It was a natural progression of events. Call it the sequel to the Economic Law of Motion of Modern Society. Over the past decades, wealth has become more and more entrenched. Capital has been consolidated and material money, securities, land and assets have been limited to an elite few. Call it the One Percent or call it the Ten Percent, the numbers don't lie.
It was a necessary end. It followed naturally. Once those with wealth were able to disassemble and dismantle the governmental and societal safeguards that kept the whole system in place, it was bound to do this. Over the past few decades, the ultra wealthy have succeeded in limiting the income of its labor class, so that the income of its labor class has stagnated. When stimulus checks were recently issued, it became obvious that the system was not sustainable. The money from the stimulus checks was more than the labor class members were making at work. That is, work, if they could find it. The fact of the matter is that the labor class in this country has been living on borrowed time and borrowed money now for decades, at the very least since the last economic crisis in 2008. Boy, I sure am glad we learned our lesson then.
So Labor and Capital are continuing to precipitate out as two poles in society. There is the class of those who were born to work; who have to work to live; and who have no time in their life where they can look to when they will not be looking. This is especially the case as the U.S. has been forced to compete with labor overseas. Overseas labor has been living on a lower standard of living, and based on the Iron Law of Wages, lower pay.
These are dumb Capitalists. Their greed has overcome their ability to see the big picture. The system has always been set up where all they had to do was sit back, live off of the nation's wealth and labor, and not fuck it up. But these are dumb Capitalists. They began undermining their labor class. They took away what it needed to be self-sustaining. They became greedy and sucked out just enough so that it could no longer just work to survive. You would think that no one could be that stupid, but you'd be wrong.
Archie Bunker would have been glad to keep slaving away. He would have sat on the lazy boy and watched television and bread and circuses his whole life. Then died and been forgotten. It was a great system (for them), but these are dumb Capitalists.
The system had worked for so long, you may ask, so what went wrong? Why couldn't they be smart Capitalists and continue the system in perpetuity? It's a great question. And the answer seems to be that the Capitalists may suffer from a certain type of inbreeding. Instead of a meritocracy, where the smartest and brightest rise through the ranks to earn and then manage capital, this group had its own progeny handle the task. They didn't earn it. And they don't know how to manage it. They never had to learn the value of things, and so they don't now.
And that is why they are ruining the one system that was given them and that was all that they would ever possibly need or want, and then some.
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
His Distaste for the Union
Well, Trump did what he needed to do last night.
I wasn't as overwhelmed as Van Jones, but his take on it is very valuable. Trump needed to satisfy the Republicans that his poll numbers wouldn't sink any lower. If they kept falling, then Ryan and McConnell would have had to allow the Russian espionage investigations to proceed. Now, I think they're dead. Maybe -- and this just occurred to me -- they told him to go out and put on a good show or they were going to allow the investigations to proceed, so they have, in effect, something to hold over his head (as the Intelligence Committee and FBI continue to investigate in secret). But the larger problem is that pie piece of the electorate that he cannot seem to lose.
And something has changed. The racism, Anti-Semitism and hate countenanced (if not implicitly) supported by Trump would have done him in. The new chapter in America he talked about last night is this: for a large swath, it is okay for the President of the U.S. to get supportive tweets from David Duke after the State of the Union speech. And there are also the millions who have been swindled by Trump into thinking that he was going to make their wages rise, despite the inevitable calculus of globalization. Alas, they slumber on. Because some must sleep.
And some must watch. In 1984, it wasn't Big Brother that was Winston Smith and the intelligentsia's greatest enemy. It was the proles. He even talks about this. Nothing he could do would persuade them to get away from believing what was on the telescreens. And how you get through to our modern day proles is something that everyone on the Left is struggling with.
The real time polling shows that the divide is still there. And Trump still scored very low with independents. I think that the main problem will be with attrition and fatigue. But if the media and others continue to campaign for truth against Trump, hopefully, the support he receives will begin to erode again. But make no mistake about it, last night he had at least a temporary victory, especially with the Republicans in showing that he still has the proles supporting him.
Right now, the House is so hopelessly gerrymandered, that the Republicans will have a permanent majority. The districting is done at the State level, and the Republicans and Rove have spent a decade and a half rigging it. I think Obama, of all people, and others with his team are working on how to reverse that. But it is a decades-long process.
The most important issue right now is the Constitutional challenge to gerrymandering. (As an aside, notice that Sessions withdrew the DoJ's opposition to Texas' racist voter suppresion law now being litigated). There is a case soon to be before the Supreme Court that would make it unconstitutional to hopelessly gerrymander districts so that the votes are distorted and no longer representative. But as a matter of jursprudence, some say the case is a long shot. With a 5-4 Republican majority and Goresuch installed, it is a hopeless long shot.
I wasn't as overwhelmed as Van Jones, but his take on it is very valuable. Trump needed to satisfy the Republicans that his poll numbers wouldn't sink any lower. If they kept falling, then Ryan and McConnell would have had to allow the Russian espionage investigations to proceed. Now, I think they're dead. Maybe -- and this just occurred to me -- they told him to go out and put on a good show or they were going to allow the investigations to proceed, so they have, in effect, something to hold over his head (as the Intelligence Committee and FBI continue to investigate in secret). But the larger problem is that pie piece of the electorate that he cannot seem to lose.
And something has changed. The racism, Anti-Semitism and hate countenanced (if not implicitly) supported by Trump would have done him in. The new chapter in America he talked about last night is this: for a large swath, it is okay for the President of the U.S. to get supportive tweets from David Duke after the State of the Union speech. And there are also the millions who have been swindled by Trump into thinking that he was going to make their wages rise, despite the inevitable calculus of globalization. Alas, they slumber on. Because some must sleep.
And some must watch. In 1984, it wasn't Big Brother that was Winston Smith and the intelligentsia's greatest enemy. It was the proles. He even talks about this. Nothing he could do would persuade them to get away from believing what was on the telescreens. And how you get through to our modern day proles is something that everyone on the Left is struggling with.
The real time polling shows that the divide is still there. And Trump still scored very low with independents. I think that the main problem will be with attrition and fatigue. But if the media and others continue to campaign for truth against Trump, hopefully, the support he receives will begin to erode again. But make no mistake about it, last night he had at least a temporary victory, especially with the Republicans in showing that he still has the proles supporting him.
Right now, the House is so hopelessly gerrymandered, that the Republicans will have a permanent majority. The districting is done at the State level, and the Republicans and Rove have spent a decade and a half rigging it. I think Obama, of all people, and others with his team are working on how to reverse that. But it is a decades-long process.
The most important issue right now is the Constitutional challenge to gerrymandering. (As an aside, notice that Sessions withdrew the DoJ's opposition to Texas' racist voter suppresion law now being litigated). There is a case soon to be before the Supreme Court that would make it unconstitutional to hopelessly gerrymander districts so that the votes are distorted and no longer representative. But as a matter of jursprudence, some say the case is a long shot. With a 5-4 Republican majority and Goresuch installed, it is a hopeless long shot.
Monday, February 13, 2017
Don't Call it a Comeback
We have been here before. Nationalist movements in Europe have coalesced around Le Pen, Wilders, and others. They seek a return to a past where the populations which one ruled them are again in power. They seek to cast out those that have immigrated in the past half-century. And that time frame is no accident. It has spread across the Atlantic to America. And its greatest benefactor and sponsor is Vladimir Putin.
Putin, and his ideological allies in Europe, operating under the pseudonym as "populist" movements, represent a throwback. Theirs is a desire not just to oppose globalism, but to attack and undermine the underpinnings of globalism. Their biggest benefactor and underworld patron is Vladimir Putin.
The attack on globalism is obscuring a more fundamental attack on this world view. It is the world view and world order launched after World War II by President Harry S. Truman and ensconced in the United Nations and NATO. That these two institutions are now under direct attack is no accident.
The formation of the UN and NATO was a reaction to two massively destructive world wars. It was conceived and crafted, led by the United States, weary of being drawn into two European wars. It allowed the U.S. a say in European relations before having to send its young men and women to die first.
However, it was much more than that. It sought to spread the notions of the Enlightenment, human rights, universal recognition of suffrage, and international comity, to the rest of the world. It provided in New York a venue to have representatives meet and address not just issues of war and peace, but of international disputes, and a world court. It brought all of the nations of the world to the same table, and gave each a say in the course of world events.
The globalist/universalist attack seeks to undo all of that. The anti-globalists/universalists seek to return to the era before the World Wars, when the most powerful nations were ruled largely by autocrats and worked among one another to divide up the economic spoils of the rest, the lesser, less powerful nations. It is a movement away from ideological divisions of the world, for example, along the lines of the Cold War ideologies, and a movement towards the reign of powerful, autocratic states having near-free reign to do as they please.
This also means the undoing of human rights, universal recognition of suffrage, and international comity, Concomitantly, it also means the lurch back to power by the racial stereotypes populating those of the original big powers. Think the World War I powers of Russia, Great Britain, France, Austria, and Turkey. It is an attempt to reverse the immigration of others over the last half-century and return power to the populations then in large majorities.
