Ask Who Benefits

Ask who benefits from the continued emphasis on electoral systems that never succeed in bringing about real change. 

Ask who benefits from the continued emphasis on culture wars over class war. 

Ask who benefits from people being continually herded into two mainstream political factions which both support empire, oligarchy and authoritarianism. 

Ask who benefits from the mass media continually focusing on the misdeeds of nations their government doesn't like while ignoring their own government's abuses of the needful, the marginalized and the disobedient. 

Ask who benefits from ordinary people being too busy getting the bills paid to learn about what's going on in the world. 

Ask who benefits from those who ask these questions being labeled crackpots and conspiracy theorists. 

Ask who benefits from the widespread assumption that how things are is the only way they can be. 

Ask who benefits from the widespread assumption that the status quo is inevitable and resistance is futile. 

Ask who benefits from your beliefs about what's possible and what's impossible. 

Ask who benefits from each of your beliefs about the world. 

Ask who benefits from each of your beliefs about humankind. 

Ask who benefits from each of your beliefs about yourself and how you should be. 

Ask who benefits from these beliefs not just among the powerful, but among the people you know in your own life. Who put that belief in your mind, and why might they have done so?

Any time you are presented with a narrative about how things are in a way that asks you to believe it, question who would benefit from that belief, whether it's a large-scale narrative about the world, or a small-scale narrative about yourself and your own life.

Reading by Tim Foley.