The Strategy of Tension Is Growing More Tense

In his prescient 1964 novel, Nova Express, William S. Burroughs writes:

The basic nova mechanism is very simple:  Always create as many insoluble conflicts as possible and always aggravate existing conflicts—[...]  Like this:  Take two opposed pressure groups—Record the most violent and threatening statements of group one with regard to group two and play back to group two—Record the answer and take it back to group one—Back and forth between opposed pressure groups—This process is known as “feed back”—You can see it operating in any bar room quarrel—In any quarrel for that matter—Manipulated on a global scale feeds back nuclear war and nova—These conflicts are deliberately created and aggravated by nova criminals—  […]  In all my experience as a police officer I have never seen such total fear and degradation on any planet—We intend to arrest these criminals and turn them over to the Biological Department for the indicated alterations—  (Three Novels 235-36)

Burroughs is describing a "strategy of tension" that's still at work today, perhaps even more so than in 1964.  A prime example is playing out across the national stage even as I write this.  Always take note of which stories dominate the new cycle, and how the juxtaposition of these stories are intended to bring about a very specific effect in the mass mind.  The process is as simple as making an omelet.  Place story A next to story B (needless to say, story A and story B never appear to be connected, at least not on the surface), then just sit back and watch the hatred and chaos spread out across the bloody landscape as a result.  The participants in this chaos will believe that their actions are completely voluntary and spontaneous, but they will always be quite wrong.  

Case in point:

STORY A:  

Here's an excerpt from Alana Semuels' 6-28-14 L.A. Times article entitled "Thousands Go Without Water as Detroit Cuts Service for Nonpayment":

"It has been six weeks since the city turned off Nicole Hill's water.

"Dirty dishes are piled in the sink of her crowded kitchen, where the yellow-and-green linoleum floor is soiled and sticky.  A small garbage can is filled with water from a neighbor, while a bigger one sits outside in the yard, where she hopes it will collect some rain.  She's developed an intricate recycling system of washing the dishes, cleaning the floor and flushing the toilet with the same water.

"'It's frightening, because you think this is something that only happens somewhere like Africa,' said Hill, a single mother who is studying homeland security at a local college. 'But now I know what they're going through — when I get somewhere there's a water faucet, I drink until my stomach hurts.'

"Hill is one of thousands of residents in Detroit who have had their water and sewer services turned off as part of a crackdown on customers who are behind on their bills.  In April, the city set a target of cutting service to 3,000 customers a week who were more than $150 behind on their bills.  In May, the water department sent out 46,000 warnings and cut off service to 4,531.   The city says that cutting off water is the only way to get people to pay their bills as Detroit tries to emerge from bankruptcy — the utility is currently owed $90 million from customers, and nearly half the city's 300,000 or so accounts are past due.

"But cutting off water to people already living in poverty came under criticism last week from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, whose experts said that Detroit was violating international standards by cutting off access to water."

You can read Semuels' entire article HERE.

Now let's move on to STORY B....

Here's an excerpt from Sara Carter's 6-24-14 The Blaze article entitled "'Potential for a Public Health Disaster':  Illegal Immigrant Surge Leaves Officials with 'No Idea' Which Diseases Are Coming Across":

"The [illegal immigrant] families had traveled from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to reach U.S. federal law enforcement at Anzalduas Park, on the banks of the Rio Grande.  Agents there have been overwhelmed with the surge of illegal crossers over the past several months.  Border Patrol officials — who were armed with more bottles of water than weapons [I took the liberty of adding the emphasis here, as this otherwise insignificant detail about border agents giving water to illegal aliens has been repeated in almost every single print, radio, television and Internet story regarding this unfolding situation] — would soon send [the] group [of refugees] to join the 1,000 or so others at the temporary immigrant holding facility in nearby McAllen."

You can read Carter's entire article by clicking HERE.

Now, when you put STORY A and STORY B together, what do you get?  Our old friends Xenophobia and Nationalism, of course....

STORY C:

Here's an excerpt from William La Jeunesse's 7-2-14 Foxnews.com article entitled "Protesters Turn Back Busloads of Illegal Immigrants, as Border Stations Overwhelmed":

"America's border crisis reached Main Street, as flag-waving protesters in a San Diego suburb turned back three busloads of illegal immigrants after the town's mayor warned Tuesday that federal officials were using the community as a safety valve for facilities swamped by a tide of Central American refugees.

"Fears of disease, crime and already-strained government services prompted Murrieta, Calif., Mayor Alan Long to rally residents against plans by the Department of Homeland Security to bus the children and families to a processing center in the city of 106,000 residents. Confronted by the protests, the buses were rerouted to San Diego […].

The three buses were trailed by a half-dozen news crews during the two-hour trip from the border to Murietta.  After the buses were blocked, federal authorities rerouted the vehicles to a freeway and then to a customs and border facility in San Diego within view of the Mexico border.

Many protesters at Tuesday's event held U.S. flags, while others held signs reading "stop illegal immigration," and "illegals out!"

"We can't start taking care of others if we can't take care of our own," protester Nancy Greyson, 60, of Murrieta, told the Desert Sun newspaper.  

To read La Jeunesse's entire article, click HERE.

As you can see, the process is simple.  In Story A we read about water being denied patriotic Amurricans in Detroit.  In Story B we hear about water being given to illegal immigrants in Texas for free.  The result?  Story C.

We'll end this installment with these wise words....

"Control is controlled by its need to control."--William S. Burroughs, Dead City Radio, 1990