The creation of that now-80 year world order was no coincidence. It was a world order conceived and created in response to two massively destructive world wars. And it held the peace through the nuclear age. Now, however, it is under attack in Europe and, more recently, the U.S. It is clear that undoing that world order opens up the Pandora's box that it had kept tightly lidded. It runs the risk of creating chaos and wars of economic gain unchecked by the UN and the World Court.
It is a throwback to a much more divisive and dangerous time for the people of the world. The reign of autocrats has returned. The adage, "if you set out to kill the king, you better kill the king" has newfound meaning. And don't call it a comeback.
Putin, and his ideological allies in Europe, operating under the pseudonym as "populist" movements, represent a throwback. Theirs is a desire not just to oppose globalism, but to attack and undermine the underpinnings of globalism. Their biggest benefactor and underworld patron is Vladimir Putin.
The attack on globalism is obscuring a more fundamental attack on this world view. It is the world view and world order launched after World War II by President Harry S. Truman and ensconced in the United Nations and NATO. That these two institutions are now under direct attack is no accident.
The formation of the UN and NATO was a reaction to two massively destructive world wars. It was conceived and crafted, led by the United States, weary of being drawn into two European wars. It allowed the U.S. a say in European relations before having to send its young men and women to die first.
However, it was much more than that. It sought to spread the notions of the Enlightenment, human rights, universal recognition of suffrage, and international comity, to the rest of the world. It provided in New York a venue to have representatives meet and address not just issues of war and peace, but of international disputes, and a world court. It brought all of the nations of the world to the same table, and gave each a say in the course of world events.
The globalist/universalist attack seeks to undo all of that. The anti-globalists/universalists seek to return to the era before the World Wars, when the most powerful nations were ruled largely by autocrats and worked among one another to divide up the economic spoils of the rest, the lesser, less powerful nations. It is a movement away from ideological divisions of the world, for example, along the lines of the Cold War ideologies, and a movement towards the reign of powerful, autocratic states having near-free reign to do as they please.
This also means the undoing of human rights, universal recognition of suffrage, and international comity, Concomitantly, it also means the lurch back to power by the racial stereotypes populating those of the original big powers. Think the World War I powers of Russia, Great Britain, France, Austria, and Turkey. It is an attempt to reverse the immigration of others over the last half-century and return power to the populations then in large majorities.
The creation of that now-80 year world order was no coincidence. It was a world order conceived and created in response to two massively destructive world wars. And it held the peace through the nuclear age. Now, however, it is under attack in Europe and, more recently, the U.S. It is clear that undoing that world order opens up the Pandora's box that it had kept tightly lidded. It runs the risk of creating chaos and wars of economic gain unchecked by the UN and the World Court.
It is a throwback to a much more divisive and dangerous time for the people of the world. The reign of autocrats has returned. The adage, "if you set out to kill the king, you better kill the king" has newfound meaning. And don't call it a comeback.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Reconstruction
Media elites and establishment blowhards are all out of panic buttons. Table-punding is all that remains. Never in the history of American politics, and perhaps world politics, have so many experts been so wrong for so long about a candidate. Yes, I'm speaking about Donald Trump. The racist, the buffoon, that horrible xenophobe, and whatever else the so-called experts have dubbed him. Initially, journalists and opponents scoffed at the idea of his candidacy. But after several stout interviews and controversial remarks that unexpectedly benefited Trump, the hit men were called in. From MSNBC, CNN, and even Fox. They brought in the likes of George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and Chris Matthews. When that failed to stem the tide, it was time for the elites to get serious. Bill Clinton took an ill-advised shot at The Donald. One simple twitter response from Trump was all it took. Like an overhead right from Iron Mike, we never heard from Bill again. As Scarborough so succinctly put it, "The Clintons laid down like lambs." That Trump managed to instantaneously quiet the man behind one the great political machines of modern times is remarkable enough. What is more remarkable is his threat sprung into action all the journalistic minions who've been on the Clinton gravy train since Glass Steagall was nicely tucked away in the China cabinet of Wall Street's despicable history. The media proved just as ineffectual as Bubba, and instead revealed all the journalists who, in reality, were merely guns for hire.
But Trump's pulverization of royalty was far from over. Far, far, from over. Sensing the desperation of the moment, elites decided the GOP, not Democrat luminaries, needed to reign Trump in. And going one step further, the anointed assassin was none other than the Bush Family. This made sense. After all, if Jeb really wanted the nomination, it was his $150 million mess to clean up. So in trotted the political equivalent of the 1927 Yankees. Murderers Row. Mama Bush. Papa Bush. And Brother Bush. Like the Canons of Fort Sumpter that heralded the start of the Civil War, the Bushes arrived to a clamorous Carolina contingent with hopes of silencing the North once again. But, alas, that failed too. Dubya was a couple of years late, and somehow a 90 year old woman in a walker just didn't have the oomph some had envisioned. And with that, Jeb went capooot!, and with a whimper, the Bush Dynasty was gone. All at the hands of political novice. And all within but a few days.
But Trump wasn't done. For ecclesiastical royalty would soon surround the House of Trump. Yet, the Pope of Rome had to issue a retraction just one day later, a retreat unlike any Rome has known since the Fall of Acre. Not to be outdone, South Carolina decided they too desired their very own form of royal martyrdom, in the name of Governess Nikki Haley. Her ringing endorsement of Ro-bio was earth-shattering news, at least for 4 seconds until the next Fox News Alert came streaming across the screen. Ultimately, that too failed, and again, within days.
What Donald Trump survived in South Carolina, over the course of just a few days, is nothing short of mind-boggling. He destroyed the Bush Dynasty on their own turf. Overcame a wildly popular South Carolina Governor. And turned the Pope from Lion to Lamb. And then, he blew out the field in convincing fashion. There are no parallels in political history for what happened down South. To partially borrow a phrase from famed sportscaster Brent Musberger, "You are looking live, at political history being made".
Monday, November 10, 2014
A Republic -- If You Can Keep It . . .
"Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away."
-Hamlet
So that this nation shall not perish from the Earth -- what is required today?
It is the same as it always has been, although now the stakes are ever higher. The weapons can destroy worlds. The emperor can scry your very innermost thoughts. This nation determines the fate of all others. Indeed, the stakes are ever more higher.
An awake citizenry. It sounds so simple, yet it is the hardest task any philosopher has ever faced. How to make a perfect society, the recipe is simple, perfect citizens. Plato's Republic sought to do it with justice. As the just man had the just city within his soul, so the Republic leaned ever towards perfection.
But, alas, it is not so easy. Easily manipulated are hoi polloi. And those most manipulated become most confrontational, most violent, most assured in their own folly. Those who work evil against the just state use them easily.
And so forever the just man is in an unjust society. So Machiavelli thought the only way was for one just man to become okay with being unjust in certain circumstances, so that there could be some justice somewhere.
But today something much, much more is needed:
1. Critical Thinking Citizenry. It is most critical that there be citizens able to think critically about those that seek to dominate them. And this is far more subtle than you may think. The millionaire pundits on AM radio and the whores on Fox News may mouth the words, but they are actually subverting true critical thinking. They do this by an appeal to raw emotions like fear. Pure fear, unabashed fear, primal fear. The thought that if you don't do something, you and your family are in danger. This is the talk about "security" and the now well-known appeal to "Terrorism," "security," and blatant xenophobia. So not only must you think critically, but you must especially beware of those who want to appear as if they are thinking and acting critically, when in fact they are agents of the status quo and the current power structure.
2. Liberal Arts Studies. The best and most effective critical thinking has, at its basis, the liberal arts education. By looking into different ways of thinking itself, and looking at historical and philosophical epistemologies, one can avoid being trapped by sophistry. Recently, Conservatives such as the former governor, now under indictment, Rick Perry, who was a C-student and a member of a paramilitary organization, sought to undo the liberal arts education and higher learning by rooting it out in favor of results-based and monied interests wherein students would be educated simply to fill cogs in Big Corporate's machine. These are not people who question power structures or modes of thought. These are those people who have been lobotomized for easier manufactured consent.
3. Power Structures and Money. The greatest attack on democracy in the world today is not a small militia in the Middle East. It is not the influx of immigrants from south of the border. It is not a hare-brained conspiracy theory about the government taking individual liberties or the right to free exercise of religion. The greatest attack on democracy is its transformation to a plutocracy. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades of jurisprudence and election campaign finance law, it ushered in the change from one person = one vote to one dollar = one vote. Or, perhaps, many dollars = many votes. This has allowed the last round of elections to be corrupted by massive expenditures in mass media (and even social media) to inveigh against candidates and measures that most benefit the common good -- the most people receiving the most benefit.
4. Race and Religion. These are the major pivot points that the overly empowered use to subjugate and divide the many. It is critical to always notice how these fault lines fall across the political and societal landscape. It is often a subtle and default means of creating a herd mentality. It sometimes necessarily runs counter and counteracts critical thinking, number one, above.
These are four of the most critical means of preserving the Republic.
