Are you a joiner?

An article in Psychology Today says that people aren’t joining groups the way they used to. The Masons, the Elks, the Boy Scouts, the Soroptomists, Lions, tigers, bears, (oh my!); all these groups, every one of them is reporting fewer and fewer new members. The Soroptomists, for example, used to have women begging to join. Now they have to go out and beg women to become members. Churches, on the other hand are growing and so are Unions (the latter fueled by young 20 somethings who are tired of being screwed by Big Corporate America, the former being an “approved” group). But generally, group membership is declining, and new groups are having a hard time getting members.

Why is that? What has happened to cause this change?America has done this. Or rather, American business interests. It is in the best interest for American business that you, the consumer to be an individual with individual wants and desires. It is absolutely necessary that you have your own car, your own TV, your own room, etc. You are some kind of sick, twisted soul, or worse yet, a “communist” if you want to share your stuff; if you’d rather live in a communal (the root word of “communism) situation (even if it’s just “house mates”) than live by yourself.

In fact, there are only two group settings that corporate America will tolerate: “nuclear family,” and nursing homes (because elderly people don’t buy stuff).

Look around. Houses just aren’t built the way they were a hundred years ago. Today’s houses have no more than four bedrooms, with two being the norm. That’s not enough room for Mom and Dad, the kids, AND Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Joe. And that’s the way corporate America wants  it. None of this extended family, commune, socialist stuff. Nope, everyone gets their own car, their own computer, their own room.

How did this come about? Fifty years of anti-communist propaganda. Twenty years of anti-cult media stories. The “Marlboro Man.” The fall of the USSR. The Reagan presidency, and most of all, the steady drip, drip, drip of consumer propaganda (aka, advertising) to make sure that you, the individual American, the “me, myself, and I” generation, buys, buys, buys . And Corporate America, (the “shadow” government) has you just where they want you: under their thumb and in their total control (“corporate
totalitarianism)
. The “sheeple” don’t even know they are being “flocked” (and fleeced) because they’ve bought into the “me, myself and I” philosophy as being the normal, right, and “God- fearing American way.” Even a lot of Pagans, probably most, are in the flock. As long as you are convinced that you don’t
need a Union, you don’t need to belong to anything, and that you need your land, your 2 bedroom home and your mini-van, you’ll stay right where the corporations want you.  Bahahahahahah!