Michael Parenti: A Critical Assessment of the New World Order (If you think people who own and control this world are stupid, you’re being stupid and you deserve what is coming.)

If you think people who own and control this world, the people who have built hundreds and hundreds of military bases and are controlling and getting people to kill other people to advance and protect the interests of this top elite, if you think these people are stupid, you’re being stupid and you deserve what is coming.

You, a simple, uninformed person, think you’re smarter than the people who run the world. If you believe that the West failed in Ukraine, you are only fooling yourself and deserve the consequences. Yes, you think you’re so clever while they are so incompetent, and you believe you know better than them. Why bother looking at history or identifying patterns? Why think critically?

We invaded Iraq because of WMDs, right? They really thought those WMDs were there, because they were clueless, while you, in your brilliance, knew better. During the Western occupation of Iraq, ISIS was allowed to form because, once again, they were too foolish to prevent it—yet you, of course, were smart enough to see through it.

For over 20 years in Afghanistan, we couldn’t defeat the Taliban. Not because of deeper strategies, but because our leaders are just so dumb, while you are wise. Under Western occupation, Afghanistan’s heroin supply grew from 60% to 90% of the world’s supply. This happened, of course, because our leaders were incompetent, and you are so much smarter than them. You don’t see a pattern here—how they mask their true intentions under the cover of supposed incompetence?

What about Libya? They turned it into a failed state with slave markets because they “failed,” right? Yet again, you are so much smarter, seeing through their failures while dismissing any hidden motives. And now you think they failed in Ukraine, exactly as they want you to believe. Just because they control the world doesn’t mean they are smarter than you, right? Surely, they couldn’t have any other motives or goals that you’re unaware of, right?

It’s impossible that the WMD story was invented, and ISIS wasn’t created by the CIA to steal Iraq’s oil, correct? The West couldn’t outright steal oil, but they could allow terrorist organizations like ISIS to control the oil fields, later buying the oil illegally from them at a discount. Let’s say they bought the oil from ISIS at 50% of the market price—literally stealing 50% of the oil’s value. Without ISIS, they would’ve had to pay full price, benefiting Iraq and its people. Meanwhile, ISIS used the money to kill Western soldiers, thinking they were outsmarting and fighting the West.

But ISIS didn’t understand that they were doing exactly what Western leaders wanted them to do. It was always the plan to trade soldiers’ lives for discounted oil. The same goes for Afghanistan—while the Taliban thought they were clever, producing heroin and selling it to fund attacks, they didn’t realize that they were playing right into the West’s hands.

And now we return to Ukraine. Once again, they want to convince us that they “failed” and are incompetent. And of course, you—an average, uninformed person—think you know better, that you are smarter than them. Because they are “so stupid,” they couldn’t possibly have any hidden motives or goals, right?

I don’t fully understand how they do it, but I am beginning to suspect they use people’s arrogance against them. Smart people know how much they don’t know, while foolish people are full of confidence. It seems they use this to their advantage.

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
—Charles Bukowski

This phenomenon is well described in Dostoevsky’s portrayal of the Underground Man:

“Dostoevsky distinguishes between two types of men: the man of action and the man of acute consciousness. The Underground Man is extremely envious of the man of action, he who lives life without ruminating too much on his thoughts. He has a lower intellectual capacity that frees him from the questions and torments of one’s consciousness, while the Underground Man is paralysed by his thoughts.

Dostoevsky gives us an analogy with the Stone Wall, which represents scientific determinism. One has to accept these laws as the truth without questioning them. Two times two makes four and anyone who says otherwise is foolish. This represents a barrier to one’s free will.

When faced with revenge, the man of action dashes straight for his object like an infuriated bull with its horns down, for he seeks justice. But when he stumbles upon the stone wall, he is genuinely surprised and unable to speak – the wall is not an evasion, it is simply what renders his activity impossible.

The Underground Man, on the other hand, tries to come up with all sorts of tricks, and instead of admitting defeat and turning around, he smashes his head against the wall, while knowing the futility of his actions.

“Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength. As though such a wall really were a consolation…”

Every course of action seems insufficient and so he is paralyzed, or as Dostoevsky puts it, he finds himself stuck in a state of inertia, only able to think but unable to act. He suffers the greatest ailment of all, consciousness. To think too much is a disease. This best describes the Underground Man’s state of mind, he is stuck in his own reflective hyperconsciousness, thus creating a greater accumulation of spite than in the man of action. The result is that the intellectual is unable to do anything and is thus characterless. He writes:

“I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.”

He is aware of his flaws, while the man of action is content in his foolishness and believes that he is great. The Underground Man finds solace as he is smarter than all of the people he meets but socially they are all well above him. His vanity convinces him of his own intellectual superiority and he despises everybody; but when he realizes that he cannot rest without their recognition of his superiority, he hates others for their indifference and falls into self-loathing at his own humiliating dependence.

The Underground Man considers the man of action as the real normal man, while he sees himself as a product born out of a test tube. He calls himself a mouse, though nobody tells him he is one, it is as if he has constructed a hell out of his own internal ruminations”

Socrates was named the wisest man in Athens by the Oracle of Delphi because he admitted, “I know that I know nothing.” Are you as wise as Socrates or Dostoevsky’s Underground Man to admit that you don’t know everything? Or will you remain a man of action, content in your ignorance, convinced of your greatness?

Aldous Huxley once wrote:

“But the many are there. You’ve got to do something about them.”

“You’ve got to do something about them,” Mr. Propter agreed. “But at the same time, there are circumstances in which you can’t do anything. You can’t do anything effective about any one if he doesn’t choose or isn’t able to collaborate with you in doing the right thing. For example, you’ve got to help people who are being killed off by malaria. But in practice you can’t help them if they refuse to screen their windows and insist on taking walks near stagnant water in the twilight. It’s exactly the same with the diseases of the body politic You’ve got to help people if they’re under the menace of sudden revolution or slow degeneration. You’ve got to help. But the fact remains, nevertheless, that you can’t help if they persist in the course of behaviour which originally got them into their trouble. For example, you can’t preserve people from the horrors of war if they won’t give up the pleasures of nationalism. You can’t save them from slumps and depressions so long as they go on thinking exclusively in terms of money and regarding and regarding money as the supreme good. You can’t avert revolution and enslavement if they will identify progress with the increase of centralization and prosperity with the intensifying of mass production. You can’t preserve them from their collective madness and suicide if they persist in paying divine honours to ideals which are merely projections of their own personalities – in other words, if they insist on worshiping themselves…”

—Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength. As though such a wall really were a consolation…”

“You won’t break through a wall with your head, but if other methods have failed, you should try this one too.” -Józef Piłsudski

People cannot see through the surface lies that hide the real world. So go ahead, support BRICS+ and their Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), knowing that this programmable, traceable money will soon be followed by a digital ID. Once China and Russia implement these measures, the West will follow, justifying it as necessary to remain competitive.

Yes, China and Russia oppose the West, yet they also follow the globalist agenda: CBDCs, digital IDs, global warming initiatives, and more. If Putin were truly against the West, why hasn’t he exposed the West’s secrets—like its Nazi ties, the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, or the truth behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? Russia and China remain silent. Why? They have access to far more information than we do. If I know the truth, they certainly do. The real question is, why don’t they reveal it?

If you want to understand at least the basics of how the real world works, watch this lecture by Michael Parenti.