They Live, We Sleep: Beware the Growing Evil in Our Midst

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

“You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they’re people just like you. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.” — They Live

We’re living in two worlds, you and I.

There’s the world we see (or are made to see) and then there’s the one we sense (and occasionally catch a glimpse of), the latter of which is a far cry from the propaganda-driven reality manufactured by the government and its corporate sponsors, including the media.

Indeed, what most Americans perceive as life in America—privileged, progressive and free—is a far cry from reality, where economic inequality is growing, real agendas and real power are buried beneath layers of Orwellian doublespeak and corporate obfuscation, and “freedom,” such that it is, is meted out in small, legalistic doses by militarized police armed to the teeth.

All is not as it seems.

This is the premise of John Carpenter’s film They Live, which was released more than 30 years ago, and remains unnervingly, chillingly appropriate for our modern age.

Best known for his horror film Halloween, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can’t be killed, Carpenter’s larger body of work is infused with a strong anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to the filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government.

Time and again, Carpenter portrays the government working against its own citizens, a populace out of touch with reality, technology run amok, and a future more horrific than any horror film.

In Escape from New York, Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America.

In The Thing, a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.

In Christine, the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a demon-possessed car, technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes on a murderous rampage.

In In the Mouth of Madness, Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose “the ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy.”

And then there is Carpenter’s They Live, in which two migrant workers discover that the world is not as it seems. In fact, the population is actually being controlled and exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite. All the while, the populace—blissfully unaware of the real agenda at work in their lives—has been lulled into complacency, indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized by subliminal messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards and the like.

It is only when homeless drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by the late Roddy Piper) discovers a pair of doctored sunglasses—Hoffman lenses—that Nada sees what lies beneath the elite’s fabricated reality: control and bondage.

When viewed through the lens of truth, the elite, who appear human until stripped of their disguises, are shown to be monsters who have enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on them.

Likewise, billboards blare out hidden, authoritative messages: a bikini-clad woman in one ad is actually ordering viewers to “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Magazine racks scream “CONSUME” and “OBEY.” A wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR GOD.”

When viewed through Nada’s Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden messages being drummed into the people’s subconscious include: NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WATCH TV, NO IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.

This indoctrination campaign engineered by the elite in They Live is painfully familiar to anyone who has studied the decline of American culture.

A citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does not challenge authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled.

In this way, the subtle message of They Live provides an apt analogy of our own distorted vision of life in the American police state, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to as dictatorship in democracy, “the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.”

We’re being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to reality.

The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, shooters, bombers).

They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being.

They want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats.

Most of all, they want us to continue to march in lockstep with their dictates.

Tune out the government’s attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us and tune into what’s really going on in this country, and you’ll run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable truth: the moneyed elite who rule us view us as expendable resources to be used, abused and discarded.

In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.

In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.

Not only do you have to be rich—or beholden to the rich—to get elected these days, but getting elected is also a surefire way to get rich. As CBS News reports, “Once in office, members of Congress enjoy access to connections and information they can use to increase their wealth, in ways that are unparalleled in the private sector. And once politicians leave office, their connections allow them to profit even further.”

In denouncing this blatant corruption of America’s political system, former president Jimmy Carter blasted the process of getting elected—to the White House, governor’s mansion, Congress or state legislatures—as “unlimited political bribery… a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over.”

Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.

Sound familiar?

Clearly, we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests.

We have moved into “corporatism” (favored by Benito Mussolini), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.

Corporatism is where the few moneyed interests—not elected by the citizenry—rule over the many. In this way, it is not a democracy or a republican form of government, which is what the American government was established to be. It is a top-down form of government and one which has a terrifying history typified by the developments that occurred in totalitarian regimes of the past: police states where everyone is watched and spied on, rounded up for minor infractions by government agents, placed under police control, and placed in detention (a.k.a. concentration) camps.

For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary.

But why would a people agree to such an oppressive regime?

The answer is the same in every age: fear.

Fear makes people stupid.

Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government. And, as most social commentators recognize, an atmosphere of fear permeates modern America: fear of terrorism, fear of the police, fear of our neighbors and so on.

The propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control, and it is working on the American populace.

