In the Soviet system a group of managers, government officials and and party bureaucrats
(some 1.5 percent of the population) were engaged in political maneuvering among themselves while maintaining total
control, as a
privileged class, over the rest of population. They were new aristocracy and the status was
transferred to their children.
The same phenomenon can be observed under neoliberalism under the name of the New Class. the New Class (lawyers, various
professionals, lobbyists, financiers, teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades.
My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers, teachers, engineers,
etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For much of the twentieth century this class
was in some tension with corporations, and used their skills at influencing government policy
to help develop and protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight
to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere around 1970 I think
this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and professionals realized that they shared the
same education, background and interests.
Vive la meritocracy. This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed the whole newly
enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really didn't particularly need the working
class politically anymore. And since it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power
and money while transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar community
has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals, anyway), neoliberalism,
ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc. all followed very naturally. The re-alignment
of the Democratic Party towards the right was a natural part of this evolution.
I think the 90% or so of the community who are not included in this class are confused and
bewildered and of course rather angry about it. They also sense that organized politics in
this country – being chiefly the province of the New Class – has left them with little leverage
to change any of this. Watching the bailouts and lack of prosecutions during the GFC made
them dimly realize that the New Class has very strong internal solidarity – and since somebody
has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside that class is "fair game."
So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology of the New Class
(neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly but opposed to non-meritocratic biases
like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism", I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance
and anger among the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class still
controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for channeling lower-class anger
and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled out.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying Donald Trump is leading an insurgency against the New Class
– but I think he tapped into something like one and is riding it for all he can, while not really
having the slightest idea what he's doing.
Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments are influenced
will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class, and break its lock on the corridors
of power, but I don't see it on the horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more
about it.
Neoliberal nomenklatura ("new class") shares with Soviet nomenklatura two features:
the impossibility of basic change, either toward liberalization of the internal order or toward
modification of an aggressive foreign policy with its rampant militalism
Like the Soviet elite neoliberal elite is an institutionalized power elite -- elite status is
linked to the office the person occupies, not to the personality. The power elite are the men who hold institutional positions
of power -- no assumption is made of a shadowy cabal behind them.
This is a "status society," as opposed to a "class society," in Weber's conception.
Stagnation and gradual degeneration of this new class. The elite did not adapt because it did
not have to; it has been insulated from societal pressures because its commanding position, and the
exclusion of other groups from that position, has been structurally guaranteed. A society
experiences stagnation when a modernizing elite "collapses" and attempts to superimpose traditional
feudal society structures ona modern society (inheritance of the status, as in land aristocracy).
Formation of the elite is inevitable process in any society. Human collectivities seem naturally
to divide into leaders and the led, and this has been the case throughout all of human history. Indeed, it is also true of most animals that live and travel in groups. Collective action, of men or
animals, requires focus if it is not to be simply random and incoherent, and so the most elemental function
of leadership is to coordinate in some way the individual actions of group members so that they are
directed to the same end.
As mentioned in
previous article , the target of the middle class extinction in the West is to
restrict the level of wages in developing economies and prevent current model to be expanded in those
countries. The global economic elite is aiming now to create a more simple model which will be consisted
basically of three main levels.
The 1% holding the biggest part of the global wealth, will lie, as always, at the top of the pyramid.
In the current phase, frequent and successive economic crises, not only assist on the destruction
of social state and uncontrolled massive privatizations, but also, on the elimination of the big
competitors.
In the middle of the pyramid, a restructured class will serve and secure the domination of the
top. Corporate executives, big journalists, scientific elites, suppression forces. It is characteristic
that academic research is directed on the basis of the profits of big corporations. Funding is directed
increasingly to practical applications in areas that can bring huge profits, like for example, the
higher automation of production and therefore, the profit increase through the restriction of jobs.
The base of the pyramid will be consisted by the majority of workers in global level, with restricted
wages, zero labor rights, and nearly zero opportunities for activities other than consumption.
This type of dual economy with the rapid extinction of middle class may bring dangerous instability
because of the vast vacuum created between the elites and the masses. That's why the experiment is
implemented in Greece, so that the new conditions to be tested. The last seven years, almost every
practice was tested: psychological warfare, uninterrupted propaganda, financial coups, permanent
threat for a sudden death of the economy, suppression measures, in order to keep the masses subservient,
accepting the new conditions.
At this elemental level, strength and cunning are what set leaders apart from
the masses of the led. Authority--the right to lead--is always gained through some type of intramural
competition that tests these qualities--often in the past an actual fight. The desire to dominate, and
the expectation of the rewards that accompany domination, presumably are what motivate individuals to
enter this competition.
Competition for preeminence in all areas of endeavor is characteristic of human societies. The possession
of some characteristic highly valued by the community, then, defines elite status. Elites are those
who have the most of what there is to have. Artistic elites, thus, are those possessing the greatest
artistic gifts and skills, and political elites are those having the most political power. This is essentially Gaetano Mosca's
definition of the elite -- a minority set off from the masses by the possession of some prized
quality
Although leadership by elites and the moral justification for it no doubt predated written human
history, the philosophical origins of the Western tradition of elitism lies with the Greeks, ironically
also the authors of democracy. Plato put forth an unabashed apology for political rule by intellectual
elites.
Speaking still of elites in general, rather than political elites specifically, I propose that there
are three characteristics of elites: exclusivity, superiority, and domination.
"Exclusivity" simply means separateness; they are separate and apart from the larger society.
The degree of exclusivity of elites can be assessed in terms of artificial boundary maintenance,
gatekeepers of the recruitment process, and symbols of exclusiveness in lifestyle.3
Superiority. In keeping with Mosca, "superiority" denotes material, intellectual, or moral qualities or traits
markedly above the level at which such qualities appear in the society.
Domination. Finally, "domination" means just that: elites dominate the sector of human life with which they
are associated. Suzanne Keller wrote that "elites are ultimately responsible for the realization
of major social goals and for the continuity of the social order."4
The larger argument that Keller is making is that there is not a ruling class, at least in industrial
societies. Such societies are so differentiated, and there are so many areas of human activity, that
no one particular social group can dominate every aspect. Life has become highly compartmentalized in
modern societies, and as a result there are many "strategic elites" that dominate different areas of
life in modern societies.
A political elite, then, is a group that dominates the political life of a society, is superior in
political skills (keeping in mind that the types of skills valuable for politics vary and can include
duplicity and murderousness as well as rhetorical skill and persuasiveness), and insulated from everyday
contact with the larger society. A considerable literature exists around the problem of defining the
boundaries of the political elite, drawing the line between the elite and the non-elite, and distinguishing
among elites and leaders.5
Without gainsaying that precision is important, there must be a point beyond which the search for
precision is simply carried too far, in endless and irritating rumination over defining leadership,
for example. In general, political science is more parsimonious than sociology, or at least that sociological
literature dealing with elites. Sociological literature chews up and analyzes and overanalyzes minute
concepts--in meticulous definition of what constitutes a "role," for example.
Nietzsche's idea of the Ubermentsch as precursor of the concept of Creative class
Nietzsche's idea of "the Ubermentsch" (Ubermensch) is one of the most significant concept in his
thinking. Even though it is mentioned very briefly only in the prologue of Thus Spoke Zarathustra,
it might be sensible to conceive that Nietzsche had something in his mind about how a man should be
more than just human-all-too-human, regardless if he was one or not. All these ideas had been
pondered on and developed though all his works. The concept then seems to reveal much about the way
Nietzsche saw life. This essay will attempt on seeing through, as much as possible, the idea of Ubermentsch
by Nietzsche and life from the point of view of an Ubermentsch.
An Ubermentsch as described by Zarathustra, the main character in Thus Spoke Zarathustra,
is the one who is willing to risk all for the sake of enhancement of humanity. In contrary to the 'last
man' whose sole desire is his own comfort and is incapable of creating anything beyond oneself in any
form. This should suggest that an Ubermentsch is someone who can establish his own values as the world
in which others live their lives, often unaware that they are not pregiven. This means an Ubermentsch
can affect and influence the lives of others. In other words, an Ubermentsch has his own values, independent
of others, which affects and dominates others' lives that may not have predetermined values but only
herd instinct. An Ubermentsch is then someone who has a life which is not merely to live each day with
no meanings when nothing in the past and future is more important than the present, or more precisely,
the pleasure and happiness in the present, but with the purpose for humanity.
In Nietzsche's view, an Ubermentsch should be able to affect history indefinitely. He will keep reentering
the world through other people's minds and affect their thoughts and values. Napolean who is highly
admired by Nietzsche may be seen as an example here since he changed and created orders in Europe. What
he did effects greatly in how Europe is today. This idea agrees with another of his most significant
idea, the idea of the will-to-power. He asserts that life is the will-to-power. Although it is hard
to say exactly what he meant by that term, it can be described as something, which underlies how human
thinks, behaves and acts in all circumstances. He views that a human being is always in a constant struggle
to quench his own desire. This is shown in the context of power used to exclude desires of others that
is in conflict to his, power that is used to achieve what they desire. A living thing always seeks to
discharge its strength, not only to survive but to power and this sometimes results in violent behaviour
which is, allegedly by Nietzshce, intrinsic to the nature of men. However, the way to will can be different,
constructive or destructive. My interpretation would then be that an Ubermentsch uses the will-to-power
to influence and dominate the thoughts of others creatively from generation to generation. In this way,
his existence and power live on even after he dies.'
Nietzsche also has the answer to life that seems suffering. His answer, which is expressed in the
same book of Zarathustra, is an attitude towards life that helps one overcome the feeling of its meaninglessness.
It starts with the idea that life is an eternal recurrence with no beginning and no end but a repetition
of the very same life over and over again. With all sufferings, unhappiness and misdeeds in life, one
may feel cursed and despaired if he inevitably were to repeat the same life with the same pain and joy.
However, the most important point may not be whether life is really an eternal recurrence. Rather, although
not explicitly stated, the important point is that an Ubermentsch should view it differently such that
in the very same life, there has been a moment that it redeems everything else. It then makes him content
with and happy to repeat that very same life again and again. He has got the feeling of unity of creation
and destruction, good and bad taste of life and is able to say that life is good even it may seem terrible
and questionable. He views all the past actions, silly or wise, accidental or achieving, as necessity
of becoming himself. Therefore he can redeem himself and thus be willing to repeat the same life again.
Some may even say that 'it was' and 'thus I willed it' even though he knows well that one cannot will
backward and there are many other limitations in life. It implies that living a life of an Ubermentsch
is to live with the knowledge of what has already happened and constant reinterpretation according to
it.' Clearly, an Ubermentsch is then someone who can, with appreciation, face life that may seem so
suffering and absurd, knowing that the basic conditions of life will not change even when he is in the
ideal state of an Ubermentsch.
In a sense, Ubermentsch is about self-overcoming. It involves an attitude towards life when one may
feel despaired and feel life is meaningless. It is about the way to deal with 'truth' not in direct
manner with straightforward rules as in rationalism, but more like a sensitive mix of trickier indirect
approaches. As he compared this with winning a woman's heart, those who approach clumsily and directly
will bound to failure and hence left dispirited. When compared to Kantian view of truth, it can be seen
that going straight into finding an absolute naked truth may leave one unsastisfied with questions that
remain unanswered. Instead, Nietzsche suggested the way to tackle this by going along with it and take
it as it is. One will then feel content and happy with the life that may be so questionable.
Another characteristic used to describe an Ubermentsch originated in his earlier work, The Birth
of Tragedy. In this book, the notion of Apollonion and Dionysian principles is used with respect
to his analysis of the Greek tragedy. They are used to describe two principles men use in thinking which
consequently determine actions. Apollonion principle is the principle of light, rationality, order and
clear boundaries whereas Dionysian is the principle of the dark, irratioanality, the collapse of order
and boundaries. The Apollonion views an individual as separate from other reality and hence can be viewed
dispassionately with rationality. On the other hand, the Dionysian views things as a living whole where
one is a part of a larger reality. The Apollonion therefore involves no passion or emotion but pure
reasons with order whereas the Dionysian is passionate, dynamic and unpredictable. Nietzsche believes
that a balance of the two principles is essential in order to have some meanings in life. He seems to
be very fond of art and viewed that artistic works, paintings, plays, literature or music exhibit a
great deal of Dionysian principle in the form of creativity. In his later work, the importance of the
Dionysian principle in living a life with values and meanings is expressed clearly. He views that the
highest state attainable by a man can be achieved when life is conceived in terms of the realisation
of the Dionysian ideal of the Ubermentsch. That means one must realise and accept his own Dionysian
nature and use it appropriately.
From my point of view, Nietzsche must have treated art as something higher than ordinary, mass-conventional
logic and rationality such as that in science for he admired creativity and beauty in art above all
things. A person who will be viewed by Nietzsche as an Ubermentsch is then more likely to be an artist
who uses his Dionysian principle and way of thinking and feeling to create works that carry particular
individual's picture or interpretation of the world. His values may or may not be the same as any other
but a good artist should be able to combine creativity with his perception of the world and life and
express it well in his work. On comparison to Aristotle who views that the most desirable state of a
person is a philosopher who contemplates, Nietzsche viewed traditional philosophers during his time
as people who did not really affect the real world outside and usually their traditional philosophical
works were merely self confession. It can then be seen that his value is highly placed upon the concept
of Dionysus and therefore he praised the Greek civilisation where a lot of creativity took place even
more than in present society. Nietzsche accepted that Socrates did affect the history greatly, which
is the characteristic that Nietzsche valued. However, he blamed Socrates for the western society and
culture that emphasised the Apollonion principle too much. Socrates was thought to have gone too far
in defending rationality. He even viewed that we could use reasoning in everything so that the nature's
flaws can be corrected. It is then what the western dreams of and pursues up until now through science
and technology. This is the view that does not accept human limitation, that men are powerless and have
no control but always places men on the top of everything. In contrast, Nietzsche views that an Ubermentsch
must be able to accept these limitations and can face it in the eternal recurrence. Nietzsche must have
felt that the western culture had put less and less significance on artistic creativity and passion
that mental and spiritual power which create beauty in life have fewer and fewer places in the modern
society.
Emotion is one of the attributes of Dionysus and is also one of the entities which Nietzsche defended.
He views that emotion is natural. Its repression or suppression is psychologically disastrous. This
also includes sexuality. He attacked Christianity for its traditional value that places bars on emotion
and impulse and this is viewed by Nietzsche as self-denying. He disagrees on inhibiting and thwarting
human own nature. Rather, an Ubermentsch must accept his own nature and divert the energy of primitive
impulses into a culturally, higher or socially more acceptable, activity. This is exactly what should
happen to a good artist on creating his work of art. To him, the Dionysian is not completely dark and
evil as opposite to the Apollonion which is associated with light and reason. The Dionysian is rather
viewed as natural, both good and bad just like any ordinary human being. It is in every human nature.
With a right balance with the Apollonion and with the right use, a burst of creativity is the result.
However, it is usually the case that when the Apollonion principle mixes the Dionysian, it tends to
suppress the Dionysian. As a result, the Dionysian principle is expressed in a destructive way. Basically,
an Ubermentsch must be able to control this and divert the Dionysian power into something creative.
To Nietzsche, Dionysian is profoundly irrational rather than negatively or stubbornly irrational.
'In the present age where science and rationality are highly valued, I realise that it is hard to
accept the negative side of being rational since it seems to be the most reliable tool in treating others,
living together and judging. Without it, society can be chaotic and too much disordered for no control
is imposed on the irrational ones who do not use the Dionysian principle in a productive way. However,
I agree with Nietzsche in the beauty of the product created out of Dionysian principle and feel that
the right mix of Apollonion and Dionysian will make the world much nobler, not in the luxurious sense
but aesthetic one. The world with no passion and emotion will be an unnatural one and this special property,
among others, of human that differs from other animals will be lost.''''''
Nietzsche might or might not consider himself an Ubermentsch but he surely determined to be a means
or bridge who brings closer to reality an emergence of an Ubermentsch. In his view, men are not born
equal. He always stresses on the difference of men and hence in contrast to Marx who includes everyone
into his ideal society. For Nietzsche, there are only some capable and talented who qualifies to be
an Ubermentsch from his point of view. Therefore, he is usually perceived superficially as an elitist
which might have brought down the value of his thinking. To me, it is a fact that is hard to swallow
for all of us and quite sceptical on the ability of men. However, it is the case, at least throughout
the history of mankind up to the present, for men are educated differently and experience different
things. Nevertheless, Nietzsche's thinking provides some space for this. He says that his ideal is not
necessarily everyone's universal ideal. Each of us values things differently and therefore his Ubermentsch
may not be the same as others' Ubermentsch. He consequently urges for revaluation of traditional values
such as, the supression of emotion, the wholeheartedly devoted rationalism. An Ubermentsch, in his view,
should not be restricted by tradition nor bounded by convention but has independent values of his own.'''''''
From all that is shown above, we may say that Nietzsche's Ubermentsch must be able to affect history
indefinitely, conceives life in terms of Dionysian realisation and is able to divert Dionysian principle
into something creative. With this kind of attitude and the realisation of his own limitation in life,
he would then be able to face life, look back with satisfaction, realising that all pasts make him what
he is today, and hence feel happy if he were to repeat that very same life eternally. An Ubermentsch
should then be content with his own life and appreciate every bit of it even though some of them are
painful and suffering. He spends each day of his life creating beauty, which affects the minds of others
through out the time, knowing that his life has values and meanings since his existence of will-to-power
will live on indefinitely.'
References
The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, ed. B.Magnus and K.M.Higgins,
Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Nietzsche, Life As Literature, Alexander Nehamas, Havard University
Press,1994.
Nietzsche for Beginners, M.Sautet, Writers and readers, 1990.
I ordered this book when Paul Craig Roberts mentioned, and quoted from it, on February 14,
2021. I especially liked PCRs quote halfway through the essay:
The United States isn't a nation any longer . It is a collection of peoples
without a country. A nation requires a unifying spirit of the people, and the United States
has no such unifying spirit. Martyanov observes that there is nothing in common between
a white WASP farm worker from Iowa, a Jewish lawyer from Manhattan, and a black rapper from
the Bronx. They view the world, America and their place in it differently, and those
visions are irreconcilable.
This has been obvious to some of us for decades. Worse yet, there is no mechanism or
movement anyone can imagine that will keep the disintegration process in check. If anything,
the elites are finding new and exciting ways to divide Americans further, and nobody is
happier about it than the social media addicts who enjoy bigger and better rotten egg memes
they can toss at the enemy de jour.
This is interesting too:
Not only is America's crisis systemic, but its elites are uncultured , badly educated
and mesmerized by decades of their own propaganda, which in the end, they accept as a
reality
I do hope the author means "uncultured" in the pejorative, insulting, Russian sense of the
word. They are the "elites" who are revolting, and they are too dumb to know they are kicking
the floorboards out from under their feet.
"People of the United States, your ruling elites are lying to you just like the chamber
orchestra on the Titanic that was playing music while the supposedly "unsinkable" Titanic
was sinking!".
The difference is, the actual American ship was just fine and hadn't hit an iceberg.
Rather, we were being deliberately sunk by a bunch of loons who were punching holes in the
hull of the ship!
But don't go thinking the whole shebang is about to go under. This has been the dream of
preppers on the right, and various anti-American groups on the other side, for generations.
The Big Collapse, in which the whole North American continent, with all its power and wealth,
just vanishes, is a pipe dream.
The most immediate causes of US collapse are, in my opinion, the rise of the predator,
parasite, class to a position of total dominance while the proles have sunk into the shite,
and the rise of China...
While Special Counsel John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe
is generally focused on the FBI's activities, sources familiar with the investigation told Fox
News the prosecution of high-ranking FBI officials, such as former Director James Comey, is
"unlikely."
In a report
published Tuesday, Fox News reports that sources told the publication that the investigation is
ongoing and that Durham last year concluded the part of his investigation looking into the CIA
and he is now examining the FBI's activities.
Additionally, another source told the news outlet that the special counsel had been pursuing
"new and credible leads" through the end of the Trump administration, however, Fox News noted
that it is unclear at this point what those lines of inquiry entail.
Moreover, a spokesperson for Durham told the outlet that they had "no comment from Mr.
Durham."
Durham's probe is looking into the origins of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's
investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election as well as
now-debunked collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. Former President
Donald Trump
and conservatives have called Mueller's yearlong probe a "witch hunt" and accused it of being
motivated by anti-Trump animus.
Mueller's investigation yielded no evidence that collusion occurred between the Trump
campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 election.
Tuesday's report comes after the first and only criminal sentencing stemming from Durham's
investigation was issued last week.
Last Friday,
Kevin Clinesmith , a former FBI lawyer,
was sentenced to one year of probation and 400 hours of community service for altering an
email during the Mueller's investigation that was used as grounds for the surveillance of
former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Previously, Comey has said that investigators have yet to reach out to him.
"I have had no contact with him and haven't talked to him," the former FBI director
told CBS News' "Face the
Nation" back in August.
"I can't imagine that I'm a target."
Last summer, Durham's team also questioned former CIA Director John Brennan for about eight
hours at the CIA headquarters . Brennan later said through a spokesman he was assured he was
"not a target," according to Fox News.
Back in December, Brennan told
"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace that he had no issue with Durham's investigation extending
into 2021 and also divulged briefly about the eight-hour session.
"I think that is fine, I have no problems with it," the former CIA director said, adding
that Durham's team already talked with him for eight hours. "I do believe that John Durham is
going to carry out his responsibilities ably and hopefully not with any political influence."
5,713 64 NEV play_arrow
Clee Torres 4 minutes ago
No sh*t Sherlock.
You mean there are two levels of justice? One for me and one for thee?
When lynch met clinton on the plane and it barely made a ripple.
That's when I knew.
enough of this 11 minutes ago (Edited)
No surprise. Durham and his pals are milking the investigation for all its worth. In the
meantime, Comey skates and the amendment named in his honor remains in full force.
On a happier note, Mr. Durham is looking for a nice beachfront mansion...
WOODisGOOD 3 minutes ago
Deep State gotta protect Deep State. That's just the way it works.
squib 4 minutes ago
I remember, Strzok, Comey, Clapper, Brennan etc. always looked smug bc they knew that
they'd be taken care of.
PaulDF 3 minutes ago
"Insurance Policy" indeed
Alex Jones was right... 4 minutes ago remove link
In other news, water is wet...
Reaper 16 minutes ago
US Law makes Dunham a Principle who abeted the crimes he's investigating. As such, under
US Code, he's liable for the same punishment as the perps. Remember how quickly Roger Stone
was prosecuted for lying.
US Presidents are really puppets, figureheads, even if during their campaign they pretend
otherwise. As for the elections, every four years in the US, they are nothing but a grand
brainwashing show whose sole purpose is to give the illusion of people power. They could have
presidential elections every 2 years, or even every year, none of that would change the fact
that the US is a plutocratic dictatorship with much less people power than any other
state in the collective West.
In fact, the argument above is just a tiny fig leaf trying to conceal the undeniable fact
that the US are not ruled by a person, but are ruled by a class, in the Marxist sense of this
world. Personally, I call this ruling class the "US Nomenklatura ". And while both Obama and
Trump pretended to want real change, they both lost that chance (assuming they ever wanted this
is the first place, which I doubt) when they did not do what Putin did when he came to office:
crush the Russian oligarchs as a class (some fled abroad, some died, some lost it all, and some
agreed to play by Putin's new rules). Obama, being the vapid and spineless car salesman that
he, is probably never even contemplated any real move against the US Nomenklatura . As
for Trump, being the pompous narcissist that he is, he might have even entertained some
thoughts of showing "who is boss", but that lasted only 1 month, until the US
Nomenklatura forced Trump to fire Flynn (after that, it was all freefall ).
"... One one hand, this is truly an absolute disaster, because when the US ruling Nomenklatura agrees to drop any past pretenses of objectivity, or even decency, things will definitely get ugly. On the other hand, however, this immense "coming out" of the US Nomenklatura is, of course, unsustainable (just look at history, every time these folks thought that they had crushed the "plebes", the latter ended up rising and showing their supposed "masters" to the door; this will happen here too). ..."
"... Trump really destroyed the USA externally, in terms of world politics. The Dems have done the same thing, only internally. For example, Trump is the one who most arrogantly ignored the rule of law in international affairs, but it was the Dems who destroyed the rule of law inside the USA. It was Trump who with his antics and narcissistic threats urbi et orbi who destroyed any credibility left for the USA as a country (or even of the the AngloZionist Empire as a whole), but it was the Dems who really decided to sabotage the very political system which allowed them to seize power in the first place. ..."
"... What comes next is the illegal rule of an illegitimate regime which came to power by violence (BLM, Antifa, Capitol false flag). This will be a Soviet-style gerontocracy with senile figureheads pretending to be in power (think Biden vs Chernenko here). Looking at the old, Obama-era, names which are circulated now for future Cabinet positions, we can bet on two things: the new rulers will be as evil as they will be grossly incompetent, mostly due to their crass lack of education (even Nuland and Psaki are back, it appears!). The Biden admin will be similar to the rule of Kerensky in "democratic" Russia: chaos, violence, lots and lots of speeches and total social and economic chaos. The next crucial, and even frightening, question now is: what will replace this US version of a Kerensky regime? ..."
"... "domestic terrorism" will, once again, become the boogeyman we will be told to fear. And, as all good boys and girls know, the best way to deal with such a horrible "domestic terrorism" threat is to dismantle the First and Second Amendments of the Constitution. Having corrupt kangaroo courts on all levels, from the small claims level to the Supreme court, will greatly help in this endeavor... ..."
...the US liberals decided that this vote was a slap in their face which, of course, is
quite correct (I still believe that most votes for Trump where not votes for Trump, but votes
against Hillary); it was, so to speak, a gigantic "f**k you!" from the revolting serfs against
their masters. And class consciousness told the US Nomenklatura that this was an
anti-masters pogrom , a US " Jacquerie " if you wish. This "revolt
of the serfs" had to be put down, immediately, and it was: Trump caved to the Neocons in less
than a month (when he betrayed General Flynn) and ever since the US Nomenklatura has
been using Trump as a disposable President who would do all the crazy nonsense
imaginable to please Israel, and who would then be disposed off. And yet it is now quite clear
that the US "deplorables" voted for the "wrong" candidate again! Hence the need for a (very
poorly concealed) "election steal" followed by a "test of loyalty" (you better side with us, or
else ) which eventually resulted in the situation we have today.
What is that situation exactly?
Simply put, this time the USNomenklaturahas truly achieved total
power. Not only do they control all three of the official branches of government, they now
also fully control the 4th one, the "media space", courtesy of the US tech giants which now are
openly silencing anybody who disagrees with the One And Only Official Truth As Represented By
The Propaganda Outlets. This is the very first time in recent US history that a small cabal of
"deep insiders" have achieved such total control of all the real instruments of power. The bad
news is that they know that they are a small minority and they realize that they need to act
fast to secure their hold on power. But for that they needed a pretext.
It is hardly surprising that after successfully pulling off the 9/11 false flag
operation, the USNomenklaturahad no problems whatsoever pulling off the
"Capitol" false flag.
Think about it: the legally organized and scheduled protest of Trump supporters was
announced at least a week before it had to take place. How hard was it for those in charge of
security to make sure that the protesters stay in one specific location? At the very least,
those in charge of security could have done what Lukashenko eventually did in Mink: place
military and police forces around all the important symbolic buildings and monuments and say
"you are welcome to protest, but don't even think of trying to take over any government
property" (that approach worked much better than beating up protesters, which Lukashenko
initially had tried). Yet what we saw was the exact opposite: in DC protesters were invited
across police lines by cops. Not only that, but even those protesters which did enter the
Capitol were, apparently, not violent enough, so it had to be one of the cops to shoot an
unarmed and clearly non-dangerous woman, thereby providing the "sacrificial victim" needed to
justify the hysterics about "violence" and "rule of law".
And the worst part is that it worked, even Trump ended up condemning the "violence" and
denouncing those who, according to Trump, did not represent the people.
The hard truth is much simpler: the "stop the steal" protestors did not commit any real
violence! Yes, they broke some furniture, had some fights with cops (who initially were
inviting people in, only to then violently turn against them with batons, pepper sprays and
flash-bang grenades). Some reports say that one cop was hit by a fire extinguisher. If true,
that would be a case of assault with a deadly weapon (under US law any object capable of being
used to kill can be considered a deadly weapon when used for that purpose). But considering the
nonstop hysteria about guns, the NRA and "armed militias", this was clearly not a planned
murder. Finally, a few people died, apparently from natural causes, possibly made worse by the
people trampling over each other. In other words, the Trump supporters did not kill anybody
deliberately, at most they can be accused of creating the circumstances which resulted in
manslaughter. That was not murder. Not even close. Want to see what a planned murder looks
like? Just look at the footage of the Ashli Babbitt murder by some kind of armed official. That
is real murder, and it was committed by a armed official. So which side is most guilty of
violating laws and regulations?
Furthermore, no moral value can be respected unless it is universally and equally applied.
Which, considering that the US deep state has engaged in a full year of wanton mass violence
against hundreds of innocent US citizens makes it unbelievably hypocritical for the US liberals
to denounce "the mob" now. Frankly, the way I see it, all the US liberals should now "take a
knee" before the pro-Trump protestors and declare that this was a "mostly peaceful" event
which, objectively speaking, it was .
Won't happen. I know.
What will happen next is going to be a vicious crackdown on free speech in all its
forms . In fact, and just to use a Marxist notion, what comes next is class warfare
.
We have all seen Pelosi and the rest of them demanding that Trump either be removed by Pence
and the Cabinet (25th A.), or they will unleash another impeachment. First, if impeached, Trump
won't be able to run in 2024 (which the liberals fully realize is a major risk for them). But
even more important, is to humiliate him, make him pay, show him once and for all "who is
boss"! These people thrive on revenge and victory is never enough to appease them, they simply
hate anybody who dares oppose them and they want to make an example of any and every serf who
dares to disobey them. That is why they always send "messages", no matter how inchoate: they
want to bully all the deplorables on the planet into total subservience.
But they won't stop with just Trump. Oh no! They will also go after all those serfs who
dared defy this Nomenklatura and who objected to the wholesale repudiation of the US
Constitution. For example, in a truly Orwellian move, the NY State Bar now wants to disbar
Giuliani for acting as Trump's lawyer (not a joke, check here ). Which,
considering that Trump already lost several lawyers to such tactics should not come as a
surprise to anybody: apparently, in the "new 2021 Woke-USA", some are more entitled to legal
representation than others.
Don't expect the ACLU to protest, by the way – equal protection under the law is not a
topic of interest to them. Here are a few screenshots take off their website , so see for yourself.
Clearly, the priority for the folks at the ACLU is to destroy Trump and anybody daring to
take up his defense.
One one hand, this is truly an absolute disaster, because when the US ruling
Nomenklatura agrees to drop any past pretenses of objectivity, or even decency, things
will definitely get ugly. On the other hand, however, this immense "coming out" of the US
Nomenklatura is, of course, unsustainable (just look at history, every time these folks
thought that they had crushed the "plebes", the latter ended up rising and showing their
supposed "masters" to the door; this will happen here too).
Last, but not least, let's keep another crucial thing in mind: even if you absolutely hate
Trump, you really should realize that it is not just "the vote" which was stolen, it was the
entire US Constitutional order . While we often focus on the SCOTUS, we should not remember
the many lower courts which showed a total absence of courage or dignity and which caved in to
the hysterical demands of the US Nomenklatura . It is impossible to have a country under
the rule of law when the courts shy away from their obligation to uphold the said rule of law
and, instead, place political expediency above the letter and spirit of the law.
Furthermore, when concepts such as "legal" and "illegal" lose any objective meaning, how can
any action be considered illegal or punishable?
Here is, just as an example, the Oath of Office taken by all Supreme Court Justices:
(emphasis added)
"I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect
to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich , and that I will
faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE]
under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."
And this is what each member of the US Armed Forces swears: (emphasis added)
"I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend
the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ; that
I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the
President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to
regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."
It does not take a genius to figure out that the SCOTUS is now in the hands of a small cabal
of people who clearly are "domestic enemies" of the US Constitution.
Finally, here is what the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence states: (emphasis
added)
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,–That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it , and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
I don't think that there is any need to further beat this dead horse and I will simply
summarize it as so:
The regime which will soon replace the Trump Administration is an illegal occupation
government, with strong ties to foreign interests (and I don't mean China or Russia here!),
which all those who served in the US military have taken an oath to oppose; this is precisely
the kind of occupation regime which the Founding Fathers foresaw in their Declaration of
Independence . Furthermore, the rule of law has clearly collapsed, at least on the
federal level, this should give the states more freedom of movement to resist the decrees of
this new regime (at least those states still willing and able to resist, I think of TX and FL
here). The leaders of this US Nomenklatura understand this, at least on some level, and we
should expect no decency from them; neither should we expect any mercy. Revenge is what
fuels these ideology- and hate-filled people who loathe and fear all the rest of humanity
because nobody is willing to worship them as our "lords and masters ". But this is also
the beginning of their end.
Conclusion: now we are all Palestinians!
True, no "mob" won on the Capitol, unless we refer to the (disgraced, hated and useless)
Congress as "the mob". And, of course, neither did "the people" or the protesters. The only
real winner in this entire operation was the US deep state and the US Nomenklatura . But
they did not win any war, only the opening battle of a war which will be much longer than what
they imagine in their ignorance.
I have said it many times, Trump really destroyed the USA externally, in terms of world
politics. The Dems have done the same thing, only internally. For example, Trump is the one who
most arrogantly ignored the rule of law in international affairs, but it was the Dems who
destroyed the rule of law inside the USA. It was Trump who with his antics and narcissistic
threats urbi et orbi who destroyed any credibility left for the USA as a country (or
even of the the AngloZionist Empire as a whole), but it was the Dems who really decided to
sabotage the very political system which allowed them to seize power in the first
place.
What comes next is the illegal rule of an illegitimate regime which came to power by
violence (BLM, Antifa, Capitol false flag). This will be a Soviet-style gerontocracy with
senile figureheads pretending to be in power (think Biden vs Chernenko here). Looking at the
old, Obama-era, names which are circulated now for future Cabinet positions, we can bet on two
things: the new rulers will be as evil as they will be grossly incompetent, mostly due to their
crass lack of education (even Nuland and Psaki are back, it appears!). The Biden admin will be
similar to the rule of Kerensky in "democratic" Russia: chaos, violence, lots and lots of
speeches and total social and economic chaos. The next crucial, and even frightening, question
now is: what will replace this US version of a Kerensky regime?
It is way too early to reply to this question, but we should at least begin to think about
it, lest we be completely caught off guard.
But until then, "domestic terrorism" will, once again, become the boogeyman we will be
told to fear. And, as all good boys and girls know, the best way to deal with such a horrible
"domestic terrorism" threat is to dismantle the First and Second Amendments of the
Constitution. Having corrupt kangaroo courts on all levels, from the small claims level to the
Supreme court, will greatly help in this endeavor...
"Americans have been brainwashed into calling things they don't like, or don't understand,
as "Socialist" or even "Marxist". The sad reality is that most Americans sincerely believe
that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Bernie Sanders are "socialists", and when they see modern
movies ridiculously filled with "minorities" and gender fluid freaks – this is a case
of "cultural Marxism" (a totally meaningless term, by the way!). This is all utter nonsense,
neither Marxism nor Socialism have anything to do with BLM, Antifa, Nancy Pelosi or Chuck
Schumer (in fact, Marxism places a premium on real law and order!)."
"class" has been declared heretical and it has been replaced by identity politics
– the best way for a ruling class to (a) hide behind a fake illusion of pluralism and
(b) to divide the people and rule over them
It's a neat bait and switch scheme, identity being substituted for class. Billionaires can
now be hailed as people's champions by instituting 'gender-fluid' toilets and forcing their
peons to kneel. Who knows how much force they'll be willing to use against the deplorables
but probably it would know no limit. The shock and awe unleashed against foreign countries
could now be instituted domestically with things like the Phoenix Program being tried here,
among other things. Anything but relinquish power.
The old war-lovers are coming back in. Although he was considered belligerent the new regime
will be worse. War is probably part of the future agenda. Solidifying it's grip upon the
domestic population may be the precursor to embarking upon an unpopular and certain to be
costly war against Iran or perhaps even some clash with Russia.
From the I Ching: "Large ambitions coupled with meager talent will seldom escape
disaster."
The fervid machinations of the current crop of "self"-glorifying wannabes will not, as The
Saker reminds us here, be any exception to the rule, either. They're hardly the first bunch
of feckless opportunists to take a run at "full spectrum dominance" .aiming to trap Life
Herownself within the suffocating CONfines of their own little nut'shell.
The rampant insanity symptomatic of their virulent "self"-sickness, as it runs its
inevitable course, looks like being somewhat more than usually trying for the rest of us,
though .given all the electro-mechanical and institutional enhancement available to them, for
intensifying the degenerative effects of their folly. At the same time, our best response
will be just what we all know is always organically and in all Ways imperative for our Kind,
anyhow. All our precious attention is best devoted to taking care of the Earth and each
other. Our unconditional affection is best lavished on this Living Creation, all our
Relations, and The Great Spirit whose gift it is.
I see this article is quite relevant to another one on a different blog that I have been
fruitlessly attempting to comment upon. It keeps getting disappeared immediately and not even
sent to moderation where normally all submissions first go. Have had that trouble two days
running on two different articles about i) the impending crackdowns on free speech and ii)
the planned purge of Republican officeholders by the triumphalist Clinton/Obama/Biden mob.
I'll go with my remarks on the coming attempt at a purge since it is closer to the Saker's
treatment of the Nomenklatura (cognate to "nomenclature" specifying ordered classes of
things, including people or their offices, in English) or in American street language simply
identifying who is a "made man," i.e., an untouchable in the mafia. Yeah, the Dem hierarchy
are sure feeling they are all made men (and women) following the set to in the Capitol which
they most possibly facilitated and have certainly exploited to the limit.
Biden is clearly an enforcer for a faction of what we might call the permanent
establishment, the hidden real government that runs on automatic imperial pilot regardless
who is nominal US President.
That "permanent establishment" is currently becoming "dis-established" everywhere in the
world. It sees with horror that its grip on the entire world is crumbling.
It does only what it has always tried in such cases -- war, war, war. Only of late, those
wars -- war against Russia over Ukraine, war against Assad's Syria, an attempted war against
Erdogan in Turkey, a war against the growing economic muscle in the world of China -- have
been impotent flops.
Biden, a dutiful servant of those interests, carries the flag of war to where he is sent,
much like the character in Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks.
It is an Oligarchy of bond holders. I'm using the word bond as an stand-in for debt
instruments, or any sort of claim on productivity. Bond/Bondage/Debt are all closely related
concepts.
The entire Western World is inter-connected double-entry balance sheets.
One side of the balance sheet is "assets" and the other is "liabilities." One person's
liability is another persons asset.
It is best to view the western world as a balance sheet, especially as private bank credit
is the dominant money type of the west. Private banking and debt spreading has metastasized
like a cancer, and is now consuming the host. Debt instruments and finance paper are being
serviced in the finance sector with QE and 'CARES' act shenanigan's, which pays these finance
"assets."
If you want to call the bond holders in finance and elsewhere as a nomenklatura, go ahead
– but it obscures reality. These people are a class, a class of usurers, who are
"taking" wealth in sordid ways by gaming the system.
All through history, plutocracy has arisen out of the population because debts were not
annulled, or land was enclosed.
Oligarchs of various types are harvesting the world through various means, including the
growth of debt claims. These claims grow exponentially, and outside of nature's ability to
pay. The derivative bubble wants to be paid. What cannot go on, will not.
The balance sheet is not really balanced, one side (the debt instrument holder) is making
exponential claims on debtors.
I have, for some time, been mis-naming the Nomenklatura as the Politburo, with the commune
being the many tentacled international banking cartel. It's the same crowd that funded the
original Bolsheviks.
IMO they are only "Neo" by virtue of the old ones having died, but I'm not going to split
hairs. We all know it is those whose loyalty is to a shitty little country on the
Mediterranean.
I've come back to salute this essay as the compendium of truth that it is. Several of the
essays here this week have been intelligent and deserving of the Unz readership.
You are most correct when you say that the current set of Nomenklatura are too weak to
sustain rule. I'd call the Big Tech oligarchy the Nickelodeon class. They have digits, which
are really nothing to be afraid of, but any small farmer in the Midwest is more powerful than
they are.
Big changes are coming and it won't take violence to effect them, just a patriotic week or
two off of the social media.
"... I have, for some time, been mis-naming the Nomenklatura as the Politburo, with the commune being the many tentacled international banking cartel. ..."
FoxNews finally showed its true face during the election steal when it declared that Trump
had lost the election long before any evidence in support of this thesis materialized. It is
now abundantly clear that with a few exceptions (notably Tucker Carlson), FoxNews is very much
on the same page as CNN and the rest of them. So what just happened and what is taking place
now?
Americans have been brainwashed into calling things they don't like, or don't understand, as
"Socialist" or even "Marxist". The sad reality is that most Americans sincerely believe that
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Bernie Sanders are "socialists", and when they see modern movies
ridiculously filled with "minorities" and gender fluid freaks – this is a case of
"cultural Marxism" (a totally meaningless term, by the way!). This is all utter nonsense,
neither Marxism nor Socialism have anything to do with BLM, Antifa, Nancy Pelosi or Chuck
Schumer (in fact, Marxism places a premium on real law and order!). I can't take the time and
space here to discuss Marxism, but I do believe that there is one analytical tool which we can
borrow from Marxist thought to try to make sense of what just happened in the USA. Let's begin
by asking a simple question:
If "the mob" did not win, who did?
Most certainly not the abstract concept of "law and order". For one thing, it is now
abundantly clear that some cops deliberately let a (rather small) subset of protestors not only
across police lines but even inside the Capitol Building itself. That is not exactly law and
order, now is it? Furthermore, it is now also clear that Ashli Babbitt was very deliberately
shot by an (apparently black) cop who was then quickly hidden away from sight by the
authorities. Not exactly law and order either.
Neither did the abstract concept of "democracy" win anything that day. Many protesters were
recorded saying that the Capitol building belonged to the people, not to the people working in
it on behalf of the people. They are right. But even if we accept the notion that those who
entered the building were trespassing, the massive crackdown on free speech which immediately
followed the events at the Capitol is a clear sign that "democracy" did not win that day. More
about that later.
So who won?
Well, look who is celebrating and who is now demanding that punitive and even repressive
measures be taken against Trump supporters:
here
and
here ) The Russia-hating Lobby Antifa/BLM/etc The many freaks of nature leading
various "minorities" Big Tech megacorporations a la Google and Amazon
The list is longer, of course, and it includes pretty much all the folks afflicted with the
now famous Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).
Our list looks like a cocktail of very different actors, but is that really the case?
I submit that if we look closely at this list of possible "winners" we can quickly see that
we are dealing with a single social category /group whose "diversity" is only apparent.
Here is what all these groups have in common:
They are numerically small, definitely a
minority They are very wealthy They are very close to the real centers of power They share the
same narcissistic (Neocon) ideology of self-worship They are driven by the same hate-based
ideology of revenge They don't care about the people of the USA They want to dismantle the US
Constitutional order
On the basis of these common characteristics, I believe that we can speak about a social
class united by a common ideology .
Now, of course, in the plutocratic oligarchy (which the United States in reality is), the
notion of "class" has been declared heretical and it has been replaced by identity politics
– the best way for a ruling class to (a) hide behind a fake illusion of pluralism and (b)
to divide the people and rule over them.
I have already written about what I consider to be a US version of the Soviet Nomenklatura , a
special ruling class which was official in the (comparatively much more honest) Soviet system
but which is always hidden from sight by the rulers of the United States.
The actual word we use are not that important: Nomenklatura , class, caste,
establishment, powers that be, deep state, etc. – they all approximate the reality of a
small gang of self-declared "elites" (as opposed to the "deplorables") ruling with total
impunity and no checks and balances mitigating their de facto dictatorship. Some
well-intentioned people began speaking about the "1%" – which is not bad, even if the
actual figure is even smaller than just one percent. Others used "Wall Street" (as in the
"occupy WS" movement), again – not a bad attempt to describe the problem. Whatever the
terms you chose, what is certain is that this entity has what Marx would call a " class
consciousness " which produces a single " class ideology " characterized by an
extremely strong sense of "us versus them" .
By the way, while I disagree with any notion that the US Nomenklatura is Marxist or
Socialist in any way, I very much agree that these "elites" are displaying an ideological
zeal very similar to what Trotskysts or Nazis typically exhibit, especially when confronted
with the "deplorables" or, like FoxNews says, the "mob" (the Polish word " bydło " – cattle
– very accurately renders this contempt for the masses).
In fact, they see us all as their "class enemy" . And they are quite correct, by the
way.
Their ideology is messianic, racist, violent and hate filled while the members of this US
Nomenklatura see themselves as the cream of the crop, the "chosen people", whose
"destiny" is to rule over the "dark and primitive" "mob".
This contempt for the "mob" is something which self-described "liberals" always try to
conceal, but which always comes out, be it in 1917 Russia or in 2021 USA. There is a weird
logic to this, by the way. It goes something like this: " we are clearly superior to the
plebes, yet these plebes seem to reject that notion, these plebes are therefore a "dark mob"
which absolutely needs to be strictly ruled by us ". The underlying assumption is that
plebes are dangerous, they can always riot and threaten "us". Hence the need for a police
state. QED.
We all remember how the Clinton gang was mega-super-sure that Hillary would easily defeat
Trump. And just to make darn sure that the US "plebes" don't do anything stupid, the US legacy
corporate ziomedia engaged in probably the most hysterical candidate bashing propaganda
operation in history only to find out that the "deplorables" did not vote as they were told to,
they voted for "Trump The New Hitler" instead.
What a truly unforgivable affront of these serfs against the masters which God, or Manifest
Destiny, placed above them!
And just as their pseudo-liberal colleagues from the past, the US liberals decided that this
vote was a slap in their face which, of course, is quite correct (I still believe that most
votes for Trump where not votes for Trump, but votes against Hillary); it was, so to speak, a
gigantic "f**k you!" from the revolting serfs against their masters. And class consciousness
told the US Nomenklatura that this was an anti-masters pogrom , a US "
Jacquerie "
if you wish. This "revolt of the serfs" had to be put down, immediately, and it was: Trump
caved to the Neocons in less than a month (when he betrayed General Flynn) and ever since the
US Nomenklatura has been using Trump as a disposable President who would do all
the crazy nonsense imaginable to please Israel, and who would then be disposed off. And yet it
is now quite clear that the US "deplorables" voted for the "wrong" candidate again! Hence the
need for a (very poorly concealed) "election steal" followed by a "test of loyalty" (you better
side with us, or else ) which eventually resulted in the situation we have today.