The Right's Cognitive Dissonance
The Right's Cognitive Dissonance:
1. Talking about religious freedom but concomitantly establishing religious intolerance. They want to blur the line between religion and State and continually attack the Founders who insisted on the First Amendment's separation of Church and State. You cannot have religious freedom without a secular state.
Otherwise, every religion competes for hegemony, attempting to establish a monopoly wherein it is institutionalized by the government and by the state. All Western monotheistic religions contain this mission.
The "Great Commission" of Christianity requires that the literal constructionists and Christian fundamentalists establish a "Christian nation" and to convert other peoples and nations of the world to their own faith, sometimes using violence, as history shows. The same is true of Islam.
2. Talking about free markets but concomitantly establishing ingrained and vested monopolies by extreme wealth. They support massive corporate domination of government and necessary regulations, and allow the 1% of extreme wealth to take over government services for their own profit and aggrandizement, even when it is not feasible in cases such as the environment, and even when it is less efficient than that provided by the government.
3. Talking about protecting liberty but concomitantly actively and illegally "detaining" over 200 individuals in Cuba in cages for over a decade, in some cases, without even a hearing, the barest notion of due process, all in the name of "security."
4. Talking about government taking away liberties and concomitantly causing the extraordinary dispossession of liberty by a small, massively capitalized elite.
Behold, this is the Right's cognitive dissonance.
1. Talking about religious freedom but concomitantly establishing religious intolerance. They want to blur the line between religion and State and continually attack the Founders who insisted on the First Amendment's separation of Church and State. You cannot have religious freedom without a secular state.
Otherwise, every religion competes for hegemony, attempting to establish a monopoly wherein it is institutionalized by the government and by the state. All Western monotheistic religions contain this mission.
The "Great Commission" of Christianity requires that the literal constructionists and Christian fundamentalists establish a "Christian nation" and to convert other peoples and nations of the world to their own faith, sometimes using violence, as history shows. The same is true of Islam.
2. Talking about free markets but concomitantly establishing ingrained and vested monopolies by extreme wealth. They support massive corporate domination of government and necessary regulations, and allow the 1% of extreme wealth to take over government services for their own profit and aggrandizement, even when it is not feasible in cases such as the environment, and even when it is less efficient than that provided by the government.
3. Talking about protecting liberty but concomitantly actively and illegally "detaining" over 200 individuals in Cuba in cages for over a decade, in some cases, without even a hearing, the barest notion of due process, all in the name of "security."
4. Talking about government taking away liberties and concomitantly causing the extraordinary dispossession of liberty by a small, massively capitalized elite.
Behold, this is the Right's cognitive dissonance.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Quantum of Solace
British physicist Stephen Hawking once made a bet with another physicist that we would never discover the Higgs Boson, also known as the "God particle," because it was the one missing link in the Standard Model that would make everything else make sense. It was assigned the task of giving all things mass. So it was something of an all-or-nothing proposition: Find the Higgs Boson and everything falls into place, or don't find it, and everything is still lacking in any singular sense of order.
Then Hawking theorized something else, and it was reported just yesterday. He believes that the Higgs Boson and the field it occupies is set at, or contains, a set amount of energy. This very specific setting has it perched between two opposing contingencies. If it acquires more energy, then everything spins out of control. If it loses energy, then everything spins out of control. It may also somehow "tunnel" from one trough in the energy graph to a lower trough, thereby neither gaining or losing energy in the conventional sense, but everything spins out of control nevertheless.
This spinning out of control creates a super vacuum that begins expanding at the speed of light until it consumes the universe. For you and me, sitting in our homes on a little insignificant rock, third one from an insignificant star, out on a spiral arm in an insignificant galaxy, which is also out on the fringe of an insignificant supercluster of galaxies, we would never see it coming.
We would be literally annihilated in a instant. The expanding vacuum would have hit us at the speed of light, so there would be no warning. In fact, no warning would be possible. To make Hawking's theory even more tantalizing, this vacuum disturbance may have already occurred somewhere and is expanding -- it just hasn't hit us yet.
And what is striking about this entire expanding theory is not just its subject matter. What is striking is the ability of theory to expand outside of known contingencies to explain (or create) another possibility. There are possibilities that are not yet known, but that must be theorized and (if possible) tried. Theory builds upon theory, and other realms of possibility can come into being to explain something that was limited before. These are possibilities that are not yet immediately readily apparent.
Could the same be true for problems we face today as a people? Could the same be true for problems we face today as a civilization? Could the same be true for problems we face today as economists, politicians, social scientists?
In the 1970's and 80's, we saw the massive destruction of the Earth's ozone layer. When scientists investigated the cause of the problem, it was discovered to be chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's). These chemicals were used as a coolant in various applications by consumers and industry. When they escaped into the environment, they destroyed the delicate layer of O3 that loomed in the upper reaches of the atmosphere and that reflected dangerous ultraviolet spectrum rays from the Sun.
So government regulators sprang into action. This was a time before the Republican party was hellbent on killing anything that prevented the wholesale and free use of the environment as an externality by their donors, Big Energy and Big Mining. They were able to pass actual bans on CFC's -- something that the Republican party as agent of Big Energy and Big Mining would never, ever allow -- and get other nations to join. Many thought that, even though the bans were accomplished, there was still too much damage already done to the ozone layer. At most, its destruction could be slowed, but never stopped.
A report that came out eviscerated those concerns. The ozone layer, almost as a living, breathing, organic thing, has not just ceased being depleted. It is slowly -- every slowly -- beginning to recover itself. This shocked environmentalists and politicians alike. And it shows, most importantly, that there is another realm of possibility outside that in which we currently operate. Things may actually work. There are some actions we can take, and they may be successful. All is not necessarily lost.
These days, this, at least, can give us some quantum of solace.
Then Hawking theorized something else, and it was reported just yesterday. He believes that the Higgs Boson and the field it occupies is set at, or contains, a set amount of energy. This very specific setting has it perched between two opposing contingencies. If it acquires more energy, then everything spins out of control. If it loses energy, then everything spins out of control. It may also somehow "tunnel" from one trough in the energy graph to a lower trough, thereby neither gaining or losing energy in the conventional sense, but everything spins out of control nevertheless.
This spinning out of control creates a super vacuum that begins expanding at the speed of light until it consumes the universe. For you and me, sitting in our homes on a little insignificant rock, third one from an insignificant star, out on a spiral arm in an insignificant galaxy, which is also out on the fringe of an insignificant supercluster of galaxies, we would never see it coming.
We would be literally annihilated in a instant. The expanding vacuum would have hit us at the speed of light, so there would be no warning. In fact, no warning would be possible. To make Hawking's theory even more tantalizing, this vacuum disturbance may have already occurred somewhere and is expanding -- it just hasn't hit us yet.
And what is striking about this entire expanding theory is not just its subject matter. What is striking is the ability of theory to expand outside of known contingencies to explain (or create) another possibility. There are possibilities that are not yet known, but that must be theorized and (if possible) tried. Theory builds upon theory, and other realms of possibility can come into being to explain something that was limited before. These are possibilities that are not yet immediately readily apparent.
Could the same be true for problems we face today as a people? Could the same be true for problems we face today as a civilization? Could the same be true for problems we face today as economists, politicians, social scientists?
In the 1970's and 80's, we saw the massive destruction of the Earth's ozone layer. When scientists investigated the cause of the problem, it was discovered to be chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's). These chemicals were used as a coolant in various applications by consumers and industry. When they escaped into the environment, they destroyed the delicate layer of O3 that loomed in the upper reaches of the atmosphere and that reflected dangerous ultraviolet spectrum rays from the Sun.
So government regulators sprang into action. This was a time before the Republican party was hellbent on killing anything that prevented the wholesale and free use of the environment as an externality by their donors, Big Energy and Big Mining. They were able to pass actual bans on CFC's -- something that the Republican party as agent of Big Energy and Big Mining would never, ever allow -- and get other nations to join. Many thought that, even though the bans were accomplished, there was still too much damage already done to the ozone layer. At most, its destruction could be slowed, but never stopped.
A report that came out eviscerated those concerns. The ozone layer, almost as a living, breathing, organic thing, has not just ceased being depleted. It is slowly -- every slowly -- beginning to recover itself. This shocked environmentalists and politicians alike. And it shows, most importantly, that there is another realm of possibility outside that in which we currently operate. Things may actually work. There are some actions we can take, and they may be successful. All is not necessarily lost.
These days, this, at least, can give us some quantum of solace.
Friday, September 5, 2014
The Dumbing Down of America -- The Great Experiment
"I've always believed that the mind is the best weapon. " -- John RamboRecently, an article appeared called "America Dumbs Down," discussing the attack on intellectuals, intelligentsia and the tradition of the "Brain Trust" in America.
In every aspect of American popular culture and society, hyper religion and extremist fundamentalism have taken the place of rational thought, expertise and the hegemony of reason. Superstition and snake oil have supplanted cognition and science. The ultimate degradation of the Middle and Lower Classes has taken place. America undergoes an overhaul.
