8 WHY CONTROL 101? My original plan for the 3rd Quarter Wrap Up was to write about how we “go local” – how to reverse the drain of power and equity from our local families and communities. As I researched and outlined, I ran into the same wall I have encountered with many finance and economic topics over the last 20 years. There was no pathway forward because friends and allies did not understand or appre- ciate the control systems at an intimate or local level. Without effective plans to handle central- ized control in practical and economic ways, I foresaw zero chance of success. Managing economic and political risk requires seeing the actual risk issues. So instead, I started to outline an overview of the real control system. Then I proceeded to hit another wall. Through- out my life I have learned about control systems, particularly the covert aspects, by experiencing them personally. The knowledge created from that experience has been supplemented by extensive research and networking to confirm or enlighten what I learned from personal experi- ence. The most difficult thing about the process of accumulating this knowledge has not been the violence or cruelty of the farmer. Rather it has been the violence and cruelty of the chickens. One great secret of control in a highly centralized system is that the farmer does not do the dirty work. For the most part, the chickens do it. Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That sys- tem is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. Most people that I speak with have never faced this truth. The systems operate with us chickens implementing control. Most of us are willing to do it – out of ignorance, fear, jealousy or greed – with surprising ease for a surprisingly small compensation. To provide a high level overview of control in the 3rd Quarter Wrap Up, the time had come for me to process my individual grief accumu- lated from the personal pain of thousands of personal and professional betrayals by my fellow man or, on occasion, by myself. I believe each one of us is struggling with this pain and each of us can gather great power by facing reality and composting our grief in the service of freedom. UNANSWERED QUESTION: WHO IS IN CONTROL? The most important unanswered question of our day relates to our governance system. Who runs our governance structure on Earth? How is that governance structure organized? What are the true goals and consensus that drive its lead- ers? What assumptions are built into its time and money budgets? One of the most powerful control techniques of the farmer is that the knowledge of the farmer, the farm and the art and science of livestock management must be kept from the chickens. Each chicken is on a need-to-know basis, and no chicken can connect the dots and put to- gether a bigger picture. Think about it. Think about how amazing it is that we operate under a governance system mysterious to us. Think about how much pain our ignorance causes. Think about how baffling it is for us to tolerate this situation. The first step is to face the fact that we don’t know and that we need to know. The second step is to have faith that some of us can figure it out as part of creating a vision for human civilization. II. Control 101