Conscious Chaos (2024) Painting by Troy Wilson-Ripsom

In private rooms, on private floors, in exclusive locations, the power brokers meet to plan the usage of the populace for the wants of the oligarch and politicorporate classes in the society we live in. The users of men decide how they shall distract us while they extract from us all that they can without more effort than is necessary. They fund campaigns of ideologues who can distract the most people from the actions of the oligarchs and corporations that harm them. They fund those who will do their bidding or serve them in other ways such as forwarding their current forms of discord and unrest to turn people the furthest from the things they wish to do.

With precision, the brokers of power decide which issues will best divide and lay down their plans of attack. They fund this one on the right and this one on the left and feed them fodder upon which to build their support, knowing all the while it will lead to pain and violence. This is a feature, not a bug. They want us to fight. Peace does not serve them in their quest for ever more power and wealth.

Only divided are we not a threat to them, the truly powerful. If we were to ever become truly united, they would be done and of this they are well aware. So they sow discord with religion, politics, scarcity, survival, our bodies, our minds, anything they can do to make us fear something 'other', because it keeps us not focused on them. They attack education, because the educated pay attention and speak up. They attack the law, because it is inconvenient to them. They attack the 'other' because it serves them and feeds on the basest of human fears. They consciously create chaos to maintain and grow their power with as little resistance as possible.