One of the reasons why the U.S.'s entry into World War II was so critical was its educated work force. The Middle Class in the U.S. enjoyed the benefits of a free public education. This allowed the U.S. to mobilize faster than any other nation on Earth. It also meant that U.S. troops would be outfitted with the greatest weapon of all. The Golden Age of American History may be attributed, in large part, to this particular utopian dream realized from sea to shining sea.
And ever since that time, it has been under attack. Because the uber-wealthy never needed an over-educated working class. They are better served by the hyper-religious, jingoistic and hyper-nationalist ideologues that sublimate their economic distress into more war or a hatred of foreigners and minorities. And so very few of them will be able to discern this trap.
It is the reason for the Liberal Arts education. And this is also now under great attack, especially from the Republican Party and its uber-wealthy agents, Rick Perry, and his attack on higher education in Texas and other parts of the U.S. A Liberal Arts education allows its recipient to see society with an understanding of its power structure and with its class underpinnings. Without it, and without the critical and theoretical mindset it engenders, one really is lost in the shadows on the wall.
The ability to distinguish and differentiate between things that a preacher says about fiery places and what actually happened on a specific date and time are lost. Even perhaps more importantly, the ability to draw lessons and knowledge from those two things is unattainable. The non-Liberal Arts educated individual is, in some sense, a buffoon, and imbecile, left to be led around by the nose without any sense as to what is really going on around him or her.
And so that is the goal of Rick Perry and the other imbeciles -- to create and more easily manage a large populace that will do what it is told when it is told, and will not question why or what it receives in exchange. It is a better labor class, but not the anachronism of dirty factory workers.
No, these are armies of people wearing slacks and oxford shirts, speeding to their cubicles in the morning, listening to Christian Contemporary as they work, and then rushing back home in their SUV's to listen to the 21st Century version of the Old Time Gospel hour, the latest "bible-based" church on any of dozen media to choose from. This is your Labor for the 21st century, here to manage your assets and operate the machinery that operates the machinery. Karl Marx had it right, but he was just off by a century or two.
So education has to change. Lobotomize the Middle Class. Remove its voice and its ability to question and to see what you are doing to it, then have your way with them. But this is critical -- you must not let them find out. Change higher education to fanciful and glittering trade and vocational education. Begin the lowering of the Ivory Tower into the depths of Hell, and invert it.
No more inquiry. Take away their greatest weapon. We learned that lesson watching the campuses in the 1960's go up. Sure, you can call it a university, but it is really no more than an idiot garden.
And the game plays on.
Friday, August 29, 2014
The Etymology of the Word "Terror"
Fascinating, isn't it? A word that once simply described a human emotion has morphed into a psychological and sociological phenomenon. It isn't really deconstructed. It isn't really defined. But when mass media and social media converge on your mind with this term -- make no mistake about it -- you know exactly what to think, you know exactly what to fear. And, in some sense, you know that you are not allowed to question.
To question leads, for the questioner, to being ostracized. Or worse -- even attacked. Because the fear response is so integral and so powerful, that the mind of the viewer goes into a different mode. One where remote and even extremely unlikely and attenuated potentialities are viewed as an immediate, clear and present danger threat. It is almost as if there is an assailant just outside the door trying to get in. The level of emotional fear is that palpable.
And there are other aspects to this new version of "terror." CNN runs a byline that says, "FEAR OF HOMEGROWN TERROR." It is the same word, but now it means something else. And it still connotes the fear response that forces people from the rational side of their brain to the flight or fight response side of the brain. But now it means some kind of movement or apparatus. It could be a large group of people or a very small group of people. It may be a militia or a rag-tag group of fighters of some sort. Often times, however, it is simply a group of people with a certain ideology.
Which leads to the question -- why is a government with a First Amendment to its Constitution pursuing people because of their ideology? Once you take away the fear response that comes into play with the word "terror," the question is unavoidable. The whole purpose behind John Locke and John Stuart Mill and the Enlightenment and the First Amendment is that good ideas will win out and bad ideas will fade in the open marketplace of ideas. But when Government picks and chooses what should and shouldn't be known, that marketplace is defeated, and inquiry and knowledge are lost. Bad ideas may actually win out. And who is it, exactly, with this ideology that trumps the Constitution? It is always vague and nothing is ever specific about it.
Which gets us to the last part of the word "terror." Not only does it short-circuit the reasoning functions of the brain when broadcast ubiquitously by mass media and social media, and not only is it used to describe some malingering force that could exist, but you cannot know exactly who, where or why it is. That is for the adults, and you are to be treated like a child. The government suddenly knows better than you what is better for you. Now I don't need to tell you that this is an abortion of free government and the ideals it represents, outlined above. But once you have short-circuited people's mind to the fear channel, the rational side that would alert them to this strange alter-ego government goes quiet, it goes silent.
You cannot know where exactly they are, so they could be right behind you. That's pretty terrifying, right? And they may actually be someone you know, but who is concealing their true identity. That's even more fearful and leads to social paranoia. The Crucible exemplified the society tearing itself apart in fear as everyone becomes a suspected witch. And the more the witch denies that she is a witch, the more likely she is a witch. Because that is what witches do. The terror is so terrifying that you simply wouldn't understand it, is the meme.
And in this, there is some truth. Because once the word has activated the dog whistle fear receptors, you lose your conventional understanding. You lose the faculties that you use every day to question things suggested to you to ascertain for yourself whether or not something really is (or really isn't) bad for you. It is what you do your entire adult life. But with "terror," you are no longer allowed. Someone must make those decisions for you.
So now that you understand what is going on with the word "terror," and now that you understand what it does when you hear it, what are you going to do about it?
To question leads, for the questioner, to being ostracized. Or worse -- even attacked. Because the fear response is so integral and so powerful, that the mind of the viewer goes into a different mode. One where remote and even extremely unlikely and attenuated potentialities are viewed as an immediate, clear and present danger threat. It is almost as if there is an assailant just outside the door trying to get in. The level of emotional fear is that palpable.
And there are other aspects to this new version of "terror." CNN runs a byline that says, "FEAR OF HOMEGROWN TERROR." It is the same word, but now it means something else. And it still connotes the fear response that forces people from the rational side of their brain to the flight or fight response side of the brain. But now it means some kind of movement or apparatus. It could be a large group of people or a very small group of people. It may be a militia or a rag-tag group of fighters of some sort. Often times, however, it is simply a group of people with a certain ideology.
Which leads to the question -- why is a government with a First Amendment to its Constitution pursuing people because of their ideology? Once you take away the fear response that comes into play with the word "terror," the question is unavoidable. The whole purpose behind John Locke and John Stuart Mill and the Enlightenment and the First Amendment is that good ideas will win out and bad ideas will fade in the open marketplace of ideas. But when Government picks and chooses what should and shouldn't be known, that marketplace is defeated, and inquiry and knowledge are lost. Bad ideas may actually win out. And who is it, exactly, with this ideology that trumps the Constitution? It is always vague and nothing is ever specific about it.
Which gets us to the last part of the word "terror." Not only does it short-circuit the reasoning functions of the brain when broadcast ubiquitously by mass media and social media, and not only is it used to describe some malingering force that could exist, but you cannot know exactly who, where or why it is. That is for the adults, and you are to be treated like a child. The government suddenly knows better than you what is better for you. Now I don't need to tell you that this is an abortion of free government and the ideals it represents, outlined above. But once you have short-circuited people's mind to the fear channel, the rational side that would alert them to this strange alter-ego government goes quiet, it goes silent.
You cannot know where exactly they are, so they could be right behind you. That's pretty terrifying, right? And they may actually be someone you know, but who is concealing their true identity. That's even more fearful and leads to social paranoia. The Crucible exemplified the society tearing itself apart in fear as everyone becomes a suspected witch. And the more the witch denies that she is a witch, the more likely she is a witch. Because that is what witches do. The terror is so terrifying that you simply wouldn't understand it, is the meme.
And in this, there is some truth. Because once the word has activated the dog whistle fear receptors, you lose your conventional understanding. You lose the faculties that you use every day to question things suggested to you to ascertain for yourself whether or not something really is (or really isn't) bad for you. It is what you do your entire adult life. But with "terror," you are no longer allowed. Someone must make those decisions for you.
So now that you understand what is going on with the word "terror," and now that you understand what it does when you hear it, what are you going to do about it?
Helter-Skelter
In his book, Helter-Skelter, the prosecutor in the Charles Manson "family" murders, Vincent Bugliosi, recall the insane metaphysics that drove some drug-crazed and lost California kids to begin committing some of the most gruesome and notorious murders in American history.
Bugliosi borrowed the title from a Beatles' song that appears on an album released without cover art or a title, and that has come to be known as "The White Album." The song itself is also famous for a claim that it is the first ever use of harmonic "feedback" sound, intentionally, as part of music.
But Bugliosi's book (novel?) captures, perhaps inadvertently, his readers with a far more insidious and nefarious grand design scheme, something that he borrows from the twisted mind of none other than Charles Manson himself. The term "Helter-Skelter" was to describe an apocalyptic, eschatological war. But not just any war -- a war over resources or borders, for example -- but a race war. And that thought caught on in the 1960's and continued through the demographic changes America is experiencing to this day.