What is that situation exactly?
Simply put, this time the USNomenklaturahas truly achieved total
power. Not only do they control all three of the official branches of government, they now
also fully control the 4th one, the "media space", courtesy of the US tech giants which now are
openly silencing anybody who disagrees with the One And Only Official Truth As Represented By
The Propaganda Outlets. This is the very first time in recent US history that a small cabal of
"deep insiders" have achieved such total control of all the real instruments of power. The bad
news is that they know that they are a small minority and they realize that they need to act
fast to secure their hold on power. But for that they needed a pretext.
It is hardly surprising that after successfully pulling off the 9/11 false flag
operation, the USNomenklaturahad no problems whatsoever pulling off the
"Capitol" false flag.
Think about it: the legally organized and scheduled protest of Trump supporters was
announced at least a week before it had to take place. How hard was it for those in charge of
security to make sure that the protesters stay in one specific location? At the very least,
those in charge of security could have done what Lukashenko eventually did in Mink: place
military and police forces around all the important symbolic buildings and monuments and say
"you are welcome to protest, but don't even think of trying to take over any government
property" (that approach worked much better than beating up protesters, which Lukashenko
initially had tried). Yet what we saw was the exact opposite: in DC protesters were invited
across police lines by cops. Not only that, but even those protesters which did enter the
Capitol were, apparently, not violent enough, so it had to be one of the cops to shoot an
unarmed and clearly non-dangerous woman, thereby providing the "sacrificial victim" needed to
justify the hysterics about "violence" and "rule of law".
And the worst part is that it worked, even Trump ended up condemning the "violence" and
denouncing those who, according to Trump, did not represent the people.
The hard truth is much simpler: the "stop the steal" protestors did not commit any real
violence! Yes, they broke some furniture, had some fights with cops (who initially were
inviting people in, only to then violently turn against them with batons, pepper sprays and
flash-bang grenades). Some reports say that one cop was hit by a fire extinguisher. If true,
that would be a case of assault with a deadly weapon (under US law any object capable of being
used to kill can be considered a deadly weapon when used for that purpose). But considering the
nonstop hysteria about guns, the NRA and "armed militias", this was clearly not a planned
murder. Finally, a few people died, apparently from natural causes, possibly made worse by the
people trampling over each other. In other words, the Trump supporters did not kill anybody
deliberately, at most they can be accused of creating the circumstances which resulted in
manslaughter. That was not murder. Not even close. Want to see what a planned murder looks
like? Just look at the footage of the Ashli Babbitt murder by some kind of armed official. That
is real murder, and it was committed by a armed official. So which side is most guilty of
violating laws and regulations?
Furthermore, no moral value can be respected unless it is universally and equally applied.
Which, considering that the US deep state has engaged in a full year of wanton mass violence
against hundreds of innocent US citizens makes it unbelievably hypocritical for the US liberals
to denounce "the mob" now. Frankly, the way I see it, all the US liberals should now "take a
knee" before the pro-Trump protestors and declare that this was a "mostly peaceful" event
which, objectively speaking, it was .
Won't happen. I know.
What will happen next is going to be a vicious crackdown on free speech in all its
forms . In fact, and just to use a Marxist notion, what comes next is class warfare
.
We have all seen Pelosi and the rest of them demanding that Trump either be removed by Pence
and the Cabinet (25th A.), or they will unleash another impeachment. First, if impeached, Trump
won't be able to run in 2024 (which the liberals fully realize is a major risk for them). But
even more important, is to humiliate him, make him pay, show him once and for all "who is
boss"! These people thrive on revenge and victory is never enough to appease them, they simply
hate anybody who dares oppose them and they want to make an example of any and every serf who
dares to disobey them. That is why they always send "messages", no matter how inchoate: they
want to bully all the deplorables on the planet into total subservience.
But they won't stop with just Trump. Oh no! They will also go after all those serfs who
dared defy this Nomenklatura and who objected to the wholesale repudiation of the US
Constitution. For example, in a truly Orwellian move, the NY State Bar now wants to disbar
Giuliani for acting as Trump's lawyer (not a joke, check here ). Which,
considering that Trump already lost several lawyers to such tactics should not come as a
surprise to anybody: apparently, in the "new 2021 Woke-USA", some are more entitled to legal
representation than others.
Don't expect the ACLU to protest, by the way – equal protection under the law is not a
topic of interest to them. Here are a few screenshots take off their website , so see for yourself.
Clearly, the priority for the folks at the ACLU is to destroy Trump and anybody daring to
take up his defense.
One one hand, this is truly an absolute disaster, because when the US ruling
Nomenklatura agrees to drop any past pretenses of objectivity, or even decency, things
will definitely get ugly. On the other hand, however, this immense "coming out" of the US
Nomenklatura is, of course, unsustainable (just look at history, every time these folks
thought that they had crushed the "plebes", the latter ended up rising and showing their
supposed "masters" to the door; this will happen here too).
Last, but not least, let's keep another crucial thing in mind: even if you absolutely hate
Trump, you really should realize that it is not just "the vote" which was stolen, it was the
entire US Constitutional order . While we often focus on the SCOTUS, we should not remember
the many lower courts which showed a total absence of courage or dignity and which caved in to
the hysterical demands of the US Nomenklatura . It is impossible to have a country under
the rule of law when the courts shy away from their obligation to uphold the said rule of law
and, instead, place political expediency above the letter and spirit of the law.
Furthermore, when concepts such as "legal" and "illegal" lose any objective meaning, how can
any action be considered illegal or punishable?
Here is, just as an example, the Oath of Office taken by all Supreme Court Justices:
(emphasis added)
"I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect
to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich , and that I will
faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE]
under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."
And this is what each member of the US Armed Forces swears: (emphasis added)
"I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend
the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ; that
I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the
President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to
regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."
It does not take a genius to figure out that the SCOTUS is now in the hands of a small cabal
of people who clearly are "domestic enemies" of the US Constitution.
Finally, here is what the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence states: (emphasis
added)
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,–That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it , and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
I don't think that there is any need to further beat this dead horse and I will simply
summarize it as so:
The regime which will soon replace the Trump Administration is an illegal occupation
government, with strong ties to foreign interests (and I don't mean China or Russia here!),
which all those who served in the US military have taken an oath to oppose; this is precisely
the kind of occupation regime which the Founding Fathers foresaw in their Declaration of
Independence . Furthermore, the rule of law has clearly collapsed, at least on the
federal level, this should give the states more freedom of movement to resist the decrees of
this new regime (at least those states still willing and able to resist, I think of TX and FL
here). The leaders of this US Nomenklatura understand this, at least on some level, and we
should expect no decency from them; neither should we expect any mercy. Revenge is what
fuels these ideology- and hate-filled people who loathe and fear all the rest of humanity
because nobody is willing to worship them as our "lords and masters ". But this is also
the beginning of their end.
Conclusion: now we are all Palestinians!
True, no "mob" won on the Capitol, unless we refer to the (disgraced, hated and useless)
Congress as "the mob". And, of course, neither did "the people" or the protesters. The only
real winner in this entire operation was the US deep state and the US Nomenklatura . But
they did not win any war, only the opening battle of a war which will be much longer than what
they imagine in their ignorance.
I have said it many times, Trump really destroyed the USA externally, in terms of world
politics. The Dems have done the same thing, only internally. For example, Trump is the one who
most arrogantly ignored the rule of law in international affairs, but it was the Dems who
destroyed the rule of law inside the USA. It was Trump who with his antics and narcissistic
threats urbi et orbi who destroyed any credibility left for the USA as a country (or
even of the the AngloZionist Empire as a whole), but it was the Dems who really decided to
sabotage the very political system which allowed them to seize power in the first place.
What comes next is the illegal rule of an illegitimate regime which came to power by
violence (BLM, Antifa, Capitol false flag). This will be a Soviet-style gerontocracy with
senile figureheads pretending to be in power (think Biden vs Chernenko here). Looking at the
old, Obama-era, names which are circulated now for future Cabinet positions, we can bet on two
things: the new rulers will be as evil as they will be grossly incompetent, mostly due to their
crass lack of education (even Nuland and Psaki are back, it appears!). The Biden admin will be
similar to the rule of Kerensky in "democratic" Russia: chaos, violence, lots and lots of
speeches and total social and economic chaos. The next crucial, and even frightening, question
now is: what will replace this US version of a Kerensky regime?
It is way too early to reply to this question, but we should at least begin to think about
it, lest we be completely caught off guard.
But until then, "domestic terrorism" will, once again, become the boogeyman we will be told
to fear. And, as all good boys and girls know, the best way to deal with such a horrible
"domestic terrorism" threat is to dismantle the First and Second Amendments of the
Constitution. Having corrupt kangaroo courts on all levels, from the small claims level to the
Supreme court, will greatly help in this endeavor. Of course, there will be resistance from the
deplorables who still love their country and their Constitution.
But no matter how long this takes (might be decades) and how violent this confrontation
becomes (and, it will, if only because the regime vitally needs more false flags to survive!),
what will happen with this occupation regime is what happened to all of them throughout history
(could that be the reason why history is not taught anymore?).
As the Russian poet and bard, Vladimir Vissotski, wrote " it is impossible to trample
upon souls with boots " (сапогами
не вытоптать
душу). Now we are all Palestinians. And we, like they, will win!
"Americans have been brainwashed into calling things they don't like, or don't understand,
as "Socialist" or even "Marxist". The sad reality is that most Americans sincerely believe
that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Bernie Sanders are "socialists", and when they see modern
movies ridiculously filled with "minorities" and gender fluid freaks – this is a case
of "cultural Marxism" (a totally meaningless term, by the way!). This is all utter nonsense,
neither Marxism nor Socialism have anything to do with BLM, Antifa, Nancy Pelosi or Chuck
Schumer (in fact, Marxism places a premium on real law and order!)."
"class" has been declared heretical and it has been replaced by identity politics
– the best way for a ruling class to (a) hide behind a fake illusion of pluralism and
(b) to divide the people and rule over them
It's a neat bait and switch scheme, identity being substituted for class. Billionaires can
now be hailed as people's champions by instituting 'gender-fluid' toilets and forcing their
peons to kneel. Who knows how much force they'll be willing to use against the deplorables
but probably it would know no limit. The shock and awe unleashed against foreign countries
could now be instituted domestically with things like the Phoenix Program being tried here,
among other things. Anything but relinquish power.
The old war-lovers are coming back in. Although he was considered belligerent the new
regime will be worse. War is probably part of the future agenda. Solidifying it's grip upon
the domestic population may be the precursor to embarking upon an unpopular and certain to be
costly war against Iran or perhaps even some clash with Russia.
From the I Ching: "Large ambitions coupled with meager talent will seldom escape
disaster."
The fervid machinations of the current crop of "self"-glorifying wannabes will not, as The
Saker reminds us here, be any exception to the rule, either. They're hardly the first bunch
of feckless opportunists to take a run at "full spectrum dominance" .aiming to trap Life
Herownself within the suffocating CONfines of their own little nut'shell.
The rampant insanity symptomatic of their virulent "self"-sickness, as it runs its
inevitable course, looks like being somewhat more than usually trying for the rest of us,
though .given all the electro-mechanical and institutional enhancement available to them, for
intensifying the degenerative effects of their folly. At the same time, our best response
will be just what we all know is always organically and in all Ways imperative for our Kind,
anyhow. All our precious attention is best devoted to taking care of the Earth and each
other. Our unconditional affection is best lavished on this Living Creation, all our
Relations, and The Great Spirit whose gift it is.
It is an Oligarchy of bond holders. I'm using the word bond as an stand-in for debt
instruments, or any sort of claim on productivity. Bond/Bondage/Debt are all closely related
concepts.
The entire Western World is inter-connected double-entry balance sheets.
One side of the balance sheet is "assets" and the other is "liabilities." One person's
liability is another persons asset.
It is best to view the western world as a balance sheet, especially as private bank credit
is the dominant money type of the west. Private banking and debt spreading has metastasized
like a cancer, and is now consuming the host. Debt instruments and finance paper are being
serviced in the finance sector with QE and 'CARES' act shenanigan's, which pays these finance
"assets."
If you want to call the bond holders in finance and elsewhere as a nomenklatura, go ahead
– but it obscures reality. These people are a class, a class of usurers, who are
"taking" wealth in sordid ways by gaming the system.
All through history, plutocracy has arisen out of the population because debts were not
annulled, or land was enclosed.
Oligarchs of various types are harvesting the world through various means, including the
growth of debt claims. These claims grow exponentially, and outside of nature's ability to
pay. The derivative bubble wants to be paid. What cannot go on, will not.
The balance sheet is not really balanced, one side (the debt instrument holder) is making
exponential claims on debtors.
Moritz Hinsch from Berlin collected what Socrates (470-399 BC) and other Athenians wrote
about debt, and the conference's organizer, Prof. John Weisweiler, presented the new view
of late imperial Rome as being still a long way from outright serfdom. The 99 Percent
were squeezed, but "the economy" grew – in a way that concentrated growth in the
hands of the One Percent . In due course this bred popular resentment that spread in
the form of debtor revolts, not only in the Roman Empire but that of Iran as well, leading
to religious reforms to limit the charging of interest and self-indulgent greed in
general.
By now Nazi references are getting thread-bare. We actually need to examine how the
national socialists operated because their situation is analogous to today.
I very much agree that these "elites" are displaying an ideological zeal very similar to
what Trotskysts or Nazis typically exhibit
National Socialism arose as a reaction to finance capitalism's excesses. The very things
we are seeing today, were present in Weimar Germany. The country was being bought up, and the
people were being denied their birthright. Self-indulgent greed of an arising Oligarchy was
smashed by the National Socialists to then re-balance German civilization.
Nazi zeal restoring civilizational balance is quite something different than leftist
bolshevism.
I have, for some time, been mis-naming the Nomenklatura as the Politburo, with the
commune being the many tentacled international banking cartel. It's the same crowd that
funded the original Bolsheviks.
IMO they are only "Neo" by virtue of the old ones having died, but I'm not going to split
hairs. We all know it is those whose loyalty is to a shitty little country on the
Mediterranean.
@Anonymous ties
extract, which makes politicians whores for their donor class. The donor class is the
"holders of debt instruments" as I explained earlier. Or, they can be part of the military
industrial complex, to then whore for more taxpayer dollars. In all cases it is for self
aggrandizement. By the same reasoning, press-titutes are whores for their paymasters.
The easy money is taken in by usury or other sordid schemes; then donated/recycled into
politicians, to then keep the game going. Average laboring people don't have this surplus
wealth to donate.
"... The bottom line is the true enemies of the American people are no foreign nation or adversary---the true enemy of the American people are the people who control America. ..."
"... This way of thinking points to a dilemma for the American ruling class. Contrary to a lot of the rhetoric you hear, much of the American ruling class, including the "deep state" is actually quite anti-China. To fully account for this would take longer than I have here. But the nutshell intuitive explanation is that the ruling class, particularly Wall Street, was happy for the past several decades to enrich both themselves and China by destroying the American working class with policies such as "free-trade" and outsourcing. But in many ways the milk from that teat is no more, and now you have an American ruling class much more concerned about protecting their loot from a serious geopolitical competitor (China) than squeezing out the last few drops of milk from the "free trade." ..."
This is awesome, he nails the dilemma which our owners are confronted with;
I'll put it this way: It is not as though the American ruling class is intelligent,
competent, and patriotic on most important matters and happens to have a glaring blind spot
when it comes to appreciating the threat of China. If this were the case, it would make
sense to emphasize the threat of China above all else.
But this is not the case. The American ruling class has failed on pretty much every
issue of significance for the past several decades. If China were to disappear, they would
simply be selling out the country to India, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, or some other country
(in fact they are doing this just to a lesser extent).
Our ruling class has failed us on China because they have failed us on everything. For
this reason I believe that there will be no serious, sound policy on China that benefits
Americans until there is a legitimate ruling class in the United States. For this reason
pointing fingers at the wickedness and danger of China is less useful than emphasizing the
failure of the American ruling class. The bottom line is the true enemies of the
American people are no foreign nation or adversary---the true enemy of the American people
are the people who control America.
This way of thinking points to a dilemma for the American ruling class. Contrary to
a lot of the rhetoric you hear, much of the American ruling class, including the "deep
state" is actually quite anti-China. To fully account for this would take longer than I
have here. But the nutshell intuitive explanation is that the ruling class, particularly
Wall Street, was happy for the past several decades to enrich both themselves and China by
destroying the American working class with policies such as "free-trade" and outsourcing.
But in many ways the milk from that teat is no more, and now you have an American ruling
class much more concerned about protecting their loot from a serious geopolitical
competitor (China) than squeezing out the last few drops of milk from the "free
trade."
@102 karlof1 - "By deliberately setting policy to inflate asset prices, the Fed has
priced US labor out of a job, while as you report employers sought labor costs that allowed
them to remain competitive."
I never heard it said so succinctly and truly as this before. That is what happened isn't
it? The worker can't afford life anymore, in this country.
And if the worker can't afford the cost of living - who bears the cause of this, how
follows the remedy of this, and what then comes next?
I really appreciate your point of view, which is the only point of view, which is that the
designers of the economy, the governors of the economy, have placed the workers of the
economy in a position that is simply just not tenable.
No wonder they strive to divide in order to rule - because they have over-reached through
greed and killed the worker, who holds up the society.
How long can the worker flounder around blaming others before the spotlight must turn on
the employer?
You have to remember these people really do think they are better. They do think in class
terms even if they avoid that rhetoric in public. The problem is they thought they could
control China like they did Japan. That was dumb then and it looks even dumber now. You can
see similar dumbness in their lack of grip on any realisitic view of Russia. Provincials
really. Rich peasants.
Thank you, they certainly DO think in class terms ALWAYS. + Rich peasants is perfect
:))
Thankfully they are blinded by hubris at the same time. The USA destroyed the Allende
government in Chile in 1973. After the Nixon Kissinger visit to China in 1979 they assumed
they could just pull a color revolution stunt when they deemed it to be the right time.
Perhaps in their hubris they thought every Chinese worker would be infatuated with capitalism
and growth.
They tested that out in the People Power colour (yellow) revolt in the Filipines in 1986
following a rigged election by Marcos. In 1989 only 16 years after China had been buoyed up
with growth and development following the opening to USA capitalism, they tried out the same
trick in Tienanmen square in China but those students were up against the ruling party of the
entire nation - not the ruling class. BIG MISTAKE. The ruling party of China was solidly
backed by the peasant and working class that was finally enjoying some meager prosperity and
reward a mere 40 years after the Chinese Communist Party and their parents and grandparents
had liberated China from 100 years of occupation, plunder, human and cultural rapine and
colonial insult. Then in 2020 it was tried on again in Hong Kong. FAIL.
The hubris of the ruling class and its running dogs is pathetic.
We see the same with Pelosi and the ruling class in the Dimoratss today. They push Biden
Harris to the fore, piss on the left and refuse to even hold a vote on Medicare for All in
the middle of a pandemic. Meanwhile the USAi ruling class has its running dogs and hangers on
bleating that "its wrong tactic, its premature, its whatever craven excuse to avoid exposing
the ruling class for what they are - thieves, bereft of compassion, absent any sense of
social justice, fakes lurking behind their class supposition.
They come here to the bar with their arrogant hubris, brimming with pointless information
some even with emoji glitter stuck on their noses. Not a marxist or even a leftie among them.
Still its class that matters and its the ruling class that we must break.
@102 karlof1 and Grieved | Dec 19 2020 3:12 utc | 129
I did not understand inflate-assets/suppress-workers and forgot to return to it to clear
it up. Grieved sent me back to Karlof1. I just got it.
That viewpoint indeed explains method of operation to accomplish the results I observed.
When Nixon was forced to default on Bretton Woods use of Gold Exchange Standard* [the USD is
as good as gold], then printing fiat solved the problem [threat to US inventory of
gold]....but printing fiat [no longer redeemable as a promise convert to gold] became the new
problem [no way to extinguish the promises to redeem/pay].
So how to proceed? Aha! Steal from the workers; squeeze 'em, entertain and dazzle 'em!..
Such an elegant solution...slow, certain and hardly noticeable...like slow-boiling frogs...an
on-going project as we blog.
"... "No crisis is more serious for our Money Power than an attempt by a head of government to assume personal control of intelligence and operations or to by-pass existing agencies by setting up parallel ones." ..."
"... Perhaps the most accurate overview of our intelligence community can be achieved by visualizing it as a "nationalized secret society." Our predecessors, in their struggle against the old order of kings and princes, had to finance secret societies such as the Illuminati, Masons, German Union, etc. out of their own pockets. ..."
"... At great expense and risk such secret societies were able to infiltrate the major governmental and private institutions of the nations that our noble predecessors targeted for take over by the Money Power. Such bureaucratic takeovers are expensive and time consuming. They can be considered complete only when promotions, raises, and advancements are no longer based on objective service to the stated organizational objectives, but are in the hands of the infiltrating group and its secret goals. ..."
"... By appealing to "national security" we are able to finance and erect secret societies of a colossal scope, far beyond the wildest dreams of our path breaking predecessors. Besides the benefits of public financing reaped by these "nationalized secret societies," we obtain a decisive advantage from the fact that these our "spook" operations are sanctioned by law! ..."
"... Maintaining discipline, loyalty, and secrecy is no longer solely a matter of propaganda, blackmail, patronage, and intimidation. Although these remain important tools, especially in emergency cases, ordinary discipline among initiates (now called agents) can be encouraged by appealing to patriotism and can be enforced in courts of law by prosecuting "national security violations." ..."
"No crisis is more serious for our Money Power than an attempt by a head of
government to assume personal control of intelligence and operations or to by-pass existing
agencies by setting up parallel ones."
9. PROFESSOR Y. ON COVERT OPERATIONS AND INTELLIGENCE ~
In our fully developed state-capitalist systems we have found absolute control of
governmental intelligence gathering and covert operations to be vital.
Besides providing a valuable tool in our struggle with rival dynasties, such control is now
an integral and necessary part of our day-to-day operations. Large intelligence communities are
inevitable, given the system of all encompassing governments which we have imposed upon the
world during our ascent to power. Our power would be short-lived indeed if the pervasive
influence and power of these iron-disciplined intelligence agencies fell into the hands of mere
politicians, especially those beyond our control.
We do not allow intelligence agencies to pursue the "national interest," the way the public
conceives "spies" to operate. Politicians cannot be permitted to divert the power and influence
of our intelligence community from the esoteric requirements of our Money Power to petty
political struggles.
Neither nationalistic aspirations of races and peoples nor ideological visions of
intellectuals for humanity can be allowed to pervert intelligence and covert operations. Our
rationalizations, both within the intelligence community and to the public at large, must be
diverse and flexible, but the intelligence community must further without exception the
inexorable goals we have set for humanity.
No crisis is more serious for our Money Power than an attempt by a head of government to
assume personal control of intelligence and operations or to by-pass existing agencies by
setting up parallel ones. Such intrusions must be met decisively. Although a contrived scandal
to remove the offending politician from office is the first line of defense, we dare not shrink
from assassination when necessary.
Perhaps the most accurate overview of our intelligence community can be achieved by
visualizing it as a "nationalized secret society." Our predecessors, in their struggle against
the old order of kings and princes, had to finance secret societies such as the Illuminati,
Masons, German Union, etc. out of their own pockets.
At great expense and risk such secret societies were able to infiltrate the major
governmental and private institutions of the nations that our noble predecessors targeted for
take over by the Money Power. Such bureaucratic takeovers are expensive and time consuming.
They can be considered complete only when promotions, raises, and advancements are no longer
based on objective service to the stated organizational objectives, but are in the hands of the
infiltrating group and its secret goals.
How much easier it is for us, the inheritors of a fully developed state-capitalist system!
By appealing to "national security" we are able to finance and erect secret societies of a
colossal scope, far beyond the wildest dreams of our path breaking predecessors. Besides the
benefits of public financing reaped by these "nationalized secret societies," we obtain a
decisive advantage from the fact that these our "spook" operations are sanctioned by
law!
Maintaining discipline, loyalty, and secrecy is no longer solely a matter of propaganda,
blackmail, patronage, and intimidation. Although these remain important tools, especially in
emergency cases, ordinary discipline among initiates (now called agents) can be encouraged by
appealing to patriotism and can be enforced in courts of law by prosecuting "national security
violations."
As massive as our intelligence community has become in itself, we still operate strictly on
the finance capitalist principle of leverage. Just as a rational finance capitalist never owns
more stock in a corporation than the bare minimum required for control, intelligence operatives
are placed only in as many key positions as are required to control the target organizations.
Our goal, after all, is agent control of all significant organizations, not intelligence
community member ship for the entire population.
The organizational pattern of baffling "circles within circles," characteristic of classical
secret societies, is retained and refined by our intelligence community. That "one hand not
know what the other is doing" is essential to the success of our operations. In most cases, we
do not allow the operatives themselves to know the ultimate, and when possible, even the
short-range objectives of their assignments.
They operate under "covers" that disguise our goals not only from the public and target
groups, but from the agents themselves. For instance, many agents operating under "left cover"
are led to believe that the agency, or at least their department, is secretly, but sincerely
motivated by socialistic ideology. Thus, they assume that the intelligence agency's ultimate
goal is to guide left-wing groups in "productive" directions, even though they cannot always
see how their own assignment fits into those assumed goals.
Other "left-cover" agents, those with right-wing predilections, are encouraged to believe
the agency is simply "monitoring" violence prone, subversive groups in order to protect the
public. When such agents are asked to participate in or even lead radical activity they assume
that the ultimate objective is to fully infiltrate and destroy the organization for the good of
the country. This is very seldom the case. We waste little or no money protecting the "public"
or defending the "nation."
Agents operating under "right-cover" are handled in symmetrical fashion. Agents with
right-wing prejudices are encouraged to believe the agency is right-wing. Left-prejudiced
agents are asked to operate under "right-cover" in order to "monitor" dangerous rightist
organizations. Most intelligence agents remain blithely ignorant of the big picture which is so
clear to us from our spectacular vantage point. Very few have enough information or
intelligence to reason out how their specific and sometimes baffling assignments promote the
legislative, judicial, operational and propaganda needs of our Money Power. Most would never
try. They are paid too much to think about such things.
Agents with a "gangster-cover" are of two types. First, there is the sincere gangster that
draws his salary from an intelligence agency. He is led to believe that the gangland
"Godfathers" control the government agency for their own purposes. Actually, the situation is
the opposite. The agency controls the gangster for other purposes. Second, is the sincere crime
fighter who is led to believe that the agency is at tempting to infiltrate and monitor the
gangsters as a preliminary step to destroying organized crime. Such "upstanding" agents commit
many crimes in their zeal to rid the country of organized crime!
To envision how we operate in this lucrative field, let's briefly look at the mechanics of
dope smuggling. Police and customs officials are told to leave certain gangsters alone, even
when transporting suspicious cargoes. This is made to seem perfectly proper since it is well
known that secret police infiltrators of organized crime must participate in crimes in order to
gain the confidence of gangsters.
What customs agent would want to upset a carefully laid plan to "set-up" the underworld
kingpins of dope pushing! But the agent, as well as the police who cooperate, are mistaken in
believing that the purpose of the assignment to help smuggle dope is ultimately to smash
organized crime. If he could see the big picture, as we can, the agent would see that
practically all our dope is smuggled by federal intelligence agents and secret police! How ever
could such a volume be transported safely? Real harassment and prosecution is reserved for
those who enter the field without our approval.
Here is our organized crime strategy: On the one hand we pass laws to ensure that mankind's
favorite pastimes (vices) are illegal. On the other hand, we cater to these "vices" at a huge
monopoly profit with complete immunity from prosecution.
A new and growing methodology of our intelligence community is psychologically and
drug-controlled agents. Properly, these are referred to as "behavior modified" agents, or, in
the vernacular, "zombies." With the use of hypnotic drugs, brain washing, sensory deprivation,
small group "sensitivity" training, and other behavior modification techniques, the scope of
which was hinted in the movie "Clockwork Orange," complete personalities can be manufactured
from scratch, to the specifications of value structure profiles we design by computer to suit
our purposes. Such personalities are quite neurotic and unstable due to defects in our still
developing technology, but still useful for many purposes.
The primary virtue of "zombies," of course, is loyalty. Agents that are subconsciously
programmed for the assignment at hand cannot be conscious traitors. All a "zombie" can do is
reveal how compulsive and psychotic he is with regard to his "cause." Even to trained
psychologists he simply appears to be the proverbial "lone nut." Although the "zombie" may have
memories of psychotherapy at a government agency when questioned under hypnosis, this is
unlikely to raise suspicion in the mind of court-appointed psychologists. After all, "lone
nuts" should be kept in insane asylums and subjected to psychotherapy! At most, the government
hospital will be reprimanded for letting a loony loose before he was cured.
Until our techniques can be perfected the use of "zombies" must be restricted to "national
dramas" designed to justify the growing power of our centralized governments over the lives of
our people. Most suicidal radicals and "crazies" who so mysteriously avoid arrest for years at
a time are "zombies" conditioned to terrorize the public in the name of some irrational
ideology. After repeated doses of such terror, the public is conditioned to accept the
necessity of our intrusive police state with very little objection.
The way is clear for an accelerated program of behavior modification research to be
conducted mostly at public expense in the name of mental health and rehabilitation. Such
research can be conducted with little complaint in prisons, refugee camps, drug rehabilitation
centers, government hospitals, veterans hospitals, and even public schools and day care
centers. Mental institutions, methadone maintenance centers, and prisons are fertile fields for
recruiting the deranged or drug-addicted persons most suitable for "zombie" conversions. Of
course, only a few of our most trusted agents actually participate in the creation of
"zombies." The brilliant researchers and experimenters who make most of the breakthroughs
earnestly believe that their techniques are destined strictly for the betterment of
mankind.
Inevitably, a fraction of the population objects to behavior modification as an infringement
of man's "sacred" free will even if they are convinced that our intentions are benign. We
carefully leak a few scandals to satisfy such persons that our experiments are being kept
within bounds and that excesses are being stopped. Our artificial scandals exposing the
"excesses" of coercive psychology are carefully designed to make the researchers seem
incompetent and clumsy to the point of maiming and killing their "patients." This effectively
conceals the fantastic strides we have made toward total behavioral control. Great things are
going to be possible in the future.
I don't use Social Media myself, but near the end of the 2016 presidential campaign, I
gradually began seeing more and more Trump supporters referring to something called
"Pizzagate," a burgeoning sexual scandal that they claimed would bring down Hillary Clinton and
many of the top leaders of her party, with the chatter actually increasing after Trump was
elected. As near as I could tell, the whole bizarre theory had grown up on the far-right fringe
of the Internet, with the utterly fantastical plot having something to do with stolen secret
emails, DC pizza parlors, and a ring of pedophiles situated near the top of the Democratic
Party. But given all the other strange and unlikely things I'd gradually discovered about our
history, it didn't seem like something I could necessarily dismiss out of hand.
At the beginning of December, a right-wing blogger produced a lengthy exposition of the
Pizzagate charges, which finally gave me some understanding of what was actually under
discussion, and I soon made arrangements to republish his article. It quickly attracted a great
deal of interest, and some websites pointed to it as the best single introduction to the
scandal for a general audience.
A couple of weeks later, I republished an additional article by the same writer, describing
a long list of previous pedophilia scandals that had occurred in elite American and European
political circles. Although many of these seemed to be solidly documented, nearly all of them
had received minimal coverage by our mainstream media outlets. And if such political pedophile
rings had existed in the relatively recent past, was it so totally implausible that there might
be another one simmering beneath the surface of today's Washington DC?
Those interested in the details of the Pizzagate Hypothesis are advised to read these
articles, especially the first one, but I might as well provide a brief summary.
John Podesta had been a longtime fixture in DC political circles, becoming chief of staff to
President Bill Clinton in 1998, and afterward remaining one of the most powerful figures in the
Democratic Party establishment. While serving as as chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016
presidential campaign, his apparent carelessness with the password security of his Gmail
account allowed it to easily be hacked, and tens of thousands of his personal emails were soon
published on WikiLeaks. A swarm of young anti-Clinton activists began scouring this
treasure-trove of semi-confidential information, seeking evidence of mundane bribery and
corruption, but instead they came across some quite odd exchanges, seemingly written in coded
language.
Now use of coded language in a supposedly secure private email account raises all sorts of
natural suspicions regarding what might have been under discussion, with the most likely
possibilities being illegal drugs or sex. But most of the references didn't seem to fit the
former category, and in our remarkably libertine era, in which political candidates compete for
the right to be Grand Marshal at an annual Gay Pride Parade, one of the few sexual activities
still discussed only in whispers would seem to be pedophilia, with some of the very strange
remarks possibly hinting at this.
The researchers also soon discovered that his brother Tony Podesta, one of the wealthiest
and most successful lobbyists in DC, had extremely odd taste in art. Major items of his very
extensive personal collection seemed to represent tortured or murdered bodies, and one of his
favorite artists was best known for paintings depicting young children being held captive,
lying dead, or suffering under severe distress. Such peculiar artwork obviously isn't illegal,
but it might naturally arouse some suspicions. And oddly enough, arch-Democrat Podesta had long
been a close personal friend of former Republican Speaker and convicted child-molester Dennis
Hastert, welcoming him back into DC society after his release from prison.
Furthermore, some of the rather suspiciously-worded Podesta emails referred to events held
at a local DC pizza parlor, greatly favored by the Democratic Party elite, whose owner was the
gay former boyfriend of David Brock, a leading Democratic activist. The public Instagram
account of that pizza-entrepreneur apparently contained numerous images of young children,
sometimes tied or bound, with those images frequently labeled by hashtags using the traditional
gay slang for underage sexual targets. Some photos showed the fellow wearing a tee-shirt
bearing the statement "I Love Children" in French, and by a very odd coincidence, his possibly
assumed name was phonetically identical to that very same French phrase, thus proclaiming to
the world that he was "a lover of children." Closely connected Instagram accounts also included
pictures of young children, sometimes shown amid piles of high-value currency, with queries
about how much those particular children might be worth. None of this seemed illegal, but
surely any reasonable person would regard the material as extremely suspicious.
DC is sometimes described as "Powertown," being the seat of the individuals who make
America's laws and govern our society, with local political journalists being closely attuned
to the relative status of such individuals. And oddly enough, GQ Magazine had ranked that gay
pizza parlor owner with a strange focus on young children as being one of the 50 most
powerful people in our national capital, placing him far ahead of many Cabinet members,
Senators, Congressional Chairmen, Supreme Court justices, and top lobbyists. Was his pizza
really that delicious?
These few paragraphs provide merely a sliver of the large quantity of highly-suspicious
material surrounding various powerful figures at the apex of the DC political world. A vast
cloud of billowing smoke is certainly no proof of any fire, but only a fool would completely
ignore it without attempting further investigation.
I usually regard videos as a poor means of imparting serious information, far less effective
and meaningful than the simple printed word. But the overwhelming bulk of the evidence
supporting the Pizzagate Hypothesis consists of visual images and screen shots, and these are
naturally suited to a video presentation.
Some of the best summaries of the Pizzagate case were produced by a young British YouTuber
named Tara McCarthy, whose work was published under the name of "Reality Calls," and her videos
were viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Although her channel was eventually banned and her
videos purged, copies were later reloaded to other accounts, both on YouTube and BitChute. Some
of the evidence she presents seemed rather innocuous or speculative to me and other elements
were probably based upon her unfamiliarity with American society and culture. But a great deal
of extremely suspicious material remains, and I would suggest that people watch the videos and
decide for themselves.
Around the same time that I first became familiar with the details of the Pizzagate
controversy, the topic also started reaching the pages of my morning newspapers, but in an
rather strange manner. Political stories began giving a sentence or two to the "Pizzagate
hoax," describing it as a ridiculous right-wing "conspiracy theory" but excluding all relevant
details. I had an eery feeling that some unseen hand had suddenly flipped a switch causing the
entire mainstream media to begin displaying identical signs declaring "Pizzagate Is False --
Nothing To See There!" in brightly flashing neon. I couldn't recall any previous example of
such a strange media reaction to some obscure Internet controversy.
Articles in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times also suddenly appeared denouncing
the entirety of the alternative media -- Left, Right, and Libertarian -- as
"fake news" websites promoting Russian propaganda , while urging that their content be
blocked by all patriotic Internet giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google. Prior to that
moment, I'd never even heard the term "fake news" but suddenly it was ubiquitous across the
media, once again almost as if some unseen hand had suddenly flipped a switch.
I naturally began to wonder whether the timing of these two strange developments was
entirely coincidental. Perhaps Pizzagate was indeed true and struck so deeply at the core of
our hugely corrupted political system that the media efforts to suppress it were approaching
the point of hysteria.
Not long afterward, Tara McCarthy's detailed Pizzagate videos were purged from YouTube. This
was among the very first instances of video content being banned despite fully conforming to
all existing YouTube guidelines, another deeply suspicious development.
I also noticed that mere mention of Pizzagate had become politically lethal. Donald Trump
had selected Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, as his
National Security Advisor, and Flynn's son served as the latter's chief of staff. The younger
Flynn happened to Tweet out a couple of links to Pizzagate stories, pointing out that the
accusations hadn't yet been actually investigated let alone disproven, and very soon afterward,
he was
purged from the Trump transition team, foreshadowing his father's fall a few weeks later.
It seemed astonishing to me that a few simple Tweets about an Internet controversy could have
such huge real-life impact near the top of our government.
The media continued its uniform drumbeat of "Pizzagate Has Been Disproven!" but we were
never told how or by whom, and I was not the only individual to notice the hollowness of such
denunciations. An award-winning investigative journalist named Ben Swann at a CBS station in
Atlanta broadcast a short television segment summarizing the Pizzagate controversy and noting
that contrary to widespread media claims, Pizzagate had neither been investigated nor debunked.
Swann was almost immediately purged by CBS but a copy of his television segment remains
available for viewing on the Internet.
There is an old wartime proverb that enemy flak is always heaviest over the most important
target, and the remarkably ferocious wave of attacks and censorship against anyone broaching
the subject of Pizzagate seems to raise obvious dark suspicions. Indeed, the simultaneous waves
of attacks against all alternative media outlets as "Russian propaganda outlets" laid the basis
for the continuing regime of Social Media censorship that has become a central aspect of
today's world.
Pizzagate may or may not turn out to be true, but the ongoing Internet crackdown has
similarly engulfed topics of a somewhat similar nature but with vastly stronger
documentation. Although I don't use Twitter myself, I encountered the obvious implications of
this new censorship policy following McCain's death last August.
The senator had died on a Saturday afternoon, and readership of Sydney Schanberg's long
2008 expose quickly exploded, with numerous individuals Tweeting out the story and a large
fraction of our incoming traffic therefore coming from Twitter.
This continued until the following morning, at which point the huge flood of Tweets
continued to grow, but all incoming Twitter traffic suddenly and permanently vanished,
presumably because "shadow banning" had rendered those Tweets invisible.
My own article on McCain's very doubtful war record simultaneously suffered the same fate,
as did numerous other articles of a controversial nature that we published later that same
week.
"... Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has not seen these levels of concentration of ownership. The Soviet Union did not die because of apparent ideological reasons but due to economic bankruptcy caused by its uncompetitive monopolistic economy. Our verdict is that the US is heading in the same direction. ..."
"... In a future instalment of this report, we will show that the oligarchization of America – the placing it under the rule of the One Percent (or perhaps more accurately the 0.1%, if not 0.01%) - has been a deliberate ideologically driven long-term project to establish absolute economic power over the US and its political system and further extend that to involve an absolute global hegemony (the latter project thankfully thwarted by China and Russia). ..."
"... In present-day United States a few major investors – equity funds or private capital - are as a rule cross-owned by each other, forming investor oligopolies, which in turn own the business oligopolies. ..."
"... A study has shown that among a sample of the 1,500 largest US firms (S&P 1500), the probability of one major shareholder holding significant shares in two competing firms had jumped to 90% in 2014, while having been just 16% in 1999. (*2). ..."
"... Institutional investors like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, and JP Morgan, now own 80% of all stock in S&P 500 listed companies. The Big Three investors - BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street – alone constitute the largest shareholder in 88% of S&P 500 firms, which roughly correspond to America's 500 largest corporations. (*3). Both BlackRock and Vanguard are among the top five shareholders of almost 70% of America's largest 2,000 publicly traded corporations. (*4). ..."
A close-knit oligarchy controls all major corporations. Monopolization of ownership in US
economy fast approaching Soviet levels
Starting with Ronald Reagan's presidency, the US government willingly decided to ignore the
anti-trust laws so that corporations would have free rein to set up monopolies. With each
successive president the monopolistic concentration of business and shareholding in America has
grown precipitously eventually to reach the monstrous levels of the present day.
Today's level of monopolistic concentration is of such unprecedented levels that we may
without hesitation designate the US economy as a giant oligopoly. From economic power follows
political power, therefore the economic oligopoly translates into a political oligarchy. (It
seems, though, that the transformation has rather gone the other way around, a ferocious set of
oligarchs have consolidated their economic and political power beginning from the turn of the
twentieth century). The conclusion that
the US is an oligarchy finds support in a 2014 by a Princeton University study.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has not seen these levels of concentration
of ownership. The Soviet Union did not die because of apparent ideological reasons but due to
economic bankruptcy caused by its uncompetitive monopolistic economy. Our verdict is that the
US is heading in the same direction.
In a later report, we will demonstrate how all sectors of the US economy have fallen prey to
monopolization and how the corporate oligopoly has been set up across the country. This post
essentially serves as an appendix to that future report by providing the shocking details of
the concentration of corporate ownership.
Apart from illustrating the monopolization at the level of shareholding of the major
investors and corporations, we will in a follow-up post take a somewhat closer look at one
particularly fatal aspect of this phenomenon, namely the
consolidation of media (posted simultaneously with the present one) in the hands of
absurdly few oligarch corporations. In there, we will discuss the monopolies of the tech giants
and their ownership concentration together with the traditional media because they rightfully
belong to the same category directly restricting speech and the distribution of opinions in
society.
In a future instalment of this report, we will show that the oligarchization of America
– the placing it under the rule of the One Percent (or perhaps more accurately the 0.1%,
if not 0.01%) - has been a deliberate ideologically driven long-term project to establish
absolute economic power over the US and its political system and further extend that to involve
an absolute global hegemony (the latter project thankfully thwarted by China and Russia). To
achieve these goals, it has been crucial for the oligarchs to control and direct the narrative
on economy and war, on all public discourse on social affairs. By seizing the media, the
oligarchs have created a monstrous propaganda machine, which controls the opinions of the
majority of the US population.
We use the words 'monopoly,' 'monopolies,' and 'monopolization' in a broad sense and subsume
under these concepts all kinds of market dominance be it by one company or two or a small
number of companies, that is, oligopolies. At the end of the analysis, it is not of great
importance how many corporations share in the market dominance, rather what counts is the death
of competition and the position enabling market abuse, either through absolute dominance,
collusion, or by a de facto extinction of normal market competition. Therefore we use the term
'monopolization' to describe the process of reaching a critical level of non-competition on a
market. Correspondingly, we may denote 'monopoly companies' two corporations of a duopoly or
several of an oligopoly.
Horizontal shareholding – the cementation of the
oligarchy
One especially perfidious aspect of this concentration of ownership is that the same few
institutional investors have acquired undisputable control of the leading corporations in
practically all the most important sectors of industry. The situation when one or several
investors own controlling or significant shares of the top corporations in a given industry
(business sector) is referred to as horizontal shareholding . (*1). In present-day United
States a few major investors – equity funds or private capital - are as a rule
cross-owned by each other, forming investor oligopolies, which in turn own the business
oligopolies.
A study has shown that among a sample of the 1,500 largest US firms (S&P 1500), the
probability of one major shareholder holding significant shares in two competing firms had
jumped to 90% in 2014, while having been just 16% in 1999. (*2).
Institutional investors like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, and JP Morgan, now
own 80% of all stock in S&P 500 listed companies. The Big Three investors - BlackRock,
Vanguard and State Street – alone constitute the largest shareholder in 88% of S&P
500 firms, which roughly correspond to America's 500 largest corporations. (*3). Both BlackRock
and Vanguard are among the top five shareholders of almost 70% of America's largest 2,000
publicly traded corporations. (*4).
Blackrock had as of 2016 $6.2 trillion worth of assets under management, Vanguard $5.1
trillion, whereas State Street has dropped to a distant third with only $1 trillion in assets.
This compares with a total market capitalization of US stocks according to Russell
3000 of $30 trillion at end of 2017 (From 2016 to 2017, the Big Three has of course also
put on assets).Blackrock and Vanguard would then alone own more than one-third of all US
publicly listed shares.
From an expanded sample that includes the 3,000 largest publicly listed corporations
(Russell 3000 index), institutions owned (2016) about
78% of the equity .
The speed of concentration the US economy in the hands of institutions has been incredible.
Still back in 1950s, their share of the equity was 10%, by 1980 it was 30% after which the
concentration has rapidly grown to the present day approximately 80%. (*5). Another study puts
the present (2016) stock market capitalization held by institutional investors at 70%. (*6).
(The slight difference can possibly be explained by variations in the samples of companies
included).
As a result of taking into account the common ownership at investor level, it emerges that
the US economy is yet much more monopolized than it was previously thought when the focus had
been on the operational business corporation alone detached from their owners. (*7).
The
Oligarch owners assert their control
Apologists for monopolies have argued that the institutional investors who manage passive
capital are passive in their own conduct as shareholders as well. (*8). Even if that would be
true it would come with vastly detrimental consequences for the economy as that would mean that
in effect there would be no shareholder control at all and the corporate executives would
manage the companies exclusively with their own short-term benefits in mind, inevitably leading
to corruption and the loss of the common benefits businesses on a normally functioning
competitive market would bring.
In fact, there seems to have been a period in the US economy – before the rapid
monopolization of the last decade -when such passive investors had relinquished control to the
executives. (*9). But with the emergence of the Big Three investors and the astonishing
concentration of ownership that does not seem to hold water any longer. (*10). In fact, there
need not be any speculation about the matter as the monopolist owners are quite candid about
their ways. For example, BlackRock's CEO Larry Fink sends out
an annual guiding letter to his subject, practically to all the largest firms of the US and
increasingly also Europe and the rest of the West. In his pastoral, the CEO shares his view of
the global conditions affecting business prospects and calls for companies to adjust their
strategies accordingly.
