There is No War in Ba Sing Se
Mass Lies and the Corruption of Bureaucracy
In Avatar: The Last Airbender, with the Hundred Year War raging on and the Fire Nation’s expansion into the other three major kingdoms, Aang (the avatar) eventually makes his way to Ba Sing Se. Ba Sing Se is the stronghold of the Earth Kingdom, the capital city famed for being impenetrable.
When Aang arrives, he quickly realizes that all is not right in the city, as no one acknowledges or even seems to know about the Great War going on outside the city’s legendary walls.
What Aang and his friends discover is that the city has not officially fallen to the Fire Nation; instead, something as insidious as war has occurred and is ongoing within the capital.
The Earth King, who rules Ba Sing Se and the Earth Kingdom, relies on his Dai Li and the Grand Secretariat. The Dai Li is a secret police force initially created to ensure the Earth Kingdom’s culture and governing body (namely, the Earth King) remain harmonious and that radicalism either against the King or the people does not foment. The Grand Secretariat position is created to serve a close advisor to the King, intended to work as a reminder for the King to treat his populace with respect and good intent.
Over time, as Aang learns, the Grand Secretariat subserviates the Dai Li to his command and begins to eye control of Ba Sing Se for himself. He chokes off information from the Earth King while using the Dai Li to keep the regular citizens of Ba Sing Se in line. He disappears individuals who threaten the regime, brainwashes dissidents, and attempts to silence the avatar.
This all culminates in the Big Lie. The Grand Secretariat prevents all discussion or evidence of the Hundred Year War, the war being waged on all people and all kingdoms by the Fire Nation. At this point, the Fire Nation has effectively conquered the Earth Kingdom. And yet, the King and the people of Ba Sing Se know nothing of their subjugation. The Grand Secretariat has perpetuated the myth that There is No War in Ba Sing Se.
There are parallels between Avatar and our modern society, which are not wholly different. Today, we are led in many ways to believe that There is No War in Ba Sing Se. Both things are simultaneously true: our institutions have fallen into a state of lethargy and ineffectiveness; our society is gamed by the media and political parties to believe different lies.
One instance of this may be that Big Russia Collusion Lie.
Rather than acknowledge that a healthy majority of the country does not want democratic socialist policies or did not want Hilary Clinton to be president, the left proposed its own lie to disconnect from reality: Trump was a Russian Asset. Of course, this recently turned out to be completely disproven. Michael Sussmann, who represented the DNC in connection with the Russia hack, was arrested for lying to the FBI. And then the biggest of all, Igor Danchenko, the main source of the Steele Dossier, was arrested for lying repeatedly to the FBI. All of this eventually came to light. But not before four years of psychological civil war was inflicted on the right.
On the other side, we have Republicans who pretend to stand for conservative, traditional principles. Yet these same folks routinely vote for debt ceiling increases, infrastructure packages that we all know will never benefit us or whose benefits will never see the light of day, and favorable insider trading laws for themselves. Much as they may favor smaller government and stand for it, they routinely lack vision and the willpower to do much meaningful work domestically.
To add to all this, we are routinely exposed to the failures and corruption of our domestic institutions. The slog, myopia, and dumbassery of those in “power”. Our government rails against Big Pharma for opioids and its other vulture-like services, and then in the same breath purchases tens of billions of dollars-worth of vaccine doses from those same groups. Our government has failed to acquire the necessary testing apparatus to truly implement a safe test and track protocol (because, as they’ve said, they want to encourage vaccinations? With vaccines made by untrustworthy pharmaceutical companies that work for a few months at most?). Our congressmen have been caught sleeping with Chinese spies and allowed to continue serving on CIA Subcommittees and House Committees on Intelligence. Our Secretary of Transportation goes on a four-month paternity leave (after adopting a child) and no one even notices until after the infrastructure bill passes. Our other congressmen talk about the collapse of the US dollar as the reserve currency while doing nothing to preserve it.
All of this is to say, we are now in the world of Ba Sing Se. There is no war in Ba Sing Se. There is no war in America. All is well. America is back.
There may be no war in America, but there is institutional and regulatory sludge. There is centralization of power, which makes us vulnerable. Any sufficiently centralized power entity will be exploitable to our enemies both foreign and domestic. When you decentralized power and control, and trust individuals to regulate themselves, that is when freedom and personal choice reign. There are groups who vie for and control the hearts and minds of everyday Americans – everyday Americans who truly should be left alone to live as they see fit.
But who’s really in charge currently? How are the narratives truly being set? Is there anyone with a freedom-centric vision that is allowed to compete? One should look deeply at their political choices before the next elections. It feels as though we are at a cyclical high in terms of both attention to politics and centralized authority. The further into control politics and central power we delve, the further we risk walling ourselves in like Ba Sing Se.