunity pyramid or a patronage hourglass will be built as children grow into and become the society. The purpose of a state-run education system is to provide to all children a general base of knowledge upon which to build.  The premise is that each child should be given the opportunity to learn all of the baseline skills to enable them to grow up into independent and productive citizens. However, when we look closely at the very way the educational system has evolved and continues to operate, we find too many mechanisms geared to favor indoctrination over ingenuity, mimicry over creativity, cheating over pacing and submission over serious study.

The historical trend has been to ensure that once children have mastered a skill in which to form a career, and the self-reliance to learn the rest as they go; to then delay releasing them upon society and instead keep them sitting behind a chair and nodding in approval for years upon years. Under the guise of a 'well-rounded education', the education system is used to keep any kind of revolutionary energy from surviving our children's youth. By confining them to dull and repetitive tasks, their drive to wrestle control of the economy from the powers that be can be slowly and thoroughly asphyxiated. The corporate rule dictates the private schooling just as much as the public, and in place of satisfying their curiosity, engaging their minds and allowing them to coming into their fullest being, the life of the high-school student is often full of bullying, drugs, cheating, obsessive studying of meaningless facts, anti-social development, loafing around killing time, and sometimes watching out for fear of being killed by some crazed classmate.

Variations of ‘pater’* emancipate expatriate father Jupiter padre paternal paternity patriarch patrician patricide patrimony patriot patron perpetrate *from the Online Etymology Dictionary

By the time the young adult enters a University, it's pretty much a sure bet that they won't make waves. The high costs and 'high' standards of continuing education ensure that they have little choice but to accept that the world works on very patronage-based principles. If they can afford to and do get in to a University, then there they will be fully exposed to the disparate role that women and visible minorities play in the classroom, the textbook, and the academic and business world at large.

Even those developed countries that are supposed to be at the forefront of equal opportunity are sadly falling far behind true equilibrium; as women and minorities have restricted access to both learning and teaching the skills used to shape the future of our material world. In fields both involving hard sciences (chemistry, physics, mathematics, architecture and engineering) and fields that are traditionally more open to women and minorities (languages, humanities, and education) a disproportionate number of tenured faculties at institutions of higher education are white men. Not only that, but the trend towards keeping women and minorities out increases with the size of the reputation of the school. Bad habits are hard to break, especially for those who benefit the most.

[no-glossary]Media[/no-glossary]

As we've seen above, education provides much of the off-balance foundation for the way we live and the way society will shape itself - and it the information that can allow us to succeed in the business world. But if we don't have the time, money, or connections we need in order to get into that special university or school, then where shall we to look in order to become enlightened and productive members of society? To the media ...and as proof of our passion for knowledge, we like to look a lot! Since the invention of the radio and television (and now the home computer and gaming console) the media has become a dominant form of our social interaction. From nanny to babysitter to teacher to friend to counselor to advisor to town crier to town hall to nurse; the media sticks to us like glue..

Whether we are at home, at work, at play, or in the car racing back and forth - we are constantly flipping through a newspaper, magazine or book, reading a poster, doing laps on the tube, URLing, or spinning that radio dial. You'd think with that much stimulation available at our disposal we'd get a wide range of opinions and an immense diversity available to enlighten and stimulate us. But the reality is that media conglomerates don't make their money off of entertaining or informing us; they make their money by churning us into a passive and hungry audience and then selling us as that audience to their real bosses - the advertisers. By wrestling control of every situation, and then watering it down to the lowest, or lower, common denominator; the media giants can promote the myth that we aren't smart, able, willing or united enough to deal with the problems facing us . . . and leave us believing that the only option is to see the world as 'everybody for themselves'.

As we saw on the tyranny page, the corporate media is well equipped to corner the market on public opinion and jack up the prices of access to their audience. As for the rest of the news that's not political; they follow a lowest common denominator model of replacing stimulating thought with shocking, replacing information with a tiny smidgen of detail and then asking "where's the outrage?", replacing open debate with sound bites and mockery. Why? Because this creates the passivity and insecurity needed to build an audience of wild consumers well trained to not ask questions, uphold relativism and obey.

