Belling the Cat

Once upon a time, there was a group of human malcontents. Very idealistic malcontents. They championed such things as social justice, human equality, environmental sustainability, individual freedom and world peace. But their lives were made miserable by THE SYSTEM. The System was controlled by powerful elites. Selfish people who valued profit and excess over social justice and the environment. Psychopathic authoritarians and militarists who promoted wars and oppression.

Sadly for the idealistic malcontents, The System was an effective propaganda exercise and millions of ordinary humans had bought into it. The idealistic malcontents would try to raise their voices above tiny squeaks but they were drowned out by the constant barrage of misinformation, lies called "traditions" and the deluge of daily elite nonsense. Whenever the malcontents tried to face off against the elites in the streets they usually got their asses kicked and their values distorted or mocked.

"Oh how wonderful it will be when the system finally topples!" the idealistic malcontents would say in their burrows. "We'll abolish profit. We'll abolish capitalism! We'll abolish war! We'll have human equality! No more cars! A world of humanistic science and ecological sanity! A world of healthy human relationships instead of competition and oppression! No more patriarchy! No more sexual oppression! Total artistic freedom! Genuine democracy!"

They spoke so long and at length about how wonderful it would be that they began to get excited about the possibilities. They went on and on until they started to sound as if these achievements had already been made. Then, one of them remembered where they were and said:

"How are we going to even begin to realize any of this?"

At that point, the whole burrow went silent and the idealistic malcontents began to drift away to their everyday lives alone or in small groups.