Despite the fact that we are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack; 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a terrorist attack, and 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist , we have handed over control of our lives to government officials who treat us as a means to an end—the source of money and power.

As the Bearded Man in They Live warns, “They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”

In this regard, we’re not so different from the oppressed citizens in They Live.

From the moment we are born until we die, we are indoctrinated into believing that those who rule us do it for our own good. The truth is far different.

Despite the truth staring us in the face, we have allowed ourselves to become fearful, controlled, pacified zombies.

We live in a perpetual state of denial, insulated from the painful reality of the American police state by wall-to-wall entertainment news and screen devices.

Most everyone keeps their heads down these days while staring zombie-like into an electronic screen, even when they’re crossing the street. Families sit in restaurants with their heads down, separated by their screen devices and unaware of what’s going on around them. Young people especially seem dominated by the devices they hold in their hands, oblivious to the fact that they can simply push a button, turn the thing off and walk away.

Indeed, there is no larger group activity than that connected with those who watch screens—that is, television, lap tops, personal computers, cell phones and so on. In fact, a Nielsen study reports that American screen viewing is at an all-time high. For example, the average American watches approximately 151 hours of television per month.

The question, of course, is what effect does such screen consumption have on one’s mind?

Psychologically it is similar to drug addiction. Researchers found that “almost immediately after turning on the TV, subjects reported feeling more relaxed, and because this occurs so quickly and the tension returns so rapidly after the TV is turned off, people are conditioned to associate TV viewing with a lack of tension.” Research also shows that regardless of the programming, viewers’ brain waves slow down, thus transforming them into a more passive, nonresistant state.

Historically, television has been used by those in authority to quiet discontent and pacify disruptive people. “Faced with severe overcrowding and limited budgets for rehabilitation and counseling, more and more prison officials are using TV to keep inmates quiet,” according to Newsweek.

Given that the majority of what Americans watch on television is provided through channels controlled by six mega corporations, what we watch is now controlled by a corporate elite and, if that elite needs to foster a particular viewpoint or pacify its viewers, it can do so on a large scale.

If we’re watching, we’re not doing.

The powers-that-be understand this. As television journalist Edward R. Murrow warned in a 1958 speech:

We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

This brings me back to They Live, in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the shots but the populace who are content to remain controlled.

When all is said and done, the world of They Live is not so different from our own. As one of the characters points out, “The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance. They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our own gain.”

We, too, are focused only on our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our poor and underclasses are also growing. Racial injustice is growing. Human rights is nearly nonexistent. We too have been lulled into a trance, indifferent to others.

Oblivious to what lies ahead, we’ve been manipulated into believing that if we continue to consume, obey, and have faith, things will work out. But that’s never been true of emerging regimes. And by the time we feel the hammer coming down upon us, it will be too late.

So where does that leave us?

The characters who populate Carpenter’s films provide some insight.

Underneath their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters.

When, for example, John Nada destroys the alien hyno-transmitter in They Live, he restores hope by delivering America a wake-up call for freedom.

That’s the key right there: we need to wake up.

Stop allowing yourselves to be easily distracted by pointless political spectacles and pay attention to what’s really going on in the country.

The real battle for control of this nation is not being waged between Republicans and Democrats in the ballot box.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the real battle for control of this nation is taking place on roadsides, in police cars, on witness stands, over phone lines, in government offices, in corporate offices, in public school hallways and classrooms, in parks and city council meetings, and in towns and cities across this country.

The real battle between freedom and tyranny is taking place right in front of our eyes, if we would only open them.

All the trappings of the American police state are now in plain sight.

Wake up, America.

If they live (the tyrants, the oppressors, the invaders, the overlords), it is only because “we the people” sleep.

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individual action is required. individual boiling points leading to individual action will lead to mass boiling points, spurred by individual martyrdom. as in the Californian fires, small sparks will start large conflagrations. it will be surprising but make sense retrospectively. how many times does an individual self-immolating, facing down a tank or just being shown as a systemic victim change a whole nation? some last straw on the camel’s back will cause all straw to be set afire.

Vote Harder
Vote Harder

We have moved into “corporatism” (favored by Benito Mussolini), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.

Unfortunately this corporatism is being mislabeled as capitalism. Government has become obsolete to it’s citizens but useful to the corporations only. The government does not serve citizens at all. It is now a government by the corporations and for the corporations. The people are slaves to the corporations and also they don’t want you leaving the plantation which they have created for you by lobbying their enforcement arm, the government.