But it has been, at least thus far, a cold war. A "cold" Helter-Skelter -- where battles are pitched not in massive numbers of troops and movements, but in small skirmishes, using proxies, much like the United States and the Soviet Union waged (or perhaps, continue to wage) for years in their own Cold War. And it is deeply ideological.
Make no mistake about it, Charles Manson was crazy. But he may have been on to something, at least in the sense of ideological forces, money and power forming alliances and struggling to mold society each in their own way. This war, at least, seems far more interesting than one that is openly and actually violent.
So who are our warring powers today? Well, clearly, there is an effort underway by the extraordinarily wealthy to preserve that wealth. The past 30 years has seen the consolidation of the super wealthy on a massive scale. Part of it is the consolidation, through mergers and acquisitions, of many corporations in America that once operated independently.
When aligned under the same ownership, they all began singing the same tune. They all began serving the same master. This became ultimately apparent when the media companies began being acquired by industry. Then came the wars, and President Eisenhower's farewell address flickered across once-dead black-and-white television screens again, although this time lost in the recesses of You Tube.
The military-industrial-media complex was just one arm of the extraordinarily wealthy to serve a unified ends -- the ends of their owners. Only now the owners owned all of them, up and down the supply chain, and across different industries. There are, undoubtedly, other arms as well. The prison building industry and some of the entertainment industries play an equally important, and far more subtle, role in the goals of the super wealthy.
And what are their goals? That's easy. To continue to consolidate and preserve that wealth, and to keep the pieces in place necessary to continue amalgamating more wealth. And where is this "more wealth" to come from? Well, it can only really come from the public sector, or the Middle and Lower Class can be squeezed even further to get more from them.
We have seen the attack on government waged in vitriolic, banshee-screaming tones. Foot soldiers have somehow perceived that the government, the only entity able to stand up to the uber-wealthy, is somehow taking something from them, and so it is declared the enemy. There is little to offer them but pity. And much of it.
And what the Middle and Lower class are all tapped out? What then can you take from them, squeeze out of them further? Well, that's an easy one as well. All men have labor, John Locke chimes in. So you make them work more and harder and for less. And, in this way, you can squeeze even more wealth out of those who really have little to none.
And so you use the military-industrial-media complex, and you use the entertainment industry, to get as much labor out of them as possible. And you hone all of these things for that one goal. Now the drums of war are beating again. Now (again) we have the greatest threat ever to walk the Earth looming over the homeland. We are worried we "may get hit again." Eerily, the workers fall into line. " Tell me, tell me. tell me the answer . . . "
Over and against the extraordinarily wealthy, there is another movement. It is a reaction to the massive amalgamation of wealth taking place. But it is divided, still searching for its compass. It is parts of the U.S. Middle Class and Lower Class trying to unite ideologically to counter their extraordinary dispossession at the hands of the uber-wealthy. It largely comes in the form of a reactionary, Rightist, militia-type mobilization, with the "Don't Tread of Me" flags reappearing.
But its attention is diverted from the uber-wealthy to the scapegoat they have erected to deflect attention. So this reactionary movement of the common man becomes an anti-government orgy. The anger that would normally be reserved and directed at those who took from them is instead focused on a non-sentient administration of society's goods and needs. Ironically, it may be the only thing that could counter the uber-wealthy. But they have that cut off as well.
And this movement of the common man pitches back and forth, struggling internally to understand who is its enemy. "Do you know the enemy?" is the Green Day song so appropos. It has formed into "Patriot" groups and Tea Party organizations. But it still can't seem to get clear in its mind who it is standing over it. Like the primitive beast, it holds the sides of its heads and moans. The noise is too loud to focus. The diversion is complete. The uber-wealthy are safe.
For now.
Bugliosi borrowed the title from a Beatles' song that appears on an album released without cover art or a title, and that has come to be known as "The White Album." The song itself is also famous for a claim that it is the first ever use of harmonic "feedback" sound, intentionally, as part of music.
But Bugliosi's book (novel?) captures, perhaps inadvertently, his readers with a far more insidious and nefarious grand design scheme, something that he borrows from the twisted mind of none other than Charles Manson himself. The term "Helter-Skelter" was to describe an apocalyptic, eschatological war. But not just any war -- a war over resources or borders, for example -- but a race war. And that thought caught on in the 1960's and continued through the demographic changes America is experiencing to this day.
But it has been, at least thus far, a cold war. A "cold" Helter-Skelter -- where battles are pitched not in massive numbers of troops and movements, but in small skirmishes, using proxies, much like the United States and the Soviet Union waged (or perhaps, continue to wage) for years in their own Cold War. And it is deeply ideological.
Make no mistake about it, Charles Manson was crazy. But he may have been on to something, at least in the sense of ideological forces, money and power forming alliances and struggling to mold society each in their own way. This war, at least, seems far more interesting than one that is openly and actually violent.
So who are our warring powers today? Well, clearly, there is an effort underway by the extraordinarily wealthy to preserve that wealth. The past 30 years has seen the consolidation of the super wealthy on a massive scale. Part of it is the consolidation, through mergers and acquisitions, of many corporations in America that once operated independently.
When aligned under the same ownership, they all began singing the same tune. They all began serving the same master. This became ultimately apparent when the media companies began being acquired by industry. Then came the wars, and President Eisenhower's farewell address flickered across once-dead black-and-white television screens again, although this time lost in the recesses of You Tube.
The military-industrial-media complex was just one arm of the extraordinarily wealthy to serve a unified ends -- the ends of their owners. Only now the owners owned all of them, up and down the supply chain, and across different industries. There are, undoubtedly, other arms as well. The prison building industry and some of the entertainment industries play an equally important, and far more subtle, role in the goals of the super wealthy.
And what are their goals? That's easy. To continue to consolidate and preserve that wealth, and to keep the pieces in place necessary to continue amalgamating more wealth. And where is this "more wealth" to come from? Well, it can only really come from the public sector, or the Middle and Lower Class can be squeezed even further to get more from them.
We have seen the attack on government waged in vitriolic, banshee-screaming tones. Foot soldiers have somehow perceived that the government, the only entity able to stand up to the uber-wealthy, is somehow taking something from them, and so it is declared the enemy. There is little to offer them but pity. And much of it.
And what the Middle and Lower class are all tapped out? What then can you take from them, squeeze out of them further? Well, that's an easy one as well. All men have labor, John Locke chimes in. So you make them work more and harder and for less. And, in this way, you can squeeze even more wealth out of those who really have little to none.
And so you use the military-industrial-media complex, and you use the entertainment industry, to get as much labor out of them as possible. And you hone all of these things for that one goal. Now the drums of war are beating again. Now (again) we have the greatest threat ever to walk the Earth looming over the homeland. We are worried we "may get hit again." Eerily, the workers fall into line. " Tell me, tell me. tell me the answer . . . "
Over and against the extraordinarily wealthy, there is another movement. It is a reaction to the massive amalgamation of wealth taking place. But it is divided, still searching for its compass. It is parts of the U.S. Middle Class and Lower Class trying to unite ideologically to counter their extraordinary dispossession at the hands of the uber-wealthy. It largely comes in the form of a reactionary, Rightist, militia-type mobilization, with the "Don't Tread of Me" flags reappearing.
But its attention is diverted from the uber-wealthy to the scapegoat they have erected to deflect attention. So this reactionary movement of the common man becomes an anti-government orgy. The anger that would normally be reserved and directed at those who took from them is instead focused on a non-sentient administration of society's goods and needs. Ironically, it may be the only thing that could counter the uber-wealthy. But they have that cut off as well.
And this movement of the common man pitches back and forth, struggling internally to understand who is its enemy. "Do you know the enemy?" is the Green Day song so appropos. It has formed into "Patriot" groups and Tea Party organizations. But it still can't seem to get clear in its mind who it is standing over it. Like the primitive beast, it holds the sides of its heads and moans. The noise is too loud to focus. The diversion is complete. The uber-wealthy are safe.
For now.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
A Farewell to Protesting
Let's interview Lao Tsu, author (in case you didn't know) of The Art of War. Let's ask him about this business going on in Ferguson and in Gaza. Let's get to the bottom of this and, more importantly, try to judge and determine its effectiveness.
So a repressed group of people -- repressed economically, restrained physically and geographically, and with a long history of being murdered by "police" or "defense" forces with no due process result, decide they have had enough.
But stop right there. They have actually had enough for decades, if not centuries, by now. So what is this "enough" that they have had now? Why now?
How did things get so bad that they reached this boiling point -- when emotions overtake cool and calculated reason, and the repressed begins destroying the only little bit that they have as resources, and which would otherwise be used against the oppressor.
And the idea would be that you use what little resources you have to assemble and consolidate a power base. Get Friedrich Nietzche on the phone. Page Niccolo Machiavelli. You begin to gather strength through internal networking, generating economic power the old fashioned way -- you work and you work hard. And don't forget education. Then you begin to enter politics.
This isn't a new recipe. It is time-tested. And you organize your community to then use laws to protect yourselves, instead of going out in the street and breaking the laws that the oppressor has already set up to confine you.
