The Rant Institute

In July of 1846, while on his way to Concord to run an errand, Henry David Thoreau was arrested by the local sheriff for failure to pay a poll tax.  By following his conscience, Thoreau had chosen to stop paying this poll tax in 1842 to protest the Mexican-American war and the expansion of slavery into the Southwest.   Thoreau did this because he had come to the conclusion that America’s political system was fraught with injustice.   Participating in that system by paying the poll tax, therefore, only meant he was contributing to those injustices.  Like the days of Thoreau, today it is only too obvious that our political system is not only unjust but almost entirely undemocratic. American democracy is a fraud,  to put it simply, and to participate in it is only to contribute to that fraud while increasing the contempt that politicians have for the American voter who either knowingly perpetuates it, or is so gullible they have failed to notice the decep...

Much of the power of corporations comes from their ability to convince us we cannot live without the products or services they provide.   As if the disappearance of any one of them might immediately result in humanity being transported back to the dark ages (which, by the way, may be where we are all headed in the not too distant future, thanks to corporations).   Through the magical wonder of advertising, the pixie dust of corporate propaganda is used to sell us everything from sports cars to sunglasses.     By exploiting the inner void that a consumer driven society helps to create in each of us - what Victor Frankl referred to as the “existential vacuum” - the billion dollar marketing industry pours into our longings the promise that they, through a dazzling array of the most fashionable products available, can give us a life of love, meaning, fulfillment, and happiness.   None of this is true, of course, because advertising is designed to play us all li...