So everything is completely changed. Now when they tell you “America, to love it or leave it” how do you leave again when you have the world’s highest fees to dump your passport? Europe doesn’t want millions of refugees who have diabetes and who are dying because of diabetes in the United States. They don’t want millions of refugees hitting the beaches of Normandy from the United States because they’re desperate for decent jobs, living wages, and healthcare; they don’t want that. So how do you leave? There are no treaties that the United States has to make it easy to leave the United States. They don’t want that because the corporatists want them stuck in there.

llpoh
llpoh

It is pretty straightforward to exit the US, and to abandon US citizenship. The hard part is that you need to attain citizenship elsewhere. That means you have to decide when you are relatively young, as most countries do not want the old, and you have to attain marketable skills so that other nations want you. Once you attain a second passport, you can consider your position at your leisure. If you have enough cash, there are countries that sell citizenship.

At the moment, if you wish to give up US citizenship, after having attained another citizenship, it costs something like $2500 to process. Plus if you have more than $2 million in assets, you will have to pay capital gains tax on unrealized US capital gains. And you need to be current on your US tax reporting.

Warren intends to implement a wealth tax, and she intends to attach a 40% tax on ALL you assets, no matter where held or earned, if you give up US citizenship.

They say it is only applicable to the megarich, of course, but ultimately I would suggest that it is an effort to establish US citizens as PERMANENT tax slaves, with zero ability to ever leave.

Plato_Plubius
Plato_Plubius

It’s to catch any of the rats trying to jump ship and protect their wealth by moving it to another country, before the reset button is pushed on the U.S. dollar…when they’ve decided all countries decide to dump dollar denominated ASSETS at the same time.

Anonymous
Anonymous

As my accountant in Oz mentioned, you can also opt to never return to the USA again, for ANY reason. I admire her candor and completeness.

Giving up US citizenship is hard enough; it’s cutting ties of family and friendship that’s the toughest nut to crack. Still, you can legally say good-bye to Uncle Sugar, and still visit for a few months per year.

James
James

They Live was one of me favorite movies.One of the best fight scenes in cinema history for all and allout brawling,not the great but more choreographed Bruce Lee ect. fights.

I also love the best line,”Put on the fucking glasses!”.

I do believe will be individuals finally snapping the yoke(already happening to a bit)and soon will be the final straw like with France,was not a protest against the new fuel tax but a protest against it all,same with other movements/protests we are seeing world wide.

I am all for fighting the evil but we best have some kind of goal/plan enough can agree on for the other side of protests or we are just lying on our backs with our bell ies exposed.

Ottomatik
Ottomatik

James- the best line was RR Piper- “i am here to chew gum and kick ass, and i am all outta gum”
but intelligent people can yet disagree…

yahsure
yahsure

People are stupid, just look how half the country supports the Democrats. All this made up enemy stuff so the military/industrial complex can spend the country down the tubes.

Lebowski
Lebowski

Didn’t you read the story Still pointing at the Dems when we all know the whole two party system USA sham of a sham Shame on us if we believe any of it

EC
EC
AC
AC

Yeah, but that’s just the dead half.

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M G
M G

a bikini-clad woman in one ad is actually ordering viewers to “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Magazine racks scream “CONSUME” and “OBEY.” A wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR GOD.”

robert h siddell jr
robert h siddell jr

It’s not Corporations themselves per se that are the problem stupid, it’s the super rich Evil anti-American Leftist Ivy League Elite SOB Oligarchs that now own and run the Corporations that are the problem.

StackingStock
StackingStock

My employer has been taken over by communists from the CEO and the top executives.

Total different company than two years ago. They’re pushing an agenda that only a few can see.

I tell my boss everyday that being a contraian is fucking hard, he laughs.

Carry on. …

Ghost

When companies begin to have “social” policy which they feel needs to be imposed beyond the corporate boardroom, it changes everything.

Corporations are in business to produce and deliver a product for a fee, which should be large enough to pay all who helped produce and deliver said product.