The investor will eventually review the management's strategic plans for compliance with the
guidelines. Effectively, the BlackRock CEO has in this way assumed the role of a giant central
planner, rather like the Gosplan, the central planning agency of the Soviet command
economy.
The 2019 letter (referenced above) contains this striking passage, which should quell all
doubts about the extent to which BlackRock exercises its powers:
"As we seek to build long-term value for our clients through engagement, our aim is not to
micromanage a company's operations. Instead, our primary focus is to ensure board
accountability for creating long-term value. However, a long-term approach should not be
confused with an infinitely patient one. When BlackRock does not see progress despite ongoing
engagement, or companies are insufficiently responsive to our efforts to protect our clients'
long-term economic interests, we do not hesitate to exercise our right to vote against
incumbent directors or misaligned executive compensation."
Considering the striking facts rendered above, we should bear in mind that the establishment
of this virtually absolute oligarch ownership over all the largest corporations of the United
States is a relatively new phenomenon. We should therefore expect that the centralized control
and centralized planning will rapidly grow in extent as the power is asserted and methods are
refined.
Most of the capital of those institutional investors consists of so-called passive capital,
that is, such cases of investments where the investor has no intention of trying to achieve any
kind of control of the companies it invests in, the only motivation being to achieve as high as
possible a yield. In the overwhelming majority of the cases the funds flow into the major
institutional investors, which invest the money at their will in any corporations. The original
investors do not retain any control of the institutional investors, and do not expect it
either. Technically the institutional investors like BlackRock and Vanguard act as fiduciary
asset managers. But here's the rub, while the people who commit their assets to the funds may
be considered as passive investors, the institutional investors who employ those funds are most
certainly not.
Cross-ownership of oligarch corporations
To make matters yet worse, it must be kept in mind that the oligopolistic investors in turn
are frequently cross-owned by each other. (*11). In fact, there is no transparent way of
discovering who in fact controls the major institutional investors.
One of the major institutional investors, Vanguard is ghost owned insofar as it does not
have any owners at all in the traditional sense of the concept. The company claims that it is
owned by the multiple funds that it has itself set up and which it manages. This is how the
company puts it on
their home page : "At Vanguard, there are no outside owners, and therefore, no conflicting
loyalties. The company is owned by its funds, which in turn are owned by their shareholders --
including you, if you're a Vanguard fund investor." At the end of the analysis, it would then
seem that Vanguard is owned by Vanguard itself, certainly nobody should swallow the charade
that those funds stuffed with passive investor money would exercise any ownership control over
the superstructure Vanguard. We therefore assume that there is some group of people (other than
the company directors) that have retained the actual control of Vanguard behind the scenes
(perhaps through one or a few of the funds). In fact, we believe that all three (BlackRock,
State Street and Vanguard) are tightly controlled by a group of US oligarchs (or more widely
transatlantic oligarchs), who prefer not to brandish their power. It is beyond the scope of
this study and our means to investigate this hypothesis, but whatever, it is bad enough that as
a proven fact these three investor corporations wield this control over most of the American
economy. We also know that the three act in concert wherever they hold shares.
(*12).
Now, let's see who are the formal owners of these institutional investors
In considering these ownership charts, please, bear in mind that we have not consistently
examined to what degree the real control of one or another company has been arranged through a
scheme of issuing different classes of shares, where a special class of shares give vastly more
voting rights than the ordinary shares. One source asserts
that 355 of the companies in the Russell index consisting of the 3000 largest corporations
employ such a dual voting-class structure, or 11.8% of all major corporations.
We have mostly relied on www.stockzoa.com for the shareholder data. However, this and
other sources tend to list only the so-called institutional investors while omitting corporate
insiders and other individuals. (We have no idea why such strange practice is employed
@Alfa158 It won't
work though. There isn't a significant generation of 'hyper-competent' people amidst a
suppressed populace. Instead you get idiocracy, where even the elites show signs of mental
impairment, increasingly as time goes by. The Romans were rendered idiotic by arbitrary and
ruthless imperial autocracy, which scythed through families and ancient clans, leaving only
careerist slaves in its wake.
Eventually even the emperors were idiots. Some of them think they can compartmentalize
competencies, so you see these absolutely castrated and chemically autistic nerds working the
buttons in technical academia. You can produce bureaucrats of technocracy this way, but
nothing much new will come of it.
Elon Musk is not the most competent. He is the scion of a diamond magnate family if I'm
not mistaken. He is a silly man, nothing against him, but most of us don't admire him
all.
We feel sorry for people that have this kind of cultish infatuation with the man, his
golf-carts, and space-rockets. He is complete with our own Marie Antoinette, Grimes, each an
absolute clown, clown royals for a clown society. Idiocracy.
Hilarious to see Alex Jones pimping him as like a new Howard Hughes. Most of the alt press
is fizzled, co-opted or neutralized in some way. Infatuation with big, great people, heroes
from the heavens of the stars, is a pathology, whether it's directed at Trump or Bernie or
whoever.
People need to cultivate the hero within, and generate the ground level sovereignty that
could restore (from the earth and man up) a free republic. There are a lot of authority
figures from the deathstar on Youtube telling us how they are patriots and are fighting back.
May be. Could also be the enemy fucking with us. Really no way to know, which again, is a
motivating factor for de-centralization and vesting sovereignty into free men, free
communities, and up. The federal entity is necessary, but cannot hover self-sufficiently over
a devastated (by corporate dictat -- for human resource extraction) populace. If the states
withdraw their channeled sovereignty from the federal entity, it should collapse. Otherwise
it is a foreign entity. To the extent we are ruled by a tiny cabal of vampires, we lose
justification for the belief that our rulers are ours at all. Such an arrangement of power
presents an attractive target (minimal points of failure) for a strategic adversarial
compromise.
One reason I don't want people being anti-antifa, is I understand most of those people
just want local self-governance. Food-not-bombs people mostly just want to have a nice little
community garden and not be turned into slaves by the system. These are the 'anarchists'.
I've met them, mostly they are not so bad. It's a lot of divide-and-conquer going on.
Apologies for the stream-of-consciousness; I've posted some of this before, just pounding
on the nail.
This was an outright declaration of "class war" against working-class voters by a
"university-credentialed overclass" -- "managerial elite" which changed sides and allied with
financial oligrchy. See "The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite" by
Michael Lind
Notable quotes:
"... By canceling the class compromise that governed the capitalist societies after World War II, the neoliberal elite saws the seed of the current populist backlash. The "soft neoliberal" backbone of the Democratic Party (Clinton wing) were incapable of coming to terms with Hillary Clinton's defeat -- the rejection of the establishment candidate by the US population and first of all by the working class. The result has been the neo-McCarthyism campaign and the attempt to derail Trump via color revolution spearheaded by Brennan-Obama factions in CIA and FBI. ..."
It looks like Bloomberg is finished. He just committed political suicide with his comments
about farmers and metal workers.
BTW Bloomberg's plan is highly hypocritical -- like is Bloomberg himself.
During the stagflation crisis of the 1970s, a "neoliberal revolution from above" was
staged in the USA by "managerial elite" which like Soviet nomenklatura (which also staged a
neoliberal coup d'état) changed sides and betrayed the working class.
So those neoliberal scoundrels reversed the class compromise embodied in the New Deal.
The most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the neoliberal managerial class and financial
oligarchy who got to power via the "Quiet Coup" was the global labor arbitrage in which
production is outsourced to countries with lower wage levels and laxer regulations.
So all those "improving education" plans are, to a large extent, the smoke screen over the
fact that the US workers now need to compete against highly qualified and lower cost
immigrants and outsourced workforce.
The fact is that it is very difficult to find for US graduates in STEM disciplines a
decent job, and this is by design.
Also, after the "Reagan neoliberal revolution" ( actually a coup d'état ), profits
were maximized by putting downward pressure on domestic wages through the introduction of the
immigrant workforce (the collapse of the USSR helped greatly ). They push down wages and
compete for jobs with their domestic counterparts, including the recent graduates. So the
situation since 1991 was never too bright for STEM graduates.
By canceling the class compromise that governed the capitalist societies after World War
II, the neoliberal elite saws the seed of the current populist backlash. The "soft
neoliberal" backbone of the Democratic Party (Clinton wing) were incapable of coming to terms
with Hillary Clinton's defeat -- the rejection of the establishment candidate by the US
population and first of all by the working class. The result has been the neo-McCarthyism
campaign and the attempt to derail Trump via color revolution spearheaded by Brennan-Obama
factions in CIA and FBI.
See also recently published "The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial
Elite" by Michael Lind.
One of his quotes:
The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist,
but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of
an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is
hidden in plain sight.
Paul is probably just trying to get ahead of it. Possibly he was tipped
off he was about to be busted? Just a thought. Nothing better than blaming Q in a leftist mind..
Edit: In the Alex Jones case they sent the child porn as an attachment to
an email. This is straight up using his IP address. I'm no computer expert so I don't know if this can be
done? Or how hard it would be to do.
level 2
If someone had a backdoor into his system, it's theoretically possible
they could have done it by remote control. His description of it is completely ridiculous, though.
Continue this thread
level 1
even though prison limits Internet usage, the good news is he'll be allowed to use a
FAX MACHINE!
(FYI- Krugman's two famous predictions are 1) bitcoin is not worth its $100 price and
will soon go to $0.. and 2) the Internet will fail and be nothing more than a glorified fax machine)
Despite the handwringing otherwise, there are quite a few well-off people outside the
coast who like decorating in gold and even being so tacky as to have cars that match.
At what point up the socio-economic ladder do these sorts of concerns become manifest? And
how does one know? I'm an upper lower-class "coastal," and I'm mostly concerned with eating
properly and keeping my dilapidated 50s rambler from leaking. Years ago, when my children
were at home, and our family was solidly upper middle-class (at least that's what I thought),
I still didn't consider what other people thought of my cars, nor did I think much about
decorating colors.
Honestly, I think I find simple survival more interesting.
All of my life, those with immense, some might claim obscene amounts of wealth have been
celebrated in these United States, but you can sense a backlash is coming to them & showy
displays that come with the territory.
Well there was that period–late 60s, early 70s–when people like Leonard
Bernstein dressed in jeans and conspicuous wealth was very un-hip. Tom Wolfe wrote an article
about it,
I really think the turning point came around 1975 when the first pro athletes got million
a year contracts, and you can just imagine the jealousy of Ivy League types on Wall*Street as
the pros started making moon money.
By the time we got around to Reagan, high finance figured out how to hit the long ball via
Milken, etc.
I mentioned a week or 2 ago in regards to a pitcher who inked a nearly 1/3rd of a Billion
$ contract, contrast that with the $125k 1 year deal that Sandy Koufax signed in 1966.
Koufax and Don Drysdale (1965 World Series heroes) asked, together, for a $1 million, 3
year deal. That equated to a yearly salary of $166,000 for each of them for 3 years. (The
highest paid player in MLB at the time was Willie Mays at $105,000.) The Dodgers, with by far
the highest game attendance in baseball, offered Koufax $120k and Drysdale $105k. I believe
that was the salary that they accepted.
Much has changed since then. TV has made MLB a 7-8 $Billion a year enterprise. The LA
Dodgers as a team are now worth billion$. Marvin Miller wrenched union power for the players.
And remember, players have a very short earning window; Koufax retired at the age of 30 due
to an elbow worn out from throwing curve balls. (Sandy was a condo neighbor of mine when I
lived in Sun Valley, ID. A very special man.)
I graduated from college in 1979. Women wore (depending on the season), T-shirts,
sweatshirts, and jeans. Only the women from the the colleges that were seen as matrimonial in
orientation (one was called "Pine Mattress") wore makeup.
2 years after that, I was part of the group that did campus recruiting. Just walking
around, you could see a significant % of women wearing makeup, skirts, and hose, just to go
to class. Gah.
I think you are missing the point of my comment, that of all the things to get upset about
re Trump, it's his taste? Really? IMHO this is another manifestation of the fact that a
significant amount of the upset about him is his being so flagrantly nouveau riche and not
caring.
And you managed to miss the status signaling from the bourgeois on up? Women who color
their hair feel unkept if their roots grow in. Cars are huge status symbols, up and down the
line. Try driving an early 2000s car, even if in fine shape, and watch the reactions if
someone you've first met walks you to it. People look at the quality of leather in shoes,
tailoring and fabric as other status markers. Being thin is another status marker, as are
teeth ..
If you are really rich, the signals include flying on private jets, what charities you
support, what art you collect, if you own a vineyard (or have your name on a hospital wing or
building at a school .)
I read that Nixon acquired his hatred step by step and it was only really baked in after
about the 20000th time he got snubbed. For a long time he wanted to be one of them and he
could hardly believe it that it wasn't ever going to happen.
That was my take as well.
Snobbery is snobbery, and I thought Yves was pointing that out in a forceful manner, not
criticizing R.V.'s comment.
In any event, I find R.V.'s comments a welcome point of view adding depth to the larger
economic picture and its effects.
"because the bourgeois flavor of this corner of the Internet just doesn't suit my
proletariat tastes"
I think you completely misunderstood her point. She wasn't defending Trump's tastes in any
way, but pointing out that ALL the wealthy share similar tastes and singling Trump out as
some kind of singular aberration leaves out that this is standard of our ruling class.
None of us here support this kind status consumerism, and many of us likely share your
'proletarian tastes', its just that around here notions that Trump is some unique monster
different from the rest of his class hold little water.
I can't relate to a world where what you wear, what you drive and what you drink and the
conveyance which moves you around, really means anything.
That said, it's all part of the pecking order on high, and I get it. If Trump was seen in
a 2007 Toyota Matrix with 136k miles, his world would come undone.
Added to what the others have said; don't cut off your nose to spite your face. It takes a
thick skin to comment anywhere on the internet.
Also, so what if this blog commenteriat skews a bit bourgeois? Do you want to lock yourself
in an echo chamber? What good would that do for your understanding of the 'reality' on the
ground? I and others admit to frequenting conservative blogs. It doesn't mean we fully agree
with the reigning philosophies on those blogs, but we do tend to learn much of a substantive
nature that is not displayed on the "standard" MSM 'news' sources.
The entire lesson of the internet is that "Knowledge Is Power." Control the 'knowledge' or
it's accessibility, and you "rule" the society. Thus, a wide range of sources of information
is required. Locking yourself away in the anarchist sphere of the internet is going to stunt
your knowledge set, and limit your range of options for action. To effectively fight one's
enemies, one must understand them. So, to discommode the bourgeois, you first must get to
know them.
Finally, class has always been "..an unbridgeable chasm in western society." Else why all the
revolts and movements on the part of the working classes?
Anyway, don't leave in a huff. You are better than that.
This particular line of attack on Trump is exactly the line that used to be taken by the
old rich and New England rich against the new rich. (And the ethnic rich)
"... There is a collection of Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on policy details. ..."
"... They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes. ..."
"... He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside Syria. ..."
"... Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence ..."
" In a sense, the current NeoMcCartyism (Russophobia, Sinophobia) epidemic in the USA can
partially be viewed as a yet another sign of the crisis of neoliberalism: a desperate attempt
to patch the cracks in the neoliberal façade using scapegoating -- creation of an
external enemy to project the problems of the neoliberal society.
I would add another, pretty subjective measure of failure: the degradation of the elite.
When you look at Hillary, Trump, Biden, Warren, Harris, etc, you instantly understand what I
am talking about. They all look like the second-rate, if not the third rate politicians.
Also, the Epstein case was pretty symbolic."
I had decided to stay on the sidelines for the most part after making a few earlier
comments, but I liked this summary, except I would give Warren more credit. She is flawed like
most politicians, but she has made some of the right enemies within the Democratic Party.
On Trump and " the Deep State", there is no unified Deep State. There is a collection of
Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and
governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but
also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on
policy details.
They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is
antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes.
He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose
him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is
incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game
right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say
he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside
Syria.
But yes, scapegoating is a big thing with liberals now. It's pathetic. Our policies are
influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go
to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence .
For the most part, if we have a horrible political culture nearly all the blame for that is
homegrown.
Donald 11.07.19 at 4:40 am (no link)
Sigh. Various typos above. Here is one --
Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but
would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about
Russian influence.
--
I meant to say I would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from
liberals talking about Russian influence.
Yes, under neoliberalism like under Bolshevism, your social position is not determined solely
by the capital you own. It is also determined by the position you hold in the industry or
government (and your earnings/wages are derivative of that).
So we see the reincarnation of the idea of Soviet Nomenklatura on a new level in a
different social system. The term can still serve its purpose, and IMHO is better than
"Homoploutia."
It is also interesting that older middle-class folk, who due to their private savings,
401K, Roth and ISA accounts, SS pension (say $6K-7K a month for a couple), and sometimes
government or industry pension are formally millionaires (with some multimillionaires) are
not generally viewed as belonging to the upper 10%. They are looked at as an aberration by
the most sociologists.
That's because they are now retired and no longer hold any meaningful for the upper 10%
level position in the industry or government. In other words, they do not belong to
Nomenklatura. Or more correctly no longer belong to Nomenklatura (for those who retired from
relatively high level positions)
And, correspondingly, often are treated as junk in the neoliberal society.
Homoploutia, a concept I introduce in "Capitalism, Alone". In today's liberal capitalism,
it is common that the same people are rich *both* in terms of capital they own and earnings
they receive. This was almost unheard of in classical capitalism where capitalists seldom
doubled as wage workers.
So here, using @lisdata, you have a nice illustration of advanced capitalist countries
where people in the top decile by capital and labor income increasing coincide (right end)
and Brazil and Mexico where they do not.
Note the ambivalence * of homoploutia: in some sense it is desirable (and risk-reducing)
that capitalists also work, or that high earners possess capital too. But in another way, it
makes inequality-reducing policies more difficult.
Yes, under neoliberalism like under Bolshevism, your social position is not determined solely
by the capital you own. It is also determined by the position you hold in the industry or
government (and your earnings/wages are derivative of that).
So we see the reincarnation of the idea of Soviet Nomenklatura on a new level in a
different social system. The term can still serve its purpose, and IMHO is better than
"Homoploutia."
It is also interesting that older middle-class folk, who due to their private savings,
401K, Roth and ISA accounts, SS pension (say $6K-7K a month for a couple), and sometimes
government or industry pension are formally millionaires (with some multimillionaires) are
not generally viewed as belonging to the upper 10%. They are looked at as an aberration by
the most sociologists.
That's because they are now retired and no longer hold any meaningful for the upper 10%
level position in the industry or government. In other words, they do not belong to
Nomenklatura. Or more correctly no longer belong to Nomenklatura (for those who retired from
high level positions)
And, correspondingly, often are treated as junk in the neoliberal society.
The author should use the word "neoliberal" instead of "debauched"
Notable quotes:
"... When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control. ..."
"... In the political realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power. ..."
"... The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy? ..."
"... Class warfare tends to resonate most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives." In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution. ..."
"... Belligerent intervention is not nationalism! It is Neocon Texas - Harvard Redneckism ..."
"... I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy. Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler, Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it. ..."
"... The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the country out. ..."
"... We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families, we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us. ..."
"... It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment. ..."
"... The problem is that we are led by sociopaths. ..."
"... This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever). Get absolute power, get corrupted. ..."
"... I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters. Destroying historic value sets is part of this package. ..."
TAC are no doubt familiar with the truism that "politics is downstream of culture." This maxim, which is undoubtedly true,
should not, however, only be applied to social issues. In fact, culture shapes our public policy very broadly, far more than do dispassionate
"policymakers" exercising careful reason and judgment. The nature of our governance tends to reflect the cultural and philosophical
orientation of our elites, and this orientation is increasingly debauched.
When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated
with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control.
All the great religious and philosophical traditions understood that there is a part of our nature that can get out of control
and a divine part that can exert control. A culture thus becomes debauched when elites lose the sense that they need to rein themselves
in, that "there is an immortal essence presiding like a king over" their appetites, as Walter Lippmann put it. In the political
realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power.
The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how
might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy?
Let's start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home? One might surmise, for example, that
their lack of self-control might cause them to spend federal money as a means of keeping themselves in power. They might also attempt
to bribe their constituents by promising a variety of domestic programs while also pledging that the programs will be funded out
of the pockets of others. If they were really debauched, they might even borrow money from future generations to pay for these incumbency
protection initiatives. They might run up staggering
debt for the sake of their expedient political needs and promise that "the rich" can provide for it all. In short, the hallmark
domestic policy of a debauched democracy is, and has always been, class warfare.
It should be pointed out that class warfare is not simply a creation of demagogues on the left. Class warfare tends to resonate
most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives."
In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution.
While most conservatives might agree about the dangers of class warfare, it is on the foreign policy front where they seem most
debauched themselves. They remain stuck in a vortex of GOP clichés, with standard references to Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill,
leaders who were closer in their time to the American Civil War than we are to them now. For many of these "conservatives," every
contemporary authoritarian leader is the progeny of Hitler and any attempt to establish cordial relations is a rerun of Munich 1938.
As with domestic policy, the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power
reflected in attempts to exert dominion over others with no particular nexus to the national interest. A debauched foreign policy
might just look like the decision to invade Iraq -- a war whose supporters offered numerous justifications, including alleged weapons
of mass destruction, democracy promotion, and anti-terrorism. Yet in hindsight, its real cause seems to have been the simple desire
by our leaders to impose their will. In a debauched democracy, class warfare is the paradigmatic domestic policy and profligate war
making is the paradigmatic foreign policy.
Given that self-control and restraint are the hallmarks of a genuinely conservative foreign policy -- because they remain humble
about what human nature can actually achieve -- one should receive the recent conference on
national conservatism with some
skepticism . The
retinue of experts who spoke generally espoused a foreign policy that sought dominion over others -- in other words, a continuation
of the belligerent interventionism that characterized the second Bush administration. This may be nationalism, but it seems not to
be conservatism.
One hopes that the leaders of this new movement will re-consider their foreign policy orientation as they have increasingly formidable
resources to draw upon. The creation of the Quincy Institute and the rise of
an intellectually formidable network of foreign policy "restrainers" provide hope.
Given that culture is king, however, these intellectuals may want to keep top of mind that restraint is not simply a policy option
but a character trait -- a virtue -- that needs to be developed in leaders who are then elevated. Prudent policies are no doubt essential
but the most important challenge in politics is, and always will be, attracting and encouraging the best leaders to rule. Our system
often does the opposite. This is at root a cultural problem.
William S. Smith is research fellow and managing director at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University
of America, and author of the new book
Democracy and Imperialism .
I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy.
Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler,
Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it.
Moreover, has the author never heard of the concept "reasons of state"?: a purely political reason for action on the part of
a ruler or government, especially where a departure from openness, justice, or honesty is involved (e.g. "the king returned that
he had reasons of state for all he did"). In an existential emergency, would the leader of a nation be justified in using amoral
means to save his nation; but in all other circumstances should rely on conventional Christian morality as the default position?
This is what Pres. Truman apparently did when he dropped a-bombs on two Japanese cities. What Dietrich Bonhoeffer was apparently
involved with in the assassination attempt on Hitler. What Moses was embroiled with when he slayed 3,000 of his "debauched" followers
in the Exodus from Egypt.
The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other
than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous
non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the
country out.
The opponent who beat her in the election promised the opposite and pretty much has delivered on his promises. Just
how is the current administration "unrestrained" other than he has not fulfilled pacifist's fantasies of pulling out of every
foreign country and conflict? Such pull outs have to be weighed on a case by case basis to determine the cost to human life and
world order. If the current administration has a policy it is that our allies have to fight and fund their own wars and conflicts
rather than rely on the U.S. to fight their wars for them.
The article is full of inflationary clichés ('politics is downstream of culture', 'class warfare', etc. And just how does the
author connect the dots between pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was elected to nothing and held no power over anyone, and our "debauched'
foreign policy? Correlation is not causation but there isn't even a correlation there.
The more one reads opinions of Intellectuals , and as anyone with half a brain knows, to never believe a Politician, I am always
reminded, after considerable research why I personally choose Realism . Realism is certainly not new and has some varied forms.
Realism re-surfaced leading up to and during WW 2.
"...the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power reflected in attempts
to exert dominion over others"
I love this.
We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families,
we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these
countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us.
This reminds me of a Nick Pemberton article when he wrote ...
"We still play the victim. And amazingly we believe it ... We believe we can take whatever we want. We believe that this world
does not contain differences to be negotiated, but foes to be defeated."
I could never get this out of my head.
It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the
gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment.
Trump the adulterer was the one who decided against bombing
because he did not have a taste for blood while the pious were eager for it.
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth."
-Matthew 5:5
"Meek" is the wrong word/translation. In the original Greek, the word is "preais" and it does not mean docile and submissive.
Rather the word means gentleness blended with restrained strength/power.
The passage should read, "Blessed are those who have swords and know how to use them but keep them sheathed: for they shall
inherit the Earth."
There is a simpler explanation of what has happened to the US. When it comes to human beings, the only thing you need to remember
is Lord Acton's dictum: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did
not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent
NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint
of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever).
Get absolute power, get corrupted.
The same thing is true domestically in the US. A small ethnic minority gave 50% and 25% of the money spent by the Democrats
and Republicans in the last presidential election. That gives them huge influence over the foreign policy of the country. Best
of all, no one else can question what is going on because classic tropes etc. Give a small group absolute power, get the swamp.
I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters.
Destroying historic value sets is part of this package.
The destruction of main core Christianity has not helped stem this tide
(subtle Happy Holidays, CE, BCE, etc.) . Brave women and men must arise and sewerize (drain the swamp) this mob of miscreants
defiling our belief system. .They have a right to exist but not dictate by subterfuge and fake news our values as they have been
doing.
Remove the OP pic of the Marines NOW, and fix the rest of your whine later.
This is America, we have no "betters" and our "gov't" has never, and will never, be comprised of anything other than our idiot
ay-whole neighbors who needed a job, whose sole job it is to govern the machinations of gov't and not us, as an un-self-governed
Society is otherwise un-governable.
And [due to human nature and physics (of which neither has or will change in the entire history of humanity)] sometimes you
have to go to war at the slightest of hints of provocation in order to achieve "illimitably sustainable conflict" of "Society"
[J.M. Thomas R., TERMS, 2012] not have to haphazardly fight minute to minute of every day.
“ If when Political objects are unimportant, motives weak, the excitement of forces small, a cautious commander tries
in all kinds of ways, without great crises and bloody solutions, to twist himself skillfully into peace through the characteristic
weakness of his enemy in the field and in the cabinet, we have no right to find fault with him, if the premise on which he
acts are well founded and justified by success;
still we must require him to remember that he only travels on forbidden tracks,
where the God of War may surprise him; that he ought always to keep his eye on the enemy, in order that he may not have to defend
himself with a dress rapier if the enemy takes up a sharp sword ”.
(Clausewitz, “On War” pg. 137)
Loosely paraphrased: " peaceable resolution to conflict is only effective, and should only be sought and relied upon, when
it is certain that the other party will never resort to arms, with the implication that that is never " [J.M.Thomas R., TERMS,
2012 Pg. 80]
Weakness is provocative don't provoke your enemies. Quit whining.
Let’s start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home?
Let's see. They'd likely repeatedly cut taxes on the wealthiest and on corporations and skyrocket deficits. They'd likely increase
military spending to insane levels to the benefit of the military industrial complex. They'd likely perform wide scale deregulation
on polluting industries. They'd ignore all inconvenient science, especially that which didn't support the fossil fuel industry.
They'd likely avoid meaningful action on a healthcare system that is more broken and expensive than any other OECD nation. Then
they'd look for targets, the "others", to bash and attack in attempt to hide the real world consequences of what they were doing.
Why would they do this? They do it for campaign contributions, "a means of keeping themselves in power."
I believe we are in the hands of:
The Demons of “Democracy”
The demons of “democracy” speak of “peace”
While their selling of weapons does not cease
Hypocrites from hell who posture on the world stage
When they should be in a gigantic prison cage
Evil reprobates in positions of power Anything that’s good they devour Destroying countries and families too This is the satanic work they do
Fancy titles are given to their names
Such is the state of a system insane
Madness and filth has become “normal”
Nobody speaks or asks: “Is it moral”?
Principals and ethics, they are of them, devoid Speaking of decency and truth has them annoyed Pimping for war is their diabolical expertise Killing and bombing is the forte of this demonic sleaze
Training and supporting terrorists, they do this as well
Will nobody arrest this treacherous crew from hell?
These people are devils and full of hypocrisy
We need to be freed from these, demons of “democracy”...
"... By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She now spends most of her time in Asia researching a book about textile artisans. She also writes regularly about legal, political economy, and regulatory topics for various consulting clients and publications, as well as writes occasional travel pieces for The National . ..."
"... One more issue to address; Retailers have to dispose of unsold inventory at a loss. Doesn't fast-fashion mean faster accumulation of un-sellable stuff, so faster losses? What could go wrong? ..."
"... "One fact jumped out at me: the average fast fashion item is worn seven times, and is then either abandoned to the back of one's closet or discarded, according to a 2015 survey of women's buying habits conducted by the UK children's charity, Barnardo's. " ..."
By
Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She now spends most of her time in Asia researching
a book about textile artisans. She also writes regularly about legal, political economy, and regulatory topics for various consulting
clients and publications, as well as writes occasional travel pieces for The
National .
Bloomberg recently reported in
Retailers Chasing Fast Fashion Stumble Under Heavy Buyout Debts that ""Euro fast fashion," featuring trendy clothing that can
move from catwalks to stores in mere weeks, has taken the U.S. by storm, and distressed specialty apparel retailers are among the
biggest casualties."
The fashion industry conceals many dirty little secrets. Its labour practices have long been notorious, with many low-cost
producers relying on sweatshop production and in some cases, child labor. These and other problems have only worsened with the
rise of fast fashion– cheap, shoddy clothes intended not for the long haul, but to be worn for a short while, and then discarded
in favour of the next new thing.
The reasons for fast fashion's out-performance in the US market are due in part to missteps by specialty retailers– especially
the high levels of debt they've assumed. But there's no doubt that also due to fast fashion appeals to certain consumers, especially
younger ones. According to Bloomberg:
Younger shoppers have gravitated to fast fashion brands not only because they're more affordable but also because they're able
to quickly capture the latest looks and make them available in a fraction of the time traditional merchants need. Cheaper prices
also mean customers of these brands, sometimes referred to as disposable fashion, have come to expect an ever-changing assortment.
And the fast fashion companies comply. A 2016 McKinsey article,
Style that's sustainable: A new fast-fashion formula , notes that each year, Zara introduces 24 new clothing collections, compared
to H&M's 12 to 16. When all European apparel companies are considered, the average number of clothing collections has more than doubled,
from two each year in 2000 to approximately five each year in 2011.
Fast Fashion: Cheap at Whose Expense?
But this appeal brings with it considerable costs, two of which I'll discuss in this post. One necessary condition for the low
cost of "fast fashion" production is the poor pay workers receive. Most often, it's people in developing countries who are paid low
wages, and subject to appalling working conditions. Yet paltry wages in this sector are not just a problem for developing countries.
A (UK) Channel 4's Dispatches program,
Undercover:
Britain's Cheap Clothes , broadcast earlier this month, revealed that UK fast fashion producers in Leicester were flouting minimum
wage laws.
Laborers in Britain responsible for making clothes for popular fast fashion retailers like River Island and New Look are being
paid less than half the required minimum wage. An investigation by Britain's Channel 4 television has revealed that Leicester-based
manufacturers, Fashion Square Ltd and United Creations Ltd, which supply garments and accessories to River Island, New Look, Boohoo,
and Missguided, among other retailers, paid their employees between 3 pounds ($3.74) and 3.5 pounds ($4.36) per hour. The hourly
rate for the national living wage in Britain is 7.20 pounds ($8.97) for workers 25 years and older.
Channel
4 caught one textile boss on a secret camera admitting that his company is competing directly with Bangladeshi and Chinese companies
to fill orders, and so must rein in its costs accordingly:
We don't get paid much for our clothes, and we need to compete with China and Bangladesh. They can get it cheap there. How
will they get it made cheaper here? If we pay everyone Ł10 or Ł6 then we will make a loss.
Burgeoning Environmental Costs
Another consequence of the rise of fast fashion is the considerable environmental costs it has imposed. Some of these occur at
the production stage. Cotton– which
McKinsey notes accounts for about 30 percent of all textile fiber consumption– typically requires copious amounts of water, pesticides,
and fertilizer to produce. Synthetics require extraction and refining of oil– raising another set of concerns, according to
Timeout for Fast Fashion , a 2016 Greenpeace report. That report also flags both the problematic use of hazardous chemicals in
production processes (including dying) and high energy use (which in the countries with the largest textile sectors, typically comes
from fossil fuels).
As I posted yesterday in
Waste
Not, Want Not: Right to Repair Laws on Agenda in Some States , one consequence of long sojourns spent outside the US is I've
realized how wasteful so many basic American systems are. Perhaps I'll express the point somewhat differently here - I mean, how
excessive so many basic American systems are, and that excess translates into unnecessary waste. Some obvious examples: the cars
(or more often pickup trucks and SUVs) are HUUUGE compared to those in Europe, not to mention India and Asia (where I often find
myself using three-wheeler auto rickshaws to get about-many of these powered by CNG or LPG). The food is over-packaged. I could go
on.
One fact jumped out at me: the average fast fashion item is worn seven times, and is then either abandoned to the back of one's
closet or discarded, according to a 2015 survey of women's buying habits conducted by the UK children's charity,
Barnardo's . In my earlier post, I quoted some statistics from a Newsweek cover story,
Fast Fashion is Creating an Environmental
Crisis , "In less than 20 years, the volume of clothing Americans toss each year has doubled from 7 million to 14 million tons,
or an astounding 80 pounds per person. "
I discuss some of these back-end environmental consequences at greater length in my earlier
post . Much of this
fashion waste ends up in landfills,
350,000 tonnes
each year in the UK alone. Although there have been some efforts made to encourage recycling, this is both difficult and expensive
to do at the fiber level (and the quality does not match that of virgin fiber, which is still preferred for quality production).
Instead, recycling is done at the garment level, with the end product often being rags or insulation. But there's a limit to how
many rags, or units of insulation, are necessary. What about sending garments to developing countries? Their leaders say: Enough!
Many fast fashion products are shoddy and not hard-wearing. The volume available has overwhelmed demand, and further, destroyed domestic
textile production, so much so that some East African states have called for a
ban on second-hand clothing to protect domestic producers.
The environmental problems are only expected to worsen as more residents of developing countries join the middle class. According
to
McKinsey :
While sales growth has been robust around the world, emerging economies have seen especially large rises in clothing sales,
as more people in them have joined the middle class. In five large developing countries-Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and Russia-apparel
sales grew eight times faster than in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States [over the 2000-2014 period].
Even after this increase, the average developing-country resident purchases a fraction of the clothing that his or her developed-world
counterpart buys each year. Overall clothing sales could rise significantly if developing-country consumers choose to buy more
clothing as their purchasing power increases.
Technology Fairy Rides to the Rescue?
There are some new specialty products specifically designed to address the textile waste disposal issue, such as a new Adidas
shoe made of biodegradable artificial spider silk that will decompose in the sink once you're finished with it. As reported in a
recent Treehugger piece,
Adidas' new
shoes will dissolve in your sink :
Adidas has invented a running shoe that will decompose in the sink. Once you've worn it out (the company recommends two years
of use), you can immerse the shoes in water, add a digestion enzyme called proteinase, and let it work for 36 hours. It will cause
the protein-based yarn to break down, and you'll be able to drain the liquefied shoes down the sink – everything except the foam
sole, which will still require disposal.
Now as a recovering science geek– I was an MIT undergrad after all, and also the first kid on my block to have a chemistry set–
on first reading of this article, I found the concept of self-dissolving running shoes to be pretty cool. But after further thought,
I noticed that the article's a bit vague on how completely the shoes dissolve, and what, exactly, ends up going into your local sewer
system once the "dissolving" is completed. Bottom line is that it doesn't look to me that massive ramping up of such a product– or
its progeny– is going to offset the huge and growing environmental costs of fast fashion anytime soon.
So I return to my starting point: it's sad to see that fast fashion is flourishing in the US, and that in this as in so many other
areas, we're hurtling away from thinking about what a sustainable system for textile production, sales, and disposal would look like–
one that doesn't rely so heavily on cut-rate labor, nor impose such considerable front-end and back-end environmental costs.
PlutoniumKun ,
January 30, 2017 at 1:48 pm
I know you've quoted this figure before:
"In less than 20 years, the volume of clothing Americans toss each year has doubled from 7 million to 14 million tons, or
an astounding 80 pounds per person. "
One problem of course is the poverty paradox (I've heard it referred to as the poverty tax) – that buying long lasting quality
things saves money in the long run – but to buy quality means you have to have available cash to buy it in the first place. So
often, when short on money, the disposable fashion alternative is the only one affordable for many people.
For a few years now I've intended to invest in a really good pair of leather shoes – the type my father would have had, and
kept for many years, even decades, regularly getting them fixed and resoled in the shoe repairers. But each time I try to find
one I find they are very expensive, so I end up getting something that looks identical in the sales, costs about a quarter or
less than the high quality ones, but I know from experience will fall apart in 2 years and is unrepairable. In terms of mens clothes,
you can apply the same logic to a good jacket, good jeans, a good suit, etc. Quality last for years and pays for itself, but you
need to have the money first to buy it.
One more issue to address; Retailers have to dispose of unsold inventory at a loss. Doesn't fast-fashion mean faster accumulation of un-sellable stuff, so faster losses? What could go wrong?
"One fact jumped out at me: the average fast fashion item is worn seven times, and is then either abandoned to the back of
one's closet or discarded, according to a 2015 survey of women's buying habits conducted by the UK children's charity, Barnardo's.
"
That sounds more like short-term renting of clothing instead of ownership. So if I buy a cheap blouse, wear it seven times,
discard it and buy another cheap blouse, what is the cost per each wearing of a cheap blouse? I buy, say, a $28 dollar blouse,
wear it 7 times, costing $4 per wear. I buy, say, a $40 blouse, wear it 14 times, costing $2.85 per wear.
Fast fashion sounds
much more expensive, in the long run, than buying a better quality at higher initial price from which I would get more use. Or
maybe the problem isn't initial cost but the throw-away mentality.
For many, it is the notion of having far fewer items of clothing that one wears in more settings. In France, you have a far
smaller closet, but it's way nicer. Same for children's clothing.
Or maybe the problem isn't initial cost but the throw-away mentality.
More so, the "keeping up with the micro-season's fashion" mentality that the fashion industry is dependent upon. Whole industry
would fall apart if there wasn't a large number of people out there who think the difference between this winter's and last winter's
fashion is significant (I know he's popular to cite on here, so William Gibson's Zero History deals with this in length).
One of the issues I understood from the article is that the 'younger set' of customers, especially, would prefer to keep up
with the very latest ('fast') fashion, so after wearing the blouse 7 times it doesn't matter to them that the more expensive (on
the front end) blouse will last twice as long or more. It would be 'out of fashion' by then so they wouldn't wear it anymore,
anyway.
Plus, as pointed out, it's the initial cost they consider, wanting to spend as little as possible to 'stay in style', with
styles changing ever more quickly.
Vanity is playing a large part of the fast fashion.
.
As a now a 65 y/o woman I'm most comfortable in boot cut jeans & a top or shirt.
However, I still remember a different mindset of my youth.
Vanity seems to fade when gravity & stress have taken their toll, tho'.
I have a lot of very good vintage designer clothes in my closet. I got them at consignment stores for $2 to $20. What does
that make me, I wonder, these days? I have not shopped for new duds except for underwear and shoes and socks for about 20 years.
I am a bad person.
Portia, consider me another who is 'bad to the bone', as I shop thrift stores.
While I often see some cheap 'fast fashion' in them, I've also scored some great upper-end clothing for almost nothing.
A neighbor, for whom money is no problem, dropped her jaw when I showed her a beautiful designer sweater I'd bought–for 50 cents.
I'd even found a great pair of cords to match for another 50 cents, also of good quality.
Jeans can be the best find if you're lucky. Nicely broken in & not the $40-50 they now sell for.
Usually $4 or less & better quality.
As a gift, she'd surprised me with an inexpensive (Cosco) pair of suede/shearling snow boots. The side seam pulled out (not
sure it was ever secured in the first place) after I'd worn them just 4 brief times.
Now wearing plastic bags in my 'fast fashion' snow boots to stay dry.
Wow. Thanks for that link.
A clothing designer friend is completely into sustainable clothing, currently using bamboo for her line.
She recently discovered that there was too much pollution in the processing of it from her former supplier, however, so has
now found another that is not as harmful to the environment.
I'm passing this link along to her right now, so she can 'think outside the box' even a little more.
Thanks!
If you've ever seen the excellent Italian film Gomorrah
, based on an investigative journalists book, it depicts how many 'Made in Italy' products are made in sweatshops entirely
staffed with illegal Chinese immigrants. I suspect that tariffs would have the impact of creating an underground of dubious 'finishing'
factories in the US, putting buttons on clothes made elsewhere.
It's hard work to escape the US system. I rarely shop aisles and in the year without plastic, there were few goods to be had
that aren't in plastic (some glass and cardboard), I'd hit the bulk bins with fabric bags, but that is for dry goods. There is
typically only a small section of produce that is not in plastic.
It's difficult to find clothing, shoes etc made in the US. Could someone make their own? What's available for US raw goods?
The instruction to just buy basics is also a challenge. Basics are cheaply made. Thrift stores might be a better option for
durables.
My pet peeve is corporations that destroy goods (will literally slice clothing) rather than allow the poor to get their hands
on the clothing. We are a landfill society.
Adidas shoes dissolving in rainy climates? It may be a matter of time before their 'sink additive' goes native, to the detriment
of many runners. Those in the PNW wear rain slickers, 60/40, GoreTex or similar outerwear to squeeze in that run even the most
rainy days.
I know, catastrophizing, but somebody has to do it when there are too many Onion-like blurbs in the media.
Now as a recovering science geek– I was an MIT undergrad after all, and also the first kid on my block to have a chemistry
set– on first reading of this article, I found the concept of self-dissolving running shoes to be pretty cool. But after further
thought, I noticed that the article's a bit vague on how completely the shoes dissolve, and what, exactly, ends up going into
your local sewer system once the "dissolving" is completed.
Sounds like they're trying to appeal to the crowd that thinks Tesla cars are going to save the world. Greenish sounding stuff
to get the STEM lord money, most who will just dispose of them the same way as any other pair of shoes.
I don't get it. Either Maher is part of the thinking class that has lost it's mind, or
he's a destructive, cynical (familyblog) who is deliberately inflaming his 'Liberal
Goodthinking' audience and gaslighting Wilkerson.
The LIberal Goodthinkers have gone so crazy they are making Trump look good.
Dangerous times.
PS: Thanks for term "Liberal Goodthinkers". Pretty good.
It's the thinking class versus the deplorables. And the former is enabling the latter in
no uncertain terms. This period of lunacy won't be forgotten come voting time. Whereas, had
the dems gracefully accepted defeat and concentrated on real issues that concern us all, they
might have had a shot at the midterm merrygoround. Instead, they chose to keep the failed
slurs of the last campaign a topic of conversation all the way through, as in fact the term
'transition' on these boards does as well. Transition = transitory.
Something is making Trump a very viable stayer through these turbulent times, and the
minefield that these people have turned being President into is a sad commentary on the state
of our union. But like the sanctions that are unthinkingly dispersed hither and yon, the
blowback can be supercharged, and I can't think of more worthy recipients.
Maher was a long time libertarian, and with the rightward shift of Team Blue and medical
Marijuana (after all we still need to arrest minorities), Bill became a "liberal" type. He's
still the same POS he was in the 90's.
Bingo! How he ever fooled anyone into thinking he was less than a narcissistic,
libertarian. money grubbing sociopath is beyond me. First time I saw him, way back when, he
was railing against Social Security and he is perhaps most responsible for making a celebrity
out of Arianna Huffington, giving her a nationwide pulpit on his original show when she was
repulsively right-wing.
This article contains content that some may find distressing.
Jeffrey Epstein "was" apparently a serial molester of children. He had manipulation down to an art form, as many molesters do.
He seemed to be an expert at figuring out a girl's weak point, whether it was poverty, a deceased family member, or feeling alienated
from her peers.
This is a common ploy. Many molesters seek out children or teens who have lost a parent and use this as a way to build a friendship.
Then, because children don't think like adults, they are manipulated, coerced, or threatened into sexual activity.
The story below could be told a hundred thousand times with only tiny changes. The names and the faces would be different. The
settings might not be a mansion in Manhattan or in Palm Beach but rather a quiet part of a church, a school, or some kind of activity
for teens. The setting could be in the house next door to you, where someone with evil intent befriends a vulnerable young person
with the stated goal of helping them, but an end result that couldn't be further from reality.
How 14-year-old Jennifer Araoz met Jeffrey Epstein
Jennifer Araoz was 14 years old when she first met her future rapist, Jeffrey Epstein. She wrote about how she was manipulated,
first by his recruiter, then by Epstein himself. There are many powerful lessons that we as parents can learn from her story.
During my freshman year, one of Epstein's recruiters, a stranger, approached me on the sidewalk outside my high school. Epstein
never operated alone. He had a ring of enablers and surrounded himself with influential people. I was attending a performing arts
school on the Upper East Side, studying musical theater. I wanted to be an actress and a singer. (
source )
Another
report based on court documents says that the recruiter befriended Jennifer, took her out to eat after school a few times, and
learned more about her, such as the fact that Jennifer's father had died from an AIDs-related illness and her family could barely
scrape by financially.
The recruiter told me about a wealthy man she knew named Jeffrey Epstein. Meeting him would be beneficial, and he could introduce
me to the right people for my career, she said. When I confided that I had recently lost my father and that my family was living
on food stamps, she told me he was very caring and wanted to help us financially. (
source )
The recruiter finally got Jennifer to go with her to meet Epstein. Court documents say that they all three met together for the
first month or so.
The visits during the first month felt benign, at least at the time. On my second visit, Epstein also gave me a digital camera
as a gift. The visits were about one to two hours long and we would spend the time talking. After each visit, he or his secretary
would hand me $300 in cash, supposedly to help my family. (
source )
Epstein claimed he was 'a big AIDS activist' which you can imagine would mean a lot to a 14-year-old whose father died of the
disease.
Soon the visits would take a dark turn.
By the second month of Jennifer's visits to the mansion, the recruiter no longer attended the visits., the manipulation began
in earnest.
But within about a month, he started asking me for massages and instructed me to take my top off. He said he would need to
see my body if he was going to help me break into modeling. I felt uncomfortable and intimidated, but I did as he said. The assault
escalated when, during these massages, he would flip over and sexually gratify himself and touch me inappropriately. For a little
over a year, I went to Epstein's home once or twice a week.