But the most important thing is cooperation. If you don't have that, all is lost.
So let's go back to Lao Tsu. What does marching around in the streets, breaking stuff, and throwing things accomplish? Is there some value to a physical threat? Or does that simply extract concessions in the short term that soon dissipate and leave the same status quo.
In fact, wouldn't that be the best way for the oppressor to keep the oppressed in their place? Let them blow up every once in a while, but slowly keep moving the walls in on them, a la Gaza. In that sense, protesting is actually destructive to the real cause, to real change.
Let us bid a farewell to protesting.
So a repressed group of people -- repressed economically, restrained physically and geographically, and with a long history of being murdered by "police" or "defense" forces with no due process result, decide they have had enough.
But stop right there. They have actually had enough for decades, if not centuries, by now. So what is this "enough" that they have had now? Why now?
How did things get so bad that they reached this boiling point -- when emotions overtake cool and calculated reason, and the repressed begins destroying the only little bit that they have as resources, and which would otherwise be used against the oppressor.
And the idea would be that you use what little resources you have to assemble and consolidate a power base. Get Friedrich Nietzche on the phone. Page Niccolo Machiavelli. You begin to gather strength through internal networking, generating economic power the old fashioned way -- you work and you work hard. And don't forget education. Then you begin to enter politics.
This isn't a new recipe. It is time-tested. And you organize your community to then use laws to protect yourselves, instead of going out in the street and breaking the laws that the oppressor has already set up to confine you.
But the most important thing is cooperation. If you don't have that, all is lost.
So let's go back to Lao Tsu. What does marching around in the streets, breaking stuff, and throwing things accomplish? Is there some value to a physical threat? Or does that simply extract concessions in the short term that soon dissipate and leave the same status quo.
In fact, wouldn't that be the best way for the oppressor to keep the oppressed in their place? Let them blow up every once in a while, but slowly keep moving the walls in on them, a la Gaza. In that sense, protesting is actually destructive to the real cause, to real change.
Let us bid a farewell to protesting.
Old South and New North (or "How High is the Water, Ma?")
To those in the South, the North is still the hated oppressor.
The Northern States are almost uniformly Blue States, as opposed to the Backbone of the old Confederacy now shining Red States. The North, filled with its folksy funny, mealy-mouthed people like Garrison Keillor, and his not-quite-extremist enough humble Christianity. And, oh my God, don't forget Michael Moore, Drew Carey and (wince) Barack Obama.
New York you can forget about. It is hated and immoral. And Boston? Loathed. Chicago, which is actually a very beautiful city, better than anything the South could offer (with the possible exception of New Orleans or Miami (but the latter isn't really a "Southern City" anyways)), yet she is hated down South.
The greatest Presidents this land could produce, from Lincoln to the Roosevelts, of course are looked upon as dangerous, even as they moulder in their graves. The North will forever have its shadow upon the South, just as the old Stars and Bars still shadow the sides of some Southern State Flags.
And, truth be told, other than the obvious moral questions (slavery), I never held any geographic affinity for the North, or even really took sides with the North in the Civil War (or, as Southerners like to call it, the "War Between the States"). The industrialized, busying, feverish, factory wasteland North? No sir, not me. Wage slaves as far as the eye can see? Nope. Keep on walking.
That is, until you go there. Then you will begin to see a dissonance of perceptions and reality. At least when you get out of the big cities. The "unionized" North, with its Democratic establishment governments and mayorships, the hordes of factory workers and virtual Socialists, suddenly give way to what the South, if her "politicians" could ever come close to putting their money where their mouth is, should aspire to.
There, I said it.
Walk down the street in a Northern town. You will be amazed. Where in the South you would be dodging trash in the street, graffiti on the sides of bridges and in the streets, and where you have to check your back, you see clean streets and a busy, but determined people.
Down South, go to a gasoline station on the highway, and you are likely overcome by tattoos, motorcycles with an air-gas mix far too gone on the air side, usually in gangs, loud and badly dated rock and roll music, and an attitude of a group of people that have become horribly desperate.
It is the New South -- wage slaves, impoverished by Mega-Churches blaring from every corner, good ol' old-time racism, and the fear and near-worship of Big Corporate because "they bring jobs." And the "jobs" are only barely subsistence living. The result is too many rats in one hole scratching for what little there is, and it isn't even enough.
"Right-to-Work" laws and the massive, overwhelming destruction of the people's environment to try to attract Big Business and Big Oil and Big Banking and Big Insurance. Take whatever they ask for, because they offer a little money. Tear down the house for a little food for now.
"How high is the water, Ma?"
"Three feet high, and rising."
The Northern States are almost uniformly Blue States, as opposed to the Backbone of the old Confederacy now shining Red States. The North, filled with its folksy funny, mealy-mouthed people like Garrison Keillor, and his not-quite-extremist enough humble Christianity. And, oh my God, don't forget Michael Moore, Drew Carey and (wince) Barack Obama.
New York you can forget about. It is hated and immoral. And Boston? Loathed. Chicago, which is actually a very beautiful city, better than anything the South could offer (with the possible exception of New Orleans or Miami (but the latter isn't really a "Southern City" anyways)), yet she is hated down South.
The greatest Presidents this land could produce, from Lincoln to the Roosevelts, of course are looked upon as dangerous, even as they moulder in their graves. The North will forever have its shadow upon the South, just as the old Stars and Bars still shadow the sides of some Southern State Flags.
And, truth be told, other than the obvious moral questions (slavery), I never held any geographic affinity for the North, or even really took sides with the North in the Civil War (or, as Southerners like to call it, the "War Between the States"). The industrialized, busying, feverish, factory wasteland North? No sir, not me. Wage slaves as far as the eye can see? Nope. Keep on walking.
That is, until you go there. Then you will begin to see a dissonance of perceptions and reality. At least when you get out of the big cities. The "unionized" North, with its Democratic establishment governments and mayorships, the hordes of factory workers and virtual Socialists, suddenly give way to what the South, if her "politicians" could ever come close to putting their money where their mouth is, should aspire to.
There, I said it.
Walk down the street in a Northern town. You will be amazed. Where in the South you would be dodging trash in the street, graffiti on the sides of bridges and in the streets, and where you have to check your back, you see clean streets and a busy, but determined people.
Down South, go to a gasoline station on the highway, and you are likely overcome by tattoos, motorcycles with an air-gas mix far too gone on the air side, usually in gangs, loud and badly dated rock and roll music, and an attitude of a group of people that have become horribly desperate.
It is the New South -- wage slaves, impoverished by Mega-Churches blaring from every corner, good ol' old-time racism, and the fear and near-worship of Big Corporate because "they bring jobs." And the "jobs" are only barely subsistence living. The result is too many rats in one hole scratching for what little there is, and it isn't even enough.
"Right-to-Work" laws and the massive, overwhelming destruction of the people's environment to try to attract Big Business and Big Oil and Big Banking and Big Insurance. Take whatever they ask for, because they offer a little money. Tear down the house for a little food for now.
"How high is the water, Ma?"
"Three feet high, and rising."
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Governments, Technology, and Revolution
You are alive in 2014. And that's so much better than 1914. All that disease eradicated. A standard of living so high, that even if its stagnated, it'll take 500 years for some countries to catch up. A constant, reliable supply of food and medicine. And oh, the technology. Skyping with your pants off while your significant other rambles on in Dickensian fashion on Facebook. Curved TV's. GPS collars on Chihuahuas. And don't forget that gadget keeping track of your caloric outflow as you jog by that gaudy bitch's $3.4 million Tudor-style house.
But alas, as great as you think you have it, you are eternally fucked. The advancement we all believe has infinitely improved our drab existence, has in reality guaranteed you will never matter again. And if you and your brethren ever try to become relevant again in any significant economic or political fashion, you will be vaporized. And it'll only get worse.
For all the benefits technology has granted you, it has granted the ruling elite exponentially more power and advantages. And they knew they needed such advantages. The ruling elites are one of the exceptional few groups who are aware that history repeats itself. And they have taken steps to ensure that any detrimental Guillotinesque repeats never happen again to them.
I am reminded of a quote from my favorite Pixar film of all, "A Bug's Life". After the subservient ants failed to deliver their fresh crops to the ruling elites - the grasshoppers - a low ranking grasshopper in the midst of intense debauchery questions his leader's desire to go back and scare the ants again, in order to keep them in line. The leader responds, "Those ants outnumber us 100 to 1. If they ever figure that out, our way of life is over!"
Throughout history, whenever the ants realized they outnumbered the grasshoppers 100-1, or 1,000 to 1, revolution ensued. Rapid violent change occurred. Dynasties rose out of the ashes, as others lay hanging in the gallows of history. But not anymore. Technology has put the final nail in the coffin of any future revolutionary aspirations that ants may entertain. For starters, the weapons advantage that Governments enjoy relative to the weaponry of the proletariat is now larger than at any point in history, with all due respect to Mr. Kubrick and the opening salvo of "2001: A Space Odyssey". Whereas fiery catapults and daggers once gave the charging masses a fighting chance vs cannons and crossbows, todays pissed off ants have no such chance of success. The weapons technology gap is now too wide. Coupled with surveillance techniques which now have more storage capacity (by far) than all the knowledge mankind has ever accumulated, and you'd be lucky if you made it to Starbuck's to meet Carlos and discuss a million man cyber-march before DHS whisked you off in a black van.