When the focus of any business tries to encompass what is good social policy, like Michael Corleone tried to do in the Godfather 3 episode, Robert Gore, to placate both his own conscience (doesn’t belong in business) and to please his daughter and, ahem, ballet dancing son. For shame, RG… you admit the third in the series was your least favorite, yet it offers so many reasons why one must learn to separate the family business from the family.

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Glock-N-Load

Bingo

Ghost

Bingo me too!

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t.

EC
EC

You would if your wife told you to.

YourAverageJoe
YourAverageJoe

Nothing illustrates the great decline of America better than watching an old “Leave it to Beaver” episode.

Panzerlied

YAJ – Ain’t it the truth, ain’t it the truth? For those of us that grew up in the fifties, the country has become totally unrecognizable. I read this morning that a fag cop was awarded 19 million dollars for being, well, a fag. As far as this nation is concerned, there is only two hopes, Bob Hope and no hope, and Bob hope is dead.

Panzerlied

They Live should be required viewing for anyone with at least two working brain cells (that eliminates most of the population), only replace “alien” with ZOG.

EC
EC

Do you have two working brain cells, Panzer-man?

Anonymous
Anonymous

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Fleabaggs
Fleabaggs

My exact sentiments except that he’s blaming fascism when it’s an oligarchy on it’s way to morphing into communism with the oligarchs as the politiburo.
Their vision for us is Dacca Bangladesh.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I’ve noticed the tribe is running an internet anti-fascism campaign – blaming fascism for all the shitty thing the communist jews have done or are doing.

Hard to believe anyone is stupid enough to buy into their lies any longer.

Fleabaggs
Fleabaggs

Anano..
Right, and that’s the alleged smart half falling for it.

22winmag - w/o tagline

Agreed on the allegedly smart half falling for it.

I have an inversion theory:

That is generally speaking, the Right continues to become smarter at the street level and dumber at the high levels, while the Left continues to become dumber-less devious at the street level and smarter-more devious at the high levels.

Panzerlied

Apparently, there is still at least one still sipping the Zio-Kool-aid, judging from the single downvote that always appears after my comments.

The Wonder of it all
The Wonder of it all

Fun but sad topic.
We were ‘once great’ is not to be followed by a laugh track.

Steve C.

“…The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and thus clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary…” — H.L. Mencken

22winmag - w/o tagline

They Live is as good as it gets and I watched it just the other day.

That being side, John Whitehead is a doom porn agent of demoralization.

Fleabaggs
Fleabaggs

22.
The doom porn is needed to show the masses the futility of flogging a dead horse and finally rise up.
When people have nothing left to lose, they lose it.Gerald Celente.

EC
EC

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.Kris Kardashian.

Plato_Plubius
Plato_Plubius

EC,

Your comment made me think about this,

Hard to imagine this movie came out in 1978, same year I was born.

EC
EC

It’s scary to think that Ma looks hotter with every passing year.

Fleabaggs
Fleabaggs

Dog. That’s funny.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Nope, it was Janis Kristofferson.

Plato_Plubius
Plato_Plubius

Whitehead said,

Families sit in restaurants with their heads down, separated by their screen devices and unaware of what’s going on around them.

Working in the public schools in California I have witnessed a new trend. Students are given a laptop thanks in part to Google’s “1:World” initiative that the districts bought hook line and sinker. Now every school offers Wi-Fi and a digital device to supposedly prepare them for the jobs of the future.

Teachers are encouraged to develop digital curriculum that is accessible by each student on their assigned devices. 30 students in a class sitting at a desk, each with headphones on, staring at their own devices. Each one sitting whispering distance from one another but asked to stare at their screens and complete the digital assignments at their own pace.

Almost like this…
comment image?cb=1457863090
There are advantages for this use for sure but I wonder how it reinforces the disconnect that social media and technology has contributed to with what makes being human, human.

EC
EC

Everybody is busy pointing at one group while the less obvious culprits are under their very nose. It’s Womens – They Live – and they control everything we strive for. You want a guitar, sorry, she needs an LV purse. Want to go out on the town with the bros? Sorry, the dog needs a shampoo and she is going to her weekly massage.

Ginger
Ginger
EC
EC
22winmag - w/o tagline

Classic for an all-Shekelberger cast!

Anonymous
Anonymous

If the woman in your life “needs” an LV purse, you have made a very serious mistake.

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