After that day, I never went back. I also quit the performing arts school -- the one I had auditioned for and had wanted so
badly to attend. It was too close to his house, the scene of so many crimes. I was too scared I would see him or his recruiter.
So I transferred to another school in Queens close to my home. Since I was no longer able to pursue my dream of performing arts
I eventually lost interest and dropped out. (
source )
Sure, we can say that she knew things weren't right when he asked her to take her top off. By this point, she was 15 years old.
Old enough to know right from wrong. But if she was getting $300 twice a week and helping her family with it, it's pretty easy to
see how she would want to continue helping her family despite her discomfort. Epstein knew exactly what he was doing.
Epstein's wealth, power, and connections would have made going against him seem like an insurmountable feat for a vulnerable 15-year-old
girl who had recently lost her father. Who would have believed her word against that of this presumed philanthropist?
A few days ago, Jennifer, now 32, filed a massive lawsuit against Epstein's estate, Ghislaine Maxwell, and 3 members of Epstein's
household staff. The complaint alleges that Maxwell and the staff "conspired with each other to make possible and otherwise facilitate
the sexual abuse and rape of Plaintiff."
Some of Epstein's victims recruited new girls for him.
Epstein's indictment explains how he manipulated some of the girls he sexually abused to bring other girls to him.
Prosecutors say he lured underage girls, some as young as 14, to his residences, promising them a cash payment in exchange
for giving him a massage. Instead, he would sexually abuse them -- groping them, making them touch him while he masturbated, and
using sex toys on the minors. Then, he would allegedly ask them to recruit other girls. (
source )
A detailed report in the Miami Herald referred to it as a "sexual pyramid scheme." One of Epstein's accusers, Courtney Wild, reiterates
the theme of the story told by Jennifer Boaz.
"Jeffrey preyed on girls who were in a bad way, girls who were basically homeless. He went after girls who he thought no one
would listen to and he was right,'' said Courtney Wild, who was 14 when she met Epstein. (
source )
Courtney's time spent with Epstein nearly destroyed her.
Before she met Epstein, Courtney Wild was captain of the cheerleading squad, first trumpet in the band and an A-student at
Lake Worth Middle School.
After she met Epstein, she was a stripper, a drug addict and an inmate at Gadsden Correctional Institution in Florida's Panhandle.
Wild still had braces on her teeth when she was introduced to him in 2002 at the age of 14.
She was fair, petite and slender, blonde and blue-eyed. (
source )
She began to recruit other girls for him in Palm Beach.
Wild said Epstein preferred girls who were white, appeared prepubescent and those who were easy to manipulate into going further
each time
"By the time I was 16, I had probably brought him 70 to 80 girls who were all 14 and 15 years old. He was involved in my life
for years," said Wild, who was released from prison in October after serving three years on drug charges.
The girls -- mostly 13 to 16 -- were lured to his pink waterfront mansion by Wild and other girls, who went to malls, house
parties and other places where girls congregated, and told recruits that they could earn $200 to $300 to give a man -- Epstein
-- a massage, according to an unredacted copy of the Palm Beach police investigation obtained by the Herald. (
source )
Epstein had it down to an art form.
Palm Beach police detective Joseph Recarey explains how Epstein insinuated himself into the girls' lives.
"The common interview with a girl went like this: 'I was brought there by so and so. I didn't feel comfortable with what happened,
but I got paid well, so I was told if I didn't feel comfortable, I could bring someone else and still get paid,' '' Recarey said.
During the massage sessions, Recarey said Epstein would molest the girls, paying them premiums for engaging in oral sex and
intercourse, and offering them a further bounty to find him more girls
Epstein could be a generous benefactor, Recarey said, buying his favored girls gifts. He might rent a car for a young girl
to make it more convenient for her to stop by and cater to him. Once, he sent a bucket of roses to the local high school after
one of his girls starred in a stage production. The floral-delivery instructions and a report card for one of the girls were discovered
in a search of his mansion and trash. Police also obtained receipts for the rental cars and gifts, Recarey said.
Epstein counseled the girls about their schooling, and told them he would help them get into college, modeling school, fashion
design or acting. At least two of Epstein's victims told police that they were in love with him, according to the police report.
( source )
You may look at these stories and scorn the victims. After all, they kept going back, didn't they? They liked the money, didn't
they?
But they were children. Many of them were isolated, vulnerable, and without support systems. Many of them felt ashamed but didn't
know how to extricate themselves. They were confused and scared, and Epstein was a pro at taking advantage of these emotions and
doubts.
The girls are not to blame here. The adults are.
Epstein is not the only predator out there.
While this article focuses on how Epstein was able to lure so many victims,
as Dagny Taggert recently wrote , there are
many more people in power out there preying on children. Clergy, priests, teachers, neighbors, musicians, and random people on the
internet are out there preying on and trafficking children.
Dagny wrote:
According to
The National
Center for Victims of Crime , the prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) is difficult to determine because it is often not
reported. Experts agree that the incidence is far greater than what is reported to authorities.
Statistics below represent some of the research done on child sexual abuse.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Children's Bureau report Child Maltreatment 2010 found that
9.2% of victimized children were sexually
assaulted (page 24).
1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse;
Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual
abuse incident;
During a one-year period in the U.S., 16% of youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;
Over the course of their lifetime, 28% of U.S. youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;
Children are most vulnerable to CSA between the ages of 7 and 13.
According to Darkness to Light , a non-profit committed to empowering adults
to prevent child sexual abuse, only about one-third of child sexual abuse incidents are identified, and even
fewer are reported .
When my children's father passed away, it wasn't too long afterward that I left my corporate job. I volunteered when the company
began layoffs and took a small payment and my retirement fund to start a new life writing freelance. It wasn't long after that when
I started this website.
I wanted to be home when they got back from school every day. I didn't want them to seem like prey to those looking for children
with weak support systems. My own daughters could so easily have had a story like the one Jennifer has told.
I know that what I did is not possible for every family that suffers a loss. I was pretty fortunate to be able to find work from
home that paid enough to allow me to be there.
What you, as a parent, must understand are the things that make your child seem vulnerable.
Loneliness
Social isolation and few, if any, friends
Lack of a support system from parents and caregivers
Spending too much time on their own
Alienation from parents
Some signs that your child could be getting abused or groomed.
Sudden secretiveness regarding their phone or computer (a lot of grooming happens online
Spending a great deal of time alone with another adult
Signs of increased anger or fear
Lack of participation in things that used to bring them happiness
Withdrawal from family and friends
Obviously, these lists are not comprehensive, nor are they sure signs of abuse. What teenager doesn't seem angry and withdrawn
from time to time? But it's vital, no matter how hard they push you away, to stay involved, particularly after a traumatic event.
Teach your kids that some secrets should not be kept.
Predators manipulate children in all sorts of ways. One of the biggest ways is warning them to keep their "relationship" a secret
or else.
Or else what?
They'll hurt Mom or Dad
They'll hurt the child's pet
They'll hurt the child's siblings
They'll cause extreme financial problems for the family
Predators often put a burden on a child where they feel as though they must stay silent to protect the people they love.
Kids need to know that if anyone threatens them if they tell a secret, then they absolutely must tell that secret. Mom and Dad
will be safe and will protect them. People who ask children to keep their presence in their lives a secret are never to be trusted.
And finally, make sure your children know that whatever they tell you, you will believe them and you know it's not their fault.
"... The reason the ruler's have decreed 'anybody but Bernie' is that Sanders' (and to a lesser perceived degree, Warren's) campaign proposals challenge the austerity regime that has been relentlessly erected since the 1970s precisely to set American workers and the whole capitalist world on a Race to the Bottom, in which each year brings lower living standards and more insecurity to the population at large. ..."
"... The obscene increases in wealth inequality are the desired result and true essence of austerity. ..."
"... "the top one-tenth of one percent (.1%) of the population -- households making $2.757 million a year -- now number almost 200,000 families, a cohort big enough to create and inhabit a large and coherent social world of its own. ..."
Sanders (D)(1): "Why the Rich Want to Bury Bernie, the Not-Really-Socialist" [Glen Ford,
Black Agenda
Report (CI)]. Really excellent.
Here's "why":
"The reason the ruler's have decreed 'anybody
but Bernie' is that Sanders' (and to a lesser perceived degree, Warren's) campaign proposals
challenge the austerity regime that has been relentlessly erected since the 1970s precisely to
set American workers and the whole capitalist world on a Race to the Bottom, in which each year
brings lower living standards and more insecurity to the population at large.
The obscene
increases in wealth inequality are the desired result and true essence of austerity."
There's
much more, but this on local oligarchies is important: "the top one-tenth of one percent (.1%)
of the population -- households making $2.757 million a year -- now number almost 200,000
families, a cohort big enough to create and inhabit a large and coherent social world of its
own.
From their rich enclaves in every state of the country, this formidable "base" of truly
wealthy folks effectively dictate the politics of their regions for the benefit of themselves
and the oligarchs at the top of the pyramid. "
"... Bill Gates is incredibly rich because the government will arrest anyone who mass produces copies of Microsoft software without his permission. If anyone could freely reproduce Windows and other software, without even sending a thank you note, Bill Gates would still be working for a living. ..."
"... The same applies to prescription drugs, medical equipment, and other tech sectors where some people are getting very rich. In all of these cases, these items would be cheap without patent, copyrights, or related monopolies, and no one would be getting hugely rich. ..."
"... Specifically, patents and copyrights give their holders monopolies on technology or creative work for their duration. If we are concerned that money is going from ordinary workers to people who hold patents and copyrights, then one policy we may want to consider is shortening and weakening these monopolies. But policy has gone sharply in the opposite direction over the last four decades, as a wide variety of measures have been put into law that make these protections longer and stronger. Thus, the redistribution from people who work to people who own the technology should not be surprising -- that was the purpose of the policy. ..."
Yet Another New York Times Column Gets the Story on Automation and Inequality Completely
Wrong
By Dean Baker
I am a big fan of expanding the welfare state but I am also a big fan of reality-based
analysis. For this reason, it's hard not to be upset over yet another column * telling us
that the robots are taking all the jobs and that this will lead to massive inequality.
The first part is more than a little annoying just because it is so completely and
unambiguously at odds with reality. Productivity growth, which is the measure of the rate at
which robots and other technologies are taking jobs, has been extremely slow in recent years.
It has averaged just 1.3 percent annually since 2005. That compares to an annual rate of 3.0
percent from 1995 to 2005 and in the long Golden Age from 1947 to 1973.
In addition, all the official projections from places like the Congressional Budget Office
and Social Security Administration assume that productivity growth will remain slow. That
could prove wrong, but the people projecting a massive pick up of productivity growth are
certainly against the tide here.
But the other part of the story is even more annoying. No, technology does not generate
inequality. Our policy on technology generates inequality. We have rules (patent and
copyright monopolies) that allow people to own technology.
Bill Gates is incredibly rich because the government will arrest anyone who mass produces
copies of Microsoft software without his permission. If anyone could freely reproduce Windows
and other software, without even sending a thank you note, Bill Gates would still be working
for a living.
The same applies to prescription drugs, medical equipment, and other tech sectors where
some people are getting very rich. In all of these cases, these items would be cheap without
patent, copyrights, or related monopolies, and no one would be getting hugely rich.
At this point, there are undoubtedly people jumping up and down yelling "without patent
and copyright monopolies people would have no incentive to innovate." This yelling is very
helpful in making the point. If we have structured these incentives in ways that lead to
great inequality and not very much innovation (as measured by productivity growth) then we
should probably be looking to alter our structure of incentives. (Yes this is the topic of
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the
Rich Richer - it's free. * )
In any case, this is the point. The inequality that results from technology is the result
of our policies on technology, not the technology itself. Maybe one day the New York Times
will allow a columnist to state this obvious truth in its opinion section.
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the
Rich Richer
By Dean Baker
The Old Technology and Inequality Scam: The Story of Patents and Copyrights
One of the amazing lines often repeated by people in policy debates is that, as a result
of technology, we are seeing income redistributed from people who work for a living to the
people who own the technology. While the redistribution part of the story may be mostly true,
the problem is that the technology does not determine who "owns" the technology. The people
who write the laws determine who owns the technology.
Specifically, patents and copyrights give their holders monopolies on technology or
creative work for their duration. If we are concerned that money is going from ordinary
workers to people who hold patents and copyrights, then one policy we may want to consider is
shortening and weakening these monopolies. But policy has gone sharply in the opposite
direction over the last four decades, as a wide variety of measures have been put into law
that make these protections longer and stronger. Thus, the redistribution from people who
work to people who own the technology should not be surprising -- that was the purpose of the
policy.
If stronger rules on patents and copyrights produced economic dividends in the form of
more innovation and more creative output, then this upward redistribution might be justified.
But the evidence doesn't indicate there has been any noticeable growth dividend associated
with this upward redistribution. In fact, stronger patent protection seems to be associated
with slower growth.
Before directly considering the case, it is worth thinking for a minute about what the
world might look like if we had alternative mechanisms to patents and copyrights, so that the
items now subject to these monopolies could be sold in a free market just like paper cups and
shovels.
The biggest impact would be in prescription drugs. The breakthrough drugs for cancer,
hepatitis C, and other diseases, which now sell for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars
annually, would instead sell for a few hundred dollars. No one would have to struggle to get
their insurer to pay for drugs or scrape together the money from friends and family. Almost
every drug would be well within an affordable price range for a middle-class family, and
covering the cost for poorer families could be easily managed by governments and aid
agencies.
The same would be the case with various medical tests and treatments. Doctors would not
have to struggle with a decision about whether to prescribe an expensive scan, which might be
the best way to detect a cancerous growth or other health issue, or to rely on cheaper but
less reliable technology. In the absence of patent protection even the most cutting edge
scans would be reasonably priced.
Health care is not the only area that would be transformed by a free market in technology
and creative work. Imagine that all the textbooks needed by college students could be
downloaded at no cost over the web and printed out for the price of the paper. Suppose that a
vast amount of new books, recorded music, and movies was freely available on the web.
People or companies who create and innovate deserve to be compensated, but there is little
reason to believe that the current system of patent and copyright monopolies is the best way
to support their work. It's not surprising that the people who benefit from the current
system are reluctant to have the efficiency of patents and copyrights become a topic for
public debate, but those who are serious about inequality have no choice. These forms of
property claims have been important drivers of inequality in the last four decades.
The explicit assumption behind the steps over the last four decades to increase the
strength and duration of patent and copyright protection is that the higher prices resulting
from increased protection will be more than offset by an increased incentive for innovation
and creative work. Patent and copyright protection should be understood as being like very
large tariffs. These protections can often the raise the price of protected items by several
multiples of the free market price, making them comparable to tariffs of several hundred or
even several thousand percent. The resulting economic distortions are comparable to what they
would be if we imposed tariffs of this magnitude.
The justification for granting these monopoly protections is that the increased innovation
and creative work that is produced as a result of these incentives exceeds the economic costs
from patent and copyright monopolies. However, there is remarkably little evidence to support
this assumption. While the cost of patent and copyright protection in higher prices is
apparent, even if not well-measured, there is little evidence of a substantial payoff in the
form of a more rapid pace of innovation or more and better creative work....
"Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes
itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia
evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers
of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification
for existing from it.
For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or
political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual
profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks.
And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with
the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the
general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."
ChanceIs
Pinto Currency
Feb 19, 2017 4:24 PM I think that PizzaGate is for real. I will take the "safer" position
that there is reason for investigation, but there is nothing which John Q Public can observe
that makes a very firm case for prosecution (of John Podesta). Dave Seaman gives a "credible"
update on PizzaGate evert few days. This from Sunday afternoon, Feb 19:
At least 30 in congress for pedogate. Wahooo
ronaldwilsonreagan
Feb 19, 2017 1:04 PM No fan of Drumpf's bi-polar behavior but it pales in comparison to
obama's clear insanity. We actually had a president who bragged he was good at killing people.
That's as insane as it comes. DownWithYogaPants
Wahooo
Feb 19, 2017 1:12 PM Any usage of the name "Drumpf" will get you a downvote from me. It's a
name. It has no bearing but yet it appears you think it has some sort of magical powers when
you use. The fact it was popularized by a weak comedian also brings a ding. vulcanraven
DownWithYogaPants
Feb 19, 2017 1:54 PM Drumpf=The regressive liberal crybaby callsign
I don't use Social Media myself, but near the end of the 2016 presidential campaign, I
gradually began seeing more and more Trump supporters referring to something called
"Pizzagate," a burgeoning sexual scandal that they claimed would bring down Hillary Clinton and
many of the top leaders of her party, with the chatter actually increasing after Trump was
elected. As near as I could tell, the whole bizarre theory had grown up on the far-right fringe
of the Internet, with the utterly fantastical plot having something to do with stolen secret
emails, DC pizza parlors, and a ring of pedophiles situated near the top of the Democratic
Party. But given all the other strange and unlikely things I'd gradually discovered about our
history, it didn't seem like something I could necessarily dismiss out of hand.
At the beginning of December, a right-wing blogger produced a lengthy exposition of the
Pizzagate charges, which finally gave me some understanding of what was actually under
discussion, and I soon made arrangements to republish his article. It quickly attracted a great
deal of interest, and some websites pointed to it as the best single introduction to the
scandal for a general audience.
Pizzagate Aedon
Cassiel • December 2, 2016 • 3,100 Words
A couple of weeks later, I republished an additional article by the same writer, describing
a long list of previous pedophilia scandals that had occurred in elite American and European
political circles. Although many of these seemed to be solidly documented, nearly all of them
had received minimal coverage by our mainstream media outlets. And if such political pedophile
rings had existed in the relatively recent past, was it so totally implausible that there might
be another one simmering beneath the surface of today's Washington DC?
Those interested in the details of the Pizzagate Hypothesis are advised to read these
articles, especially the first one, but I might as well provide a brief summary.
John Podesta had been a longtime fixture in DC political circles, becoming chief of staff
to President Bill Clinton in 1998, and afterward remaining one of the most powerful figures in
the Democratic Party establishment. While serving as as chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016
presidential campaign, his apparent carelessness with the password security of his Gmail
account allowed it to easily be hacked, and tens of thousands of his personal emails were soon
published on WikiLeaks. A swarm of young anti-Clinton activists began scouring this
treasure-trove of semi-confidential information, seeking evidence of mundane bribery and
corruption, but instead they came across some quite odd exchanges, seemingly written in coded
language.
Now use of coded language in a supposedly secure private email account raises all sorts
of natural suspicions regarding what might have been under discussion, with the most likely
possibilities being illegal drugs or sex. But most of the references didn't seem to fit the
former category, and in our remarkably libertine era, in which political candidates compete for
the right to be Grand Marshal at an annual Gay Pride Parade, one of the few sexual activities
still discussed only in whispers would seem to be pedophilia, with some of the very strange
remarks possibly hinting at this.
The researchers also soon discovered that his brother Tony Podesta, one of the wealthiest
and most successful lobbyists in DC, had extremely odd taste in art. Major items of his very
extensive personal collection seemed to represent tortured or murdered bodies, and one of his
favorite artists was best known for paintings depicting young children being held captive,
lying dead, or suffering under severe distress. Such peculiar artwork obviously isn't
illegal, but it might naturally arouse some suspicions. And oddly enough, arch-Democrat Podesta
had long been a close personal friend of former Republican Speaker and convicted child-molester
Dennis Hastert, welcoming him back into DC society after his release from prison.
Furthermore, some of the rather suspiciously-worded Podesta emails referred to events
held at a local DC pizza parlor, greatly favored by the Democratic Party elite, whose owner was
the gay former boyfriend of David Brock, a leading Democratic activist. The public Instagram
account of that pizza-entrepreneur apparently contained numerous images of young children,
sometimes tied or bound, with those images frequently labeled by hashtags using the traditional
gay slang for underage sexual targets . Some photos showed the fellow wearing a tee-shirt
bearing the statement "I Love Children" in French, and by a very odd coincidence, his possibly
assumed name was phonetically identical to that very same French phrase, thus proclaiming to
the world that he was "a lover of children." Closely connected Instagram accounts also
included pictures of young children, sometimes shown amid piles of high-value currency, with
queries about how much those particular children might be worth. None of this seemed illegal,
but surely any reasonable person would regard the material as extremely suspicious.
DC is sometimes described as "Powertown," being the seat of the individuals who make
America's laws and govern our society, with local political journalists being closely attuned
to the relative status of such individuals. And oddly enough, GQ Magazine had ranked that
gay pizza parlor owner with a strange focus on young children as being one of the 50 most
powerful people in our national capital, placing him far ahead of many Cabinet members,
Senators, Congressional Chairmen, Supreme Court justices, and top lobbyists. Was his pizza
really that delicious?
These few paragraphs provide merely a sliver of the large quantity of highly-suspicious
material surrounding various powerful figures at the apex of the DC political world. A vast
cloud of billowing smoke is certainly no proof of any fire, but only a fool would completely
ignore it without attempting further investigation.
I usually regard videos as a poor means of imparting serious information, far less effective
and meaningful than the simple printed word. But the overwhelming bulk of the evidence
supporting the Pizzagate Hypothesis consists of visual images and screen shots, and these are
naturally suited to a video presentation.
Some of the best summaries of the Pizzagate case were produced by a young British
YouTuber named Tara McCarthy, whose work was published under the name of "Reality Calls," and
her videos were viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Although her channel was eventually
banned and her videos purged, copies were later reloaded to other accounts, both on YouTube and
BitChute. Some of the evidence she presents seemed rather innocuous or speculative to me and
other elements were probably based upon her unfamiliarity with American society and culture.
But a great deal of extremely suspicious material remains, and I would suggest that people
watch the videos and decide for themselves.
Around the same time that I first became familiar with the details of the Pizzagate
controversy, the topic also started reaching the pages of my morning newspapers, but in an
rather strange manner. Political stories began giving a sentence or two to the "Pizzagate
hoax," describing it as a ridiculous right-wing "conspiracy theory" but excluding all relevant
details. I had an eery feeling that some unseen hand had suddenly flipped a switch causing the
entire mainstream media to begin displaying identical signs declaring "Pizzagate Is False --
Nothing To See There!" in brightly flashing neon. I couldn't recall any previous example of
such a strange media reaction to some obscure Internet controversy.
Articles in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times also suddenly
appeared denouncing the entirety of the alternative media -- Left, Right, and Libertarian --
as
"fake news" websites promoting Russian propaganda , while urging that their content be
blocked by all patriotic Internet giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google. Prior to that
moment, I'd never even heard the term "fake news" but suddenly it was ubiquitous across the
media, once again almost as if some unseen hand had suddenly flipped a switch.
I naturally began to wonder whether the timing of these two strange developments was
entirely coincidental. Perhaps Pizzagate was indeed true and struck so deeply at the core of
our hugely corrupted political system that the media efforts to suppress it were approaching
the point of hysteria.
Not long afterward, Tara McCarthy's detailed Pizzagate videos were purged from YouTube. This
was among the very first instances of video content being banned despite fully conforming to
all existing YouTube guidelines, another deeply suspicious development.
I also noticed that mere mention of Pizzagate had become politically lethal. Donald Trump
had selected Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, as his
National Security Advisor, and Flynn's son served as the latter's chief of staff. The younger
Flynn happened to Tweet out a couple of links to Pizzagate stories, pointing out that the
accusations hadn't yet been actually investigated let alone disproven, and very soon afterward,
he was
purged from the Trump transition team, foreshadowing his father's fall a few weeks later.
It seemed astonishing to me that a few simple Tweets about an Internet controversy could have
such huge real-life impact near the top of our government.
The media continued its uniform drumbeat of "Pizzagate Has Been Disproven!" but we were
never told how or by whom, and I was not the only individual to notice the hollowness of such
denunciations. An award-winning investigative journalist named Ben Swann at a CBS station in
Atlanta broadcast a short television segment summarizing the Pizzagate controversy and noting
that contrary to widespread media claims, Pizzagate had neither been investigated nor debunked.
Swann was almost immediately purged by CBS but a copy of his television segment remains
available for viewing on the Internet.
There is an old wartime proverb that enemy flak is always heaviest over the most important
target, and the remarkably ferocious wave of attacks and censorship against anyone broaching
the subject of Pizzagate seems to raise obvious dark suspicions. Indeed, the simultaneous waves
of attacks against all alternative media outlets as "Russian propaganda outlets" laid the basis
for the continuing regime of Social Media censorship that has become a central aspect of
today's world.
Pizzagate may or may not turn out to be true, but the ongoing Internet crackdown has
similarly engulfed topics of a somewhat similar nature but with vastly stronger documentation.
Although I don't use Twitter myself, I encountered the obvious implications of this new
censorship policy following McCain's death last August. The senator had died on a Saturday
afternoon, and readership of Sydney Schanberg's long 2008 expose quickly exploded, with
numerous individuals Tweeting out the story and a large fraction of our incoming traffic
therefore coming from Twitter. This continued until the following morning, at which point the
huge flood of Tweets continued to grow, but all incoming Twitter traffic suddenly and
permanently vanished, presumably because "shadow banning" had rendered those Tweets invisible.
My own article on McCain's very doubtful war record simultaneously suffered the same fate, as
did numerous other articles of a controversial nature that we published later that same
week.
Perhaps that censorship decision was made by some ignorant young intern at Twitter, casually
choosing to ban as "hate speech" or "fake news" a massively-documented 8,400 word expose by one
of America's most distinguished journalists, a Pulitzer-prize winning former top editor at
The New York Times .
Or perhaps certain political-puppeteers who had spent decades controlling that late Arizona
senator sought to ensure that their political puppet-strings remained invisible even after his
death.
You better be tough to watch this, not for women unless you are like me who will watch it
and spread it.
Warning: you can't unwatch this and will need to claim your space after and pray.
This IS John Podesta. This IS what I said was coming to him last summer/fall.
What did I say about this coming eclipse? It is in Pisces, water, water pourer, dams, leaks, secrets and film. Note the color purple which is the Pisces color.
People are saying this is John Podesta torturing a boy in a shower. I had to turn the sound off it was so horrific. This came from Weiners laptop, the cops must be leaking now Life insurance file.
Yes and longtime NYPD said "as a father it was one of the most
disturbing things I have ever seen."
because it is evil.
I am thinking it is MKULTRA stuff, designed with strobe light to split the personality.
vulcanravenPinto CurrencyFeb 19, 2017 1:47 PM I fucking hope so. I just wonder what the hell they are waiting for, but
the more I think about it this is the best I can come up with:
If Pedogate is finally blown wide open, it is going to rip a hole through the fabric of
reality for the unawashed sheeple. It will also destroy any and all faith in the US government,
and full blown chaos will erupt everywhere.
So whoever is holding the goods on PG, also knows
that reality hangs in the balance upon opening that can of worms. I also believe when the dam
finally does break and people are getting led away in handcuffs on national TV, a large majority
of the population will still be in full blown denial... finding any and every reason to somehow
blame the scandal on Trump/Russia/The Flying Spaghetti Monster
"... Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Robert Maxwell and girlfriend and "Nazi guard" for Epstein"s child sex stable also ran a fake charity closed day ago called Terra Mar. The FBI is now investigating if the charity was used to pay off Epstein/Maxwell child rape victims. ..."
"... The UK Guardian and Transparify.org list the think tank now run by General McMaster and tied to Platero, Maxwell and Epstein as invisibly funded and "deceptive." ..."
Following the bread crumbs from Epstein has led to a fake charity and from there to General
McMaster, former National Security Advisor to Donald Trump, who now heads a reputedly fake
London based think tank secretly funded by money laundered through the repressive Bahraini
royal family.
But there is more.
Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Robert Maxwell and girlfriend and "Nazi guard" for
Epstein"s child sex stable also ran a fake charity closed day ago called Terra Mar. The FBI is
now investigating if the charity was used to pay off Epstein/Maxwell child rape
victims.
The charity takes us further into Maxwell's den of Mossad partnerships. Most serious of all
are those through her lifelong friend Calfo Platero, who ties Epstein and Maxwell to the highly
disreputable London based Institute for Strategic Studies. The UK Guardian and
Transparify.org list the think tank now run by General McMaster and tied to Platero, Maxwell
and Epstein as invisibly funded and "deceptive." However, in 2016, the organization that
McMaster joined when he left the Trump White House in 2018 admitted to taking secret funding
from the rulers of Bahrain under an agreement that they would keep the funding secret.
Bahrain has been cited with numerous human rights abuses and an attempt to murder an
American diplomat and blame it on Iran. Middle East Eye confirmed Bahrain's involvement, a
major "revolving door" scandal for a high level Trump appointee.
https://c.deployads.com/sync?f=html&s=2344&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oftwominds.com%2Fblogjuly19%2Fcrisis-deep-state7-19.html
Epstein and the Explosive Crisis of the Deep State
July 15, 2019
Since the battle is for the legitimacy of the state, it must be waged at least partially
in the open.
Speculations by outsiders must give Deep State insiders many opportunities to chuckle,
"if only they knew." We don't know, of course, and public leaks are engineered to misdirect
our attention from what's actually going on or "frame" our understanding in a positive way.
Decades later, history reveals a very ordinary mix of great successes and horrific
failure in secret operations , caused by errors of judgment, faulty intelligence, poor
planning and so on. In other words, life isn't tidy, either inside or outside the Deep
State.
Nonetheless we can postulate a few things with some certainty. One is that the Deep
State-- the unelected, permanent government which includes not just the intelligence community
but a vast array of agencies and institutions as well as the top-level structures of diplomacy,
finance and geopolitics--is not monolithic. There are different views and competing camps, but
the disagreements and bureaucratic wars are kept out of sight.
Two, we know that at critical junctures of history one camp wins the narrative battle and
establishes the over-riding direction of state policy. Put another way, one camp's
understanding of the era's most pressing problems becomes the consensus, and from then on
disagreements are within the broad outlines of the dominant ideology.
The end of World War II was a critical juncture. The proper role of the U.S. in the
postwar era was up for grabs, and over the course of a few years, the CIA and other
intelligence agencies were established and the doctrine of containment of the Soviet Union
became the dominant narrative, a narrative that held with remarkable consistency for four
decades until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
This collapse was another critical juncture, and debates over America's role in this
"unipolar era" were finally settled in favor of the geopolitical-activist ideology of
neoconservatism (Neocons).
This globalist ideology led to a variety of policy disasters and is now discredited in many
circles, and has been under attack within the Deep State for some time. This is the divided
Deep State I've written about for the past five years.
The failures of Neocon globalism have ushered in another critical juncture. What is
America's proper role in a multi-polar world that is fracturing across multiple faultlines?
This critical juncture is a manifestation of a broader profound political disunity in
America and many other nations.
The corporate media has obligingly portrayed this profound political disunity as a
contest between "good globalism" and "bad populism," a clear attempt to smear all those who see
the dark side of globalism as a threat to the nation and indeed the world. This bias reflects
the continued dominance of the Neocon-globalist camp.
But the cracks are now visible. The mainstream "influential" press has recently been
publishing critiques admitting the failures of Neocon globalism and agonizing about how to
"save" the globalist agenda despite its failures.
I have long held that there is a camp within the Deep State that grasps the end-game of
Neocon globalism, and is busy assembling a competing nation-centric strategy. There is
tremendous resistance to the abandonment of Neocon globalism, not just from those who see power
slipping through their fingers but from all those firmly committed to the hubris of a magical
faith in past success as the guarantor of future success.
Michael Grant described this complacent clinging to what's failed in his excellent account
The Fall of the Roman Empire , a short book I have been recommending since 2009:
There was no room at all, in these ways of thinking, for the novel, apocalyptic situation
which had now arisen, a situation which needed solutions as radical as itself. (The Status Quo)
attitude is a complacent acceptance of things as they are, without a single new idea.
This acceptance was accompanied by greatly excessive optimism about the present and
future. Even when the end was only sixty years away, and the Empire was already crumbling fast,
Rutilius continued to address the spirit of Rome with the same supreme assurance.
This blind adherence to the ideas of the past ranks high among the principal causes of
the downfall of Rome. If you were sufficiently lulled by these traditional fictions, there
was no call to take any practical first-aid measures at all.
The faction within the Deep State that no longer accepts traditional fictions is
gaining ground, and now another fracture in the Deep State is coming to the fore: the
traditionalists who accept the systemic corruption of self-serving elites and those who have
finally awakened to the mortal danger to the nation posed by amoral self-serving elites.
The debauchery of morals undermines the legitimacy of the state and thus of the entire
power structure. As I recently noted in Following in Rome's Footsteps:
Moral Decay, Rising Inequality (June 29, 2019), America's current path of moral decay and
soaring wealth/power inequality is tracking Rome's collapse step for step.
Enter the sordid case of Jeffrey Epstein, suddenly unearthed after a decade of
corporate-media/elitist suppression. It's laughable to see the corporate media's pathetic
attempts to glom onto the case now, after actively suppressing it for decades: Jeffrey
Epstein Was a Sex Offender. The Powerful Welcomed Him Anyway. (New York Times) Where was
the NYT a decade ago, or five years ago, or even a year ago?
Of all the questions that are arising, the signal one is simply: why now? There are
many questions, now that the dead-and-buried case has been dug up: where did Epstein get his
fortune? Why did he return to the U.S. from abroad, knowing he'd be arrested? Why was the
Miami Herald suddenly able to publish numerous articles exposing the scandalous
suppression of justice after 11 years of silence? Years later, victims recount
impact of Jeffrey Epstein abuse .
Here's my outsider's take: the anti-Neocon camp within the Deep State observed the test
case of Harvey Weinstein and saw an opportunity to apply what it learned. If we draw
circles representing the anti-Neocon camp and the moralists who grasp the state's legitimacy is
hanging by a thread after decades of amoral exploitation and self-aggrandizement by the ruling
elites, we would find a large overlap.
But even die-hard Neocons are starting to awaken to the danger to their power posed by the
moral collapse of the ruling elites. They are finally awakening to the lesson of history, that
the fatal danger to empires arises not from external foes but from inside the center of power
as elite corruption erodes the legitimacy of the state.
The upstarts in the Deep State have united to declare open war on the degenerates and
their enablers, who are everywhere in the Deep State: the media, the intelligence
community, and on and on.
Since the battle is for the legitimacy of the state, it must be waged at least partially
in the open. This is a war for the hearts and minds of the public, whose belief in the
legitimacy of the state and its ruling elites underpins the power of the Deep State.
If this wasn't a war over the legitimacy of the state, the housecleaning would have been
discrete. Insiders would be shuffled off to a corporate boardroom or do-nothing/fancy title
office, or they'd retire, or if necessary, they'd die of a sudden heart attack or in a tragic
accident ( if only they knew ).
The cockroaches are scurrying, and the challenge now is to crush as many as possible
before they find cover. Bullies are at heart cowards, and once the bullies who were
untouchable due to powerful friends in powerful places are exposed to an accounting of their
behavior, they will spill the beans on everyone in a craven attempt to lighten the consequences
of their corruption and debauchery.
Power is a funny thing: when it dissipates suddenly, it dissipates completely.
All those who were confident they were untouchable might want to heed this sign:
carefully fall into the cliff .
The hidden conflicts within the Deep State are emerging, and the resulting crisis will be
explosive. Remember, the housecleaning must be public or the legitimacy of the state will
go over the cliff. If the Deep State wants to retain its power, it must root out the corrupt
degenerates before they bring down the entire rotten structure.
https://acdn.adnxs.com/ib/static/usersync/v3/async_usersync.html The Nobility of the
feudal era had some reciprocal obligation to its serfs; our New Nobility has no obligation to
anyone but themselves. It is painfully obvious that there are two sets of laws in America:
bankers can rip off billions and never serve time, and members of the Protected Class who
sexually exploit children get a wrist-slap, if that.
Here's the sad reality: everybody in the Ruling Elites looked the other way: all the
self-described "patriots" in the Intelligence services, all the technocrats in the Departments
of Justice, State, etc., the Pentagon, and on and on. Everybody with any power knows the whole
class of Ruling Elites is completely corrupt, by definition: to secure power in the U.S.,
you have to sell your soul to the Devil , one way or the other.
Like all Ruling Elites, America's Elites are absolutely confident in their power:
this is hubris taken to new heights.
That the citizenry could finally have enough of their corrupt, self-serving Overlords
does not seem in the realm of possibility to the Protected Few. There's always a way to
lawyer-up and plea-bargain for a wrist-slap, a way to bend another "patriot" (barf), a way to
offer a bribe cloaked as a plum position in a philanthro-capitalist NGO (non-governmental
organization), and so on.
The possibility that moral outrage could spark a revolt seems improbable in such a
distracted culture, but consider the chart below: even the most distracted, fragmented
tribe of the peasantry eventually notices that they're not in the top 1%, or the top 0.1%, and
that the Ruling Elites have overseen an unprecedented concentration of wealth and power into
the hands of the few at the expense of the many:
The degradation of political elites is a universal phenomenon. Of course, first of all it is
noticeable in relation to the Western elites (American, European), but this can also be found
in the post-Soviet space (Georgia, Armenia, Moldova etc). Ukraine is generally a special case
- real freaks and Nazis in power, the speaker of parliament with the mental retardation
certificate, the Attorney General of the country (btw, previously convicted) without a legal
education etc.
So I join and also express my condolences to the people of Great Britain.
The entire world political class and most of the commentariat of the political class
indulges in kayfabe.
"In professional wrestling, kayfabe /ˈkeɪfeɪb/ (also called work or worked)
is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically the
portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine
and not of a staged or predetermined nature of any kind. The term kayfabe has evolved to also
become a code word of sorts for maintaining this "reality" within the direct or indirect
presence of the general public.[1]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe
So, what options do the UK citizenry have until the next general election? IMO, Corbyn
encapsulated it well in his two tweets :
"Boris Johnson has won the support of fewer than 100,000 unrepresentative Conservative
Party members by promising tax cuts for the richest, presenting himself as the bankers'
friend, and pushing for a damaging No Deal Brexit.
"But he hasn't won the support of our country."
And:
"Johnson's No Deal Brexit would mean job cuts, higher prices in the shops, and risk our
NHS being sold off to US corporations in a sweetheart deal with Donald Trump.
"The people of our country should decide who becomes the Prime Minister in a General
Election."
"In this sense Boris Johnson is a throwback to former times – not quite to the 19th
century like his aide-de-camp Jacob Rees-Mogg but at least to the middle of the 20th century.
On the face of it, Harold MacMillan, the then British PM, was a straight-laced, slightly
eccentric upper-class Englishman. That his wife was upstairs in bed, for years, with one of
his parliamentary colleagues Sir Robert Boothby didn't seem to faze him. Or us, but then we
weren't to know about it.
"In deference to the new age, Boris Johnson has skipped the straight-laced bit; he has
cuckolded his colleagues, even leaving cuckoos in their nests, has left a trail of lurid
love-life stories to make a thriller-writer blush, and will likely bed down in Downing Street
on Wednesday night with his 31 year-old girlfriend. But the rest is just the same. Johnson is
(or has fashioned himself) as an upper-class English eccentric and will be hoping the
deference is not dead amongst 21st century Britons.
"To be fair it should be said that Johnson is as colourful as his predecessor Mrs May was
bloodless. He is clever and quick-witted (you get what you pay for at Eton), is well read and
is a good writer too (he should be, he is Britain's most expensive newspaper columnist). Like
his hero Winston Churchill, he believes history will treat him kindly because HE intends to
write it."
George will soon be on RT's InQuestionRT as per his tweet at 5pm
BST.
The Anglo-Zionist have elevated another buffoon to entertain the masses. Trump was just the
tip of the iceberg. It will not be long before President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert
Camacho will soon be leading the global masses.
Didn't I hear something about Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson having presidential
aspirations?
Boris Johnson's ascension to power in UK is just a clown act in a tragic circus. But a
circus nonetheless. A none-story. A nothingburger.
I implore you to stay focused on Jeffery Epstein. That is the real story of our time. One
that could bring down AIPAC/Israel and all of its' spies, the Clintons, Trump, and certain
elements of the deep state once and for all, and free US from the shackles of Zionism.
Do not let this story die by way of side shows like the story above and etc.
"It's a big job to uncover Israeli subversion, but somebody needs to start doing it."
Let it be you. We trust your reporting and I hope you don't take your eyes off the ball.
Forget about BoJo, Russiagate (it is really Israelgate) and Ukraine. Epstein is the story of
the ages. One that could change the realm forever.
It is starting to appear to be very much a contest of buffoons, which country has the more
outrageous buffoon. At this point, it is a close race between the us and the uk but who is to
judge.
The world's "leadership class" really is bereft of any level of competence or standing:
trump, boris, macon, ursula (and remaining eucom and IMF "leaders"), pompeo, bolton, pence,
nitenyahoo,et al. and on and on.
IMHO, Putin, lavrov, shoigu stand out head and shoulders above the aforementioned
"leadership class."
That's because Putin and Xi (and some others) are in fact leaders, making rational
decisions for the benefit of their nations.
Those others are just figureheads - ability is not so important as reliability and
entertainment value.
It'll be interesting to see if BoJo can fake solemnity and diplomacy as convincingly as Trump
can when in the company of other national leaders. I'm confident that Zelenski, being an
actor, will be able to make it look easy.
There's a sort of precedent for this switch to comedy-based leadership.
I half-remember that when Ronnie Raygun offered himself as a candidate for POTUS, he answered
the critics of his lack of experience by asserting that he had played many leadership roles
during his movie career - making him the superior candidate.
And the sheeple bought it!
It seems that this is the dawn of a new "Anything's Possible" era.
Always thought professional wrestling provided a good analogy for our current situation.
Trump and BoJo (and the nations they represent) do indeed represent classic "heels". In
particular the USA is clearly now a "closet champion" or the "term for a heel in possession
of a title belt who consistently dodges top flight competition and attempts to back down from
challenges". What a world we inhabit.
On the final night of this past week's National Conservatism Conference, Senator Josh
Hawley -- a graduate of Stanford and Yale and a former instructor at an English private
school -- warned the attendees gathered in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton in downtown
Washington, D.C., about the threat of élite cosmopolitanism. "The politics of those
left and right have been informed by a political consensus that reflects the interests not
of the American middle but of a powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities," he
intoned. "This class lives in the United States, but they identify as citizens of the
world. They run businesses or oversee universities here, but their primary loyalty is to
the global community, and they subscribe to a set of values held by similar élites
in other places." He went on to name those values: "The importance of global
integration and the danger of national loyalties; the priority of social change over
tradition, career over community and achievement and merit and progress. Call it the
cosmopolitan consensus."
"Let us be candid," she concluded. "Europe and the first world, to which the United States
belongs, remain mostly white for now, and the third world, although mixed, contains a lot
of nonwhite people. Embracing cultural-distance nationalism means, in effect, taking the
position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites. Well,
that is the result, anyway. So, even if our immigration philosophy is grounded firmly in
cultural concerns, it doesn't rely on race at all. And, no matter how many times we repeat
the mantra that correlation is not causation, these racial dimensions are enough to spook
conservatives."
I never understood why people claimed Podesta had child abuse links until I read that article. It is enough to make even a
hardened Podesta supporter cringe.
"... Powerful elites enabled the financier accused of trafficking underage girls ..."
"... Over the last couple of months, Ward told me, she's started going through transcripts of the interviews about Epstein she did more than 16 years ago. "What is so amazing to me is how his entire social circle knew about this and just blithely overlooked it," she said of his penchant for adolescents. While praising his charm, brilliance and generous donations to Harvard, those she spoke to, she said, "all mentioned the girls, as an aside." ..."
"... Both sides are likely right. The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political scandal, if not a partisan one. It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very rich can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes. ..."
"... In the deal he never admitted having actual sex with any of the girls, and he insists he thought they were over 18, so basically all he has ever got a deal on was acts well short of sex with 16-18 years olds who were paid. ..."
"... Some of them named in the old indictment are now saying they were 2 years younger and had sex with all these VIPs. Doubt it. Still, Epstein's previous admissions mean nobody will believe him if a girl says she was 14 not 18, and he is a tempting target tor civil suits which testifying in a criminal case are a basis for. ..."
"... Cernovich and Dershowitz filed their suit on 19 JAN 2017, 10 days after Trump's inauguration. Obama's DoJ screwed up and the judge ruled in their favor 2.5 years later. Then Epstein's immediately arrested. ..."
"... This RT article reminds us the Republicans tried to use Bill's links with Epstein during the 2016 election, while providing other details. ..."
"... Perhaps Trump is the target? Time will tell. ..."
"... If Epstein was Mossad, then what is arch-zio Dershowitz doing in the trap? ..."
"... Mobster jeffrey epstein's wealth didn't come from being a "financier" ( he is a dull wit w/o market knowledge), it came from his fellow co-mobster , steven hoffenberger , swindling over $650 million from gullible goys in Towers Financial. ..."
"... Possible Mossad connection via Ghislaine Maxwell. https://www.unz.com/isteve/jeffrey-epstein-and-foreign-intelligence/ ..."
Originally from THE NEW YORK TIMES • JULY 9, 2019 • 17
COMMENTS
Powerful elites enabled the financier accused of trafficking underage
girls
In 2003, the journalist Vicky Ward profiled Jeffrey Epstein
, the financier indicted Monday on charges of sexually abusing and trafficking underage
girls, for Vanity Fair. Her piece painted him as an enigmatic Jay Gatsby type, a boy from a
middle-class family in Brooklyn who had scaled the rungs of the plutocracy, though no one
could quite figure out how he made his money. It detailed dubious business dealings and
mentioned that Epstein often had lots of beautiful young women around. But it left out Ward's
most important finding.
Twelve years later,
in The Daily Beast , Ward wrote about how, in the course of her reporting, two sisters
allegedly preyed upon by Epstein, as well as their mother, had spoken to her on the record.
But shortly before the story went to press, Ward wrote, the Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter
cut that section, saying, of Epstein, "He's sensitive about the young women." (
In a statement on Monday , Carter said Ward's reporting hadn't been solid enough.)
Over the last couple of months, Ward told me, she's started going through transcripts of
the interviews about Epstein she did more than 16 years ago. "What is so amazing to me is how
his entire social circle knew about this and just blithely overlooked it," she said of his
penchant for adolescents. While praising his charm, brilliance and generous donations to
Harvard, those she spoke to, she said, "all mentioned the girls, as an aside."
On Saturday evening, more than a decade after receiving a sweetheart plea deal in an
earlier sex crime case, Epstein was arrested after getting off a private flight from Paris.