Hear the screams from Center 42, lound enough to bust your brains out. The opposition's tongue is cut in two, keep off the streets cause you're in danger. One hundred thousand disparos lost in the jails of South America. Cuddle up baby, cuddle up tight. Cuddle up baby, keep it all out of sight. Undercover, keep it all out of sight. Undercover of the night. ~ The Rolling Stones, Undercover of the night

And now for the inevitable commercial break. . . Format: (Episodic. Iconic. Simplistic. Confrontational. Sensational. Manic. Manipulative. Curt. Simplistic. Happy.)

[no-glossary]Advertisers[/no-glossary]

Advertising is squeezed into every facet of the media and in turn every facet of our lives. Whenever an advertiser wants to slam home a slogan, logo, message, or announcement; the media is right there to help show them the way in.  Through repetition, subliminal messaging, branding, endorsements, and corporate sponsored stadiums to international sporting events, commercials to theme parks, textbooks to University professorships; they know that with enough money we'll learn to see whatever they need us to see, it their way. Add to this all the free exposure they get when we toss their containers, show-off their latest models, or wear their crap; and our own streets and bodies get littered with their advertisements.

As advertising closes in on the last inch of our personal space, corporations compete against our traditions and our defenses to be more creative and sneaky in order to beat out the other guy for our attention and hold it just long enough to take our money.  To this and subliminal advertising, guerilla marketing and strategic product placements are advertising tactics growing in popularity as they are both in-your-face and highly effective ways of penetrating an ad-saturated market.

But how many of these advertisements remind us that, you know what, we are perfectly okay just as we are? None. Instead, we're continually encouraged to think of ourselves as somehow flawed without their product, lifestyles and world view. And the ripest audience to fill with this feeling of insecurity is children. The rise of I-just-gotta-have-it-ism, the decline of public spending on education and the general acceptance in our lives for propaganda and junk food all work together to make advertising in schools too sweet a deal for corporations and school boards alike to ignore. What do the parents think of this kind of partnership?  Over 80% of them hate it, as advertising in schools contributes to materialism, nagging, sexual promiscuity, obesity and low self-esteem; but advertisers know that children grow fast, are extremely impressionable, and once in school and separated from their parents, become a "captive audience".

[no-glossary]Public Relations/Spin Doctors[/no-glossary]

If companies, organizations, or politicians can't get their messages into our skeptical skulls through advertising; then all they have to do is turn to one of the fastest growing industries - PR firms.

While public relations firms may not actually employ the news anchors and journalists that tell their stories, the PR guys have figured out a lot of different ways to run the show.  The news reporting that you think comes out of investigative work and walking the beat is too often just regurgitated copy of some press release in order to fill all that advertising space with 'content'. Using a wide range of techniques such as canned messages, rebuttals, counterattacks, preemptive attacks, spinning, starving, wagging the dog, burying bad news, planting, denying access, auctioning, overstating, over-inflating, floating, shilling, scapegoating, feigning guilt and mugging - these PR firms can basically ensure that we will think what they want us to think about the news they feed us.

Debate is good, but part of the public relations industry, the spin doctors, take news stories and massage them so thoroughly that by the time it gets to us the version is so convoluted or watered-down that it can't help but elicit a specifically designed reaction - sadly often a great big collective shrug.  Watching, reading, or listening to debates has become an exercise in frustration; since our input and judgment comes after the spin doctors have framed the arguments and had their say.

Because patronage cares not for our ideas, proposals, desires, motives, or judgments - we internalize the rift and stop questioning ourselves, instead adapting the belief that everything is relative and therefore in some way we are always right if we simply believe we are. This process is called the internalization of corruption - in the case of patronage, smugness.

Some of you readers will have got this far only after reading this page, the brutality page, and the tyranny page! We know it's exhausting and painful to think about all this corruption that runs rampant in our lives; but we've gotta know what we're up against so that we can arm ourselves for the vote sizing fight.

That said, there's still one more system that gets corrupted, and it's perhaps the most important and the nastiest.  Read on to find out about the last domino to fall - and when reward becomes greed.