And this says nothing of the government's ability to change majority consensus via MSM. Perhaps one of the greatest social shifts of all time occurred when society's fiercely negative opinion of Vietnam and its veterans was somehow crafted into unending praise of our war machine. Throw out the first pitch. Sing the National Anthem. Show the country how well you can dance. And all this in less than a generation. All wars are noble. And all its participants are nobility.
So listen up, little man. Your weapons suck. Big Brother knows what you're up to, Winston. And your group of cohorts who show equal ire and disdain for The Powers That Be will soon be chastising you in your absence.
But alas, as great as you think you have it, you are eternally fucked. The advancement we all believe has infinitely improved our drab existence, has in reality guaranteed you will never matter again. And if you and your brethren ever try to become relevant again in any significant economic or political fashion, you will be vaporized. And it'll only get worse.
For all the benefits technology has granted you, it has granted the ruling elite exponentially more power and advantages. And they knew they needed such advantages. The ruling elites are one of the exceptional few groups who are aware that history repeats itself. And they have taken steps to ensure that any detrimental Guillotinesque repeats never happen again to them.
I am reminded of a quote from my favorite Pixar film of all, "A Bug's Life". After the subservient ants failed to deliver their fresh crops to the ruling elites - the grasshoppers - a low ranking grasshopper in the midst of intense debauchery questions his leader's desire to go back and scare the ants again, in order to keep them in line. The leader responds, "Those ants outnumber us 100 to 1. If they ever figure that out, our way of life is over!"
Throughout history, whenever the ants realized they outnumbered the grasshoppers 100-1, or 1,000 to 1, revolution ensued. Rapid violent change occurred. Dynasties rose out of the ashes, as others lay hanging in the gallows of history. But not anymore. Technology has put the final nail in the coffin of any future revolutionary aspirations that ants may entertain. For starters, the weapons advantage that Governments enjoy relative to the weaponry of the proletariat is now larger than at any point in history, with all due respect to Mr. Kubrick and the opening salvo of "2001: A Space Odyssey". Whereas fiery catapults and daggers once gave the charging masses a fighting chance vs cannons and crossbows, todays pissed off ants have no such chance of success. The weapons technology gap is now too wide. Coupled with surveillance techniques which now have more storage capacity (by far) than all the knowledge mankind has ever accumulated, and you'd be lucky if you made it to Starbuck's to meet Carlos and discuss a million man cyber-march before DHS whisked you off in a black van.
And this says nothing of the government's ability to change majority consensus via MSM. Perhaps one of the greatest social shifts of all time occurred when society's fiercely negative opinion of Vietnam and its veterans was somehow crafted into unending praise of our war machine. Throw out the first pitch. Sing the National Anthem. Show the country how well you can dance. And all this in less than a generation. All wars are noble. And all its participants are nobility.
So listen up, little man. Your weapons suck. Big Brother knows what you're up to, Winston. And your group of cohorts who show equal ire and disdain for The Powers That Be will soon be chastising you in your absence.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Everyone's a Clean Up Hitter
I got a friend. I'll call him Barry. Calls once in a blue moon. Bullshits about getting together (for 3 years now). Then silence for 6 months. Repeats the process. I should have figured it out long ago. He's a Clean Up Hitter. He's Babe Ruth. Not Pete Rose. Or at least he's trying to be.
Clean up hitters typically swing for the fences. Or strike out big. That is their job. While America has had their fair share of clean up hitters, for the most part, this country was built by blue-collar folks, singles and doubles hitters. Pete Rose. Steady employment. Bigger and better paying jobs as they reeled in the years. Vacation home on the lake. Pensions like clockwork.
Of course, all that is gone now. No one can create steady, consistent wealth anymore. Recurring expenses today vs recurring expenses in 1970 resembles the 1995 wait list at Jerry Sandusky's Football camp vs the 2012 wait list. We got huge mortgages, increasing property taxes, iPhones for our toddlers, Panameras, Aspen timeshares, LandRovers for the Mrs. Parochial school tuition. Live-in maids. $500 Lacrosse camp fees.
But with real wages stuck at 2000 levels, you're almost as poor as when you chugged a few Milwaukee's Best and capped it off with a couple of $0.59 Chilitos at Taco Bell back in the college days. So you have two choices: Try to build something slowly, while all your expenses continue their boner-like trajectory, or swing for the fences. Try to get rich by sundown. In the meantime, fake it till you make it. Keep going to those Chamber of Commerce meetings. Keep printing those $10 batch of biz cards. Schmooz. Network. Follow-up. Be Persistent. Your expenses certainly are.
Now dig in. Snarl at the pitcher. Squint so you can see the fences. And swing like a lumberjack. Strike one. Thats ok. You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
Strike two. Its ok. Tough times don't last. Tough people do.
Strike three. FFFUUUUUCK!!!! You should have gone to medical school.
Back to Barry. See, he's swinging for the fences. Got no long-term plan. None of us do. Only short-term hopes and aspirations. Thats why he calls me. To see what he can get in on at the last moment. Try to ride someone else's gravy train. Try to get the scoop from me. Thinks he's big shit because he knows some guy on the Board of Directors. "Hey, lets get together for a beer". Only to realize, for whatever reason, he ain't getting the scoop. There is no scoop. He's checking out. He'll call again in 6 months or so, wanting to drink more beer, but really trying to see if he can hit a HR. Little does he know, I'm behind on the count 0-2. Steeeee-Ryke!!!!!
Stick Around -- It Gets Worse (Or "The Hour Late")
"But you and I have been through that,-Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower
And that is not our fate.
So let us not talk falsely now,
For the hour is getting late."
Let us at least be honest with one another. After the Neo-Nazi-Cons defrauded the U.S. into a decade-long Iraqi misadventure -- to the tune of over $2 trillion, according to one Brown University study -- the Middle East is now worse than ever. As if that was even possible. Yet true to their seemingly inimitable ability to tamper in anything -- matched perhaps only by their mastery of wreaking death, destruction and discord, they are back. Yes, they are back.
In 2002, when George W. Bush began hatching the Neocon plan to invade Iraq -- an invasion not just without justification, but without any perceivable national interest at all -- many drowned-out voices pointed out what later became inevitable. Saddam Hussein was installed by the West. You can repeat this fact to most of the flag-waving, chest-beating hoi polloi in America, and they won't even deny it. But somehow it goes immediately down the memory hole. Their brains switch channels back to the Newspeak of the day. Utterances come back attempting some kind of purported justification, but it only makes you shake your head. There is no answer, yet they still attempt one. Mind reversion to radio pilot mode.
And not only was Saddam Hussein installed by the West, he was acting on their orders. He was put there to hold a lid down on all of the ethnic and religious internecine tension that was forestalling the bloodiest most hellish of civil war. It has been that way in the Middle East since time immemorial. And there were never any laws visited upon the place long enough for any secular and national and transnational identity to take root. The institutions were soon undermined by the need to keep the people down and continue to siphon that most precious of natural resources right from beneath their feet.
Couple that with what no American wants to hear and what only few can admit: The West was using the people in that region for a half-century, literally stealing the greatest wealth of natural resources in history, flowing out easily in a black goo, to create a Western Christian, ultra-powerful society. And the Have's in this game were keeping evil dictators in place with a very small share of the wealth and with arms to keep their people face-down. Yes, you read that right. These poor people's own natural resources were being used to put them in the position of the Have-Nots. And they weren't happy about it. Not one bit.
So all of those voices back in 2002, all of those voices telling the Chimp not to invade because there was no interest and no justification were also telling him that there was no end game. Once the lid was lifted, once Pandora's Box was opened, all of the demons and hellish angels dwelling in those ancient ethnic and religious hatreds would be unleashed. There would be the unraveling of what little nations were there. It would be de-evolution of civilization on a cosmic scale.
And it would spread. There would be not just the localized rivalries. There was also the hatred that had been brewing and festering for decades. Those people who had their oil taken from them -- oil that could have made them the Have's, if indeed they were not really the Have's all along. And the wealth transfer that took place from the Middle East to the West was the actual reversing of the roles of the Have's and the Have Not's -- and all by virtue of calculated, ruthless Supremacy and Imperialism of the worst kind.
So let us not talk falsely now. There is no need to make up new acronyms for the latest terrorism bugaboo. You and I have been through that, and that is not our fate. When we look closely, we know. And the hour is, indeed, getting late.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
The Good Old Days
Today, the Wall Street Urinal published an op-ed piece about how the U.S. economy is now the "well-educated barrista economy," apparently mocking the fact that highly-educated Americans have been relegated to becoming coffee-servers to make ends meet.
So the jobs left, and the capital that was flowing from outside the U.S. into it and its workers now flows from outside the U.S. to outside the U.S. There is no longer a cushion of capital flowing into the U.S. and ubiquitously buttressing it as an economy and it as a society.