He has been accused of exploiting and abusing "dozens" of minor girls, some as young as 14,
and conspiring with others to traffic them. Epstein's arrest was the rare event that
gratified right and left alike, both because it seemed that justice might finally be done,
and because each side has reason to believe that if Epstein goes down, he could bring some of
its enemies with him.
Both sides are likely right. The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual
victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political scandal, if not a partisan one.
It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very
rich can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes. If it were fiction,
it would be both too sordid and too on-the-nose to be believable, like a season of "True
Detective" penned by a doctrinaire Marxist.
The funny thing about the Trump quote in the original NYMag article on Epstein is that
it's probably the most honest description of the guy, with a none-too-subtle nod to the man's
predilections.
"The Ultimate Symbol"? I beg leave to doubt it! I suspect that the plutocratic rot is very
wide and very deep and "Kiddy fiddling" which is what Jeffrey Epstein seems to be accused of,
is only a small (and not the worst) part of it. If he "sings" I think there is no telling how
far it will go, but probably he won't and this whole evil mess will slink back into the
shadows and silence, with the active help of the media.
Come to think about it, probably even if he does sing, that too will be supressed.
Ward wrote about how, in the course of her reporting, two sisters allegedly preyed upon
by Epstein, as well as their mother, had spoken to her on the record.
They said they were all over 18 in other words. He certainly had young women about but
Michael Wolff said they ones he say on his plane were visibly late teens or twenty.
No way in hell would someone be trusted with billionaire's money who had ovbiously under
age girls around him and was heading for a plea deal in which he might be under so much
pressure he would reveal his clients' financial crimes . And it is hardly in keeping
with the Gatsby image so important to him. I think he had the young but legal girls for show,
no one saw the obvious children but him. He kept the criminal conduct away from visitors,
especially ones he posed as a philanthropist to. Someone in his position could not afford to
get a reputation for having criminal culpability in anything. He was tax scam artist, and
secret sex offender.
On Saturday evening, more than a decade after receiving a sweetheart plea deal in an
earlier sex crime case, Epstein was arrested after getting off a private flight from Paris.
He has been accused of exploiting and abusing "dozens" of minor girls, some as young as 14,
and conspiring with others to traffic them.
People with his money rarely plead guilty. He admitted guilt to get the deal. The new
charges he is arrested on say he was the only customer or client , so "trafficking" is
quite deceptive.
In the deal he never admitted having actual sex with any of the girls, and
he insists he thought they were over 18, so basically all he has ever got a deal on was acts
well short of sex with 16-18 years olds who were paid.
Some of them named in the old indictment are now saying they were 2 years younger and had
sex with all these VIPs. Doubt it. Still, Epstein's previous admissions mean nobody will
believe him if a girl says she was 14 not 18, and he is a tempting target tor civil suits
which testifying in a criminal case are a basis for. I don't see him as being all that
powerful because money makes you a continuing target of people wanting financial restitution
from people down on their luck and no longer able to make money from their looks.
Getting a
sweet plea deal for those things was just storing up trouble for the future for someone as
rich as him.
Cernovich and Dershowitz filed their suit on 19 JAN 2017, 10 days after Trump's
inauguration. Obama's DoJ screwed up and the judge ruled in their favor 2.5 years later. Then
Epstein's immediately arrested.
This RT article
reminds us the Republicans tried to use Bill's links with Epstein during the 2016
election, while providing other details. Maybe the stories used in the Steele Dossier on
Trump aren't from Russia at all but were collected through Epstein's operation?
Epstein, being richer, gets to act out Weiner's fantasy for approximately the same price as
the fantasy. If Epstein was Mossad, then what is arch-zio Dershowitz doing in the
trap?
"Jeffrey Epstein shipped a shredder from the U.S. Virgin Islands to his Palm Beach home in
July 2008, shortly after reaching a non-prosecution agreement with then-U.S. Attorney Alex
Acosta, maritime records show. Then, in March of this year, shortly after a Florida federal
judge invalidated that agreement, Epstein shipped a tile and carpet extractor from the Virgin
Islands to his Manhattan townhouse, the records show."
Mobster jeffrey epstein's wealth didn't come from being a "financier" ( he is a dull
wit w/o market knowledge), it came from his fellow co-mobster , steven hoffenberger ,
swindling over $650 million from gullible goys in Towers Financial.
I believe nearly all of these ((( "financiers" and "hedge fund managers" ))) are just
money laundering for the massive Israhell mob. Most are operated from offshore banks, without
auditing, I.e. soros' quantum fund.
"... US gives Israel billions each year. Israel gives some of that money to Epstein for a hedge fund front. Epstein buys island, planes, mansions, power and influence. Hires attractive under age girls for sexual acts with elites. Tapes the sexual acts. Sends tapes back to Mossad. Blackmails elites for money and favors. Sends money and favors back to Mossad. Epstein keeps the vig. Elites just **** their pants. Elites suicide rate increases dramatically over the next six months. ..."
"... Yes, the blackmailing would not just be for money but foreign policy actions too. And it isn't just the US, it's the UK too. Hence both suckers are trying to start a war with Iran. ..."
"... CCI has the goods on a third of congress and the whole msm. ..."
"... I am not holding my breath for your prediction xbkrisback. Appointing Comey's daughter as the chief prosecutor tells a sorry tale. And Comey and Mueller are best buds. ..."
"... Epstein will not give up the big names. Bubba took 26 trips to Pedo Island on the Lolita Express to refresh his tan. ..."
"... The power structure runs on pedophilia. And the horror of it is that pedophilia is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the abuse of children. Where is Carlos Danger's laptop with Huma's huge "life insurance" file on it? You know, the one that made grizzled NYPD detectives puke when they opened it. ..."
"... Epstein outdoes Berlusconi ..."
"... Have another look at Tony Podesta's art collection. http://ibankcoin.com/zeropointnow/2016/11/26/sick-lets-revisit-the-podesta-penchant-for-pedophilic-cannibalistic-and-satanic-art/#sthash.6jj0GpQo.dpbs ..."
"... I never understood why people claimed Podesta had child abuse links until I read that article. It is enough to make even a hardened Podesta supporter cringe. ..."
"... Coulter's take on this sounds very plausible, because there certainly was evidence gathering by Epstein. ..."
"... By the way, that was the favorite tactic of the old pervert that ran the FBI ... J. Edgar Hoover. He would gather evidence, then have a couple of his agents pay the offender a visit, warning them to be careful, while delivering the clear message that the Director has the goods on you. ..."
"... If Epstein goes to prison (a real prison) for any length of time, that would negate the idea of state sponsorship, would it not? Conversely, if he gets another sweetheart deal, that would confirm it. ..."
I think I figured this scam out. US gives Israel billions each year. Israel gives some of that money to Epstein for a
hedge fund front. Epstein buys island, planes, mansions, power and influence. Hires attractive under age girls for sexual acts
with elites. Tapes the sexual acts. Sends tapes back to Mossad. Blackmails elites for money and favors. Sends money and favors
back to Mossad. Epstein keeps the vig. Elites just **** their pants. Elites suicide rate increases dramatically over the next
six months.
smacker , 1 hour ago
Yes, the blackmailing would not just be for money but foreign policy actions too. And it isn't just the US, it's the UK too.
Hence both suckers are trying to start a war with Iran.
cayman , 46 minutes ago
CCI has the goods on a third of congress and the whole msm. It's why elections haven't mattered in decades. It's why congress
can have a 9% approval rating and yet nothing changes. CIA has so many offshore sources of revenue now, it is sovereign now.
RoyalDraco , 17 minutes ago
I am not holding my breath for your prediction xbkrisback. Appointing Comey's daughter as the chief prosecutor tells a sorry
tale. And Comey and Mueller are best buds.
Epstein will not give up the big names. Bubba took 26 trips to Pedo Island on the
Lolita Express to refresh his tan.
5 years at Club Fed and a list of names no one ever heard of. The power structure runs on
pedophilia. And the horror of it is that pedophilia is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the abuse of children. Where is
Carlos Danger's laptop with Huma's huge "life insurance" file on it? You know, the one that made grizzled NYPD detectives puke
when they opened it.
HideTheWeenie , 1 hour ago
Epstein outdoes Berlusconi ... Takes bunga bunga parties to the next level - and on the road - in the air - island hopping
Coulter is right ... Nobody in financial circles ever bumped into Epstein. Nobody, nobody knows the guy outside of the teenage
***** connection.
I never understood why people claimed Podesta had child abuse links until I read that article. It is enough to make even
a hardened Podesta supporter cringe.
I need some mind bleach after reading that.
RayUSA , 1 hour ago
Obviously, the more powerful people that are involved, the less chance this has of going anywhere.
Coulter's take on this sounds very plausible, because there certainly was evidence gathering by Epstein.
There would be no reason for that unless it was going to be used in the future for black mail.
By the way, that was the favorite tactic of the old pervert that ran the FBI ... J. Edgar Hoover. He would gather evidence,
then have a couple of his agents pay the offender a visit, warning them to be careful, while delivering the clear message that
the Director has the goods on you.
herbivore , 2 hours ago
If Epstein goes to prison (a real prison) for any length of time, that would negate the idea of state sponsorship, would
it not? Conversely, if he gets another sweetheart deal, that would confirm it.
"... And how many congresspeople served in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan? How many presidential candidates had boots on the ground in combat theaters? The answer is one. Here is the moral decay of America's ruling elites boiled down to a single word. ..."
And how many congresspeople served in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan? How many presidential
candidates had boots on the ground in combat theaters? The answer is one. Here is the moral
decay of America's ruling elites boiled down to a single word.
It didn't matter when they did. McStain fought, and absolutely LOVED war. Plenty of the
Hawks served and fought, it's like frat boys who were hazed, carrying on the hazing.
Trump essentially rejected the idea of neoliberal globalization in which local elites share
power with the US elite. This period probably lasted from 1991 to 2008.
Trump started the fight for ultimate supremacy ("national neoliberalism") rejecting based on
multinational treaties neoliberal globalization. He wants to deal with nations on 1:1 basis
utilizing the supremacy of the USA in size and power to the fullest extent possible. This does
not work well.
But both Europe, Japan and China recovered enough from WWII to put some resistance. Dictate
of Trump to EU and China so far does not work as expected: neither state folded. Also Russia is a
militarily very powerful country which allied with iether EU or China makes the military USA
hegemony the thing of the past.
After the classical world of power politics gasped its last (1945), the United States found
itself in an unprecedented world historical situation: it could mold, coerce, cajole, and most
importantly penetrate an exhausted world economically, militarily, politically, and culturally.
This it did with unexampled speed and skill relying in part on its aura of victory over
Fascism. It built both visible and, most importantly, invisible bonds to its long term
interests which both quickly and over time also became the core interests of its new client
states and their local/"national" elites.
The second phase of American Hegemonic Expansion occurred throughout what was known then as
the "second" and "third" worlds; the communist and non-aligned states. Through a careful policy
of coercion and corruption (the use of criminal organizations often went hand in hand with the
use of security forces) the United States was able to convince and ultimately co-opt much of
the world's remaining elites in their lucrative and superficially attractive skein of
capitalist production and consumption and cosmetic democracy. It was and is the world's most
effective formula for world domination to have ever been devised. It is the very life-blood of
Pax Americana.
Interestingly, and not surprisingly, the regions of the world that are not under firm
American Hegemony such as some parts of the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa are the
locations of the most violent conflicts. In part, these regions are still operating under the
old Hobbesian conditions of anarchy and war. They either "suffer" from not being of sufficient
interest to Superpower or are locally too costly to integrate into the world system at
present. This, of course, could change at any moment when and if transnational elites hit upon
novel ways of making these "war-torn" countries of benefit to themselves. The historical record
says they, ultimately, surely will.
Thus, unlike the nineteenth century, the world system is far more stable under a tightly
knit regime of interdependent elites dedicated to the pursuit of their own personal
interests which are well served by their collective organization by Superpower or
Empire. Ancient anarchy has been therefore drained from the international system, and as
Negri and Hardt have pointed out in their books on Empire all conflict within the system
is more of a local civil war rather than an ultimate challenge to the whole
system.
It should not be totally surprising that the current international system represents the
ever increasing homogenization of the interests of a group of people since the world is both
materially and culturally expressed in the power of a Hegemon. American hegemony reproduced
itself through the expert use and production of Baconian power and knowledge (and some
geographic and historical luck). It is a totality that came of age when the old elites
(remnants of the feudal ages) were militarily eliminated and new elites (primarily communist
and nationalist and oftentimes both) were unable to be successfully born. In a world of mass
surveillance, hegemonic power, elite interdependence, sophisticated consumption, and democratic
ideology; what contradictions, if any, could liberate humankind from the sweet bondage of ever
growing economic prosperity and, at least for the Great Powers, international peace through the
solidification of the directory of the Great Global Class of the Twenty-First
Century?
Dan Corjescu teaches Political Philosophy and Globalization at Zeppelin University in
Friedrichshafen, Germany. Read other articles by Dan .
Those meetings look like a global neoliberal party congress.
Notable quotes:
"... After decades of neoliberalism, we are at the mercy of a cluster of cartels who are lobbying politicians hard and using monopoly power to boost profits ..."
"... Bilderberg gathering, a transatlantic annual meeting convened since 1954, fuels speculation for various reasons, not least of all because of its absence of detail and off-the-record agendas. ..."
"... Other accounts are suitably dull, suggesting that little in the way of importance actually happens. That man of media, Marshall McLuhan, was appalled after attending a meeting in 1969 by those "uniformly nineteenth century minds pretending to the twentieth." He was struck by an asphyxiating atmosphere of "banality and irrelevance". ..."
"... The briefings that come out are scripted to say little, though the Bilderberg gathering does come across as a forum to trial ideas (read anything significantly friendly to big business and finance) that may find their way into domestic circulation. ..."
"... "Those at the top have learned how to suck the money out of the rest in ways that the rest are hardly aware of. That is their true innovation. Policy shapes the market, but politics has been hijacked by a financial elite that has feathered its own nest ." ..."
"... A nice distillation of Bilderbergism, indeed. ..."
"... An overview of the group, published in August 1956 by Dr. Jósef H. Retinger, Polish co-founder and secretary of the gathering, furnishes us with a simple rationale: selling the US brand to sceptical Europeans and nullifying "anxiety". Meetings "unofficial and private" would be convened involving "influential and reliable people who carried the respect of those working in the field of national and international affairs". ..."
"... Frank discussion was limited for fear of indiscretions that might be seen as rubbing against the national interest. ..."
"... Retinger's appraisals of sovereignty, to that end, are important in understanding the modern European Union, which continues to nurse those paradoxical tensions between actual representativeness and financial oligarchy. ..."
"... "The Treaty of Rome [of 1957], which brought the Common Market into being, was nurtured at Bilderberg meetings." ..."
"After decades of neoliberalism, we are at the mercy of a cluster of cartels who are lobbying politicians hard and using
monopoly power to boost profits."
The emergence of think tanks was as much a symptom of liberal progress as it was a nervous reaction in opposition to it.
In
1938, the American Enterprise Association was founded by businessmen concerned that free enterprise would suffer at the hands of
those too caught up with notions of equality and egalitarianism. In 1943, it dug into the political establishment in
Washington, renamed as the American Enterprise Institute which has boasted moments of some influence in the corridors of the
presidential administrations.
Gatherings of the elite, self-promoted as chat shops of the privileged and monstrously well-heeled, have often garnered
attention. That the rich and powerful chat together privately should not be a problem, provided the glitterati keep their
harmful ideas down to small circulation. But
the
Bilderberg gathering, a transatlantic annual meeting convened since 1954, fuels speculation for various reasons, not least of
all because of its absence of detail and off-the-record agendas.
C. Gordon Tether, writing for the
Financial
Times
in May 1975, would muse that,
"If the Bilderberg Group is not a conspiracy of some sort, it is conducted in such a way as to give a remarkably good
imitation of one."
Each year, there are hushed murmurings and ponderings about the guest list. Politicians, captains of industry, and the filthy
rich tend to fill out the numbers. In 2018, the
Telegraph
claimed
that
delegates
would chew over such matters as "Russia, 'post-truth' and the leadership in the US, with AI and quantum computing also on the
schedule."
This time, the Swiss town of Montreux is hosting a gathering which has, among its invitees, US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The Bilderberg Summit begins at the driveway – this year in Switzerland, at the hotel "Montreux Palace".
Often, the more entertaining assumptions about what happens at the Bilderberg Conference have come from outsiders keen to
fantasise. The absence of a media pack, a situation often colluded with by media outlets themselves, coupled with a general
holding of attendees to secrecy, have spawned a few gems.
A
gathering of lizard descendants hatching plans for world domination is an old favourite.
Other accounts are suitably dull, suggesting that little in the way of importance actually happens. That man of media, Marshall
McLuhan, was appalled after attending a meeting in 1969
by
those
"uniformly nineteenth century minds pretending to the twentieth."
He
was struck by an asphyxiating atmosphere of "banality and irrelevance".
The briefings that come out are scripted to say little, though the Bilderberg gathering does come across as a forum to trial
ideas (read anything significantly friendly to big business and finance) that may find their way into domestic circulation.
Former Alberta Premier Alison Redford did just that at the 2012 meeting at Chantilly, Virginia. In
reporting
on her results
after a trip costing $19,000, the Canadian politician proved short on detail.
"The Premier's participation advanced the Alberta government's more aggressive effort to engage world decision makers in
Alberta's strategic interests, and to talk about Alberta's place in the world. The mission sets the stage for further
relationship-building with existing partners and potential partners with common interests in investment, innovation and
public policy."
One is on more solid ground in being suspicious of such figures given their distinct anti-democratic credentials. Such
gatherings tend to be hostile to the demos, preferring to lecture and guide it rather than heed it. Bilderberg affirmed that
inexorable move against popular will in favour of the closed club and controlling cartel.
"There
are powerful corporate groups, above government, manipulating things,"
asserts
the
much maligned Alex Jones, whose tendency to conspiracy should not detract from a statement of the obvious. These are gatherings
designed to keep the broader populace at arms-length, and more.
The ideas and policies discussed are bound to be self-serving ones friendly to the interests of finance and indifferent to the
welfare of the commonwealth.
A Bilderberg report, describing the
Bürgenstock
Conference
in 1960, saw the gatherings as ones "where arguments not always used in public debate can be put forth." As
Joseph Stiglitz
summarises
from
The
Price of Inequality
,
"Those at the top have learned how to suck the money out of the rest in ways that the rest are hardly aware of. That is
their true innovation.
Policy
shapes the market, but politics has been hijacked by a financial elite that has feathered its own nest
."
A nice distillation of Bilderbergism, indeed.
Gauging the influence of the Bilderberg Group in an empirical sense is not a simple matter, though WikiLeaks
has
suggested
that
"its
influence on postwar history arguable eclipses that of the G8 conference."
An overview of the group, published in
August 1956 by Dr. Jósef H. Retinger, Polish co-founder and secretary of the gathering,
furnishes
us
with a simple rationale: selling the US brand to sceptical Europeans and nullifying "anxiety". Meetings "unofficial and
private" would be convened involving "influential and reliable people who carried the respect of those working in the field of
national and international affairs".
Retinger also
laid
down
the rationale for keeping meetings opaque and secret. Official international meetings, he reasoned, were troubled by
those retinues of "experts and civil servants". Frank discussion was limited for fear of indiscretions that might be seen as
rubbing against the national interest. The core details of subjects would be avoided. And thirdly, if those attending "are not
able to reach agreement on a certain point they shelve it in order to avoid giving the impression of disunity."
Retinger was already floating ideas about Europe in May 1946 when, as secretary general of the Independent League for European
Co-operation (ILEC), he pondered the virtues of federalism oiled by an elite cadre
before
an audience
at Chatham House. He feared the loss of "big powers" on the continent, whose "inhabitants after all, represent
the most valuable human element in the world." (Never mind those of the dusky persuasion, long held in European bondage.) Soon
after, he was wooed by US Ambassador W. Averell Harriman and invited to the United States, where his ideas found "unanimous
approval among financiers, businessmen and politicians."
The list of approvers reads like a modern Bilderberg selection, an oligarchic who's who
, among them the banker Russell
Leffingwell, senior partner in J. P. Morgan's, Nelson and David Rockefeller, chair of General Motors Alfred Sloan, New York
investment banker Kuhn Loeb and Charles Hook, President of the American Rolling Mills Company. (Unsurprisingly, Retinger would
establish the Bilberberg Group with the likes of Paul Rijkens, President of the multinational giant Unilever, the unglamorous
face of European capitalism.)
Retinger's appraisals of sovereignty, to that end, are important in understanding the modern European Union, which continues to
nurse those paradoxical tensions between actual representativeness and financial oligarchy.
Never mind the reptilian
issues: the EU, to a modest extent, is Bilderbergian, its vision made machinery, enabling a world to be made safe for
multinationals while keeping popular sovereignty in check. Former US ambassador to West Germany, George McGhee, put it this
way:
"The
Treaty of Rome [of 1957], which brought the Common Market into being, was nurtured at Bilderberg meetings."
That means implicit acknowledgement from Bilderberg group that neoliberalism is under threat... Essentially trade war
with China is destroying neoliberalism as we speak because "national neoliberalism" -- neoliberalism without globalization is
just a flavor of neofascism, not a new social system.
Stacey Abrams, Eric Schmidt, Mike Pompeo, and Mattel Renzi, among others, will be
attending the top-secret Bilderberh meetings from today through the weekend.
Topics to be discussed include the weaponisation of social media, the future of
capitalism, Brexit, China, and threats to the neoliberal world order.
Held since 1954, Bilderberg has acted as a meeting point for high-level establishment
politicians and corporate elites to promote the interests of Atlanticism and global
corporations.
Many attendees of Bilderberg have gone on to play major roles in their countries'
politics, including Angela Merkel and Barack Obama.
The presence of Abrams at the event is another sign that she may act as a
vice-presidential candidate for Joe Biden, who himself has attended corporate-linked summits
including Davos and the Munich Security Conference this year and who has seen his narratives
bolstered by think tanks such as More in Common and the Trilateral Commission.
Abrams is herself a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has pursued a
neoliberal agenda while in office.
"... Working in tech and consulting to a wide range of educated people in finance and pharma, I have to agree. Getting an advanced degree does not indicate anything more than persistence. ..."
In this universe of paradox, inequity, ironies,
and fake-outs one strange actuality stands above the rest these days: that
the much-reviled
President Trump was on the right side of RussiaGate, and the enormous mob of America's Thinking
Class was on the wrong side
-- and by such a shocking margin of error that they remain in a
horrified fugue of outrage and reprisal, apparently unaware that consequences await.
Granted, there's a lot to not like about Mr. Trump: his life of maximum privilege in a bubble of
grifticious wealth; his shady career in the sub-swamp of New York real estate; his rough, garbled,
and childlike manner of speech; his disdain of political decorum, his lumbering bellicosity, his
apparently near-total lack of education, and, of course, the mystifying hair-doo. His unbelievable
luck in winning the 2016 election can only be explained by the intervention of some malign cosmic
force -- a role assigned to the Russians.
At least that's how Mr. Trump's antagonists
engineered
The Narrative
that they have now quadrupled down on.
To make matters worse, this odious President happens to be on the right side of several other
political quarrels of the day, at least in terms of principle, however awkwardly he presents it.
The Resistance, which is to say the same Thinking Class groomed in the Ivy League and
apprenticed in official leadership, has dug in on the idiotic policy position of a de facto open
border with Mexico, and embellished that foolish idea with such accessory stupidities as sanctuary
cities and free college tuition for non-citizens.
Their arguments justifying these
positions are wholly sentimental --
they're stuffing little children in cages
! -- masking a
deep undercurrent of dishonesty and cynical opportunism -- not to mention putting themselves at odds
with the rule-of-law itself.
During the 2016 election campaign, Mr. Trump often averred to forging better relations with
Russia.
The previous administration had meddled grotesquely in Ukrainian politics, among
other things, and scuttled the chance to make common cause with Russia in areas of shared
self-interest, for instance, in opposing worldwide Islamic terrorism.
This was apparently
too much for the US War Lobby, who needed a Russian boogeyman to keep the gravy train of weaponry
and profitable interventionist operations chugging along, even if it meant arming Islamic State
warriors who were blowing up US troops. Being falsely persecuted from before day one of his term
for "collusion with Russia," Mr. Trump apparently found it necessary to go along with antagonizing
Russia via sanctions and bluster, as if to demonstrate he never was "Putin's Puppet."
Meanwhile, by some strange process of psychological alchemy, the Thinking Class assigned
Islamic radicals to their roster of sacred victims of oppression
-- so that now it's
verboten to mention them in news reports whenever some new slaughter of innocents is carried out
around the world, or to complain about their hostility to Western Civ as a general proposition. Two
decades after the obscene 9/11 attacks, the new Democratic Party controlled congress has apparently
decided that it's better to make common cause with Islamic Radicalism than with a Russia that is,
in actuality, no longer the Soviet Union but rather just another European nation trying to make it
through the endgame of the industrial age, like everybody else.
The Thinking Class behind the bad faith Resistance is about to be beaten within an inch
of its place in history with an ugly-stick of reality as The Narrative finally comes to be fairly
adjudicated.
The Mueller Report was much more than just disappointing; it was a comically
inept performance insofar as it managed to overlook the only incidence of collusion that actually
took place: namely, the disinfo operation sponsored by the Hillary Clinton campaign in concert with
the highest officials of the FBI, the Department of Justice, State Department personnel, the
various Intel agencies, and the Obama White house for the purpose of interfering in the 2016
election.
It will turn out that the Mueller Investigation was just an extension of that
felonious op, and Mr. Mueller himself may well be subject to prosecution for destroying evidence
and, yes, obstruction of justice.
John F. Kennedy once observed that "life is unfair."
It is unfair, perhaps,
that a TV Reality Show huckster, clown, and rank outsider beat a highly credentialed veteran of the
political establishment and that he flaunts his lack of decorum in the Oval Office.
But it
happens that he was on the side of the truth in the RussiaGate farrago and that happens to place
him in a position of advantage going forward.
Tags
Politics
and the enormous mob of America's Thinking Class was on the
wrong side
America's Thinking Class
are NOT a bunch of narcissistic
blowhards screaming in front of TV News cameras wearing makeup,
espousing and pontificating their mental illness from compromised
perspectives of the world.
America's Thinking Class
are
actually
- thinking
- living in the REAL world outside of
DC, disseminating the available information, connecting the dots
with logic, reason, incredulity, critical thinking, and a great
deal of skepticism viewed through a jaundiced eye. This thinking
class is coming to somewhat obvious yet VERY DIFFERENT conclusions
from the print and news media propagandists and are on the
right side
of the facts and truth.
"Thinking class" implies that they think - as in there are
analytical processes that go in inside their skulls. I'm not
certain Generation ReTweet exhibit enough individual consciousness
to pass a Turing Test.
Said highly-credentialed veteran of the political establishment
(like I care) chortled after Gaddafi had been dispatched by our
unconstitutional and illegal attack on Libya. "We came. We saw.
He died." If that doesn't strike you as a serious deficiency in
the decorum department I'll pass on what decorum you think it is
that Trump lacks in the Oval Office. God SAVE us from the fools
and grifters that the Establishment (spit) excretes who have all
kinds of credentials and are masters of the graceful stilleto.
That smooth pansy of a president we just saw the end of never
spent a Saturday tinkering with his ride while listening to some
tunes and sucking down a brewski. And we paid a high price for
that twink's efforts to fundamentally change America. Our
so-called political elite are as useless as **** on a 200-lb.
lesbian.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and I figured it
out. They're not the "thinking" class as in cognitive function,
but of opinion: "I
think
this is the way things are
supposed to be." So it's not the "thinking class," but "the
opinionated class, those who spout **** in the conspicuous
absence of supporting factual evidence, or even in conspicuous
contradiction to same." ;-)
Your so-called "thinking class" does nothing of the kind. In fact
they do everything they can to inhibit and prevent any "thinking".
TDS does not have to be fatal, but will be if sufferers do not
seek and accept treatment. (they are also fun to watch, especially
when it gets to the stage where they are frothing at the mouth.)
Working in tech and consulting to a wide range of educated
people in finance and pharma, I have to agree. Getting an
advanced degree does not indicate anything more than
persistence. Most people are sleep walking idiots no
matter how 'smart' they are perceived in society.
"Assange was reduced from one of the few towering figures of our time – a man who will
have a central place in history books, if we as a species live long enough to write those
books "
-- The presstituting crowd of stenographers (MSM) and the zionized X-tian war profiteers
have made everything in their power (inadvertently) to ensure that Assange is and will be a
towering figure of our time.
Even in distress, Assange has been fighting for truth and dignity; the ongoing show of
lawlessness exposes the rot. The moral and creative midgets constituting the core of MSM and
the satanic deciders are upset. Good!
The idiotic Senior District "Judge" Emma Arbuthnot (a wife and beneficiary of a mega-war
profiteer Lord Arbuthnot -- Arbuthnot served as Chairman of the Defence Select Committee from
2005 to 2014) and the no less idiotic District "Judge" Michael Snow have entered the history
books as well. As scoundrels: http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1555064882.html
Snow does his best to bring the Judiciary into disrepute by playing to the gallery. He
comments on the extradition in the same vein in a totally unprofessional manner. He is of
course in a long line of disreputable members of the judiciary Snow's place in history is
now secured – he chose to abuse the defendant rather than perform his role which was
really quite straightforward. He is the narcissist and guilty of self interest not Julian
Assange.
@Si1ver1ock For every pronouncement against Assange by the US/UK government and
judiciary, there should be an immediate question about the leniency shown towards the
pedophiles and rapists in the UK (see Savile and the sudden "disappearance" of files re the
high-placed pedophiles) and the story of Lolita Island and Lolita Express in the US.
One of the hurdles in investigating the claims is the Official Secrets Act, which
prevents the disclosure of state secrets and "sensitive" information. "It is clear there
are a lot of people who could provide a lot of information to support ongoing criminal
investigations But they are not doing so because of the Official Secrets Act. They are
fearful of not only breaking the law but the potential effect on their pension. This is
absolutely crucial if we are to get some of these ex-officers coming forward and to get
prosecutions of some of the former MPs." He has asked Home Secretary Theresa May to
lift the restrictions, allowing former officials to speak up about what they know about the
case, but so far there is no indication that this has been done.
The protection of the high-placed pedophiles and rapists in the US:
In the Epstein case, as well, there are numerous questions surrounding the possibility
of high-level cover up. In recent weeks it has emerged that Epstein struck a remarkable
secret deal with the US Attorney's Office that barred more than 500 pages of documents
detailing negotiations of the deal and a staggering 13,000 documents from the investigation
into Epstein's activities that were shelved as a result of the bargain.
Let the scoundrels talk about Assange to see how the concocted fraud is backfired.
Mrs. Clinton in particular should have been more circumspect:
It has since been revealed that Epstein had 21 different phone numbers for contacting
his friend Bill Clinton, who, court records allege, "frequently flew" on Epstein's private
jet between 2002 and 2005.
Also, perhaps you need to ponder why you are not treated the same way as the courageous,
talented, principled, and dignified Assange is treated. Perhaps, something is missing in your
character.
The documents are thought to shed light on the years of ongoing pedophilia and child
abuse within Westminster and contained names of "several" high-level politicians in the UK
and US who are connected to an elite pedophile ring.
In the case of the Westminster "pedophile ring," the mounting sentiment that Britain's
establishment serves its own interests and conceals its wrongdoing may be well founded.
Until recently only seven police officers were working on Operation Fernbridge; Scotland
Yard announced today the figure is now 22.
By fraudulently accusing Assange, Theresa May reminds the world about her role in the
protection of the wealthy and influential Westminster pedophiles (the real rapists).
"... These are the forms of White traditional British oriented American traitors, not racial or ethnic groups with historic envy, hatreds of our people. ..."
2) Trucklers – (LBJ) lower class White Americans who gain wealth and power by championing
non White, minority causes just because it's a path to power, pleasing the elites who would otherwise
dismiss them as hicks.
3) Pussyfooters (Bush Sr. Country Club Conservatives) White Americans who prefer their
own safe life, don't hate their own people but rarely defend them – they don't like trouble, they're
pussies. Alt Right has given them a new word "Cuckservatives".
4) Old Believers (Ron Paul, Pat Robertson) Sincere old guys who wish things could go back
to the way things used to be when some systems supposedly worked for us when we were 90% White European
American, before the Great Society, New Deal, feminism, etc
5) Proditors – (John Brown, Jane Fonda, SDS)
These are the forms of White traditional British oriented American traitors, not racial or ethnic
groups with historic envy, hatreds of our people.
Do you have links to other Wilmot Robertson sites?
I really can't emphasize #2 strongly enough. The term "fog of war" is an apt one.
People in a war generally don't know much at all about what's going on, at the time. They're lucky
if they ever do. But in every single orthodox eye-witness account I've ever read, the storytellers
know exactly what was going on, and why . Even when they shouldn't. They set off
my skeptic alarms left and right.
Read some of the accounts critically, and see for yourself. They're mostly "everybody knows,"
"it is known," type stuff. Not credible at all. These are the bricks the orthodox narrative is
made of.
Posted on
April 12, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. Karl Marx and
Friedrich Englels, who documented the abuses of the early Industrial Revolution, are well
remembered today, not just as activists but also as journalists. Oddly, Thorstein Veblen, who
identified many of the pathologies of the rich of the Gilded Age, is vastly less well known.
Was it because the robber barons of his age had amassed so much wealth and power that they were
better able to create a veneer of legitimacy than Victorian era factory owners?
This post picks up some Veblen themes that are particularly germane today, such as the
notion that businessmen often operate as rentiers and predators.
Distracted daily by the bloviating POTUS? Here, then, is a small suggestion. Focus your mind
for a moment on one simple (yet deeply complex) truth: we are living in a Veblen Moment.
That's Thorstein Veblen, the greatest American thinker you probably never heard of (or
forgot). His working life -- from 1890 to 1923 -- coincided with America's first Gilded Age, so
named by Mark Twain, whose novel of that
title lampooned the greedy corruption of the country's most illustrious gentlemen. Veblen had a
similarly dark, sardonic sense of humor.
Now, in America's second (bigger and better) Gilded Age, in a world of staggering
inequality , believe me, it helps to read him again.
In his student days at Johns Hopkins, Yale, and finally Cornell, already a master of many
languages, he studied anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and political economy (the old
fashioned term for what's now called economics). That was back when economists were concerned
with the real-life conditions of human beings, and wouldn't have settled for data from an
illusory "free market."
Veblen got his initial job, teaching political economy at a salary of $520 a year, in 1890
when the University of Chicago first opened its doors. Back in the days before SATs and
admissions
scandals , that school was founded and funded by John D. Rockefeller, the classic robber
baron of Standard Oil. (Think of him as the Mark Zuckerberg of his day.) Even half a century
before the free-market economist Milton Friedman captured Chicago's economics department with
dogma that serves the ruling class, Rockefeller called the university "the best investment" he
ever made. Still, from the beginning, Thorstein Veblen was there, prepared to focus his mind on
Rockefeller and his cronies, the cream of the upper class and the most ruthless profiteers
behind that Gilded Age.
He was already asking questions that deserve to be raised again in the 1% world of 2019. How
had such a conspicuous lordly class developed in America? What purpose did it serve? What did
the members of the leisure class actually do with their time and money? And why did so many of
the ruthlessly over-worked, under-paid lower classes tolerate such a peculiar, lopsided social
arrangement in which they were so clearly the losers?
Veblen addressed those questions in his first and still best-known book, The Theory of the
Leisure Class , published in 1899. The influential literary critic and novelist William
Dean Howells, the "dean of American letters," perfectly captured the effect of Veblen's
gleeful, poker-faced scientific style in an awestruck review. "In the passionless calm with
which the author pursues his investigation," Howells wrote, "there is apparently no animus for
or against a leisure class. It is his affair simply to find out how and why and what it is. If
the result is to leave the reader with a feeling which the author never shows, that seems to be
solely the effect of the facts."
The book made a big splash. It left smug, witless readers of the leisure class amused. But
readers already in revolt, in what came to be known as the Progressive Era, came away with
contempt for the filthy rich (a feeling that today, with a smug, witless plutocrat in the White House,
should be a lot more common than it is).
What Veblen Saw
The now commonplace phrase "leisure class" was Veblen's invention and he was careful to
define it: "The term 'leisure,' as here used, does not connote indolence or quiescence. What it
connotes is non-productive consumption of time. Time is consumed non-productively (1) from a
sense of the unworthiness of productive work, and (2) as an evidence of pecuniary ability to
afford a life of idleness."
Veblen observed a world in which that leisure class, looking down its collective nose at the
laboring masses, was all around him, but he saw evidence of something else as well. His
anthropological studies revealed earlier cooperative, peaceable cultures that had supported no
such idle class at all. In them, men and women had labored together, motivated by an
instinctive pride in workmanship, a natural desire to emulate the best workers, and a deep
parental concern -- a parental bent he called it -- for the welfare of future
generations. As the child of Norwegian immigrants, Veblen himself had grown up on a Minnesota
farm in the midst of a close-knit Norwegian-speaking community. He knew what just such a
cooperative culture was like and what was possible, even in a gilded (and deeply impoverished)
world.
But anthropology also recorded all too many class-ridden societies that saved upper-class
men for the "honourable employments": governance, warfare, priestly office, or sports. Veblen
noted that such arrangements elicited aggressive, dominant behavior that, over time, caused
societies to change for the worse. Indeed, those aggressive upper-class men soon discovered the
special pleasure that lay in taking whatever they wanted by "seizure," as Veblen termed it.
Such an aggressive way of living and acting, in turn, became the definition of manly "prowess,"
admired even by the working class subjected by it. By contrast, actual work -- the laborious
production of the goods needed by society -- was devalued. As Veblen put it, "The obtaining [of
goods] by other methods than seizure comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate."
It seems that more than a century ago, the dominant men of the previous Gilded Age were, like
our president, already spinning their own publicity.
A scientific Darwinian, Veblen saw that such changes developed gradually from alterations in
the material circumstances of life. New technology, he understood, sped up industrialization,
which in turn attracted those men of the leisure class, always on the lookout for the next
thing of value to seize and make their own. When "industrial methods have been developed to
such a degree of efficiency as to leave a margin worth fighting for," Veblen wrote, the
watchful men struck like birds of prey.
Such constant "predation," he suggested, soon became the "habitual, conventional resource"
of the parasitical class. In this way, a more peaceable, communal existence had evolved into
the grim, combative industrial age in which he found himself: an age shadowed by predators
seeking only profits and power, and putting down any workers who tried to stand up for
themselves. To Veblen this change was not merely "mechanical." It was a spiritual
transformation.
The Conspicuous Class
Classical economists from Adam Smith on typically depicted economic man as a rational
creature, acting circumspectly in his own self-interest. In Veblen's work, however, the only
men -- and they were all men then -- acting that way were those robber barons, admired for
their "prowess" by the very working-class guys they preyed upon. (Think of President Trump and
his besotted MAGA-hatted followers.) Veblen's lowly workers still seemed to be impelled by the
"instinct for emulation." They didn't want to overthrow the leisure class. They wanted to climb
up into it.
For their part, the leisured gents asserted their superiority by making a public show of
their leisure or, as Veblen put it, their "conspicuous abstention from labour." To play golf,
for example, as The Donald has
spent much of his presidency doing, became at once "the conventional mark of superior
pecuniary achievement" and "the conventional index of reputability." After all, he wrote, "the
pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and
patent waste of time." In Donald Trump's version of the same, he displayed his penchant for
"conspicuous consumption" by making himself the owner of a global chain of golf courses where he
performs his "conspicuous leisure" by
cheating up a storm and carrying what Veblen called a "conspicuous abstention from labour"
to particularly enviable heights.
Veblen devoted 14 chapters of The Theory of the Leisure Class to analyzing every
aspect of the life of the plutocrat living in a gilded world and the woman who accompanied him
on his conspicuous outings, elaborately packaged in constricting clothing, crippling high
heels, and "excessively long hair," to indicate just how unfit she was for work and how much
she was "still the man's chattel." Such women, he wrote, were "servants to whom, in the
differentiation of economic functions, has been delegated the office of putting in evidence
their master's ability to pay." (Think POTUS again and whomever he once displayed
with a certain possessive pride only to pay hush
money to thereafter.)
And all of that's only from chapter seven, "Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary
Culture." Today, each of those now-century-old chapters remains a still-applicable little
masterpiece of observation, insight, and audacity, though it was probably the 14th and last
chapter that got him fired from Rockefeller's university: "The Higher Learning as an Expression
of the Pecuniary Culture." How timely is that?
The (Re)tardiness of Conservatives
As both an evolutionary and an institutional economist (two fields he originated), Veblen
contended that our habits of thought and our institutions must necessarily "change with
changing circumstances." Unfortunately, they often seem anchored in place instead, bound by the
social and psychological inertia of conservatism. But why should that be so?
Veblen had a simple answer. The leisure class is so sheltered from inevitable changes going
on in the rest of society that it will adapt its views, if at all, "tardily." Comfortably
clueless (or calculating), the wealthy leisure class drags its heels (or digs them in) to
retard economic and social forces that make for change. Hence the name "conservatives." That
(re)tardiness -- that time lag imposed by conservative complacency -- stalls and stifles the
lives of everyone else and the timely economic development of the nation. (Think of our
neglected infrastructure, education, housing, health care, public transport -- you know the
lengthening list today.)
Accepting and adjusting to social or economic change, unfortunately, requires prolonged
"mental effort," from which the leisured conservative mind quite automatically recoils. But so,
too, Veblen said, do the minds of the "abjectly poor, and all those persons whose energies are
entirely absorbed by the struggle for daily sustenance." The lower classes were -- and this
seems a familiar reality in the age of Trump -- as conservative as the upper class simply
because the poor "cannot afford the effort of taking thought for the day after tomorrow," while
"the highly prosperous are conservative because they have small occasion to be discontented
with the situation as it stands." It was, of course, a situation from which they, unlike the
poor, made a bundle in an age (both Veblen's and ours) in which money flows only uphill to the
1%.
Veblen gave this analytic screw one more turn. Called a "savage" economist, in his
meticulous and deceptively neutral prose, he described in the passage that follows a truly
savage and deliberate process:
"It follows that the institution of a leisure class acts to make the lower classes
conservative by withdrawing from them as much as it may of the means of sustenance and so
reducing their consumption, and consequently their available energy, to such a point as to make
them incapable of the effort required for the learning and adoption of new habits of thought.
The accumulation of wealth at the upper end of the pecuniary scale implies privation at the
lower end of the scale."
And privation always stands as an obstacle to innovation and change. In this way, the
industrial, technological, and social progress of the whole society is retarded or perhaps even
thrown into reverse. Such are the self-perpetuating effects of the unequal distribution of
wealth. And reader take note: the leisure class brings about these results on
purpose.
The Demolition of Democracy
But how, at the turn of the nineteenth century, had America's great experiment in democracy
come to this? In his 1904 book The Theory of Business
Enterprise , Veblen zoomed in for a close up of America's most influential man: "the
Business Man." To classical economists, this enterprising fellow was a generator of economic
progress. To Veblen, he was "the Predator" personified: the man who invests in industry, any
industry, simply to extract profits from it. Veblen saw that such predators created nothing,
produced nothing, and did nothing of economic significance but seize profits.
Of course, Veblen, who could build a house with his own hands, imagined a working world free
of such predators. He envisioned an innovative industrial world in which the labor of producing
goods would be performed by machines tended by technicians and engineers. In the advanced
factories of his mind's eye, there was no role, no place at all, for the predatory Business
Man. Yet Veblen also knew that the natural-born predator of Gilded Age America was already
creating a kind of scaffolding of financial transactions above and beyond the factory floor --
a lattice of loans, credits, capitalizations, and the like -- so that he could then take
advantage of the "disruptions" of production caused by such encumbrances to seize yet more
profits. In a pinch, the predator was, as Veblen saw it, always ready to go further, to throw a
wrench into the works, to move into the role of outright "Saboteur."
Here Veblen's image of the predatory characters who dominated his Gilded Age runs up against
the far glossier, more gilded image of the entrepreneurial executive hailed by most economists
and business boosters of his time and ours. Yet in book after book, he continued to strip the
gilded cloaks from America's tycoons, leaving them naked on the factory floor, with one hand
jamming the machinery of American life and the other in the till.
Today, in our Second Even-Glitzier Gilded Age, with a Veblen Moment come round again, his
conclusions seem self-evident. In fact, his predators pale beside a single image that he
himself might have found incredible, the image of three
hallowed multi-billionaires of our own Veblen Moment who hold more wealth than the bottom
160 million Americans.
The Rise of the Predatory State
Why, then, when Veblen saw America's plutocratic bent so clearly, is he now neglected?
Better to ask, who among America's moguls wouldn't want to suppress such a clear-eyed genius?
Economist James K. Galbraith suggests that Veblen was eclipsed by the Cold War, which offered
only two alternatives, communism or capitalism -- with America's largely unfettered capitalist
system presenting itself as a "conservative" norm and not what it actually was and remains: the
extreme and cruel antithesis of communism.
When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, it left only one alternative: the triumphant fantasy
of the "free market." What survived, in other words, was only the post-Veblen economics of John
D. Rockefeller's university: the "free market" doctrines of Milton Friedman, founder of the
brand of economics popular among conservatives and businessmen and known as the Chicago
School.
Ever since, America has once again been gripped by the heavy hands of the predators and of
the legislators they
buy . Veblen's leisure class is now eclipsed by those even richer than rich, the top 1% of
the 1%, a celestial crew even more remote from the productive labor of working men and women
than were those nineteenth-century robber barons. For decades now, from the ascendancy of
President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to Bill Clinton's New Democrats in the 1990s to the
militarized world of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to the self-proclaimed billionaire con man
now in the Oval Office, the plutocrats have continued to shower
their dark money on the legislative process. Their only frustration: that the left-over reforms
of Veblen's own "Progressive Era" and those of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal
still somehow stand (though for how long no one knows).
As Galbraith pointed out in his 2008 book The Predator
State , the frustrated predators of the twenty-first century sneakily changed tactics:
they aimed to capture the government themselves, to become the state. And so they have. In the
Trump era, they have created a government in which current regulators are
former lobbyists for the very predators they are supposed to restrain. Similarly, the
members of Trump's cabinet are now the saboteurs:
shrinking the State Department,
starving public schools,
feeding big Pharma with Medicare funds,
handing over national parks and public lands to "developers," and denying science and
climate change altogether, just to start down a long list. Meanwhile, our Predator President,
when not
golfing , leaps about the deconstruction site, waving his hands and hurling abuse, a baron
of distraction, commanding attention while the backroom boys (and girls) demolish the
institutions of law and democracy.
