The Power of the Powerless

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If the country we call America is exporting its values to the world, then the values we are exporting look disturbingly like those of the Soviet Bloc of the 1970s. Life in our current system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies that changing it feels impossible.

• Government by bureaucracy is called popular government
• The working class is enslaved in the name of the working class
• The complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation
• Depriving people of information is called making it available
• The use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code
• The repression of culture is called its development
• The expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed
• The lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom
• Farcical elections become the highest form of democracy
• Banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views
• Military occupation becomes fraternal assistance

The regime that defines this false reality is captive to its own lies. In order to continue its existence, it must falsify everything. 

• It falsifies the past
• It falsifies the present
• It falsifies the future
• It falsifies statistics
• It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus
• It pretends to respect human rights
• It pretends to persecute no one
• It pretends to fear nothing
• It pretends to pretend nothing

Those bullet points are taken, unedited, from Vaclav Havel's seminal 1978 essay, "The Power of the Powerless."

Charter 24's aim is to contribute to the destruction of the regime that made these values possible. Stay tuned for more on how we accomplish that goal.