The U.S. workers went from working for international corporations bringing wealth in to working in jobs within a segregated U.S. economy that simply shift wealth around. There is no longer a positive movement of capital and wealth from outside into the U.S. Jobs like being a "barrista" are the perfect example of this phenomenon.
And the standard of living of the U.S. has collapsed and will continue to do so. If you can pay the same amount of money to workers in India that you can pay to workers in the U.S., those wage structures are going to support only the same standard of living. Everywhere those wage structures exist will come into equilibrium as it pertains to standard of living. No longer is the U.S. as a society and as an economy being buttressed over the Third World. Instead, it has been overtaken.
Worse, these international corporations have the upper hand with the workers. They can sell to the highest bidder for their services and employment. This can mean relaxing regulations, worker safety, and environmental protections. It can also mean that they even get away without paying any taxes.
But the real problem with it all is that Joe Sixpack still can't seem to understand this sad state of affairs. Like the inmates sitting around Randle P. McMurphey, they simply cannot apprehend that they are being dispossessed. Instead, Joe Sixpack rails against the Government. As if it was the Government that somehow decided to subjugate him. Still ignorant to Capital and what it demands, what it has wrested from him. He does the bidding of the international corporations and Capital by attacking the only savior he has -- the Government.
The wage structure of the entire economy has shifted downward since the Great Recession, and young adults trying to start careers and families have been the principal, but hardly the only, victims.All of that to say that you, as an American, are working in a more menial position. You are overqualified for the work that you are having to do simply to feed yourself.
But the "well-educated barrista" economy is simply one that is the result of globalization. No longer are we working for international companies based in the U.S. that develop the Third World and bring wealth from outside the U.S. into it. The capital no longer flows into the country. Instead, those international companies hired workers in South or Southeast Asia to do the same job for less work. They then re-located offshore or became global conglomerates with no real home in -- and no real loyalty to -- the United States.These developments are jarring. For the past generation we've been telling ourselves and our children that demand for higher-order skills is surging and that a college education is the key to the future. But recent research by three Canadian economists calls this proposition into question. Paul Beaudry and David Green of the University of British Columbia and Benjamin Sand of York University document a declining demand for high-skilled workers since 2000. In response, they say, "high-skilled workers have moved down the occupational ladder and have begun to perform jobs traditionally performed by lower-skilled workers, . . . pushing low-skilled workers even further down the occupational ladder and, to some degree, out of the labor force altogether." Well-educated baristas and unemployed high-school graduates are flip-sides of the same phenomenon.
So the jobs left, and the capital that was flowing from outside the U.S. into it and its workers now flows from outside the U.S. to outside the U.S. There is no longer a cushion of capital flowing into the U.S. and ubiquitously buttressing it as an economy and it as a society.
The U.S. workers went from working for international corporations bringing wealth in to working in jobs within a segregated U.S. economy that simply shift wealth around. There is no longer a positive movement of capital and wealth from outside into the U.S. Jobs like being a "barrista" are the perfect example of this phenomenon.
And the standard of living of the U.S. has collapsed and will continue to do so. If you can pay the same amount of money to workers in India that you can pay to workers in the U.S., those wage structures are going to support only the same standard of living. Everywhere those wage structures exist will come into equilibrium as it pertains to standard of living. No longer is the U.S. as a society and as an economy being buttressed over the Third World. Instead, it has been overtaken.
Worse, these international corporations have the upper hand with the workers. They can sell to the highest bidder for their services and employment. This can mean relaxing regulations, worker safety, and environmental protections. It can also mean that they even get away without paying any taxes.
But the real problem with it all is that Joe Sixpack still can't seem to understand this sad state of affairs. Like the inmates sitting around Randle P. McMurphey, they simply cannot apprehend that they are being dispossessed. Instead, Joe Sixpack rails against the Government. As if it was the Government that somehow decided to subjugate him. Still ignorant to Capital and what it demands, what it has wrested from him. He does the bidding of the international corporations and Capital by attacking the only savior he has -- the Government.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Unraveling the Poltical Machine
"Tired of beating your head against the wall while Hoi Polloi bury you in the latest talking points they received during recent fellatio of the idiot box?
Had enough of wading through the conspiracy of dunces and the tidal wave of imbeciles pawing at you like the Zombie Apocalypse?
Fear not, and take heart, for the political machine stops."
--R. H. Maravelt
Just think about it for a minute. You see the social media light up daily with the goings on of the dominant party -- lunches with the Republican Women's Forum and the Strepford Wives' Club.
They're getting together with the latest candidates for office to vet them and sit in a modern parlor to go over that "God-awful" party of miscreants -- the "Blue" party -- those that threaten at the gates, as if it was Mordor and orcs beating on the walls of Minas Tirith -- the unwashed, the unsophisticated, the unmonied, the lower classes.
On and on and on the social media and the pictures of those that suck the assholes of the purveyors and managers of the monied classes and Das Kapital. And the shills, the toadies, the whores of the monied classes, like the sell-out prisoners who assist the oppressors in the concentration camps, smile and fawn and suck more and more out of their owners' assholes. It would be amusing if it weren't just so amusing.
But the good thing is that the machine runs on fealty; it is no meritocracy. Those who have made it to where they are by sucking the shit out of assholes are weeded out for being good at sucking the shit out of assholes. They are sitting ducks for a cutting, intelligent, highly focused diatribe. They are raw meat for the wolves of those who deserve but run hungry. They are the sheep for the slaughter that they so richly deserve.
They are not intelligent. They know not how to formulate argument. Theirs is simply to re-post and to regurgitate and to re-echo in their echo chamber little simplistic idiocies that have been handed down to them.
Wade into them. Shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friends face . . . you know what to do.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Marathons and Miranda Warnings
So it's really not that hard to figure out. There is all of the evidence in the world convicting the 19-year old lying in the hospital bed with his mouth shot out. There is no real need for a confession to get a conviction. Which leaves the question, why not issue the Miranda warnings?
Well, the talking heads would tell you that it is all about seeking intelligence. And then there's the word "radicalized." Apparently, some individuals can become "radicalized," at which point they become a danger to society and possibly the target of a drone strike.
Or perhaps they are "enemy combatants." The gay Senator from South Carolina couldn't wait to drop this one on you. Now an American citizen, captured on American soil, apprehended and disarmed, could unilaterally be declared an "enemy combatant" and be damned anything having to do with rights.
It really was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen . . .
Well, the talking heads would tell you that it is all about seeking intelligence. And then there's the word "radicalized." Apparently, some individuals can become "radicalized," at which point they become a danger to society and possibly the target of a drone strike.
Or perhaps they are "enemy combatants." The gay Senator from South Carolina couldn't wait to drop this one on you. Now an American citizen, captured on American soil, apprehended and disarmed, could unilaterally be declared an "enemy combatant" and be damned anything having to do with rights.
It really was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen . . .
Thursday, October 25, 2012
The Perversion of the Notion of Freedom
Deconstructing the Right's fetish with the notion of "freedom" is an exercise of the absurd. Hoi polloi are white knuckled with a fear that their "freedom" is somehow being taken away. But how can they be so easily taken? The use of the notion of "freedom" is so bizarre that it cannot stand.
Freedom? As if some poor bastard died in a war for your freedom? Or was it for your government, that tells you that you have freedom? Ah, yes. When did we forget so suddenly that government cannot bestow freedom on men, only take that freedom away.
Freedom? As if some poor bastard died in a war for your freedom? Or was it for your government, that tells you that you have freedom? Ah, yes. When did we forget so suddenly that government cannot bestow freedom on men, only take that freedom away.
Know Your Enemy
"Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy, wah hey. . . "
-Green Day
Well, do you? It appears that hoi polloi does not. There he is, though. Right there in front of you. On every idiot box in every deli and car wash and doctor's waiting room from sea to shining sea. That reincarnation of the Tin Man is dead-set on taking back the country and keeping you in chains.
But the dissonance never ceases. His running mate proclaims that "government" is preventing social mobility. If it weren't such a contrapositive of the actual facts, it could be funny. But the masses bow down to their enriched slaver and kowtow to his purportedly having been "successful."
How can it even be a close election? The idea that the government of the world's sole and only hyperpower can be run like some vacuous company? Who in the fuck came up with that nonsense and started peddling it? Well, the answer to that question may lead you to some sense of who really is your enemy.
Because it's not the one who makes the same money as you. And it's not the one that counts success as realizing a political vision. It's the one whose sole purpose in his sickeningly overfocused crusade has been to take power and continually amalgamate power for the privileged, the enriched, the reprised aristocracy, the neo-feudalism, in essence, landing you on a prison planet.
Haven't we been here before? Wasn't enough blood draped upon the unforgiving guillotine not so long ago? Weren't the real founding fathers loading their long rifles and sharpening their knives under torchlight to try to chip a piece off of entrenched privilege? Wasn't gentility once visible to those who served it all their slave-worn lives?
How do you help those defend their meager labors when they cannot understand that they're slaves? How do you seize the land when those who should be doing the seizing commiserate with their captors?
How do you get them to know their enemy?
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