Later in life, Veblen, the evolutionary who believed that no one could foresee the future,
nonetheless felt sure that the American capitalist system, as it was, could not last. He
thought it would eventually fall apart. He went on teaching at Stanford, the University of
Missouri, and then the New School for Social Research, and writing a raft of brilliant articles
and eight more books. Among them, The Vested
Interestsand the Common Man (1920) may be the best summation of his once
astonishing and now essential views. He died at the age of 72 in August 1929. Two months later,
the financial scaffolding collapsed and the whole predatory system came crashing down.
To the end, Veblen had hoped that one day the Predators would be driven from the marketplace
and the workers would find their way to socialism. Yet a century ago, it seemed to him more
likely that the Predators and Saboteurs, collaborating as they did even then with politicians
and government lackeys, would increasingly amass more profits, more power, more adulation from
the men of the working class, until one day, when those very plutocrats actually captured the
government and owned the state, a Gilded Business Man would arise to become a kind of primitive
Warlord and Dictator. He would then preside over a new and more powerful regime and the triumph
in America of a system we would eventually recognize and call by its modern name: fascism.
Thankyou for bringing up one of my all time favourite authors. Why is he neglected?
Because he saw and wrote too clearly and he mocked the use of mathematical models, and the
silly assumptions underlying them – oh so unscientifically unsound.
I think Veblen may be neglected because his observations do not comport well with what
many others observe. For instance, in the quoted or paraphrased material in the article, he
asserts that the upper classes are idly conservative. But if we have observed the development
of cooperative agrarian societies into, first, instances of industrial capitalism, and later
imperial-liberal or finance-capitalist warfare-welfare states, it is the capitalists who were
the radical progressives, who shook things up, who 'moved fast and broke things', and the
agrarian cooperators who were the conservatives or reactionaries. And Uncle Karl agrees with
me, at least as of the Communist Manifesto : 'The bourgeoisie cannot exist without
constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of
production, and with them the whole relations of society .. All that is solid melts into air
.' and so on.
Would that the rich were idle! But they are not. They labor ceaselessly to destroy
the Earth, to turn it into nothing more than numbers written on a tablet. It is a mistake to
underestimate and deride such people, even if their personalities are socially deficient.
I think you need to look at the crucial distinction Veblen made between industry and
business, which I find has much more analytical and prescriptive power than Marx.
I was thinking of the combination of business and industry, industry being the work of
changing the material world to produce desired things, experiences, and circumstances, and
business being the political organization of that work, which has evolved in various ways
into contemporary capitalism. The large-scale practice of modern industry apparently requires
a lot of political organization. In my observation and personal experience, business, so
defined, is also hard work, since one is not dealing with inanimate things, but with human
beings, who are often as unpredictable, crafty, greedy and treacherous as oneself. Hence not
many actually want to or are able to do it. This poses an obvious problem for those who want
to establish a more cooperative and egalitarian social order above the local or familial
level, much less a sustainable economy. The rich are anything but idle, and they always want
more.
The book is also available for free at project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/833
The leisure class hasn't been able to expand copyright to infinity yet.
They are trying. Project Gutenberg is presently blocking all German IP addresses after a
publisher asserted copyright on 18 works from 1903–1920. I must content myself with
reading H.L. Mencken's iconoclastic essay, "Professor Veblen".
Ah, yes! H.L. Mencken, social darwinist and proto-nazi, as was Veblen's first professor at
Yale, William Graham Sumner, Phi Beta Kappa and Bonesman, who brought the teachings of
Herbert Spencer to Yale and America as the new Science of "Sociology". Of course we no longer
call such sociology "social darwinism" or "nazism". "Meritocracy" is a more polite term.
Veblen would still call it "predatory".
Wow! I am reading this while sitting in the cafeteria of UPMC Presbyterian Hospital (where
my husband's cousin, the farmer of whom I have written here before, hovers between life and
death.) Pittsburgh, home of the planet's largest gothic phallus, the gargoyled tower at
Carnegie Mellon U. Even the First Baptist Church is a mini-Notre Dame.
Walking the mile up to the hospital this morning, along the row of gracious mansions, now
a designated Historic District, built from the blood and sweat of the Polish and Czech and
Italian coal miners and steel workers, I wondered if their tenements had been declared an
Historic District.
DJG, I wrote a think you post to you, with additional comments but it either got lost or
delayed or my fat fingers consigned it to Oblivion. Typing on my phone is dangerous.
Upmc, the future of predatory healthcare. My great grandfather raised his family of eight
Italians in one of those row houses in Oakland. Now it's probably rented out by a slumlord to
college kids racking up debt.
Yes. Pittsburgh was once the real 'metropolis of tomorrow', and the Cathedral of Learning
was the ultimate proof both of the city's arrival in the future and of just how conservative
that future was going to look. One of the key American buildings of its time, it's a tenth
'malic mould' embodying not only the so-called 'skyward trend of thought' by which the
predatory businessmen of the 1920s imagined themselves transported to 'impossible heights'
but also -- inside -- a showcase of international culture that foreshadowed today's
globalization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Learning
Oops, you are correct, Trent! I don't know why I associated it with C-M. And it really is
almost more beaux arts than gothic. But it is still an example of 'mine is much much bigger
than yours.'
No worries, I'm a throwback that takes a bit of pride in the area my family has resided
the past few hundred years. If you get bored you should read about the Mellon's. Very big
players in the gilded age.
So, not a designated 'Historic District,' I will bet. My grandparents raised their kids in
brick mill housing, still standing. But not 'Historic.'. Just haunted by the ghosts of the
still-born babies and tubercular adolescents.
My condolences upon your presence in the Pittsburgh of capitalism and scalping. If you
wish to see the contradictory nature of "historicism", Pittsburgh is THE place to follow.
Case in point: In the close-by tiny mill town of Millvale (aptly named, no?) sits the St.
Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church, where once a Croatian artist named Maxo Vanka was allowed
to paint beautiful murals upon its walls and ceilings, all of which commemorated and
encapsulated the horrific struggles of mine and mill workers of the region. They are akin to,
and in some ways exceed, the murals of Diego Rivera – passionately and class-reverently
done.
The contradiction? Besides the religious basis for this socialist art, the current
foundation trying to preserve and defend these paintings is begging for corporate donations
and having $1000+ benefits (wine, cheese, hubris) so some retouching and repainting can occur
under an umbrella of the threat to the art and the church posed by those selfsame
corporations who would love to topple the structure and put up office space. Oh, to be able
to say "Sic semper tyrannus "
Fear not – the church still stands, and the professional class are scurrying about,
waxing poetic and oozing dollars, so it will be there for you for at least as long as the
fund-raisers do their work.
I would go soon, though, just to see how years of neglect can harm mural art, because the
difference between the undone and finished restoration is something to note.
P.S.- easier to drive there if you have wheels. Public transport suffers by scarcity and
slowness.
Sotte voce: When I lived in Pittsburgh, the planet's largest gothic phallus was called the
Catheter of Learning. (It's real name is the Cathedral of Learning.)
If the human condition is viewed as an endless spiritual crisis seeking out resolution,
then everyones collective efforts begin to make more sense. Spiritual connections must be
made in order to survive and this choice sets into motion a chain of events that approximate
the future. Everyone must choose what life they want to live. They must choose what spirit
they will follow. A passive choice supports the status quo/conservatives, while an active
choice drives change in society.
How the current spiritual crisis is handled will determine our collective future. It is no
coincidence that true, honest spirituality has also been corrupted by the predator class.
Spiritual subversion is the essence of TINA. Education and spiritual growth are the
foundations upon which a free and productive society rest- without that, as the author notes,
society evolves into fascism. Fascism becomes the spirituality of the predator class. Fascism
is freedom disguised.
If this is true, then it becomes imperative for all freedom loving people to do everything
in their power to subvert such exploitation and purposeful suffering. The spirit must be
without freedom for all there is, in reality, freedom for none. Society must be based on
reducing suffering, not creating or perpetuating it.
At root, that is what civil disobedience is all about. Civil disobedience takes on many
forms, including actively building parallel social structures to negate the damaging social
conditions brought about by a predator class. The saboteurs are themselves subject to
sabotage. This inevitable dynamic explains why foreigners and domestic dissenters are treated
as enemies and terrorists by the ruling elite. Foreign and domestic enemies must be
eliminated. When this dynamic becomes an issue, it proves all by itself that the ruling elite
no longer hold their citizens to any regard, regardless of the propaganda they employ to
prove otherwise. The society becomes more polarized and violent.
The follow up to this essay is to explore the people and communities that took Veblen
insights to heart and acted accordingly. That would provide examples upon which to build and
restore.
Society must be based on reducing suffering, not creating or perpetuating it.
and yet, in the present arrangement of things, most of us can't even get around in the
place where we live without someone, somewhere, drilling oil, and transporting it, and
refining it, and transporting it some more using this computer required someone, somewhere to
mine metal ore, and refine and process and transport it
The great tragedy of our situation is that we often choose to do things we know to be
harmful in order to protect and provide for those we love. "I'd give up my car, but I need it
for my job. I'd quit the job, but I've got kids to think about and plus, what happens if my
kid gets hurt and needs to get to the hospital fast? So I can't give up the car, even though
I know it's contributing to larger scale problems that will effect everyone negatively, and
already effect some people extremely negatively."
The biggest threat to progress in the forwards direction is those that like progress in
the reverse direction.
The Magna Carta was the first step in moving forwards from when wealth and power were
concentrated with one person, the Absolute Monarch.
Progress is always a battle between those below and those at the top, who want to keep
wealth and power as concentrated as it is now, or to move backwards to when it was more
concentrated.
Royalty spent centuries trying to regain the power they lost with the Magna Carta and get
back to where they were before.
It is a constant battle and many nations slide back to the beginning with dictators, where
wealth and power are concentrated with one person, and where that wealth and power is
inherited.
To progress from the Magna Carta to universal suffrage took 700 years. Within another 50
years those at the top looked to move backwards to when they had more wealth and power.
They sought to regain the economic freedom they used to have and roll back the welfare
state.
They set the wheels in motion.
In 1947, Albert Hunold, a senior Credit Suisse official looked for a group of right wing
thinkers to form the Mont Pelerin Society and neoliberalism started to take shape.
"Why Nations Fail" is a good book on this subject.
"In the passionless calm with which the author pursues his investigation," Howells wrote,
"there is apparently no animus for or against a leisure class. It is his affair simply to
find out how and why and what it is. If the result is to leave the reader with a feeling
which the author never shows, that seems to be solely the effect of the facts."
If only this author had such a deft hand as Veblen. Aspiration.
The University of Chicago forgot what they used to know.
Henry Simons was at the University of Chicago as he was a firm believer in free markets,
but he had learned the lessons of the 1920s and 1930s.
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." Irving Fisher
1929.
Irving Fisher was a neoclassical economist that believed in free markets and he knew this
was a stable equilibrium.
He became a laughing stock and worked out where he had gone wrong.
What goes wrong with free markets?
Henry Simons and Irving Fisher supported the Chicago Plan to take away the bankers ability
to create money, so that free market valuations could have some meaning.
The real world and free market, neoclassical economics would then tie up.
Real science is evolutionary and new knowledge builds on past knowledge in a way that is
self-correcting and improves over time. The old knowledge remains and anything that is wrong
gets changed.
Thorstein Veblen recognised economics wasn't like that and this is why they keep
forgetting stuff.
We had a new, scientific economics for globalisation.
This explains why Milton Friedman is better known than Thorstein Veblen
I would not necessarily call something scientific even if it builds on previous knowledge.
The key is the real effort at studying and understanding a subject.
"Economics," especially its propagandistic version Neoliberalism, is not at all scientific
or even an attempt to study something. It is an effort to make opaque, not an attempt to
clarify.
Political economy, like philosophy, metaphysics, psychology and sociology are themselves
not "hard"science, but they were created, built upon, and maintain as usually honest attempts
at understanding; Neoliberal Economics is as to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in
Political Economy as Social Darwinism is to Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species
is in evolutionary biology.
There is an underappreciated consumer-credit-boom-and-bust aspect to the Great Crash /
Great Depression era – people often point out the contradictions in blaming margin
lending for eveything, IMO it is the consumer-credit aspect that helps fill in the rest.
Briefly, the 1920s saw the first great boom in consumer credit, as wage-suppressed workers
saw the fabulous boom in wealth of the rentier and stock-speculator class and were misled to
go into hock by the overall optimism thus engendered. The boom in installment-plan buying was
the 1920s analog of the the late great mortgage-finance bubble. Here is a link, much more out
there for those willig to look for it:
Why, then, when Veblen saw America's plutocratic bent so clearly, is he now neglected?
Better to ask, who among America's moguls wouldn't want to suppress such a clear-eyed
genius? Economist James K. Galbraith suggests that Veblen was eclipsed by the Cold War,
which offered only two alternatives, communism or capitalism -- with America's largely
unfettered capitalist system presenting itself as a "conservative" norm and not what it
actually was and remains: the extreme and cruel antithesis of communism.
I have a feeling that the rejection was going on earlier. I am reminded that Sinclair
Lewis's career started with his first important novel in 1914–fifteen years after
Theory of the Leisure Class, yet still before the shattering effects of World War I. Yet
Sinclair Lewis has also been in decline, and his stories are the novelist's way of dealing
with Veblen's ideas–especially the novel Dodsworth.
I have a feeling that something deeper in the culture pushes aside the observations that
Americans are avaricious, conformist, and not particularly happy. It is so much chirpier to
repeat Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. And it may be that the fear of falling in
U.S. culture–dropping economically with the possible implication of turning black
racially–means that the unproductivity of the upper classes is what Americans are
fixated on and aspire to.
Very good to mention Sinclair Lewis here.
Highly recommended literary counterpart to Veblen, though Veblen was no slouch
as a stylist, among his many strengths.
Not only Dodsworth, but I would say all of Lewis' oeuvre exposes the predation,
corruption
and injustice of various good ole 'murkan institutions: Elmer Gantry (venal ministers),
Arrowsmith (careerism in medicine), Main Street (oppressive 'normality'), Gideon Parrish (the
'uplift' racket), Ann Vickers (womens prisons), The Job (women in the workplace) etc etc.
Lewis is hilarious and a truly prescient progressive.
Highly recommended!
Sinclair Lewis probably faded because the self satisfied American world he described took
a nose dive in the great depression and satire became both superfluous and universal (any
1930s Hollywood depiction of the rich–i.e. A Night at the Opera).
In any case thanks for the good article above. It does lay on the Trump hate a little
thick given that our Veblen moment has been going on at least since Reagan.
Not really. Trump is the current and shameless torchbearer, even though he hypocritically
purports to be the saviour of the "deplorables" callously abandoned by Hilary & Co.
Absolutely, start with ooindoze; years ago a Finn Linus Torwald
wrote a FREE replacement for Unix, cutting ATT off at the Internet; all he got for his
trouble was the runaway monopoly of ooindoze. Now ooindoze is worth billions (ten plus at
last count) .
The difference is BS and propaganda and the sleaziest possible merchandizing, YAHOO
MOUNTAIN DEW!!
The irony of linking to a Veblen book on Amazon is well, it's a thing ironic anyway it's
still early, you get what I'm saying. Here's a free version, as Thorstein would have wanted
it:
Thanks, Diptherio, but, and I don't know why so many people forget about this, you could
just go to your nearest public library. They'd be delighted to find it for you
Thanks for the tip. In 1919, Mencken worked through all of Veblen's published works.
Following his recommendation, I found copies of the two Mencken thought most essential: "What
I found myself aware of, coming to the end, was that practically the whole system of Prof.
Veblen was in his first book and his last [as of 1919] – that is, in "The Theory of the
Leisure Class" and "The Higher Learning in America". I pass on the news to literary
archeologists. Read these two, and you won't have to read the others. And if even two daunt
you, then read the first. Once through it, though you will have have missed many a pearl and
many a pain, you will have an excellent grasp of the gifted metaphysician's ideas."
[Prejudices, First Series (1919), pp. 59-83]
My very modest knowledge of Veblen is through secondary sources, one of which is Mencken,
who I never thought was a Veblen adulator. It is probably now a duty to read some of the
primary sources.
Back in the day I bought one of those little Penguin Classics of Theory out of the
university bookstore for a buck. The fact that it was still in print was sufficient testimony
that curiosity continued to exist about the long dead discipline of Political Economics. I
read a portion of it, but never came close to finishing it. That always bothered me. What
happened to the little Penguin over the years I cannot say.
Anyway, a couple of years ago I had the public library exhume a copy for me out of their
warehouse. Immediately upon reading it I recalled with great disappointment why I never
finish the Penguin the prose style was both turgid and tortured. So, I guess you could say
that I have always been pleased to read about Veblen and depressed with the actual
reading.
My recommendation would be that a good translator translate Theory of the Leisure
Class into say French or Italian and then another translator translate it back into
English. Doubtless much of the drole and tongue planted firmly in cheek would be lost in the
translation, but perhaps a much more readable book would ensue.
Once one understands how censored publications were in that day ( plus ça
change . . .) and one discovers the sarcasm veiled behind all that "turgid prose", The
Theory of the Leisure Class becomes a joy to read.
My thanks as well for this post, which (ahem, everyone) deserves a wider audience. Sadly,
my own college edjumacation glided over Veblen. This was in the early 70's, when Friedman and
Co. Economists, Inc. were taking over economics. Suddenly, he's relevant again!
Now, we just need a Teddy Roosevelt progressive to initiate some reforms and a Franklin
Roosevelt to make the right kind of enemies.
The Theory of the Leisure Class was my introduction to economics, reading it right after
the Kennedy assassination, thus turning me from a right-wing parrot into a critical and still
learning skeptic of all cheerleading about "our" government, "our" city on the hill. My
father, a union founder and organizer as well as a solid drinker, would often go off on me
about my "nazi" ideas before this turn, then wondered at the abrupt wheel. Ahhhh, once an
outlier, always
The sad part is I (we?) are more "outliers" than ever before, thanks to the freedom
exercised by many of our co-citizens to conform and obey to any media/government/corporate
message with knee-jerk speed. Expected of the professional caste and their sponsors within
the banking and corporate elite, it is sad to see its reach into levels of the working class,
where it displays its total dysfunction.
In her quick gloss of our Predator-Enablers in Chief, from Reagan to Trump,
Teflon Obama gets a pass he does not deserve:
"For decades now, from the ascendancy of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to Bill
Clinton's New Democrats in the 1990s to the militarized world of George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney to the self-proclaimed billionaire con man now in the Oval Office, the plutocrats have
continued to shower their dark money on the legislative process. Their only frustration: that
the left-over reforms of Veblen's own "Progressive Era" and those of President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt's New Deal still somehow stand (though for how long no one knows) ..
Similarly, the members of Trump's cabinet are now the saboteurs: shrinking the State
Department, starving public schools, feeding big Pharma with Medicare funds, handing over
national parks and public lands to "developers," and denying science and climate change
altogether, just to start down a long list. Meanwhile, our Predator President, when not
golfing, leaps about the deconstruction site, waving his hands and hurling abuse, a baron of
distraction, commanding attention while the backroom boys (and girls) demolish the
institutions of law and democracy."
I think Obama's legacy is dismantling more lefty organizing venues and directing energy
towards wasteful infighting as people who conned themselves into liking him hold onto bizarre
beliefs to justify Obama's third and fourth Shrub terms such as how Obama "inherited"
problems despite choosing to run for President. Ben Bernanke, Bob Gates, Larry Summers and
Tim Geithner (or insert whatever monster you wish) were just the associates of the previous
administrations at various levels. Though Obama may not have been from the "leisure class"
but the higher level staff, he approached the Presidency as a luxury pursuit. Yes, Michelle
opted for lesser known designers, but the people who mattered cut their teeth in the previous
four administrations. Outsiders were not brought in. Liz Warren jumps out as an exception,
and even now her Presidential run, she is almost completely separate from Obama despite her
time in the administration creating her star.
Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his
predecessor's administration, and left office with considerable popularity.[3] As a Coolidge
biographer wrote: "He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret
their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is
the most convincing proof of his strength".[4]
Scholars have ranked Coolidge in the lower half of those presidents that they have
assessed. He is praised by advocates of smaller government and laissez-faire economics, while
supporters of an active central government generally view him less favorably, though most
praise his stalwart support of racial equality.[5] This is from the wiki on Calvin
Coolidge. Does it sound like someone?
Except for Silent Cal stories and being an advocate of "white collies" (puppies that were
often drowned because it was believed they were blind), he was a continuation of more of the
same and has largely disappeared from the discourse outside of memorizing the Presidents. He
was President until March 1929, and Hoover gets a lot of flak. The economic crisis came from
somewhere.
Trump is particularly predatory and being current merits mention as the old leisure class
not merely taking control of the government but turning it into their leisure pursuit. Obama
much like his "soaring rhetoric" is almost entirely forgettable.
Thank you for mentioning this. The omission of Obama from that list jumped out at me as
well. When I think of a "Banker's President" Obama is the first to come to mind.
Thank you for an introduction to Ann Jones. She is a beautiful writer and her subject is
wonderful. No argument there. I enjoyed her jabs at Trump too. But in his behalf I'd just
like to say it was refreshing to see him crash the gates for the sole reason that he shook up
our very complacent Congress and they almost seem awake now. Trump is not an ideologue. He's
a self promoter. So we can't expect him to have a vision. That's the big problem with him.
He's got no compass. It isn't that he impulsively and inanely talks about things like
"beautiful wonderful new health care" and other crap – it's that he doesn't have a clue
about how to achieve anything. Except cooking books and money shuffling. And Jones' example
of his cheating at golf – urban legend already – is his character in a nutshell.
But that said, I blame malicious obstructionists like Pelosi and the very dreadful Mitch for
preventing the progress we are dying for. Congress is MIA. Why do we even bother to elect
it?
So, was Einstein a member of the "leisure class"?
At Princeton, he would take his little sailboat out on the lake when there was so little
wind
that no other boats were out there with him.
He would get his boat just barely moving slowly steadily calmly.
And that is where he thought his deepest thoughts.
Personally, my deepest thoughts come in a leisurely hot bath.
A most enjoyable essay and it brings me full circle with what I have been researching this
past week. The Counsel on Foreign Relations and what their many spinoff non profit
organizations claim to do, and their membership list. Membership is by invitation only and
there is enough history now to see who has been running the country since its inception in
1919. I could write a book on all of the corruption of each member on a global scale. Just
pull up any 3 or 4 of the current members (no need to research all of the U.S. presidents,
and yes they are all members, because we already know what they have done) and you will see
how corrupt they all are. The members at the top are all white, male, .01%'s with
international power. It seems really obvious to me that we lost the last of our rights on
9/11 and that we are now living in a communist country actually being run fairly quietly for
now by the Chinese government. We have been taught to hate and kill anyone considered to be
communist (Russia is in MSM all of the time) but where is the hatred for China in the media?
Why has China been permitted to but up so much real estate here? I could to on and on but the
bottom line is that I think that the international leaders of the world are all communists
and that is why we have no democracy left. Before you disagree and call me crazy please do
your research! That is all I ask.
Thank you Excellent, comments included!! My copy of Thorstein Veblens Theory of the
Leisure Class was lost somewhere along the way. I dutifully, as a fellow Norwegian, read it
50 years ago, working in New York, trying to like and acclimatize to an American way of life.
This I saw first hand at the top, as part of staff of one of the richest, most famous banking
families, then from the opposite level, clerk at Bell Telephone System in lower Manhattan.
I've downloaded a free copy of Veblen, thanks, and shall reread it, as Norway seems to be on
a trajectory not unlike the US, seemingly seeking the seat left open after UK's Tony Blair as
US poodle one. NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg the successor, I think – most
regretfully.
"It is also a matter of common notoriety and byword that in offenses which result in a
large accession of property to the offender he does not ordinarily incur the extreme penalty
or the extreme obloquy with which his offenses would be visited on the ground of the naive
moral code alone. The thief or swindler who has gained great wealth by his delinquency has a
better chance than the small thief of escaping the rigorous penalty of the law and some good
repute accrues to him from his increased wealth and from his spending the irregularly
acquired possessions in a seemly manner. A well-bred expenditure of his booty especially
appeals with great effect to persons of a cultivated sense of the proprieties, and goes far
to mitigate the sense of moral turpitude with which his dereliction is viewed by them. It may
be noted also -- and it is more immediately to the point -- that we are all inclined to
condone an offense against property in the case of a man whose motive is the worthy one of
providing the means of a "decent" manner of life for his wife and children. If it is added
that the wife has been "nurtured in the lap of luxury," that is accepted as an additional
extenuating circumstance. "
RT CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle and The Duran's Alex Christoforou take a quick look at the college admissions scam revolving around
William Rick Singer, who was running a for-profit college-counseling program, where according to federal prosecutors, has a goal
focused on helping "the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids into school."
Arrest warrants for Hollywood stars, Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, were delivered on Tuesday following their alleged involvement
in a college-entrance-exam cheating scandal.
According to CNN,
the women were two of around 50 people who were the subject of
federal indictment
following an extensive FBI investigation named "Operation Varsity Blues."
Loughlin's husband, Mossimo Giannulli, was also implicated, and was arrested early on Tuesday morning.
TMZ reported
that Huffman was arrested by seven armed FBI agents. Her husband, William H. Macy, has not been charged in connection to the case.
Loughlin, Giannulli, and Huffman are all facing charges of felony conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.
Huffman is accused of spending $15,000 on an organization that allegedly helped her daughter cheat on her SATs. Loughlin and Giannulli
are accused of paying $500,000 to get their daughters into University of Southern California as recruits for the crew team for which
neither of Loughlin's daughters rowed crew.
All three were recorded by the FBI on phone calls discussing their plans to alter or lie about their children's college applications.
Is there anything left in this country that has not been deeply tainted by corruption?
By now you have probably heard that dozens of people have been arrested for participating in a multi-million dollar college admissions
scam. Enormous amounts of money were paid out in order to ensure that children from very wealthy families were able to get into top
schools such as Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Texas and the University of Southern California.
And as The Economic Collapse blog's Michael Snyder writes, we should certainly be disgusted by these revelations, but
we shouldn't be surprised. Such corruption happens every single day on every single level of society in America. At this point our
nation is so far gone that it is shocking when you run into someone that actually still has some integrity.
The "mastermind" behind this college admissions scam was a con man named William Rick Singer. He had been successfully getting
the kids of wealthy people into top colleges for years using "side doors", and he probably thought that he would never get caught.
But he did.
There were four basic methods that Singer used to get children from wealthy families into elite schools. The first two methods
involved bribes
Bribing college entrance exam administrators to allow a third party to facilitate cheating on college entrance exams, in some
cases by posing as actual students,' is the first.
Bribing university athletic coaches and administrators to designate applicants as purported athletic recruits – regardless
of their athletic abilities, and in some cases, even though they did not play the sport,' is the second.
Because many of these kids didn't even play the sports they were being "recruited" for, in some cases Photoshop was used to paste
their faces on to the
bodies of real athletes
In order to get non-athletic kids admitted to college as athletes, Singer often had to create fake profiles for them. Sometimes
this involved fabricating resumes that listed them having played on elite club teams, but to finish the illusion Singer and his
team would also use Photoshop to combine photos of the kids with actual athletes in the sport.
A number of college coaches became exceedingly wealthy from taking bribes to "recruit" kids that would never play once they got
to school, but now a lot of those same coaches are probably going to prison.
'Having a third party take classes in place of the actual students, with the understanding that the grades earned in those
classes would be submitted as part of the students' application,' is the third.
The fourth was 'submitting falsified applications for admission to universities that, among other things, included the fraudulently
obtained exam scores and class grades, and often listed fake awards and athletic activities.'
Of course the main thing that the media is focusing on is the fact that some celebrities are among those being charged in this
case, and that includes
Lori Loughlin from "Full House"
It was important to "Full House" star Lori Loughlin that her kids have "the college experience" that she missed out on, she
said back in 2016.
Loughlin, along with "Desperate Housewives" actress Felicity Huffman, is among those
charged in a scheme in which parents allegedly bribed college coaches and insiders at testing centers to help get their children
into some of the most elite schools in the country, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Despite how cynical I have become lately, I never would have guessed that Lori Loughlin was capable of such corruption.
After all, she seems like such a nice lady on television.
But apparently she was extremely determined to make sure that her daughters had "the college experience", and so Loughlin and
her husband shelled out
half a million dollars in bribes
Loughlin and Giannulli 'agreed to pay bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits
to the USC crew team – despite the fact that they did not participate in crew – thereby facilitating their admission to USC,'
according to the documents.
As bad as this scandal is, can we really say that it is much worse than what is going on around the rest of the country every
single day?
Of course not.
We are a very sick nation, and we are getting sicker by the day.
William Rick Singer had a good con going, and he should have stopped
while he was ahead
"This book is full of secrets," he said in Chapter 1 before dispensing advice on personal branding, test-taking and college
essays.
But Singer had even bigger secrets, and those would cost up to $1.2 million.
But like most con men, Singer just had to keep pushing the envelope, and in the end it is going to cost him everything.
The ironic thing is that our colleges and universities are pulling an even bigger con. They have convinced all of us that a college
education is the key to a bright future, but meanwhile the quality of the "education" that they are providing has deteriorated dramatically.
I spent eight years in school getting three degrees, and so I know what I am talking about. For much more on all this, please see
my recent article entitled
"50 Actual College Course Titles That Prove That America's Universities Are Training Our College Students To Be Socialists" .
I know that it is not fashionable to talk about "morality" and "values" these days, but the truth is that history has shown us
that any nation that is deeply corrupt is not likely to survive for very long.
Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through
a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Today, we are neither moral or religious.
What we are is deeply corrupt, and America will not survive if we keep going down this path.
Bezos : I've witnessed this incredible thing happen on the internet over the last two decades. I started Amazon in my garage 24
years ago -- drove packages to the post office myself. Today we have 600,000-plus people, millions and millions of customers, a very
large company.
How did that happen in such a short period of time? It happened because we didn't have to do any of the heavy lifting. All of
the heavy-lifting infrastructure was already in place for it. There was already a telecommunication network, which became the backbone
of the internet. There was already a payment system -- it was called the credit card. There was already a transportation network
called the US Postal Service, and Royal Mail, and Deutsche Post, all over the world, that could deliver our packages. We didn't have
to build any of that heavy infrastructure.
An even more stark example is Facebook. Here's a guy who literally, in his dorm room, started a company -- Mark Zuckerberg started
a company in his dorm room, which is now worth half a trillion dollars -- less than two decades ago.
Jeff Bezos strikes me as an incredibly pompous hustler who is so much into himself that he has begun to believe that he is
GOD. Before trying to hustle others into traveling to Mars, or any other space destination, he should show us that it is feasible
by PERSONALLY going first, surviving 18 months of space travel (9 months each way to Mars) including a landing on and take off
from Mars.
Jeff reveals how he made his fortune using public infrastructure (read govt spending) and tax breaks. Now he's aiming for Pentagon
riches.
In addition to Amazon's much-panned withdrawal from a "second headquarters" deal in New York City -- which had the New York
Post comparing Bezos to ex-Yankees pitcher Sonny Gray for his inability to "take the kind of pressure New York can dish out" --
the Pez-headed tech giant's dreams of Pentagon riches are suddenly being thwarted.
The blow involves a surprise delay in the award of the so-called JEDI contract, a $10 billion (or more) prize for Pentagon
cloud management that once seemed gift-wrapped for Amazon.
Hmm, the internet already existed. In fact the WWW existed. He must know that -- so he's lying to minimize the amount of infrastructure
he inherited. By 1994, everything was already there.
I am growing so very tired of the Cult of Bezos. That line about his garage is like an incantation to put his acolytes and
sycophants into zombie mode. That argument that there can be no space Zuckerbergs sounds like subliminal messaging 'divert more
public resources to ME! Only I can lead you to the stars!' He has zero intention of building his own space infrastructure. He
wants us to build it for Him, our demigod, Bezos!
Human society is way to complex for alpha males to succeed unconditionally... Quite a different set of traits is often needed.
Notable quotes:
"... Superficially, Hemingway was correct. But on a deeper level, he missed the reality of the heightened sense of entitlement that the very rich possess, as well as the deference that so many people automatically show to them. ..."
"... Hemingway is saying: take away all that money and the behavior would change as well. It's the money (or the power in your example) that makes the difference. ..."
"... I feel Fitzgerald got the basic idea right ..."
"... Apparently Fitzgerald was referring specifically to the attitudes of those who are born rich, attitudes that Fitzgerald thought remained unaltered by events, including the loss of economic status. ..."
"... "They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different." ..."
"... "He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked him." ..."
Superficially, Hemingway was correct. But on a deeper level, he missed the reality of the heightened sense of
entitlement that the very rich possess, as well as the deference that so many people automatically show to them. The rich
shouldn't be different in this way, but they are. In some other societies, such entitlement and deference would accrue to
senior party members, senior clergymen, or hereditary nobility (who might not have much money at all).
"Go with the winner." That is how it works for the alpha male (a chimp, an ape, or a gorilla) for most followers anyway. Some will challenge. If victorious, followers will line up (more go-with-the-winner). If defeated, an outcast.
Without a doubt Hemingway had a rather catty attitude toward his literary rival, but in this instance I think the debunking
is merited. It's quite possible that rich people act the way we would act if we were rich, and that Fitzgerald's tiresome obsession
with rich people didn't cut very deep. Hemingway is saying: take away all that money and the behavior would change as well. It's
the money (or the power in your example) that makes the difference.
In my opinion, the fact that if they had less money would change the way they think, does not change the fact that, while they
have more money, they think differently, and different rules apply to them.
Addendum: The fact that an Alpha Chimp would act differently if someone else was the Alpha Chimp does not change the fact that
an Alpha Chimp has fundamentally different behavior than the rest of the group.
"Hemingway is responsible for a famous misquotation of Fitzgerald's. According to Hemingway, a conversation between him and
Fitzgerald went:
Fitzgerald: The rich are different than you and me. Hemingway: Yes, they have more money.
This never actually happened; it is a retelling of an actual encounter between Hemingway and Mary Colum, which went as follows:
Hemingway: I am getting to know the rich.
Colum: I think you'll find the only difference between the rich and other people is that the rich have more money."
Just want to point out that that quote of Hemingways wasn't about Fitzgerald and wasn't even by Hemingway. Anyway I was more
attacking the "rich have more money" thing than I was trying to defend Fitzgerald, but I feel Fitzgerald got the basic idea
right
Apparently Fitzgerald was referring specifically to the attitudes of those who are born rich, attitudes that Fitzgerald
thought remained unaltered by events, including the loss of economic status.
"They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations
and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are
better than we are. They are different."
Hemingway suggested that Fitzgerald had once been especially enamored of the rich, seeing them as a "special glamorous race"
but ultimately became disillusioned.
"He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing
that wrecked him."
"... Buying beautiful clothes at full retail price was not a part of my childhood and it is not a part of my life now. It felt more illicit and more pleasurable than buying drugs. It was like buying drugs and doing the drugs, simultaneously."" ..."
"... "Erie Locomotive Plant Workers Strike against Two-Tier" [ Labor Notes ]. "UE proposed keeping the terms of the existing collective bargaining agreement in place while negotiating a new contract, but Wabtec rejected that proposal. Instead it said it would impose a two-tier pay system that would pay new hires and recalled employees up to 38 percent less in wages, institute mandatory overtime, reorganize job classifications, and hire temporary workers for up to 20 percent of the plant's jobs. ..."
"... Workers voted on Saturday to authorize the strike." • Good. Two-tier is awful, wherever found (including Social Security). ..."
"[S]hopping with T was different. When she walked into a store, the employees greeted her by name and began to
pull items from the racks for her to try on. Riding her coattails, I was treated with the same consideration, which is how I
wound up owning a beautiful cashmere 3.1 Philip Lim sweater that I had no use for and rarely wore, and which was eventually
eaten by moths in my closet.
Buying beautiful clothes at full retail price was not a part of my childhood and it is not a part of my life now. It
felt more illicit and more pleasurable than buying drugs. It was like buying drugs and doing the drugs, simultaneously.""
"Erie Locomotive Plant Workers Strike against Two-Tier" [
Labor
Notes ]. "UE proposed keeping the terms of the existing collective bargaining agreement in
place while negotiating a new contract, but Wabtec rejected that proposal. Instead it said it
would impose a two-tier pay system that would pay new hires and recalled employees up to 38
percent less in wages, institute mandatory overtime, reorganize job classifications, and hire
temporary workers for up to 20 percent of the plant's jobs.
Workers voted on Saturday to
authorize the strike." • Good. Two-tier is awful, wherever found (including Social
Security).
Many of you might react to the FT's
story
about the
"squeezed 1%" by getting out the world's smallest violin. I think this is a mistake. It reminds
us that the damage done by inequality extends beyond the general
social
and
economic
harm. It hurts even those who are a long way up the income ladder.
First, some statistical context. Someone at the bottom of the top
percentile of incomes is on about Ł120,000 a year. The top 0.1%, however, gets over Ł500,000. A
very well-paid head-teacher, professor or NHS consultant might just get into the top 1%, but the
top 0.1% comprises bankers, very successful entrepreneurs or bosses of big firms. As the IFS's
Paul Johnson
says
,
"someone 'only' at the top 1% is much more like the average person than they are like someone at
top 0.1%."
This gulf between the 1% and 0.1% hurts the 1% in three ways.
One is simply that they are aware of it. For the poor, the rich
are out of sight, out of mind: in fact, they grossly
under
-estimate just how much
the rich make. The 1%, however, see it more clearly. We compare ourselves to people like us. And
the 1% benchmark themselves against the 0.1%. They are often university contemporaries, so one
might resent why the no-mark who was no smarter than him is earning five times as much. Or they
might compare social utilities. A doctor covered in blood will wonder why he is paid so much
less for saving somebody's life than a banker is paid for – well, what? And of course the 1%
sees the 0.1% close up. Just as no man is a hero to his valet, so nobody in the 0.1% is a hero
to his underling. Middle-managers have a lively awareness of the short-comings of senior
managers, as professors do of the foibles of vice-chancellors.
All this naturally breeds resentment.
Experiments (pdf)
by Philip Grossman and Mana Komai have confirmed this. They split subjects
into rich and poor groups and gave everybody the option of destroying another's wealth. They
found that predations by the poor upon the rich were only a minority of attacks. Instead they
found that the rich attacked other rich. This is
consistent
with
reference
group
theory: we compare ourselves to those like us:
We find strong evidence of within class envy: the rich
targeting the rich and the poor targeting the poor. Within the rich community, the target of
envy is usually a wealthier subject whose wealth is close to that of the attacker; the
attacker may possibly be trying to improve his/her relative ranking.
A second effect of the gap between the 0.1% and 1% is the subject
of the FT's article. The very rich price the reasonably rich out of houses and schools: top
private school fees have soared in recent years because they market themselves to the global
rich. As Rick
wrote
:
The painful fact for many people is that their jobs no longer
pay enough for them to enjoy what they had been brought up to think of as a middle-class
lifestyle. They can't afford to live in the sort of house in the sort of street where they
grew up. They can't afford to send their children to the schools they went to. And those nice
leafy hospitals their parents used to go to, forget it. The super-rich can still afford these
things, though, so the prices keep going up, well beyond the reach of the old middle-classes.
The difference between the 1% and the 0.1% doesn't, however, lie
merely in what they can afford. There is perhaps an even bigger difference. A man (it's usually
a man) on Ł500,000 can reasonably look forward to quitting work or downshifting unless he has
arranged his affairs especially badly. Somebody on a low six-figure salary, however, cannot.
Instead, they often face years of stress – exacerbated by managerialism's
deprofessionalization
of erstwhile professional jobs and to the fact that their inability to
afford homes in central London condemns them to long and stressful
commutes
.
You will of course object here that this is also true for
millions of workers far outside the 1%. You'd be bang right. And that's the point. Class is not
merely another yet another identity. It is an objective fact about your relationship to the
means of production – about whether this puts you in a
position (pdf)
of
subordination or domination. In many cases – not all but many – even those on six-figure
salaries are in subordinate and stressful positions. They are objectively working class, however
posh they might fancy themselves to be.
Which is why we need class politics. Whereas identity politics
risks
splitting
us into mutually hostile ghettos, proper class politics has the potential to
unite
us – well
most of us. One of the great marvels of capitalism is that we are so incapable of seeing this.
"They split subjects into rich and
poor groups and gave everybody the option of destroying another's wealth. They found that
predations by the poor upon the rich were only a minority of attacks. Instead they found that
the rich attacked other rich. This is consistent with reference group theory:"
Heh. One
presumes reference group theory has not been updated for the last 40-odd years.
Great post. Why we showcase any
known instance of less than genteel behaviour (thought or deed) among a rank and file while also
screeching about a middle class running the shop...you know, divide and rule.
Are we sure (upper) middle class
living has got more expensive? I'm sceptical about holidays (cited in that post you link to) and
probably housing (I just don't see how the rich, even inc foreigners, could have bought so
many). I suspect a lot of this is people being s bit lower down the distribution that their
parents..
Another terrific post. But I'm
left with two questions:
1. Is the tension you cite between 1% and 0.1% not the same as
between the 0.1% and the 0.01%?
2. Could you expand on why having the 1% identified as working class would help?
The class distinction serves to divide, and is recasting the boundary at the 0.1% level an
effort to unite a greater proportion of the population (really very nearly everyone) different
from saying that the idea of class politics is not useful after all? Or is it to just form a
tougher coalition against the top 0.1%?
No sympathy at all. Most of the
bottom nine-tenths of the top 1% are doing bullshit jobs -- bean-counting, guard labor,
gatekeeping -- for the top tenth that wouldn't exist in a rational, egalitarian society. And the
managerial stratum, as a whole, is an enormous suck on production workers' wages, whether or not
its total income actually equals that of rentiers; simply returning managerial/supervisory
salaries to the same share of total labor compensation they received in the '70s would alone
raise production workers' pay by a quarter or more. The plantation overseers may not be as rich
as the planters, but they're still parasites.
Conversations I've overheard in
the last couple of years:
"We're both barristers and we can't even afford a flat in Tooting".
"I went to Heathfield and my husband went to Eton. But no chance we can afford private schools
for our children".
"Rich foreigners have bought up the houses in Kensington we should have been living in."
My friend, an accountant, says there has always been social churn. But this seems different
to me. And at some point the foremen for the billionaire class, I hope, will say sod this for a
game of checkers.
The 0.1% hurt the rest of us
mainly because they're able to get governments to enact their policy preferences, not because
their individual spending decisions heavily skew markets and strain public services. Ultimately
there just aren't enough of them to make that much difference, except in highly localised areas;
and anyway, they probably use "the commons" (public transport, state schools, the NHS) far less
than the median citizen does.
For instance, the 0.1% may cause property bubbles in certain
specific locations (Malibu, Manhattan, San Jose, Chelsea etc). But their individual property
purchases aren't the main driver of the broader property/housing crisis. We're currently adding
around a million people to the UK population every three years. That's 20 times more people than
the entire 0.1%. It's got to have more of an effect on the elevated demand for homes, the
elevated congestion on London's commuter trains and tubes, and the elevated demand for school
places and NHS treatments; even if some of these new Britons come to work in construction,
transport, education or health.
Or we are deep into a structural
demographic pattern where an expanded and entitled 'Elite' are in serious competition for the
lifestyles they are 'entitled' to.
This situation in history has created some of the most
severe political crisis in the history of the west from civil war to bloody revolution, and
there is no good reason to suspect that the continuing competition between the established and
seeking elites, will ferment even further political and civil strife.
Brexit, an example of a punch up between these elite factions, is already causing severe
political strife as the state attempts to reconcile and buy of these competing factions, by
hollowing out the classes below to pay for the exercise.
The attempt by the French government to make the non-elite classes pay for the downside of
elite supporting policies is not going well, and were is not for the endlessly phlegmatic
English constitution and the appeal to ingrained xenophobia, that the non elite classes would be
already violently engaged on the streets.
The only way - history says - to escape the effect of this structural position, aside from
civil war or revolution to winnow the elite class, the predominate cause of this situation, is
through lethal pandemic. Unlikely with modern medicine.
We are at the active beginning of this process, the main crisis is yet to unfold.
Absolutely.
Structural Demographics in lockstep with serious crisis. We're in the middle, or at the serious
start? The question is going to have to be, will the Elites roll over and allow taxation and
redistribution to winnow the wealth, or refuse to budge and see violent breakdown?
Given that it's hard to defuse the crisis through the traditional weapon of inter-state war,
because of nuclear weapons, that some form of new highly redistributive social contract will be
the only way to avoid serious social dislocation.
However, the unfailing position of the elites to see themselves as the answer and not the
problem, mitigates against a non-violent accord?
Given that historically the only way to defuse these crisis is to reduce the overpopulation
issue in fairly short order, I can't see any easy way out.
But perhaps climate collapse and the affect on food supply and production might do that
anyway?
anarchyst says:
February 3, 2019 at 2:24 pm GMT • 300 Words
The debasement of European societies is deliberate. The elites want destruction, period
they want their "New World Order"
Very true.
The intent of this article is to blame [neo]Liberals. I would hardly call Europe's
[neoliberal] elite liberals. A liberal would defend freedom of expression and thought. A
liberal would defend the right of an individual or group to express viewpoints that are
unpopular.
Western Europe is hardly liberal. It is ... repressive when it comes to dissent, mildly
totalitarian. Political leaders who advocate for the rights of indigenous Europeans in Europe
are persecuted and imprisoned. Political parties are banned or bankrupted.
"There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the
political analogue of Gresham's Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of
circulation. There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist.
What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to
characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom
the law binds but does not protect...
"... The original "New Deal," which included massive public works infrastructure projects, was introduced by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s amid the Great Depression. Its purpose was to stave off a socialist revolution in America. It was a response to a militant upsurge of strikes and violent class battles, led by socialists who were inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution ..."
"... Since the 2008 crash, first under Bush and Obama, and now Trump, the ruling elites have pursued a single-minded policy of enriching the wealthy, through free credit, corporate bailouts and tax cuts, while slashing spending on social services. ..."
"... To claim as does Ocasio-Cortez that American capitalism can provide a new "New Deal," of a green or any other variety, is to pfile:///F:/Private_html/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/Historyromote an obvious political fiction." ..."
"The original "New Deal," which included massive public works infrastructure projects,
was introduced by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s amid the Great
Depression. Its purpose was to stave off a socialist revolution in America. It was a response
to a militant upsurge of strikes and violent class battles, led by socialists who were
inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution that had occurred less than two decades before.
