Power of the Powerless

The Chicken Mafia, their bureaucrat supporters and enablers, and the cheerleading politicians believe that Small Flockers and consumers are powerless.  They believe that they own and control Small Flockers and consumers as their pawns, to be used and abused as they please.

They may want to reconsider their flawed assumptions.

Misguided Assumptions

Many people feel they are powerless.

Just because we all feel powerless, doesn't mean it's true.

Humans naturally go along to get along.  It's easier that way.  It's protective.  It's less complicated.

If there is any path through the woods, regardless if it goes in the right direction or not, it's easier to follow the path, rather than blazing a new trail through the woods.  Once we've gotten to the other side of the woods, we can always circle around to go the direction we had wanted to travel in the first place.  Somehow, that makes sense to most people.

However, that logic doesn't work forever.

Eventually, things get so bad that we are no longer willing to travel the path of least resistance in the wrong direction.  Sooner or later, we realize this is just wrong, and somebody has to do something about this terrible situation.

That moment comes every century or so, when things are so screwed up, somebody eventually decides to push the reset button.

Adam & Eve had it happen to them.

Babylon had their moment.

The Pharaoh thought everything was going great, then this guy called Moses showed up.

Even the Romans had the Visigoths get uppity in 376 AD, sacking Rome.  Who saw that coming?

After World War II, the Russian Empire took over many small countries and force them under Communist governments.  The people were terribly oppressed, but the oppression continued, firing squad ran up a huge bill for bullets, so they eventually invented Gulags and slave labour, reducing the cost of munitions and getting free stuff from political prisoners and their families imprisoned for the slightest, whimsical reason.

People under Communist rule were  propagandized, and told what to think and believe.  Slogans and right thinking was freely provided.  If you were a little slow on coming up with the right answers, a few decades in a Gulag were applied to sharpen your skills with constant remedial training programs.

Two-faced lies and propaganda of
totalitarian governments, and
Canada's Supply Management System

People put the right signs with the right slogans in their windows, because they had to.  At the public meeting they were coerced to attend, they were expected to say the right thing.  They were required to vote the right way in "free" elections where the outcome was known years in advance.  Kids were taught to watch their parents, and turn them in to the government Secret Police if they spoke against the government's official position.  Like in George Orwell's novel 1984, war was peace, truth were lies, freedom was slavery, and so on.  People were forced to live lies.

Some people got so good at living the lies, they no longer were aware of the truth.

People learned to say and act exactly as they were  required to do.  Go along to get along.

Fortunately, they didn't yet have the Thought Police.

Family and friends sometimes spoke in double entendres, to hide and share their true feelings.  They came to know and trust each other more and more, having sufficient incrimination on each other that they could not expose the other without convicting themselves.  Eventually, they risked smuggled books, listening to forbidden free radio broadcasts, and the creation of Samizdat by secretly copying and sharing these forbidden thoughts.

Finally, in Oct. 1978 Vaclav Havel wrote his famous and powerful essay "The Power of the Powerless"

This essay helped people to understand the lies they lived, and why they did it.  It showed them a way out.

The people thought they were weak, but in reality they were powerful.

Eventually people realized that some truths were worthy enough to suffer for.  They were no longer willing to go along to get along.

Eventually, thousands of people were in the streets every evening, protesting these lies they had been forced to live.  The government sent their elite troops to quell the demonstrations.  The government ordered these troops to fire on the crowd so as to end the protests, but the troops refused to obey the orders.  The government fell within the week.  Next, the Berlin Wall was breached, and existed no more.

SM Vs. The Sleeping Powers of the People

So much for the history lesson.

We are not yet at one of those crossroads, but we passed the big yellow diamond road sign alerting us to the intersection that we are quickly approaching.

Supply Management ("SM") for dairy, eggs, chicken, and turkey in this great country of ours is a lived lie, deceiving thousands of Canadians, if not millions.  The SM system doesn't live up to the SM Mafia's propaganda.  The henchmen of the SM Mafia live the lies and promote the lies every day, for that is how they earn their pay cheques.

This Blog of Small Flockers is similar to the secret writings of Samizdat.  Nobody admits they read this Blog, but the Internet pageviews keep counting up as these ghosts come back for the latest sample is cooked up and served to them via this Blog.

We have not yet had the galvanizing essay on SM that rallies and catalyzes the public.  When that essay appears, the SM goons will feel forced to react.  They will attack without mercy.  Fortunately, the sleeping public will be awakened by the noise and confusion created by the SM henchmen.  Most people will not see the essay, nor understand the meaning.  However, they will know and feel the SM response.  That response will be the force that awakens them from their long, 50 year sleep.

That day approaches soon.

We need to prepare ourselves for the day when that event arrives.