No Crowns, No Kings, Just New Disguises for the Old Game

Dear Dante,

You know how people born into royalty love to drone on about their “noble bloodlines” and “ancient heritage”? What a load of rubbish. Their ancestors were the biggest thugs in the neighbourhood—the ones who figured out that if you’re mean enough and clever enough, you can just take what you want and call it “divine right.” These weren’t gallant knights from fairy tales, Dante; they were the medieval equivalent of mob bosses who got really good at making protection rackets look respectable.

So these charming ancestors seized people and land, then—and here’s the brilliant part—they convinced everyone this was perfectly natural. “Oh, you’re upset we stole everything? Well, God obviously wanted us to have it; otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to take it, would we?”
As you well know, these delightful systems evolved into our modern political structures, the same old game of “privilege equals profit,” just with fancier paperwork. Another class emerged to manage the bureaucracy because even tyrants need middle management, don’t they?

Meanwhile, the working class got the short end of the stick twice over. First, there were no more honest apprenticeships. Now, they had to pay for the privilege of learning skills and then pay again for the right to use them. Brilliant!
The working class got squeezed down to the truly desperate—the poor, the unfortunate, the expendable. You know, the people who actually do the work while everyone else argues about who deserves the credit.

Now, here’s the joke: the upper class knew how to live in luxury, sure, but brilliant leaders? Hardly. They stuck to what they knew best—conquering, plundering, and stealing. Why learn new tricks when the old ones work so well? So they kept expanding their territories, utterly oblivious to the fact that they were creating a massive headache called immigration. “Let’s take over half the world, then act surprised when people start moving around!” Genius, really.

But let’s fast-forward a bit, Dante. The working-class people who had been left behind and trampled began to find a means to an end—or rather, a new beginning—with the dawn of the technological era. Imagine, if you will, every monastery’s scriptorium connected by invisible threads, so a peasant in one village could instantly read what scholars were writing in another. That’s “technology”—a global network of “ones and zeros,” a new language not written with a quill on parchment but carved in light and shadow for machines to read.

Suddenly, those too exhausted to read books could access understanding through this network. They realised that everything they’d learned in elementary school was a brainwashing tactic designed to make them think alike and, more importantly, think incorrectly. The relay race against the upper class’s centuries-old triathlon had begun.
Now, let me tell you about the most entertaining rebellion in history—how America became the land where nobody has to bow to crowns.

The Americans (rebellious offspring of those same European systems) looked at King George III and his endless demands for tribute and declared, “Not today, Your Majesty. We’re going to do something completely different!”
And what did they do? They rejected the entire concept of kingship and wrote “No titles of nobility” right into their founding documents. No dukes, no earls, no inherited power from bloodlines of ancient brigands. They were going to create something unprecedented—power from the people, not from whoever had the sharpest sword or the most ruthless great-great-grandfather.

Revolutionary stuff, really. Except for one tiny problem…
Even without kings, the American system couldn’t escape the fundamental human tendency toward hierarchy and the worship of power. They simply found new ways to create their own royalty through wealth, celebrity, and what they call “the American Dream.” The “trumpeteers”—those who herald and celebrate this new form of American aristocracy—have become the courtiers of the modern age. They don’t bow to crowns; they bow to golden towers, reality TV personas, and the promise that anyone can become royalty through sheer will and cunning. It’s the same old brigand mentality, just with different costumes and ceremonies.

What’s ironic is that America’s rejection of traditional monarchy led to something perhaps more insidious: the illusion of choice in their servitude. Instead of being born into a caste system, Americans are told they can climb the ladder—yet the ladder itself is controlled by those who’ve mastered the same fundamental skills as the old European nobility: the ability to take, to convince others to give, and to create systems that benefit the few while pacifying the many.

For centuries, Americans lived with this illusion that they had successfully banished kings from their daily lives. Every American was told they could be the king of their castle, the CEO of their empire, the master of their destiny—while the real power remained concentrated in the hands of those who understood that the game never really changed, only the rules had become more sophisticated.

But then something extraordinary happened, Dante. After falling out of their chairs in shared embarrassment and incredulity, after crying in their beds of shared disbelief at what their president and administration had become, the American people finally decided to go out and celebrate—or rather, protest for—their “No Kings Day.” They suddenly remembered why their ancestors had rejected monarchy in the first place. The streets filled with people declaring, “We said NO KINGS, and we meant it!”

This is why the working-class awakening is so crucial, Dante. Technology hasn’t just handed them information; it’s given them the means to see through the grand performance that both traditional royalty and modern American aristocracy have been staging for centuries.

Do you see, old friend, how little has truly changed since your time? The costumes are different, the methods more subtle, but the dance between power and subjugation continues—until moments like these, when people remember they need not dance at all.

May Clarity find us,

Irena Phaedra

P.S. We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone

Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone
All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall
All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers, leave them kids alone

Hey, teacher, leave us kids alone
All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall
All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall

If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding
How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?
You! (if you don’t eat yer meat)
Yes, you behind the bike stands (you can’t have any pudding)
(How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?) Stand still, laddy!
You! Yes, you behind the bike stands…

P.P.S.  Dante,
If you’re puzzled by the phrase “another brick in the wall,” let me explain. It comes from a group of modern troubadours called Pink Floyd, who, much like your own sharp-tongued poets, used music to challenge the powers that be. Their song, written at the end of the 1970s but echoing the rebellious spirit of the early seventies, is both a warning and a wake-up call. It protests the way schools and institutions mould young minds, turning each child into just another stone in a wall of obedience and conformity. The message is clear: beware of any system that demands blind submission, for it builds walls that imprison not just bodies, but spirits. In their time, as in yours, the call is to wake up and resist becoming yet another brick in someone else’s fortress.