American capitalism could afford to make such concessions because of its economic
dominance. The past forty years have been characterized by the continued decline of American
capitalism on a world stage relative to its major rivals. The ruling class has responded to
this crisis with a social counterrevolution to claw back all gains won by workers. This has
been carried out under both Democratic and Republican administrations and with the assistance
of the trade unions.
Since the 2008 crash, first under Bush and Obama, and now Trump, the ruling elites have
pursued a single-minded policy of enriching the wealthy, through free credit, corporate
bailouts and tax cuts, while slashing spending on social services.
To claim as does Ocasio-Cortez that American capitalism can provide a new "New Deal," of a
green or any other variety, is to pfile:///F:/Private_html/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/Historyromote an obvious political fiction."
Peter T: contrariwise, if it is that as you say "There's
surely a reasoned case to be made that hierarchies are essential to complex societies" and
"someone has to be at the top and therefore someone else at the bottom", is it legitimate to
suspect that a fair proportion (not all, of course) of those advocating progressive change
believe that after the defeat of the evil conservative forces, there will still be an essential
hierarchy, only they will be on top?
"is it legitimate to suspect that a fair proportion (not all, of course) of those advocating
progressive change believe that after the defeat of the evil conservative forces, there will
still be an essential hierarchy, only they will be on top?"
Usually yes, but they will be benevolent so we don't have to worry about them. That is why
there are a lot of naïve progressive rule proposals that make me want to scream "what if
someone less pure than the purest person you ever met gets a hold of it"? Though I usually
just say "what if Ralph Nader were in charge ?", but that is admittedly trolling. For the
most current example see the EU copyright rules. The same people who complain about
conservative twitter mobs think that telling facebook, twitter, and google to automatically
screen out copyright violations and somehow automatically allow fair use of copyright is
going to work out well.
I suck at guessing at malignant uses of technology and I can already see the Russian
copyright upload experts getting prominent left wing voices tied up in interminable
litigation over political speeches. Or some troll reporting the entire internet as
copyrighted in one paragraph increments. Or the speech censorship discussions. Dissolving
free speech norms is 1000% more likely to be used against left wing voices than right wing
ones if they get mainstreamed.
In our present moment, the "protection of aristocracy against the agency of the
subordinate classes" has transmuted to "protection of the free market as a way for any
subordinate person to ascend by personal effort into the modern open aristocracy."
That is a very deep observation. Thank you!
Protection of inequality as a "natural human condition" is the key to understanding both
conservatism and neoliberalism. The corresponding myth of social mobility based on person's
abilities under neoliberalism (as Napoleon Bonaparte observed "Ability is of little account
without opportunity" and the opportunity is lacking under neoliberal stagnation -- the
current state of neoliberalism ) is just icing on the cake.
As soon as you accept Hayek sophistry that the term "freedom" means "the freedom from
coercion" you are both a neoliberal and a conservative. And if you belong to Democratic
Party, you are a Vichy democrat ;-)
"is it legitimate to suspect that a fair proportion (not all, of course) of those
advocating progressive change believe that after the defeat of the evil conservative forces,
there will still be an essential hierarchy, only they will be on top?"
In a way yes ;-)
Neoliberalism/conservatism means that the state enforces the existing hierarchy and
supports existing aristocracy ("socialism for rich"). If you deny the existence of a flavor
of the Soviet nomenklatura (aristocracy in which position in social hierarchy mainly depends
on their role in the top management of government or corporations, not so much personal
fortune) in the USA, you deny the reality.
So the question is not about hierarchy per se, but about the acceptable level of
"corporate socialism" and inequality in the society.
The progressive change means the creation of the system of government which serves as a
countervailing force to the private capital owners, curbing their excesses. I would say that
financial oligarchy generally should be treated as a district flavor of organized crime.
The key issue is how to allow a decent level of protection of the bottom 90% of the
population from excesses of unfettered capitalism and "market forces" and at the same time
not to slide into excessive bureaucracy and regulation ("state capitalism" model).
For a short period after WWII the alliance of a part of state apparatus, upper-level
management, and trade unions against owners of capital did exist in the USA (New Deal
Capitalism). In an imperfect form with multiple betrayals and quick deterioration, but still
existed for some time due to the danger from the USSR
Around 80th the threat from USSR dissipate, and the upper-level management betrayed their
former allies and switched sides which signified the victory of neoliberalism and dismantling
of the New Deal Capitalism.
After the USSR collapse (when Soviet nomenklatura switched to neoliberalism) the financial
oligarchy staged coup d'état in the USA (aka "Quiet Coup") and came to the top.
We need depose this semi-criminal gang. Of course, the end of "cheap oil" will probably
help.
Some, but a "fair proportion"? Probably not. Advocacy of progressive causes usually
involves punching up – an inherently more dangerous occupation than punching down.
People forget that the older nomenklatura won their positions in World War II, when being a
commissar meant leading from the front, being shot out of hand by the Germans, rallying the
partisans in mountain villages to another desperate defence and similar. Survivor bias
– we don't see the dead.
In more genteel times, the outspoken progressive will often face social ostracism, lack of
promotion, attacks in the conservative press
Human motives are complex – no doubt there were confederates who genuinely believed
the fight was for states rights, and no doubt there are libertarians who genuinely believe
that the poor will have it much better in a free market utopia. I doubt the proportion,
either counting individuals or in the swirl inside minds, is very large, but there's always
some.
Now we're making progress Thomas. The Berkowitz definition is sleazy, and sets up anyone not
conservative as an amoral lump in need of guidance, or worse still as dangerous to society.
Perhaps that's why Hayek (a supposedly type b conservative) had his opponents thrown out of
helicopters. Or was that Friedman?
The appeal of conservatism and it's electoral success is easily explained. Because their
real ideology is just treachery, theft and rape they need to hide these ideas from normal
people, who already in general support the moral ideas fundamental to civilized society
regardless of their politics. So they hide their true agenda through appeals to racism, or by
cloaking themselves in the type b definition (isn't this robins point?!) In doing this they
benefit from the work of yeomen like you, who insist that conservatism is a real moral
project rather than banditry. In most countries they also only win when the left is divided,
and only when their elite friends are pouring money into corrupt media. If they didn't have
these advantages, these lies, and help from people like you they would never succeed.
I focus on Trump et Al because they are the leaders of your sect,the people who sell your
ideas (manafort was a campaign manager ffs), and the people who turn the ideology into
action. Didn't you learn in primary school to judge people by their actions, not their words?
And why would I ignore these particular conservatives because they're "vulgar clowns"? You're
all dangerous, vulgar clowns.
"... "Let us linger over the perversity," he writes in "Why Millions of Ordinary Americans Support Donald Trump," one of the seventeen component essays in Rendezvous with Oblivion : "Let us linger over the perversity. Left parties the world over were founded to advance the fortunes of working people. But our left party in America -- one of our two monopoly parties -- chose long ago to turn its back on these people's concerns, making itself instead into the tribune of the enlightened professional class, a 'creative class' that makes innovative things like derivative securities and smartphone apps ..."
"... And the real bad news is not that this Creative Class, this Expert Class, this Meritocratic Class, this Professional Class -- this Liberal Class, with all its techno-ecstasy and virtue-questing and unleashing of innovation -- is so deeply narcissistic and hypocritical, but rather that it is so self-interestedly parasitical and predatory. ..."
Thomas Frank's new collection of essays: Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a
Sinking Society (Metropolitan Books 2018) and Listen, Liberal; or,Whatever
Happened to the Party of the People? (ibid. 2016)
To hang out with Thomas Frank for a couple of hours is to be reminded that, going back to
1607, say, or to 1620, for a period of about three hundred and fifty years, the most archetypal
of American characters was, arguably, the hard-working, earnest, self-controlled, dependable
white Protestant guy, last presented without irony a generation or two -- or three -- ago in
the television personas of men like Ward Cleaver and Mister Rogers.
Thomas Frank, who grew up in Kansas and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, who
at age 53 has the vibe of a happy eager college nerd, not only glows with authentic Midwestern
Nice (and sometimes his face turns red when he laughs, which is often), he actually lives in
suburbia, just outside of D.C., in Bethesda, where, he told me, he takes pleasure in mowing the
lawn and doing some auto repair and fixing dinner for his wife and two children. (Until I met
him, I had always assumed it was impossible for a serious intellectual to live in suburbia and
stay sane, but Thomas Frank has proven me quite wrong on this.)
Frank is sincerely worried about the possibility of offending friends and acquaintances by
the topics he chooses to write about. He told me that he was a B oy Scout back in Kansas, but
didn't make Eagle. He told me that he was perhaps a little too harsh on Hillary Clinton in his
brilliantly perspicacious "Liberal Gilt [ sic ]" chapter at the end of Listen,
Liberal . His piercing insight into and fascination with the moral rot and the hypocrisy
that lies in the American soul brings, well, Nathaniel Hawthorne to mind, yet he refuses to say
anything (and I tried so hard to bait him!) mean about anyone, no matter how culpable he or she
is in the ongoing dissolving and crumbling and sinking -- all his
metaphors -- of our society. And with such metaphors Frank describes the "one essential story"
he is telling in Rendezvous with Oblivion : "This is what a society looks like when the
glue that holds it together starts to dissolve. This is the way ordinary citizens react when
they learn that the structure beneath them is crumbling. And this is the thrill that pulses
through the veins of the well-to-do when they discover that there is no longer any limit on
their power to accumulate" ( Thomas Frank in NYC on book tour https://youtu.be/DBNthCKtc1Y ).
And I believe that Frank's self-restraint, his refusal to indulge in bitter satire even as
he parses our every national lie, makes him unique as social critic. "You will notice," he
writes in the introduction to Rendezvous with Oblivion, "that I describe [these
disasters] with a certain amount of levity. I do that because that's the only way to confront
the issues of our time without sinking into debilitating gloom" (p. 8). And so rather than
succumbing to an existential nausea, Frank descends into the abyss with a dependable flashlight
and a ca. 1956 sitcom-dad chuckle.
"Let us linger over the perversity," he writes in "Why Millions of Ordinary Americans
Support Donald Trump," one of the seventeen component essays in Rendezvous with Oblivion
: "Let us linger over the perversity. Left parties the world over were founded to advance the
fortunes of working people. But our left party in America -- one of our two monopoly parties --
chose long ago to turn its back on these people's concerns, making itself instead into the
tribune of the enlightened professional class, a 'creative class' that makes innovative things
like derivative securities and smartphone apps " (p. 178).
And it is his analysis of this "Creative Class" -- he usually refers to it as the "Liberal
Class" and sometimes as the "Meritocratic Class" in Listen, Liberal (while Barbara
Ehrenreich uses the term " Professional Managerial Class ,"and Matthew Stewart recently
published an article entitled "The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy" in the
Atlantic ) -- that makes it clear that Frank's work is a continuation of the profound
sociological critique that goes back to Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class
(1899) and, more recently, to Christopher Lasch's The Revolt of the Elites (1994).
Unlike Veblen and Lasch, however, Frank is able to deliver the harshest news without any
hauteur or irascibility, but rather with a deftness and tranquillity of mind, for he is both in
and of the Creative Class; he abides among those afflicted by the epidemic which he diagnoses:
"Today we live in a world of predatory bankers, predatory educators, even predatory health care
providers, all of them out for themselves . Liberalism itself has changed to accommodate its
new constituents' technocratic views. Today, liberalism is the philosophy not of the sons of
toil but of the 'knowledge economy' and, specifically, of the knowledge economy's winners: the
Silicon Valley chieftains, the big university systems, and the Wall Street titans who gave so
much to Barack Obama's 2008 campaign . They are a 'learning class' that truly gets the power of
education. They are a 'creative class' that naturally rebels against fakeness and conformity.
They are an ' innovation class ' that just can't stop coming up with awesome new stuff" (
Listen, Liberal , pp. 27-29).
And the real bad news is not that this Creative Class, this Expert Class, this
Meritocratic Class, this Professional Class -- this Liberal Class, with all its
techno-ecstasy and virtue-questing and unleashing of innovation -- is so deeply narcissistic
and hypocritical, but rather that it is so self-interestedly parasitical and
predatory.
The class that now runs the so-called Party of the People is impoverishing the people; the
genius value-creators at Amazon and Google and Uber are Robber Barons, although, one must
grant, hipper, cooler, and oh so much more innovative than their historical predecessors. "In
reality," Frank writes in Listen, Liberal ,
.there is little new about this stuff except the software, the convenience, and the
spying. Each of the innovations I have mentioned merely updates or digitizes some business
strategy that Americans learned long ago to be wary of. Amazon updates the practices of
Wal-Mart, for example, while Google has dusted off corporate behavior from the days of the
Robber Barons. What Uber does has been compared to the every-man-for-himself hiring
procedures of the pre-union shipping docks . Together, as Robert Reich has written, all these
developments are 'the logical culmination of a process that began thirty years ago when
corporations began turning over full-time jobs to temporary workers, independent contractors,
free-lancers, and consultants.' This is atavism, not innovation . And if we keep going in
this direction, it will one day reduce all of us to day laborers, standing around like the
guys outside the local hardware store, hoping for work. (p. 215).
And who gets this message? The YouTube patriot/comedian Jimmy Dore, Chicago-born,
ex-Catholic, son of a cop, does for one. "If you read this b ook, " Dore said while
interviewing Frank back in January of 2017, "it'll make y ou a radical" (Frank Interview Part 4
https://youtu.be/JONbGkQaq8Q ).
But to what extent, on the other hand, is Frank being actively excluded from our elite media
outlets? He's certainly not on TV or radio or in print as much as he used to be. So is he a
prophet without honor in his own country? Frank, of course, is too self-restrained to speculate
about the motives of these Creative Class decision-makers and influencers. "But it is ironic
and worth mentioning," he told me, "that most of my writing for the last few years has been in
a British publication, The Guardian and (in translation) in Le Monde Diplomatique
. The way to put it, I think, is to describe me as an ex-pundit."
Frank was, nevertheless, happy to tell me in vivid detail about how his most fundamental
observation about America, viz. that the Party of the People has become hostile to the
people , was for years effectively discredited in the Creative Class media -- among the
bien-pensants , that is -- and about what he learned from their denialism.
JS: Going all the way back to your 2004 book What's the Matter with Kansas? -- I
just looked at Larry Bartels's attack on it, "What's the Matter with What's the Matter with
Kansas?" -- and I saw that his first objection to your book was, Well, Thomas Frank says the
working class is alienated from the Democrats, but I have the math to show that that's false.
How out of touch does that sound now?
TCF: [laughs merrily] I know.
JS: I remember at the time that was considered a serious objection to your
thesis.
TCF: Yeah. Well, he was a professor at Princeton. And he had numbers. So it looked
real. And I actually wrote a response to
that in which I pointed out that there were other statistical ways of looking at it, and he
had chosen the one that makes his point.
JS: Well, what did Mark Twain say?
TCF: Mark Twain?
JS: There are lies, damned lies --
TCF: [laughs merrily] -- and statistics! Yeah. Well, anyhow, Bartels's take became
the common sense of the highly educated -- there needs to be a term for these people by the
way, in France they're called the bien-pensants -- the "right-thinking," the people who
read The Atlantic, The New York Times op-ed page, The Washington Post op-ed page,
and who all agree with each other on everything -- there's this tight little circle of
unanimity. And they all agreed that Bartels was right about that, and that was a costly
mistake. For example, Paul Krugman, a guy whom I admire in a lot of ways, he referenced this
four or five times.
He agreed with it . No, the Democrats are not losing the white working class outside the
South -- they were not going over to the Republicans. The suggestion was that there is
nothing to worry about. Yes. And there were people saying this right up to the 2016
election. But it was a mistake.
JS: I remember being perplexed at the time. I had thought you had written this brilliant
book, and you weren't being taken seriously -- because somebody at Princeton had run some
software -- as if that had proven you wrong.
TCF: Yeah, that's correct . That was a very widespread take on it. And Bartels was
incorrect, and I am right, and [laughs merrily] that's that.
JS: So do you think Russiagate is a way of saying, Oh no no no no, Hillary didn't really
lose?
TCF: Well, she did win the popular vote -- but there's a whole set of pathologies out
there right now that all stem from Hillary Denialism. And I don't want to say that Russiagate
is one of them, because we don't know the answer to that yet.
JS: Um, ok.
TCF: Well, there are all kinds of questionable reactions to 2016 out there, and what
they all have in common is the faith that Democrats did nothing wrong. For example, this same
circle of the bien-pensants have decided that the only acceptable explanation for
Trump's victory is the racism of his supporters. Racism can be the only explanation for the
behavior of Trump voters. But that just seems odd to me because, while it's true of course that
there's lots of racism in this country, and while Trump is clearly a bigot and clearly won the
bigot vote, racism is just one of several factors that went into what happened in 2016. Those
who focus on this as the only possible answer are implying that all Trump voters are
irredeemable, lost forever.
And it comes back to the same point that was made by all those people who denied what was
happening with the white working class, which is: The Democratic Party needs to do nothing
differently . All the post-election arguments come back to this same point. So a couple
years ago they were saying about the white working class -- we don't have to worry about them
-- they're not leaving the Democratic Party, they're totally loyal, especially in the northern
states, or whatever the hell it was. And now they say, well, Those people are racists, and
therefore they're lost to us forever. What is the common theme of these two arguments? It's
always that there's nothing the Democratic Party needs to do differently. First, you haven't
lost them; now you have lost them and they're irretrievable: Either way -- you see what I'm
getting at? -- you don't have to do anything differently to win them.
JS: Yes, I do.
TCF: The argument in What's the Matter with Kansas? was that this is a
long-term process, the movement of the white working class away from the Democratic Party. This
has been going on for a long time. It begins in the '60s, and the response of the Democrats by
and large has been to mock those people, deride those people, and to move away from organized
labor, to move away from class issues -- working class issues -- and so their response has been
to make this situation worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it
gets worse! And there's really no excuse for them not seeing it. But they say, believe,
rationalize, you know, come up with anything that gets then off the hook for this, that allows
them to ignore this change. Anything. They will say or believe whatever it takes.
JS: Yes.
TCF: By the way, these are the smartest people! These are tenured professors at Ivy
League institutions, these are people with Nobel Prizes, people with foundation grants, people
with, you know, chairs at prestigious universities, people who work at our most prestigious
media outlets -- that's who's wrong about all this stuff.
JS: [quoting the title of David Halberstam's 1972 book, an excerpt from which Frank uses
as an epigraph for Listen, Liberal ] The best and the brightest!
TCF: [laughing merrily] Exactly. Isn't it fascinating?
JS: But this gets to the irony of the thing. [locates highlighted passage in book] I'm
going to ask you one of the questions you ask in Rendezvous with Oblivion: "Why are
worshippers of competence so often incompetent?" (p. 165). That's a huge question.
TCF: That's one of the big mysteries. Look. Take a step back. I had met Barack Obama.
He was a professor at the University of Chicago, and I'd been a student there. And he was super
smart. Anyhow, I met him and was really impressed by him. All the liberals in Hyde Park --
that's the neighborhood we lived in -- loved him, and I was one of them, and I loved him too.
And I was so happy when he got elected.
Anyhow, I knew one thing he would do for sure, and that is he would end the reign of
cronyism and incompetence that marked the Bush administration and before them the Reagan
administration. These were administrations that actively promoted incompetent people. And I
knew Obama wouldn't do that, and I knew Obama would bring in the smartest people, and he'd get
the best economists. Remember, when he got elected we were in the pit of the crisis -- we were
at this terrible moment -- and here comes exactly the right man to solve the problem. He did
exactly what I just described: He brought in [pause] Larry Summers, the former president of
Harvard, considered the greatest economist of his generation -- and, you know, go down the
list: He had Nobel Prize winners, he had people who'd won genius grants, he had The Best and
the Brightest . And they didn't really deal with the problem. They let the Wall Street
perpetrators off the hook -- in a catastrophic way, I would argue. They come up with a health
care system that was half-baked. Anyhow, the question becomes -- after watching the great
disappointments of the Obama years -- the question becomes: Why did government-by-expert
fail?
JS: So how did this happen? Why?
TCF: The answer is understanding experts not as individual geniuses but as members
of a class . This is the great missing link in all of our talk about expertise. Experts
aren't just experts: They are members of a class. And they act like a class. They have loyalty
to one another; they have a disdain for others, people who aren't like them, who they perceive
as being lower than them, and there's this whole hierarchy of status that they are at the
pinnacle of.
And once you understand this, then everything falls into place! So why did they let the Wall
Street bankers off the hook? Because these people were them. These people are their peers. Why
did they refuse to do what obviously needed to be done with the health care system? Because
they didn't want to do that to their friends in Big Pharma. Why didn't Obama get tough with
Google and Facebook? They obviously have this kind of scary monopoly power that we haven't seen
in a long time. Instead, he brought them into the White House, he identified with them. Again,
it's the same thing. Once you understand this, you say: Wait a minute -- so the Democratic
Party is a vehicle of this particular social class! It all makes sense. And all of a sudden all
of these screw-ups make sense. And, you know, all of their rhetoric makes sense. And the way
they treat working class people makes sense. And they way they treat so many other demographic
groups makes sense -- all of the old-time elements of the Democratic Party: unions, minorities,
et cetera. They all get to ride in back. It's the professionals -- you know, the professional
class -- that sits up front and has its hands on the steering wheel.
* * *
It is, given Frank's persona, not surprising that he is able to conclude Listen,
Liberal with a certain hopefulness, and so let me end by quoting some of his final
words:
What I saw in Kansas eleven years ago is now everywhere . It is time to face the obvious:
that the direction the Democrats have chosen to follow for the last few decades has been a
failure for both the nation and for their own partisan health . The Democrats posture as the
'party of the people' even as they dedicate themselves ever more resolutely to serving and
glorifying the professional class. Worse: they combine self-righteousness and class privilege
in a way that Americans find stomach-turning . The Democrats have no interest in reforming
themselves in a more egalitarian way . What we can do is strip away the Democrats' precious
sense of their own moral probity -- to make liberals live without the comforting knowledge
that righteousness is always on their side . Once that smooth, seamless sense of liberal
virtue has been cracked, anything becomes possible. (pp. 256-257).
"... Trump is being promoted by the MSM as the leader of the deplorables – an orange straw man. I support him to the degree that he is confounding the deep state elites and social engineering. ..."
Here is my take on the priorities of the deep state and its public face – the
MSM:
stopping the deplorable rebellion
cutting off the head of the rebellion – perceived as Trump
reinstating the Cold War in an effort to derail Rusisa's recovery and international
leadership role
bitch slapping China
The rest involves turning unsustainable debt into establishment of a feudal world
comprised of elites living on Mount Olympus, legions of vassals and a vast sea of cerebrally
castrated peasants to serve as a reservoir for any imaginable exploitation.
Upon further reflection, Trump is being promoted by the MSM as the leader of the
deplorables – an orange straw man. I support him to the degree that he is confounding
the deep state elites and social engineering.
The neoliberal "the new class" to which Clintons belong like nomenklatura in the USSR are above the law.
Notable quotes:
"... After months of inexplicable delays, the chairman of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), announced moments ago a joint investigation into how the Justice Department handled last year's investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. ..."
"... Oh goody, Trey Gowdy doing another investigation. Isn't he 0 for many on his investigations. 0 as in zero, nada, nill, squat, zippo. He is another political empty suit with a bad haircut. ..."
"... Well said. The Clinton network leads to the real money in this game. Any real investigation would expose many of the primary players. It would also expose the network for what it is, that being a mechanism to scam both the American people and the people of the world. ..."
"... Perhaps a real investigation will now only be done from outside the system (as the U.S. political system seems utterly incapable of investigating or policing itself). ..."
"... You're probably right, but there's a chance this whole thing could go sidewise on Hillary in a hurry, Weinstein-style. ..."
"... We already know Honest Hill'rey's other IT guy (Bryan Pagliano) ignored subpoenas from congress...twice. ..."
"... Another classic case of "the Boy that cried wolf" for the Trumpettes to believe justice is coming to the Clintons. The House Judiciary and Oversight committees, will turn up nothing, apart from some procedural mistakes. A complete waste of time and tax payer money. Only the Goldfish will be happy over another charade. Killary is immune from normal laws. ..."
"... Potemkin Justice. Not a damn thing will come of it unless they find that one of Hillary's aides parked in a handicapped spot. ..."
"... The TV showed me Trump saying, "She's been through enough" and "They're good people" when referring to Hillary and Bill Clinton. ..."
"... Stopped reading at "they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status." ..."
Hillary's former IT consultant Paul Combetta who admitted to deleting Hillary's emails despite the existence of a Congressional
subpoena, it seems as though James Comey has just had his very own "oh shit" moment.
After months of inexplicable delays, the chairman of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and
Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), announced moments ago a joint investigation into how the Justice Department handled last year's investigation
into Hillary Clinton's private email server.
Among other things, Goodlatte and Gowdy said that the FBI must answer for why it chose to provide public updates in the Clinton
investigation but not in the Trump investigation and why the FBI decided to " appropriate full decision making in respect to charging
or not charging Secretary Clinton," a power typically left to the DOJ.
"Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. Those scales do not tip to the right or the
left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our republic
and our fellow citizens must have confidence in its objectivity, independence, and evenhandedness. The law is the most equalizing
force in this country. No entity or individual is exempt from oversight.
"Decisions made by the Department of Justice in 2016 have led to a host of outstanding questions that must be answered. These
include, but are not limited to:
FBI's decision to publicly announce the investigation into Secretary Clinton's handling of classified information but not
to publicly announce the investigation into campaign associates of then-candidate Donald Trump;
FBI's decision to notify Congress by formal letter of the status of the investigation both in October and November of 2016;
FBI's decision to appropriate full decision making in respect to charging or not charging Secretary Clinton to the FBI rather
than the DOJ;
FBI's timeline in respect to charging decisions.
'The Committees will review these decisions and others to better understand the reasoning behind how certain conclusions were
drawn. Congress has a constitutional duty to preserve the integrity of our justice system by ensuring transparency and accountability
of actions taken."
Of course, this comes just one day after
Comey revealed his secret Twitter account which led the internet to wildly speculate that he may be running for a political office...which,
these days, being under investigation by multiple Congressional committees might just mean he has a good shot.
Finally, we leave you with one artist's depiction of how the Comey 'investigation' of Hillary's email scandal played out...
"Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. Those scales do not tip to the right or
the left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our
republic..."
Oh goody, Trey Gowdy doing another investigation. Isn't he 0 for many on his investigations. 0 as in zero, nada, nill,
squat, zippo. He is another political empty suit with a bad haircut.
It's nice publicity to hear that the Congress is "investigating". It's NOT nice to know that the DOJ is doing nothing. Probably
50 top level people at the FBI need to be fired as well as another 50 at DOJ to get the ball rolling toward a Grand Jury. Until
then, it's all eyewash and BULLSHIT!
Well said. The Clinton network leads to the real money in this game. Any real investigation would expose many of the primary
players. It would also expose the network for what it is, that being a mechanism to scam both the American people and the people
of the world.
Perhaps a real investigation will now only be done from outside the system (as the U.S. political system seems utterly
incapable of investigating or policing itself). Though in time all information will surface, as good players leak the info
of the bad players into the open. Which of course is why the corrupt players go after the leakers, as it is one key way they can
be taken down. Also remember that they need the good players in any organization to be used as cover (as those not in the know
can be used to work on legit projects). Once the good players catch on to the ruse and corruption it is, beyond a certain tipping
point, all over, as the leaked information goes from drop to flood. There will simply be no way to deny it.
You're probably right, but there's a chance this whole thing could go sidewise on Hillary in a hurry, Weinstein-style.
If the criminal stench surrounding her gets strong enough, the rats will begin to jump ship. People will stop taking orders
and doing her dirty work. She's wounded right now, if there was ever a time to finish her, it would be now. Where the fuck is
the big-talking Jeff Sessions? I think they got to him--he even LOOKS scared shitless.
It's just not possible to have any respect for these politician people.
We already know Honest Hill'rey's other IT guy (Bryan Pagliano) ignored subpoenas from congress...twice. Remember
Chaffetz "subpoenas are not suggestions"? Yeah, well they are. Chaffetz turned around and sent a letter about this to "attorney
general" jeff sessions and he's done exactly shit about about it. (Look it up, that's a true story)
Then we've got president maverick outsider simply ignoring Julian Assange and Wikileaks while he squeals daily about fake news.
Wikileaks has exposed more fraud than Congress ever has.
Sessions is the Attorney General. Give the man some credit. He recused himself from the Russia/Trump collusion, and this decision
may very well save the republic.
If Sessions was actively involved, half the nation would never accept the findings, no matter the outcome. With Sessions voluntarily
sidelined, the truth will eventually expose the criminal conspirators; all the way to the top.
Wikileaks and Assange have documented proof of criminal behavior from Obama, Lynch, Holder, Hillary, W. Bush, and more. This
will be the biggest scandal to hit the world stage. Ever.
lol Another classic case of "the Boy that cried wolf" for the Trumpettes to believe justice is coming to the Clintons.
The House Judiciary and Oversight committees, will turn up nothing, apart from some procedural mistakes. A complete waste of time
and tax payer money. Only the Goldfish will be happy over another charade. Killary is immune from normal laws.
Congress can't do shit without DOJ and FBI, which are both compromised and corrupt to the core.
That should have been Sessions' first order of business.
He can still get it rolling by firing Rosenstein and replacing him with someone that will do the job.They can strike down the
Comey immunity deals and arrest people for violating Congressional subpeona.
They can also assemble a Grand Jury to indict Rosenstein and Mueller for the Russian collusion conspiracy to commit Espionage
and Sabotage of our National Security resources. Half of Mueller's staff will then be indicted, along with Clinton, Obama, Lynch,
Holder, and Comey.
Replacement of Rosenstein is the crucial first step.
Transcript of Neoliberalism as creative destruction David Harvey: Neoliberalism as
Creative Destruction
David Harvey argues that neo-liberalism is an ideological tool and economic formula used by the
upper class to re-dominate lower class. Neo-liberalism is not a successful economic stimulant,
but a destructive one. It had destroyed pre-existing organization and institution on a global
scale. This is done through the usage of privatization, financialization, crisis management and
state redistribution. Moreover, neo-liberalism took great effort and time to be implemented
globally. It is detrimental to all aspect of life (i.e. social relation, social security,
welfare, attachment to land, and way of thought).
Role of the State
State had active participation in advancing the neoliberal doctrine. From David Harvey's
perspective, the nation-state is an instrument of the upper class. It was used to extend the
interest of the upper class. The state have effective became the will of the transnational
corporation. This is both a domestic(new york) and transnational effort. (Reagan and Thatcher's
Chillean model).
His first argument is that neo-liberalism is "naturalized" by classical liberal values such
as liberty and freedom. i.e. The values of freedom is under threat if government intervenes.
Also opened up niche market (promotion of consumerism)
Example : Iraq
Failure of the Previous capitalistic Economy
Neo-liberalism occured as an answer to the failing capitalistic system. Capitalism is a
system that survives on perpetuated growth. When growth stoped under social democracy,
Capitalism began to crumble. David Harvey used statistic of wealth distribution to illustrate
his point.
Pre-war, The top one percent shared 1 percent of the national income, after, they share
8 percent. After 1990 15%
Neoliberalism as Class Redomination
His is third argument is that neo-liberalism had fail to achieve what it claims to do.
(Redistribution rather than generative) Instead, it is merely a scheme of destruction to
restore class power. (Global Gdp steadily declining) This is done through privatization,
financialization, crisis, and state policy. Media obscure facts and encourages social
Darwinism. (Mexico as a success story)
Summary
Legitimization of the Neoliberal Doctrine
Discussion questions
1 Given the roles and the impact of the nation-state and TNCs, do you believe that TNCs will
one day completely replace nation-states?
2 Examples of globalization and transnationalism can be seen in the increasing number of
languages spoken around the world. Has acquiring language (or languages) become rationalized
into the culture of capitalism? What are the potential benefits or problems with a selective
processes of language acquisition?
3。Do you think Nation state have the ability to resist the globalization effect
brought by the neo-liberalism regime? If so, how?
Structural Marxism
Perspective that posits the institutions of the state must function in such a way as to
ensure ongoing viability of capitalism more generally. Another way that Marxists put this is
that the institutions of the state must function so as to reproduce capitalist society as a
whole. Neoliberal state reproduced the capitalistic society with academics.
(the chicago boys)
How did neoliberlism gain support?
In cooperation of Christian right, A insecure white middle class and the republican take
over of congress in the 90's lead to a political base that supported their policies against
their interest. Neoliberalism is extremely well adapted to utilizing crisis to threaten the
public, forcing the public to make deal with the devil.
Chilean Model
In 1970, the democratic elected Marxist leader Allande was overthrown by military coup. The
new leader Augusto Pinochet is a Neoliberalist which famously said 'to make Chile not a nation
of proletarians, but a nation of proprietors' Lower wage, privatizing public property, decrease
in welfare and social spending
"... Neoliberalism is a theory of political economic practices proposing that human well-being can best be advanced by the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade. ..."
"... Furthermore, if markets do not exist (in areas such as education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution), then they must be created, by state action if necessary. ..."
"... State interventions in markets (once created) must be kept to a bare minimum because the state cannot possibly possess enough information to second-guess market signals (prices) and because powerful interests will inevitably distort and bias state interventions (particularly in democracies) for their own benefit. ..."
"... State after state, from the new ones that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union to old-style social democracies and welfare states such as New Zealand and Sweden, have embraced, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes in response to coercive pressures, some version of neoliberal theory and adjusted at least some of their policies and practices accordingly. Post apartheid South Africa quickly adopted the neoliberal frame and even contemporary China appears to be headed in that direction. Furthermore, advocates of the neoliberal mindset now occupy positions of considerable influence in education (universities and many "think tanks"), in the media, in corporate board rooms and financial institutions, in key state institutions (treasury departments, central banks), and also in those international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) that regulate global finance and commerce. Neoliberalism has, in short, become hegemonic as a mode of discourse and has pervasive effects on ways of thought and political-economic practices to the point where it has become incorporated into the commonsense way we interpret, live in, and understand the world. ..."
"... Neoliberalization has in effect swept across the world like a vast tidal wave of institutional reform and discursive adjustment. While plenty of evidence shows its uneven geographical development, no place can claim total immunity (with the exception of a few states such as North Korea). Furthermore, the rules of engagement now established through the WTO (governing international trade) and by the IMF (governing international finance) instantiate neoliberalism as a global set of rules. All states that sign on to the WTO and the IMF (and who can afford not to?) agree to abide (albeit with a "grace period" to permit smooth adjustment) by these rules or face severe penalties. ..."
"... For any system of thought to become dominant, it requires the articulation of fundamental concepts that become so deeply embedded in commonsense understandings that they are taken for granted and beyond question. For this to occur, not any old concepts will do. A conceptual apparatus has to be constructed that appeals almost naturally to our intuitions and instincts, to our values and our desires, as well as to the possibilities that seem to inhere in the social world we inhabit. The founding figures of neoliberal thought took political ideals of individual liberty and freedom as sacrosanct -- as the central values of civilization. And in so doing they chose wisely and well, for these are indeed compelling and greatly appealing concepts. Such values were threatened, they argued, not only by fascism, dictatorships, and communism, but also by all forms of state intervention that substituted collective judgments for those of individuals set free to choose. They then concluded that without "the diffused power and initiative associated with (private property and the competitive market) it is difficult to imagine a society in which freedom may be effectively preserved." 1 ..."
"... The U.S. answer was spelled out on September 19, 2003, when Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, promulgated four orders that included "the full privatization of public enterprises, full ownership rights by foreign firms of Iraqi U.S. businesses, full repatriation of foreign profits . . . the opening of Iraq's banks to foreign control, national treatment for foreign companies and . . . the elimination of nearly all trade barriers." 4 The orders were to apply to all areas of the economy, including public services, the media, manufacturing, services, transportation, finance, and construction. Only oil was exempt. A regressive tax system favored by conservatives called a flat tax was also instituted. The right to strike was outlawed and unions banned in key sectors. An Iraqi member of the Coalition Provisional Authority protested the forced imposition of "free market fundamentalism," describing it as "a flawed logic that ignores history." 5 Yet the interim Iraqi government appointed at the end of June 2004 was accorded no power to change or write new laws -- it could only confirm the decrees already promulgated. ..."
"... The redistributive tactics of neoliberalism are wide-ranging, sophisticated, frequently masked by ideological gambits, but devastating for the dignity and social well-being of vulnerable populations and territories. The wave of creative destruction neoliberalization has visited across the globe is unparalleled in the history of capitalism. Understandably, it has spawned resistance and a search for viable alternatives. ..."
Neoliberalism has become a hegemonic discourse with pervasive effects on ways of thought and
political-economic practices to the point where it is now part of the commonsense way we
interpret, live in, and understand the world. How did neoliberalism achieve such an exalted
status, and what does it stand for? In this article, the author contends that neoliberalism is
above all a project to restore class dominance to sectors that saw their fortunes threatened by
the ascent of social democratic endeavors in the aftermath of the Second World War. Although
neoliberalism has had limited effectiveness as an engine for economic growth, it has succeeded
in channeling wealth from subordinate classes to dominant ones and from poorer to richer
countries. This process has entailed the dismantling of institutions and narratives that
promoted more egalitarian distributive measures in the preceding era.
Neoliberalism is a theory of political economic practices proposing that human well-being
can best be advanced by the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional
framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets,
and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework
appropriate to such practices. The state has to be concerned, for example, with the quality and
integrity of money. It must also set up military, defense, police, and juridical functions
required to secure private property rights and to support freely functioning markets.
Furthermore, if markets do not exist (in areas such as education, health care, social security,
or environmental pollution), then they must be created, by state action if necessary. But
beyond these tasks the state should not venture. State interventions in markets (once created)
must be kept to a bare minimum because the state cannot possibly possess enough information to
second-guess market signals (prices) and because powerful interests will inevitably distort and
bias state interventions (particularly in democracies) for their own benefit.
For a variety of reasons, the actual practices of neoliberalism frequently diverge from this
template. Nevertheless, there has everywhere been an emphatic turn, ostensibly led by the
Thatcher/Reagan revolutions in Britain and the United States, in political-economic practices
and thinking since the 1970s. State after state, from the new ones that emerged from the
collapse of the Soviet Union to old-style social democracies and welfare states such as New
Zealand and Sweden, have embraced, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes in response to coercive
pressures, some version of neoliberal theory and adjusted at least some of their policies and
practices accordingly. Post apartheid South Africa quickly adopted the neoliberal frame and
even contemporary China appears to be headed in that direction. Furthermore, advocates of the
neoliberal mindset now occupy positions of considerable influence in education (universities
and many "think tanks"), in the media, in corporate board rooms and financial institutions, in
key state institutions (treasury departments, central banks), and also in those international
institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) that regulate global finance and commerce. Neoliberalism has,
in short, become hegemonic as a mode of discourse and has pervasive effects on ways of thought
and political-economic practices to the point where it has become incorporated into the
commonsense way we interpret, live in, and understand the world.
Neoliberalization has in effect swept across the world like a vast tidal wave of
institutional reform and discursive adjustment. While plenty of evidence shows its uneven
geographical development, no place can claim total immunity (with the exception of a few states
such as North Korea). Furthermore, the rules of engagement now established through the WTO
(governing international trade) and by the IMF (governing international finance) instantiate
neoliberalism as a global set of rules. All states that sign on to the WTO and the IMF (and who
can afford not to?) agree to abide (albeit with a "grace period" to permit smooth adjustment)
by these rules or face severe penalties.
The creation of this neoliberal system has entailed much destruction, not only of prior
institutional frameworks and powers (such as the supposed prior state sovereignty over
political-economic affairs) but also of divisions of labor, social relations, welfare
provisions, technological mixes, ways of life, attachments to the land, habits of the heart,
ways of thought, and the like. Some assessment of the positives and negatives of this
neoliberal revolution is called for. In what follows, therefore, I will sketch in some
preliminary arguments as to how to both understand and evaluate this transformation in the way
global capitalism is working. This requires that we come to terms with the underlying forces,
interests, and agents that have propelled the neoliberal revolution forward with such
relentless intensity. To turn the neoliberal rhetoric against itself, we may reasonably ask, In
whose particular interests is it that the state take a neoliberal stance and in what ways have
those interests used neoliberalism to benefit themselves rather than, as is claimed, everyone,
everywhere?
In whose particular interests is it that the state take a neoliberal stance, and in what
ways have those interests used neoliberalism to benefit themselves rather than, as is claimed,
everyone, everywhere?
For any system of thought to become dominant, it requires the articulation of fundamental
concepts that become so deeply embedded in commonsense understandings that they are taken for
granted and beyond question. For this to occur, not any old concepts will do. A conceptual
apparatus has to be constructed that appeals almost naturally to our intuitions and instincts,
to our values and our desires, as well as to the possibilities that seem to inhere in the
social world we inhabit. The founding figures of neoliberal thought took political ideals of
individual liberty and freedom as sacrosanct -- as the central values of civilization. And in
so doing they chose wisely and well, for these are indeed compelling and greatly appealing
concepts. Such values were threatened, they argued, not only by fascism, dictatorships, and
communism, but also by all forms of state intervention that substituted collective judgments
for those of individuals set free to choose. They then concluded that without "the diffused
power and initiative associated with (private property and the competitive market) it is
difficult to imagine a society in which freedom may be effectively preserved." 1
Setting aside the question of whether the final part of the argument necessarily follows
from the first, there can be no doubt that the concepts of individual liberty and freedom are
powerful in their own right, even beyond those terrains where the liberal tradition has had a
strong historical presence. Such ideals empowered the dissident movements in Eastern Europe and
the Soviet Union before the end of the cold war as well as the students in Tiananmen Square.
The student movement that swept the world in 1968 -- from Paris and Chicago to Bangkok and
Mexico City -- was in part animated by the quest for greater freedoms of speech and individual
choice. These ideals have proven again and again to be a mighty historical force for
change.
It is not surprising, therefore, that appeals to freedom and liberty surround the United
States rhetorically at every turn and populate all manner of contemporary political manifestos.
This has been particularly true of the United States in recent years. On the first anniversary
of the attacks now known as 9/11, President Bush wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times
that extracted ideas from a U.S. National Defense Strategy document issued shortly thereafter.
"A peaceful world of growing freedom," he wrote, even as his cabinet geared up to go to war
with Iraq, "serves American long-term interests, reflects enduring American ideals and unites
Americas allies." "Humanity," he concluded, "holds in its hands the opportunity to offer
freedom s triumph over all its age-old foes," and "the United States welcomes its
responsibilities to lead in this great mission." Even more emphatically, he later proclaimed
that "freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world" and "as the greatest
power on earth [the United States has] an obligation to help the spread of freedom."
2
So when all of the other reasons for engaging in a preemptive war against Iraq were proven
fallacious or at least wanting, the Bush administration increasingly appealed to the idea that
the freedom conferred upon Iraq was in and of itself an adequate justification for the war. But
what sort of freedom was envisaged here, since, as the cultural critic Matthew Arnold long ago
thoughtfully observed, "Freedom is a very good horse to ride, but to ride somewhere."
3 To what destination, then, were the Iraqi people expected to ride the horse of
freedom so selflessly conferred to them by force of arms?
The U.S. answer was spelled out on September 19, 2003, when Paul Bremer, head of the
Coalition Provisional Authority, promulgated four orders that included "the full privatization
of public enterprises, full ownership rights by foreign firms of Iraqi U.S. businesses, full
repatriation of foreign profits . . . the opening of Iraq's banks to foreign control, national
treatment for foreign companies and . . . the elimination of nearly all trade barriers." 4 The orders were to apply to all areas of the economy, including public services,
the media, manufacturing, services, transportation, finance, and construction. Only oil was
exempt. A regressive tax system favored by conservatives called a flat tax was also instituted.
The right to strike was outlawed and unions banned in key sectors. An Iraqi member of the
Coalition Provisional Authority protested the forced imposition of "free market
fundamentalism," describing it as "a flawed logic that ignores history." 5 Yet the
interim Iraqi government appointed at the end of June 2004 was accorded no power to change or
write new laws -- it could only confirm the decrees already promulgated.
What the United States evidently sought to impose upon Iraq was a full-fledged neoliberal
state apparatus whose fundamental mission was and is to facilitate conditions for profitable
capital accumulation for all comers, Iraqis and foreigners alike. The Iraqis were, in short,
expected to ride their horse of freedom straight into the corral of neoliberalism. According to
neoliberal theory, Bremers decrees are both necessary and sufficient for the creation of wealth
and therefore for the improved well-being of the Iraqi people. They are the proper foundation
for an adequate rule of law, individual liberty, and democratic governance. The insurrection
that followed can in part be interpreted as Iraqi resistance to being driven into the embrace
of free market fundamentalism against their own will
It is useful to recall, however, that the first great experiment with neoliberal state
formation was Chile after Augusto Pinochet s coup almost thirty years to the day before Bremers
decrees were issued, on the "little September 11th" of 1973. The coup, against the
democratically elected and leftist social democratic government of Salvador Allende, was
strongly backed by the CIA and supported by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It
violently repressed all left-of-center social movements and political organizations and
dismantled all forms of popular organization, such as community health centers in poorer
neighborhoods. The labor market was "freed" from regulatory or institutional restraints --
trade union power, for example. But by 1973, the policies of import substitution that had
formerly dominated in Latin American attempts at economic regeneration, and that had succeeded
to some degree in Brazil after the military coup of 1964, had fallen into disrepute. With the
world economy in the midst of a serious recession, something new was plainly called for. A
group of U.S. economists known as "the Chicago boys," because of their attachment to the
neoliberal theories of Milton Friedman, then teaching at the University of Chicago, were
summoned to help reconstruct the Chilean economy. They did so along free-market lines,
privatizing public assets, opening up natural resources to private exploitation, and
facilitating foreign direct investment and free trade. The right of foreign companies to
repatriate profits from their Chilean operations was guaranteed. Export-led growth was favored
over import substitution. The subsequent revival of the Chilean economy in terms of growth,
capital accumulation, and high rates of return on foreign investments provided evidence upon
which the subsequent turn to more open neoliberal policies in both Britain (under Thatcher) and
the United States (under Reagan) could be modeled. Not for the first time, a brutal experiment
in creative destruction carried out in the periphery became a model for the formulation of
policies in the center. 6
The fact that two such obviously similar restructurings of the state apparatus occurred at
such different times in quite different parts of the world under the coercive influence of the
United States might be taken as indicative that the grim reach of U.S. imperial power might lie
behind the rapid proliferation of neoliberal state forms throughout the world from the
mid-1970s onward. But U.S. power and recklessness do not constitute the whole story. It was not
the United States, after all, that forced Margaret Thatcher to take the neoliberal path in
1979. And during the early 1980s, Thatcher was a far more consistent advocate of neoliberalism
than Reagan ever proved to be. Nor was it the United States that forced China in 1978 to follow
the path that has over time brought it closer and closer to the embrace of neoliberalism. It
would be hard to attribute the moves toward neoliberalism in India and Sweden in 1992 to the
imperial reach of the United States. The uneven geographical development of neoliberalism on
the world stage has been a very complex process entailing multiple determinations and not a
little chaos and confusion. So why, then, did the neoliberal turn occur, and what were the
forces compelling it onward to the point where it has now become a hegemonic system within
global capitalism?
