Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The Gulag Archipelago is not a distant memory; it lives on in every modern state, cloaked with modern-day technologies and the well-worn tools of suppression.

The last thing addicts want to hear is the truth: the only thing more terrifying than the truth is the possibility that they will lose access to whatever they're addicted to: smack, Oxy, coke, alcohol, sex, porn, power, etc.

If we fail to tell addicts the truth, we fail them and ourselves. As long as co-dependents remain complicit in the addict's destructive state, as long as those who know better keep silent because they don't want to deal with the trauma, the addict is free to maintain the illusion that he/she is in control, that his/her secret is safe, etc., and manipulate those around them with lies and victimhood.

Not wanting to deal with the trauma of forcing those in denial to face up to reality is understandable: who wants to deal with the shock, denial, anger and depression that characterize facing up to a terrifying truth?

But we fail ourselves if we're too weak to speak the truth and grind through the denial, anger and depression. If we opt for the easy way out, we're just like the addict, who is also opting for the easy way out, i.e. finding refuge in the labryrinthine Kingdom of Lies.

The status quo is a Kingdom of Lies. "Raw data", i.e. facts collected without regard to future interpretaion, are "processed" into the "right kind of data," i.e. data that supports the status quo interpretation, which is that everything's just fine thanks to the wise leadership of our self-serving elites.

The deeper you dig into the statistical foundation of GDP, the unemployment rate, trade deficits, etc., the more questions arise about the accuracy and agenda behind the headline numbers.

When insiders or hackers reveal the truth, the outrage of the status quo knows no bounds. Truth is intrinsically treasonous, as it undermines those gorging at the status quo's trough of wealth and power.

The status quo exacts a high price from those who reveal the truth. Whistleblowers are hounded from their jobs, threatened by private-sector or government goons and thrown in prison on phony charges.

Complicity is always the easy option. Politicos know this, and their job is to grease the skids of complicity and silence with Savior State benefits and harshly punish whistleblowers.

The Gulag Archipelago is not a distant memory; it lives on in every modern state, cloaked with modern-day technologies and the well-worn tools of suppression. Communist states still prefer the absurd cliche of re-education camps, while so-called democracies use intimidation, limitations on free speech, de-platforming, shadow censorship and the ever-popular charges of treason and "fake-news" to suppress dissent and skeptical inquiry.

In the Kingdom of Lies, everything is spun, massaged, interpreted and fed to the corporate / state media for the benefit of those enjoying centralized wealth and power. But the spin is getting painfully obvious, and the interpretations blatantly self-serving.

For example, steep increases in taxes on diesel fuel are part of a wonderful plan to save the planet (no additional taxes on jet fuel for private jets, because those are our cronies' toys).

If our governments and institutions can no longer tell us the truth because it undermines the ruling elites, they've failed the citizenry. And if we remain complicitly silent, then we've failed ourselves.

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