The Unending Game

It's 2022, and common citizens should understand that politics is all about money, that and power. Religion is a medium to access spirituality for the common man (or woman) but to the people in power it's a tool to control the population. My personal favourite religion is Buddhism. I have a dislike for some religious philosophies, especially the ones which try to convert other religions, but the world doesn't work on my likes and dislikes, does it? Some religions can be weaponized easily and Hinduism was not one of them but in present day India we can see that it's possible too. More the religion in a country and less the science, the easier it is to manipulate a population. Every religion has a concept of Heaven and Hell, and to reach Heaven you have to go through Hell on Earth in most cases. We actually don't know what happens after death so that's always going to remain a big mystery and religion thrives on this mystery. Hinduism has thrived on oppressing lower castes. There is a rigid social hierarchy and lower castes have faced a lot of oppression. Dr. Ambedkar changed his religion to Buddhism, an indigenous and probably and arguably the most peaceful religion in the world. That was his genius. I wonder why the oppressed classes don't follow suit. In Hinduism theoretically we preach the Bhagavad Gita but practice Manusmriti, but then that's how social structure is preserved. I'll get back to my point. The common man should know it's all about money. How? I'll explain.

Every state does propaganda, the media you watch is mostly state propaganda, meant to keep you occupied. The present government in this country however is not experienced and does not know how to create propaganda, because to be a good propagandist first you have to be a good artist. That's why you see that leftist propaganda in this country is finer and upper class people of this country easily fall for it. Because leftists, not a thumb rule, are good propagandists, mostly because they are good artists and are well connected. The right in this country targets its propaganda to the lower class and lower middle class votebank, and their method is so poor that it fails to convince the cool upper class kids. There is a saying that says "nationalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel", I personally do not agree with this saying. Things are not absolute. They are not black or white. Me, for example, I would consider myself a hundred percent patriot and around thirty percent nationalist. Nationalism is required in some cases, and it is necessary for a national identity. People in India simply vote for their caste and religion, there is no rocket science behind it. Lower class Muslims go for Muslim supporting parties and upper class Muslims become leftists (at least till the Caliphate is established, just kidding). There is a lot of cash inflow from various sources, for Christianity from white countries, for Islam from Arab countries, for communism from countries like Russia and China, and this cash inflow creates mouthpieces and propagandists, who are loyal to their source of income. Also, the world has not become so bad yet, some of them are foolish enough to do such work for ideological reasons too. The common man however becomes the cannon fodder. Now, what is behind all this, and for what? Money. Things are actually as simple as this. We all know it in some form or the other but then what does a common man has to do with geopolitics and tradecraft. Not much. I prefer religion as a means of solace, and for spiritual satisfaction, that's what it means to me, but to different people it can mean different things. For some it may be a ladder to power. Politics of ideology is dead, now they are just collecting money by showing people its cadaver. We are actually being ruled by multinational corporations, which might be a good thing or bad thing. All we can hope is at least our roads are good, our health services in reach and there is good content on television.