Toward the end of the 1960s, global capitalism was falling into disarray. A significant
recession occurred in early 1973 -- the first since the great slump of the 1930s. The oil
embargo and oil price hike that followed later that year in the wake of the Arab-Israeli war
exacerbated critical problems. The embedded capitalism of the postwar period, with its heavy
emphasis on an uneasy compact between capital and labor brokered by an interventionist state
that paid great attention to the social (i.e., welfare programs) and individual wage, was no
longer working. The Bretton Woods accord set up to regulate international trade and finance was
finally abandoned in favor of floating exchange rates in 1973. That system had delivered high
rates of growth in the advanced capitalist countries and generated some spillover benefits --
most obviously to Japan but also unevenly across South America and to some other countries of
South East Asia -- during the "golden age" of capitalism in the 1950s and early 1960s. By the
next decade, however, the preexisting arrangements were exhausted and a new alternative was
urgently needed to restart the process of capital accumulation. 7 How and why
neoliberalism emerged victorious as an answer to that quandary is a complex story. In
retrospect, it may seem as if neoliberalism had been inevitable, but at the time no one really
knew or understood with any certainty what kind of response would work and how.
The world stumbled toward neoliberalism through a series of gyrations and chaotic motions
that eventually converged on the so-called 'Washington Consensus" in the 1990s. The uneven
geographical development of neoliberalism, and its partial and lopsided application from one
country to another, testifies to its tentative character and the complex ways in which
political forces, historical traditions, and existing institutional arrangements all shaped why
and how the process actually occurred on the ground.
There is, however, one element within this transition that deserves concerted attention. The
crisis of capital accumulation of the 1970s affected everyone through the combination of rising
unemployment and accelerating inflation. Discontent was widespread, and the conjoining of labor
and urban social movements throughout much of the advanced capitalist world augured a socialist
alternative to the social compromise between capital and labor that had grounded capital
accumulation so successfully in the postwar period. Communist and socialist parties were
gaining ground across much of Europe, and even in the United States popular forces were
agitating for widespread reforms and state interventions in everything ranging from
environmental protection to occupational safety and health and consumer protection from
corporate malfeasance. There was. in this, a clear political threat to ruling classes
everywhere, both in advanced capitalist countries, like Italy and France, and in many
developing countries, like Mexico and Argentina.
Beyond political changes, the economic threat to the position of ruling classes was now
becoming palpable. One condition of the postwar settlement in almost all countries was to
restrain the economic power of the upper classes and for labor to be accorded a much larger
share of the economic pie. In the United States, for example, the share of the national income
taken by the top 1 percent of earners fell from a prewar high of 16 percent to less than 8
percent by the end of the Second World War and stayed close to that level for nearly three
decades. While growth was strong such restraints seemed not to matter, but when growth
collapsed in the 1970s, even as real interest rates went negative and dividends and profits
shrunk, ruling classes felt threatened. They had to move decisively if they were to protect
their power from political and economic annihilation.
The coup d'état in Chile and the military takeover in Argentina, both fomented and
led internally by ruling elites with U.S. support, provided one kind of solution. But the
Chilean experiment with neoliberalism demonstrated that the benefits of revived capital
accumulation were highly skewed. The country and its ruling elites along with foreign investors
did well enough while the people in general fared poorly. This has been such a persistent
effect of neoliberal policies over time as to be regarded a structural component of the whole
project. Dumenil and Levy have gone so far as to argue that neoliberalism was from the very
beginning an endeavor to restore class power to the richest strata in the population. They
showed how from the mid-1980s onwards, the share of the top 1 percent of income earners in the
United States soared rapidly to reach 15 percent by the end of the century. Other data show
that the top 0.1 percent of income earners increased their share of the national income from 2
percent in 1978 to more than 6 percent by 1999. Yet another measure shows that the ratio of the
median compensation of workers to the salaries of chief executive officers increased from just
over thirty to one in 1970 to more than four hundred to one by 2000. Almost certainly, with the
Bush administrations tax cuts now taking effect, the concentration of income and of wealth in
the upper echelons of society is continuing apace. 8
And the United States is not alone in this: the top 1 percent of income earners in Britain
doubled their share of the national income from 6.5 percent to 13 percent over the past twenty
years. When we look further afield, we see extraordinary concentrations of wealth and power
within a small oligarchy after the application of neoliberal shock therapy in Russia and a
staggering surge in income inequalities and wealth in China as it adopts neoliberal practices.
While there are exceptions to this trend -- several East and Southeast Asian countries have
contained income inequalities within modest bounds, as have France and the Scandinavian
countries -- the evidence suggests that the neoliberal turn is in some way and to some degree
associated with attempts to restore or reconstruct upper-class power.
We can, therefore, examine the history of neoliberalism either as a utopian project
providing a theoretical template for the reorganization of international capitalism or as a
political scheme aimed at reestablishing the conditions for capital accumulation and the
restoration of class power. In what follows, I shall argue that the last of these objectives
has dominated. Neoliberalism has not proven effective at revitalizing global capital
accumulation, but it has succeeded in restoring class power. As a consequence, the theoretical
utopianism of the neoliberal argument has worked more as a system of justification and
legitimization. The principles of neoliberalism are quickly abandoned whenever they conflict
with this class project.
Neoliberalism has not proven effective at revitalizing global capital accumulation, but it
has succeeded in restoring class power.
If there were movements to restore class power within global capitalism, then how were they
enacted and by whom? The answer to that question in countries such as Chile and Argentina was
simple: a swift, brutal, and self-assured military coup backed by the upper classes and the
subsequent fierce repression of all solidarities created within the labor and urban social
movements that had so threatened their power. Elsewhere, as in Britain and Mexico in 1976, it
took the gentle prodding of a not yet fiercely neoliberal International Monetary Fund to push
countries toward practices -- although by no means policy commitment -- to cut back on social
expenditures and welfare programs to reestablish fiscal probity. In Britain, of course,
Margaret Thatcher later took up the neoliberal cudgel with a vengeance in 1979 and wielded it
to great effect, even though she never fully overcame opposition within her own party and could
never effectively challenge such centerpieces of the welfare state as the National Health
Service. Interestingly, it was only in 2004 that the Labour Government dared to introduce a fee
structure into higher education. The process of neoliberalization has been halting,
geographically uneven, and heavily influenced by class structures and other social forces
moving for or against its central propositions within particular state formations and even
within particular sectors, for example, health or education. 9
It is informative to look more closely at how the process unfolded in the United States,
since this case was pivotal as an influence on other and more recent transformations. Various
threads of power intertwined to create a transition that culminated in the mid-1990s with the
takeover of Congress by the Republican Party. That feat represented in fact a neoliberal
"Contract with America" as a program for domestic action. Before that dramatic denouement,
however, many steps were taken, each building upon and reinforcing the other.
To begin with, by 1970 or so, there was a growing sense among the U.S. upper classes that
the anti-business and anti-imperialist climate that had emerged toward the end of the 1960s had
gone too far. In a celebrated memo, Lewis Powell (about to be elevated to the Supreme Court by
Richard Nixon) urged the American Chamber of Commerce in 1971 to mount a collective campaign to
demonstrate that what was good for business was good for America. Shortly thereafter, a shadowy
but influential Business Round Table was formed that still exists and plays a significant
strategic role in Republican Party politics. Corporate political action committees, legalized
under the post-Watergate campaign finance laws of 1974, proliferated like wildfire. With their
activities protected under the First Amendment as a form of free speech in a 1976 Supreme Court
decision, the systematic capture of the Republican Party as a class instrument of collective
(rather than particular or individual) corporate and financial power began. But the Republican
Party needed a popular base, and that proved more problematic to achieve. The incorporation of
leaders of the Christian right, depicted as a moral majority, together with the Business Round
Table provided the solution to that problem. A large segment of a disaffected, insecure, and
largely white working class was persuaded to vote consistently against its own material
interests on cultural (anti-liberal, anti-Black, antifeminist and antigay), nationalist and
religious grounds. By the mid-1990s, the Republican Party had lost almost all of its liberal
elements and become a homogeneous right-wing machine connecting the financial resources of
large corporate capital with a populist base, the Moral Majority, that was particularly strong
in the U.S. South. 10
The second element in the U.S. transition concerned fiscal discipline. The recession of 1973
to 1975 diminished tax revenues at all levels at a time of rising demand for social
expenditures. Deficits emerged everywhere as a key problem. Something had to be done about the
fiscal crisis of the state; the restoration of monetary discipline was essential. That
conviction empowered financial institutions that controlled the lines of credit to government.
In 1975, they refused to roll over New York's debt and forced that city to the edge of
bankruptcy. A powerful cabal of bankers joined together with the state to tighten control over
the city. This meant curbing the aspirations of municipal unions, layoffs in public employment,
wage freezes, cutbacks in social provision (education, public health, and transport services),
and the imposition of user fees (tuition was introduced in the CUNY university system for the
first time). The bailout entailed the construction of new institutions that had first rights to
city tax revenues in order to pay off bond holders: whatever was left went into the city budget
for essential services. The final indignity was a requirement that municipal unions invest
their pension funds in city bonds. This ensured that unions moderate their demands to avoid the
danger of losing their pension funds through city bankruptcy.
Such actions amounted to a coup d'état by financial institutions against the
democratically elected government of New York City, and they were every bit as effective as the
military overtaking that had earlier occurred in Chile. Much of the city's social
infrastructure was destroyed, and the physical foundations (e.g., the transit system)
deteriorated markedly for lack of investment or even maintenance. The management of New York's
fiscal crisis paved the way for neoliberal practices both domestically under Ronald Reagan and
internationally through the International Monetary Fund throughout the 1980s. It established a
principle that, in the event of a conflict between the integrity of financial institutions and
bondholders on one hand and the well-being of the citizens on the other, the former would be
given preference. It hammered home the view that the role of government was to create a good
business climate rather than look to the needs and well-being of the population at large.
Fiscal redistributions to benefit the upper classes resulted in the midst of a general fiscal
crisis.
Whether all the agents involved in producing this compromise in New York understood it at
the time as a tactic for the restoration of upper-class power is an open question. The need to
maintain fiscal discipline is a matter of deep concern in its own right and does not have to
lead to the restitution of class dominance. It is unlikely, therefore, that Felix Rohatyn, the
key merchant banker who brokered the deal between the city, the state, and the financial
institutions, had the reinstatement of class power in mind. But this objective probably was
very much in the thoughts of the investment bankers. It was almost certainly the aim of
then-Secretary of the Treasury William Simon who, having watched the progress of events in
Chile with approval, refused to give aid to New York and openly stated that he wanted that city
to suffer so badly that no other city in the nation would ever dare take on similar social
obligations again. 11
The third element in the U.S. transition entailed an ideological assault upon the media and
upon educational institutions. Independent "think tanks" financed by wealthy individuals and
corporate donors proliferated -- the Heritage Foundation in the lead -- to prepare an
ideological onslaught aimed at persuading the public of the commonsense character of neoliberal
propositions. A flood of policy papers and proposals and a veritable army of well-paid hired
lieutenants trained to promote neoliberal ideas coupled with the corporate acquisition of media
channels effectively transformed the discursive climate in the United States by the mid-1980s.
The project to "get government off the backs of the people" and to shrink government to the
point where it could be "drowned in a bathtub" was loudly proclaimed. With respect to this, the
promoters of the new gospel found a ready audience in that wing of the 1968 movement whose goal
was greater individual liberty and freedom from state power and the manipulations of monopoly
capital. The libertarian argument for neoliberalism proved a powerful force for change. To the
degree that capitalism reorganized to both open a space for individual entrepreneurship and
switch its efforts to satisfy innumerable niche markets, particularly those defined by sexual
liberation, that were spawned out of an increasingly individualized consumerism, so it could
match words with deeds.
This carrot of individualized entrepreneurship and consumerism was backed by the big stick
wielded by the state and financial institutions against that other wing of the 1968 movement
whose members had sought social justice through collective negotiation and social solidarities.
Reagan's destruction of the air traffic controllers (PATCO) in 1980 and Margaret Thatchers
defeat of the British miners in 1984 were crucial moments in the global turn toward
neoliberalism. The assault upon institutions, such as trade unions and welfare rights
organizations, that sought to protect and further working-class interests was as broad as it
was deep. The savage cutbacks in social expenditures and the welfare state, and the passing of
all responsibility for their well-being to individuals and their families proceeded apace. But
these practices did not and could not stop at national borders. After 1980, the United States,
now firmly committed to neoliberalization and clearly backed by Britain, sought, through a mix
of leadership, persuasion -- the economics departments of U.S. research universities played a
major role in training many of the economists from around the world in neoliberal principles --
and coercion to export neoliberalization far and wide. The purge of Keynesian economists and
their replacement by neoliberal monetarists in the International Monetary Fund in 1982
transformed the U.S.-dominated IMF into a prime agent of neoliberalization through its
structural adjustment programs visited upon any state (and there were many in the 1980s and
1990s) that required its help with debt repayments. The Washington Consensus that was forged in
the 1990s and the negotiating rules set up under the World Trade Organization in 1998 confirmed
the global turn toward neoliberal practices. 12
The new international compact also depended upon the reanimation and reconfiguration of the
U.S. imperial tradition. That tradition had been forged in Central America in the 1920s, as a
form of domination without colonies. Independent republics could be kept under the thumb of the
United States and effectively act, in the best of cases, as proxies for U.S. interests through
the support of strongmen -- like Somoza in Nicaragua, the Shah in Iran, and Pinochet in Chile
-- and a coterie of followers backed by military assistance and financial aid. Covert aid was
available to promote the rise to power of such leaders, but by the 1970s it became clear that
something else was needed: the opening of markets, of new spaces for investment, and clear
fields where financial powers could operate securely. This entailed a much closer integration
of the global economy with a well-defined financial architecture. The creation of new
institutional practices, such as those set out by the IMF and the WTO, provided convenient
vehicles through which financial and market power could be exercised. The model required
collaboration among the top capitalist powers and the Group of Seven (G7), bringing Europe and
Japan into alignment with the United States to shape the global financial and trading system in
ways that effectively forced all other nations to submit. "Rogue nations," defined as those
that failed to conform to these global rules, could then be dealt with by sanctions or coercive
and even military force if necessary. In this way, U.S. neoliberal imperialist strategies were
articulated through a global network of power relations, one effect of which was to permit the
U.S. upper classes to exact financial tribute and command rents from the rest of the world as a
means to augment their already hegemonic control. 13
In what ways has neoliberalization resolved the problems of flagging capital accumulation?
Its actual record in stimulating economic growth is dismal. Aggregate growth rates stood at 3.5
percent or so in the 1960s and even during the troubled 1970s fell to only 2.4 percent. The
subsequent global growth rates of 1.4 percent and 1.1 percent for the 1980s and 1990s, and a
rate that barely touches 1 percent since 2000, indicate that neoliberalism has broadly failed
to
In what ways has neoliberalization resolved the problems of flagging capital accumulation?
Its actual record in stimulating economic growth is dismal. Aggregate growth rates stood at 3.5
percent or so in the 1960s and even during the troubled 1970s fell to only 2.4 percent. The
subsequent global growth rates of 1.4 percent and 1.1 percent for the 1980s and 1990s, and a
rate that barely touches 1 percent since 2000, indicate that neoliberalism has broadly failed
to stimulate worldwide growth. 14 Even if we exclude from this calculation the
catastrophic effects of the collapse of the Russian and some Central European economies in the
wake of the neoliberal shock therapy treatment of the 1990s, global economic performance from
the standpoint of restoring the conditions of general capital accumulation has been weak.
Despite their rhetoric about curing sick economies, neither Britain nor the United States
achieved high economic performance in the 1980s. That decade belonged to Japan, the East Asian
"Tigers," and West Germany as powerhouses of the global economy. Such countries were very
successful, but their radically different institutional arrangements make it difficult to pin
their achievements on neoliberalism. The West German Bundesbank had taken a strong monetarist
line (consistent with neoliberalism) for more than two decades, a fact suggesting that there is
no necessary connection between monetarism per se and the quest to restore class power. In West
Germany, the unions remained strong and wage levels stayed relatively high alongside the
construction of a progressive welfare state. One of the effects of this combination was to
stimulate a high rate of technological innovation that kept West Germany well ahead in the
field of international competition. Export-led production moved the country forward as a global
leader.
In Japan, independent unions were weak or nonexistent, but state investment in technological
and organizational change and the tight relationship between corporations and financial
institutions (an arrangement that also proved felicitous in West Germany) generated an
astonishing export-led growth performance, very much at the expense of other capitalist
economies such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Such growth as there was in the
1980s (and the aggregate rate of growth in the world was lower even than that of the troubled
1970s) did not depend, therefore, on neoliberalization. Many European states therefore resisted
neoliberal reforms and increasingly found ways to preserve much of their social democratic
heritage while moving, in some cases fairly successfully, toward the West German model. In
Asia, the Japanese model implanted under authoritarian systems of governance in South Korea,
Taiwan, and Singapore also proved viable and consistent with reasonable equality of
distribution. It was only in the 1990s that neoliberalization began to pay off for both the
United States and Britain. This happened in the midst of a long-drawn-out period of deflation
in Japan and relative stagnation in a newly unified Germany. Up for debate is whether the
Japanese recession occurred as a simple result of competitive pressures or whether it was
engineered by financial agents in the United States to humble the Japanese economy.
So why, then, in the face of this patchy if not dismal record, have so many been persuaded
that neoliberalization is a successful solution? Over and beyond the persistent stream of
propaganda emanating from the neoliberal think tanks and suffusing the media, two material
reasons stand out. First, neoliberalization has been accompanied by increasing volatility
within global capitalism. That success was to materialize somewhere obscured the reality that
neoliberalism was generally failing. Periodic episodes of growth interspersed with phases of
creative destruction, usually registered as severe financial crises. Argentina was opened up to
foreign capital and privatization in the 1990s and for several years was the darling of Wall
Street, only to collapse into disaster as international capital withdrew at the end of the
decade. Financial collapse and social devastation was quickly followed by a long political
crisis. Financial turmoil proliferated all over the developing world, and in some instances,
such as Brazil and Mexico, repeated waves of structural adjustment and austerity led to
economic paralysis.
On the other hand, neoliberalism has been a huge success from the standpoint of the upper
classes. It has either restored class position to ruling elites, as in the United States and
Britain, or created conditions for capitalist class formation, as in China, India, Russia, and
elsewhere. Even countries that have suffered extensively from neoliberalization have seen the
massive reordering of class structures internally. The wave of privatization that came to
Mexico with the Salinas de Gortari administration in 1992 spawned unprecedented concentrations
of wealth in the hands of a few people (Carlos Slim, tor example, who took over the state
telephone system and became an instant billionaire).
With the media dominated by upper-class interests, the myth could be propagated that certain
sectors failed because they were not competitive enough, thereby setting the stage for even
more neoliberal reforms. Increased social inequality was necessary to encourage entrepreneurial
risk and innovation, and these, in turn, conferred competitive advantage and stimulated growth.
If conditions among the lower classes deteriorated, it was because they failed for personal and
cultural reasons to enhance their own human capital through education, the acquisition of a
protestant work ethic, and submission to work discipline and flexibility. In short, problems
arose because of the lack of competitive strength or because of personal, cultural, and
political failings. In a Spencerian world, the argument went, only the fittest should and do
survive. Systemic problems were masked under a blizzard of ideological pronouncements and a
plethora of localized crises.
If the main effect of neoliberalism has been redistributive rather than generative, then
ways had to be found to transfer assets and channel wealth and income either from the mass of
the population toward the upper classes or from vulnerable to richer countries. I have
elsewhere provided an account of these processes under the rubric of accumulation by
dispossession. 15 By this, I mean the continuation and proliferation of accretion
practices that Marx had designated as "primitive" or "original" during the rise of capitalism.
These include
(1) the commodification and privatization of land and me forceful expulsion or peasant
populations {as in Mexico and India in recent times);
(2) conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, etc.) into
exclusively private property rights;
(3) suppression of rights to the commons;
(4) commodification of labor power and the suppression of alternative (indigenous) forms of
production and consumption;
(5) colonial, neocolonial, and imperial processes of appropriation of assets (including
natural resources); (6) monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly of land;
(7) the slave trade (which continues, particularly in the sex industry); and
(8) usury, the national debt, and, most devastating of all, the use of the credit system as
radical means of primitive accumulation.
The state, with its monopoly of violence and definitions of legality, plays a crucial role
in backing and promoting these processes. To this list of mechanisms, we may now add a raft of
additional techniques, such as the extraction of rents from patents and intellectual property
rights and the diminution or erasure of various forms of communal property rights -- such as
state pensions, paid vacations, access to education, and health care -- won through a
generation or more of social democratic struggles. The proposal to privatize all state pension
rights (pioneered in Chile under Augusto Pinochet s dictatorship) is, for example, one of the
cherished objectives of neoliberals in the United States.
In the cases of China and Russia, it might be reasonable to refer to recent events in
"primitive" and "original" terms, but the practices that restored class power to capitalist
elites in the United States and elsewhere are best described as an ongoing process of
accumulation by dispossession that grew rapidly under neoliberalism. In what follows, I isolate
four main elements.
1. Privatization
The corporatization, commodification, and privatization of hitherto public assets have been
signal features of the neoliberal project. Its primary aim has been to open up new fields for
capital accumulation in domains formerly regarded off-limits to the calculus of profitability.
Public utilities of all lands (water, telecommunications, transportation), social welfare
provision (public housing, education, health care, pensions), public institutions (such as
universities, research laboratories, prisons), and even warfare (as illustrated by the "army"
of private contractors operating alongside the armed forces in Iraq) have all been privatized
to some degree throughout the capitalist world.
Intellectual property rights established through the so-called TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects
of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement within the WTO defines genetic materials, seed
plasmas, and all manner of other products as private property. Rents for use can then be
extracted from populations whose practices had played a crucial role in the development of such
genetic materials. Bio-piracy is rampant, and the pillaging of the worlds stockpile of genetic
resources is well under way to the benefit of a few large pharmaceutical companies. The
escalating depletion of the global environmental commons (land, air, water) and proliferating
habitat degradations that preclude anything but capital-intensive modes of agricultural
production have likewise resulted from the wholesale commodification of nature in all its
forms. The commodification (through tourism) of cultural forms, histories, and intellectual
creativity entails wholesale dispossessions (the music industry is notorious for the
appropriation and exploitation of grassroots culture and creativity). As in the past, the power
of the state is frequently used to force such processes through even against popular will. The
rolling back of regulatory frameworks designed to protect labor and the environment from
degradation has entailed the loss of rights. The reversion of common property rights won
through years of hard class struggle (the right to a state pension, to welfare, to national
health care) into the private domain has been one of the most egregious of all policies of
dispossession pursued in the name of neoliberal orthodoxy.
All of these processes amount to the transfer of assets from the public and popular realms
to the private and class-privileged domains. Privatization, Arundhati Roy argued with respect
to the Indian case, entails "the transfer of productive public assets from the state to private
companies. Productive assets include natural resources: earth, forest, water, air. These are
the assets that the state holds in trust for the people it represents. ... To snatch these away
and sell them as stock to private companies is a process of barbaric dispossession on a scale
that has no parallel in history." 16
2. Financialization
The strong financial wave that set in after 1980 has been marked by its speculative and
predatory style. The total daily turnover of financial transactions in international markets
that stood at $2.3 billion in 1983 had risen to $130 billion by 2001. This $40 trillion annual
turnover in 2001 compares to the estimated $800 billion that would be required to support
international trade and productive investment flows. 17 Deregulation allowed the
financial system to become one of the main centers of redistributive activity through
speculation, predation, fraud, and thievery. Stock promotions; Ponzi schemes; structured asset
destruction through inflation; asset stripping through mergers and acquisitions; and the
promotion of debt incumbency that reduced whole populations, even in the advanced capitalist
countries, to debt peonage -- to say nothing of corporate fraud and dispossession of assets,
such as the raiding of pension hinds and their decimation by stock and corporate collapses
through credit and stock manipulations -- are all features of the capitalist financial
system.
The emphasis on stock values, which arose after bringing together the interests of owners
and managers of capital through the remuneration of the latter in stock options, led, as we now
know, to manipulations in the market that created immense wealth for a few at the expense of
the many. The spectacular collapse of Enron was emblematic of a general process that deprived
many of their livelihoods and pension rights. Beyond this, we also must look at the speculative
raiding carried out by hedge funds and other major instruments of finance capital that formed
the real cutting edge of accumulation by dispossession on the global stage, even as they
supposedly conferred the positive benefit to the capitalist class of spreading risks.
3. The management and manipulation of crises
Beyond the speculative and often fraudulent froth that characterizes much of neoliberal
financial manipulation, there lies a deeper process that entails the springing of the debt trap
as a primary means of accumulation by dispossession. Crisis creation, management, and
manipulation on the world stage has evolved into the fine art of deliberative redistribution of
wealth from poor countries to the rich. By suddenly raising interest rates in 1979, Paul
Volcker, then chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, raised the proportion of foreign earnings
that borrowing countries had to put to debt-interest payments. Forced into bankruptcy,
countries like Mexico had to agree to structural adjustment. While proclaiming its role as a
noble leader organizing bailouts to keep global capital accumulation stable and on track, the
United States could also open the way to pillage the Mexican economy through deployment of its
superior financial power under conditions of local crisis. This was what the U.S. Treasury/Wall
Street/IMF complex became expert at doing everywhere. Volker s successor, Alan Greenspan,
resorted to similar tactics several times in the 1990s. Debt crises in individual countries,
uncommon in the 1960s, became frequent during the 1980s and 1990s. Hardly any developing
country remained untouched and in some cases, as in Latin America, such crises were frequent
enough to be considered endemic. These
debt crises were orchestrated, managed, and controlled both to rationalize the system and to
redistribute assets during the 1980s and 1990s. Wade and Veneroso captured the essence of this
trend when they wrote of the Asian crisis -- provoked initially by the operation of U.S.-based
hedge funds -- of 1997 and 1998:
Financial crises have always caused transfers of ownership and power to those who keep
their own assets intact and who are in a position to create credit, and the Asian crisis is
no exception . . . there is no doubt that Western and Japanese corporations are the big
winners. . . . The combination of massive devaluations pushed financial liberalization, and
IMF-facilitated recovery may even precipitate the biggest peacetime transfer of assets from
domestic to foreign owners in the past fifty years anywhere in the world, dwarfing the
transfers from domestic to U.S. owners in Latin America in the 1980s or in Mexico after 1994.
One recalls the statement attributed to Andrew Mellon: "In a depression assets return to
their rightful owners." 18
The analogy to the deliberate creation of unemployment to produce a pool of low-wage surplus
labor convenient for further accumulation is precise. Valuable assets are thrown out of use and
lose their value. They lie fallow and dormant until capitalists possessed of liquidity choose
to seize upon them and breathe new life into them. The danger, however, is that crises can spin
out of control and become generalized, or that revolts will arise against the system that
creates them. One of the prime functions of state interventions and of international
institutions is to orchestrate crises and devaluations in ways that permit accumulation by
dispossession to occur without sparking a general collapse or popular revolt. The structural
adjustment program administered by the Wall Street/Treasury/ IMF complex takes care of the
first function. It is the job of the comprador neoliberal state apparatus (backed by military
assistance from the imperial powers) to ensure that insurrections do not occur in whichever
country has been raided. Yet signs of popular revolt have emerged, first with the Zapatista
uprising in Mexico in 1994 and later in the generalized discontent that informed
anti-globalization movements such as the one that culminated in Seattle in 1999.
4. State redistributions
The state, once transformed into a neoliberal set of institutions, becomes a prime agent of
redistributive policies, reversing the flow from upper to lower classes that had been
implemented during the preceding social democratic era. It does this in the first instance
through privatization schemes and cutbacks in government expenditures meant to support the
social wage. Even when privatization appears as beneficial to the lower classes, the long-term
effects can be negative. At first blush, for example, Thatchers program for the privatization
of social housing in Britain appeared as a gift to the lower classes whose members could now
convert from rental to ownership at a relatively low cost, gain control over a valuable asset,
and augment their wealth. But once the transfer was accomplished, housing speculation took over
particularly in prime central locations, eventually bribing or forcing low-income populations
out to the periphery in cities like London and turning erstwhile working-class housing estates
into centers of intense gentrification. The loss of affordable housing in central areas
produced homelessness for many and extraordinarily long commutes for those who did have
low-paying service jobs. The privatization of the ejidos (indigenous common property rights in
land under the Mexican constitution) in Mexico, which became a central component of the
neoliberal program set up during the 1990s, has had analogous effects on the Mexican peasantry,
forcing many rural dwellers into the cities in search of employment. The Chinese state has
taken a whole series of draconian measures through which assets have been conferred upon a
small elite to the detriment of the masses.
The neoliberal state also seeks redistributions through a variety of other means such as
revisions in the tax code to benefit returns on investment rather than incomes and wages,
promotion of regressive elements in the tax code (such as sales taxes), displacement of state
expenditures and free access to all by user fees (e.g., on higher education), and the provision
of a vast array of subsidies and tax breaks to corporations. The welfare programs that now
exist in the United States at federal, state, and local levels amount to a vast redirection of
public moneys for corporate benefit (directly as in the case of subsidies to agribusiness and
indirectly as in the case of the military-industrial sector), in much the same way that the
mortgage interest rate tax deduction operates in the United States as a massive subsidy to
upper-income home owners and the construction of industry. Heightened surveillance and policing
and, in the case of the United States, the incarceration of recalcitrant elements in the
population indicate a more sinister role of intense social control. In developing countries,
where opposition to neoliberalism and accumulation by dispossession can be stronger, the role
of the neoliberal state quickly assumes that of active repression even to the point of low
level warfare against oppositional movements (many of which can now conveniently be designated
as terrorist to garner U.S. military assistance and support) such as the Zapatistas in Mexico
or landless peasants in Brazil.
In effect, reported Roy, "India's rural economy, which supports seven hundred million
people, is being garroted. Farmers who produce too much are in distress, farmers who produce
too little are in distress, and landless agricultural laborers are out of work as big estates
and farms lay off their workers. They're all flocking to the cities in search of employment."
19 In China, the estimate is that at least half a billion people will have to be
absorbed by urbanization over the next ten years if rural mayhem and revolt is to be avoided.
What those migrants will do in the cities remains unclear, though the vast physical
infrastructural plans now in the works will go some way to absorbing the labor surpluses
released by primitive accumulation.
The redistributive tactics of neoliberalism are wide-ranging, sophisticated, frequently
masked by ideological gambits, but devastating for the dignity and social well-being of
vulnerable populations and territories. The wave of creative destruction neoliberalization has
visited across the globe is unparalleled in the history of capitalism. Understandably, it has
spawned resistance and a search for viable alternatives.
Based on Peter Schweizer's bestselling book CLINTON CASH with Director commentary by Trump's chief
of staff Steven Bannon.
Hillary Clinton went from being "dead broke" after leaving the White House to amassing a net worth
of over $150M, with over $2B in donations to their foundation. Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of
How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton Rich.
New York Times bestselling book by Peter Schweizer, in which he investigates donations made to the
Clinton Foundation by foreign entities, paid speeches made by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and their
personal enrichment since leaving the White House in 2001. Mr. Schweizer shows foreign governments
and organizations that donated to the Clinton Foundation, and to the Clinton Crime Family themselves
in speaking fees, received favors in exchange from the State Department, headed by then-Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton.
Stopping the Clintons is not about being a good conservative or a good progressive. It's about
being a decent human being." Andrew Breitbart
Deplorable_Left Account Suspended by Saudi Arabia backed Twitter - Follow @SheriffJoeHero or @fuck_kaepernick
on Twitter
Hillary named her book "What Happened" when it should have been named "My Lies About Clinton Cash".
All her wealth came about for the Clintons when she stoled it from the people. Hard working people
trying to make ends meet each and every day. Our taxes that we pay. She was around people who
she could hit up for millions of $$$. She felt as though she was a Global Elitist, hit the Entertainment
industry for all the cash she asks for to increase the funds for her Clinton Foundation. She hated
America and was deeply involved with countries as Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and so much more. She
was so good at what she did and running for President she had it down to a science with all her
negative Rhetoric about us the conservatives, Republicans.
With information out there he is the BIG question. In 2008 Obama called Hillary out of touch and
a liar. In 2016 he called Clinton the most qualified man or women to EVER run for the presidency
of the US. WTF!!! We all know that they didn't have a good working relationship. Between 2008-2016
how many screw ups did she have? To many!
On January 23, 2013 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified to a Senate Committee investigating
the death of Four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. These murders occurred on September 11, 2012,
while she was Secretary of State (WHAT DID SHE DO TO GET THAT JOB)Clinton replies -"What's the
difference?" Emails regarding this and the murder, yes murder of Gadaffi were deleted off her
PRIVATE system.
Steve Jason Chaffetz said on Judge Jeanine last night that Jeff Sessions said he is not Prosecuting
her for anything. Holder, Obama, Lynch, Comey and McCabe are not being Prosecuted either. Who
got to Sessions or is he a part of the Swamp?
THE OPENING TO THIS DOCUMENTARY IS BRILLIANT. I HAVEN'T SEEN THIS, SINCE LAST SUMMER (2016).
But, I love the way they start off with the mythology of the "Greatness" and "Noble acts" of the
Clintons. And once you're lured in.....the numbers don't match.
P.S.: BARACK OBAMA DID THE SAME THING.
He slipped $700 MILLION to Islamic countries, and hundreds of millions to others....while Black
and working-class/poor white communities suffered. Furthermore, the amounts his State Dept. claimed
didn't match recent audits.
"... My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers, teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations, and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and interests. ..."
"... This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals, anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc. all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards the right was a natural part of this evolution. ..."
"... They also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this. ..."
"... the New Class has very strong internal solidarity – and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside that class is "fair game." ..."
"... So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism", I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled out. ..."
"... Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class, and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it. ..."
"... A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony, like Chris. ..."
"... I assume he meant certain professors [of economics]. Actually on @4, there's a good chapter on the topic in a Thomas Franks latest. ..."
Obviously Mr. Deerin is, on its face, utilizing a very disputable definition
of "liberal."
However, I think a stronger case could be made for something like Mr.
Deerin's argument, although it doesn't necessarily get to the same conclusion.
My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers,
teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For
much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations,
and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and
protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight
to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere
around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and
professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and
interests.
Vive la meritocracy. This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed
the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really
didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since
it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while
transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar
community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals,
anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc.
all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards
the right was a natural part of this evolution.
I think the 90% or so of the community who are not included in this class
are confused and bewildered and of course rather angry about it. They
also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province
of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this.
Watching the bailouts and lack of prosecutions during the GFC made
them dimly realize that the New Class has very strong internal solidarity
– and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside
that class is "fair game."
So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology
of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly
but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism",
I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among
the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class
still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for
channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled
out.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying Donald Trump is leading an insurgency
against the New Class – but I think he tapped into something like one and
is riding it for all he can, while not really having the slightest idea
what he's doing.
Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments
are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class,
and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the
horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it.
A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers
and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers
of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm
probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony,
like Chris.
"... My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers, teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations, and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and interests. ..."
"... This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals, anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc. all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards the right was a natural part of this evolution. ..."
"... They also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this. ..."
"... the New Class has very strong internal solidarity – and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside that class is "fair game." ..."
"... So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism", I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled out. ..."
"... Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class, and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it. ..."
"... A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony, like Chris. ..."
"... I assume he meant certain professors [of economics]. Actually on @4, there's a good chapter on the topic in a Thomas Franks latest. ..."
Obviously Mr. Deerin is, on its face, utilizing a very disputable definition
of "liberal."
However, I think a stronger case could be made for something like Mr.
Deerin's argument, although it doesn't necessarily get to the same conclusion.
My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers,
teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For
much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations,
and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and
protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight
to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere
around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and
professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and
interests.
Vive la meritocracy. This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed
the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really
didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since
it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while
transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar
community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals,
anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc.
all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards
the right was a natural part of this evolution.
I think the 90% or so of the community who are not included in this class
are confused and bewildered and of course rather angry about it. They
also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province
of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this.
Watching the bailouts and lack of prosecutions during the GFC made
them dimly realize that the New Class has very strong internal solidarity
– and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside
that class is "fair game."
So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology
of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly
but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism",
I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among
the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class
still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for
channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled
out.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying Donald Trump is leading an insurgency
against the New Class – but I think he tapped into something like one and
is riding it for all he can, while not really having the slightest idea
what he's doing.
Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments
are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class,
and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the
horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it.
A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers
and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers
of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm
probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony,
like Chris.
Here is part of an insightful comment by William Meyer in
which he made an important point about "great realignment" of
the "New Class" (aka "the USA nomenklatura") with capital
owners which happened in 70th.
My observation is that the New Class (professionals,
lobbyists, financiers, teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled
the country in recent decades. For much of the twentieth
century this class was in some tension with corporations, and
used their skills at influencing government policy to help
develop and protect the welfare state, since they needed the
working class as a counterweight to the natural influence of
corporate money and power. However, somewhere around 1970 I
think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and
professionals realized that they shared the same education,
background and interests.
Vive la meritocracy. This "peace treaty" between former
rivals allowed the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to
the right, since they really didn't particularly need the
working class politically anymore. And since it is the
hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money
while transferring risk away from themselves, the middle
class and blue collar community has been the natural
recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals, anyway),
neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc.,
etc. all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the
Democratic Party towards the right was a natural part of this
evolution.
I think the 90% or so of the community who are not
included in this class are confused and bewildered and of
course rather angry about it. They also sense that organized
politics in this country – being chiefly the province of the
New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any
of this. Watching the bailouts and lack of prosecutions
during the GFC made them dimly realize that the New Class has
very strong internal solidarity – and since somebody has to
pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside that class is
"fair game."
So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as
the ideology of the New Class (neoliberal,
financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly but opposed to
non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is
"liberalism", I think it is reasonable to say that it has
bred resistance and anger among the "losers." As far as
having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class still
controls almost all the levers of power. It has many
strategies for channeling lower-class anger and I think under
Trump we'll see those rolled out.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying Donald Trump is leading an
insurgency against the New Class – but I think he tapped into
something like one and is riding it for all he can, while not
really having the slightest idea what he's doing.
Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how
governments are influenced will ultimately develop to divide
or downgrade the New Class, and break its lock on the
corridors of power, but I don't see it on the horizon just
yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it.
"... Growing inequality partly reflects a racial wealth gap. Middle-class white Americans are more likely to live in neighborhoods with rising home values (and thus, family equity) while their middle-class black counterparts are more likely to rent, or live in neighborhoods with stagnant values. ..."
Growing inequality partly reflects a racial wealth gap. Middle-class white Americans are more
likely to live in neighborhoods with rising home values (and thus, family equity) while their middle-class
black counterparts are more likely to rent, or live in neighborhoods with stagnant values.
Hostile, sometimes fatal confrontations between police and African American youth might be rarer
if the poorest young people were not concentrated in neighborhoods lacking well-resourced schools,
good jobs and transportation to better opportunities. In integrated neighborhoods with substantial
middle class populations, police perform as public servants, not as an occupying force.
We've done little to desegregate neighborhoods, believing their racial homogeneity is "de facto",
tied to private prejudice, personal choices, realtor discrimination or income differences that make
middle-class suburbs unaffordable to most African Americans. Under our constitutional system, if
neighborhoods are segregated by private activity, we can do little about it.
Only if neighborhoods are segregated "de jure", by explicit government policy, is remedial action
permitted. Indeed, the constitution requires remedies for de jure segregation.
In truth, de facto segregation is largely a myth. As my new book, The Color of Law, recounts,
racially explicit government policy in the mid-twentieth century separated the races in every metropolitan
area, with effects that endure today.
The New Deal created our first civilian public housing, intended to provide lodging mostly for
lower-middle class white families during the Depression. The Roosevelt administration built a few
projects for black families as well, but almost always segregated. At the time, many urban neighborhoods
were integrated because workers of both races lived in walking distance of downtown factories. The
Public Works Administration (PWA) demolished many such integrated neighborhoods – deemed slums –
to build segregated housing instead, creating segregation where it had never before existed.
In his autobiography, The Big Sea, the poet and novelist Langston Hughes described going to high
school in an integrated Cleveland neighborhood where his best friend was Polish and he dated a Jewish
girl. The PWA cleared the area to build one project for whites and another for African Americans.
Previously integrated neighborhoods in Cambridge, Atlanta, St Louis, San Francisco and elsewhere
also gave way to segregated public housing, structuring patterns that persisted for generations.
During the second world war, white and black Americans flocked to jobs in defense plants, sometimes
in communities that had no tradition of segregated living. Yet the government built separate projects
for black and white citizens, determining future residential boundaries. Richmond, California, was
the nation's largest shipbuilding center. It had few African Americans before the war; by its end,
some 15,000 were housed in a federal ghetto along the railroad tracks.
By the mid-1950s, projects for white Americans had many unoccupied units while those for African
Americans had long waiting lists. The contrast became so conspicuous that all public housing was
opened to African Americans. As industry relocated to suburbs, jobs disappeared and public housing
residents became poorer. A program that originally addressed a middle-class housing shortage became
a way to warehouse the poor.
Why did white housing projects develop vacancies while black ones had long waiting lists? It largely
resulted from a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) program that guaranteed loans to builders of
suburban subdivisions, on the explicit condition that black families be excluded and that house deeds
prohibit resale to them. In the late 1940s, William Levitt could never independently have amassed
capital to construct 17,000 houses in what became Levittown, east of New York City. He could do so
only because the FHA relieved banks of risk in making development loans, provided homes were for
whites only.
Urban public housing, originally for middle-class white Americans and later for lower-income African
Americans, combined with FHA subsidized suburbanization of whites, created a "white noose" around
urban black families that persists to this day.
In 1968, the Fair Housing Act permitted African Americans to access previously white neighborhoods.
But it prohibited only future discrimination, without undoing the previous 35 years of government-imposed
segregation. In suburbs like Levittown that sprouted nationwide in the 1940s and 50s, houses sold
for about $100,000 (in today's currency), twice the national median income.
FHA-amortized mortgages were affordable for working-class families of either race, although only
whites were allowed. Today, these houses sell for $400,000, seven times national median income, unaffordable
to working-class families. Meanwhile, whites who suburbanized with federal protection gained $300,000
in equity to use for children's college tuition, care for aging parents, or medical emergencies.
Black families remaining as renters gained no such security.
Our belief in "de facto" segregation is paralyzing. If our racial separation stems from millions
of individual decisions, it is hard to imagine the millions of different choices that could undo
it. But if we remember that residential segregation results primarily from forceful and unconstitutional
government policy, we can begin to consider equally forceful public action to reverse it. Learning
this history is the first step we can take.
This idea of two segregated societies within one nation is pretty convincing.
Notable quotes:
"... A book released last March by MIT economist Peter Temin argues that the U.S. is increasingly becoming what economists call a dual economy; that is, where there are two economies in effect, and one of the populations lives in an economy that is prosperous and secure, and the other part of the population lives in an economy that resembles those of some third world countries. ..."
"... The middle class is shrinking in the United States and this is an effect of both the advance of technology and American policies ..."
"... In the United States, our policies have divided us into two groups. Above the median income - above the middle class - is what I call the FTE sector, Finance, Technology and Electronics sector - of people who are doing well, and whose incomes are rising as our national product is growing. The middle class and below are losing shares of income, and their incomes are shrinking as the Pew studies, both of them, show. ..."
"... The model shows that the FTE sector makes policy for itself, and really does not consider how well the low wage sector is doing. In fact, it wants to keep wages and earnings low in the low wage sector, to provide cheap labour for the industrial employment. ..."
"... As already described , the middle-class, which has not collapsed yet in France, still has the characteristics that fit to the neoliberal regime. However, it is obvious that this tank of voters has shrunk significantly, and the establishment is struggling to keep them inside the desirable 'status quo' with tricks like the supposedly 'fresh', apolitical image of Emmanuel Macron, the threat of Le Pen's 'evil' figure that comes from the Far-Right, or, the illusion that they have the right to participate equally to almost every economic activity. ..."
"... The media promotes examples of young businessmen who have succeed to survive economically through start-up companies, yet, they avoid to tell that it is totally unrealistic to expect from most of the Greek youth to become innovative entrepreneurs. So, this illusion is promoted by the media because technology is automating production and factories need less and less workers, even in the public sector, which, moreover, is violently forced towards privatization. ..."
"... In the middle of the pyramid, a restructured class will serve and secure the domination of the top. Corporate executives, big journalists, scientific elites, suppression forces. It is characteristic that academic research is directed on the basis of the profits of big corporations. Funding is directed increasingly to practical applications in areas that can bring huge profits, like for example, the higher automation of production and therefore, the profit increase through the restriction of jobs. ..."
The Pew Research Center, released a new study on the size of the middle class in the U.S.
and in ten European countries. The study found that the middle class shrank significantly in the
U.S. in the last two decades from 1991 to 2010. While it also shrank in several other Western European
countries, it shrank far more in the U.S. than anywhere else. Meanwhile, another study also released
last week, and published in the journal Science, shows that class mobility in the U.S. declined dramatically
in the 1980s, relative to the generation before that.
A book released last March by MIT economist Peter Temin argues that the U.S. is increasingly
becoming what economists call a dual economy; that is, where there are two economies in effect, and
one of the populations lives in an economy that is prosperous and secure, and the other part of the
population lives in an economy that resembles those of some third world countries.
MIT Economist Peter Temin spoke to Gregory Wilpert and the
The Real News network.
As Temin states, among other things:
The middle class is shrinking in the United States and this is an effect of both the advance
of technology and American policies . That is shown dramatically in the new study, because the
United States is compared with many European countries. In some of them, the middle class is expanding
in the last two decades, and in others it's decreasing. And while technology crosses national borders,
national policies affect things within the country.
In the United States, our policies have divided us into two groups. Above the median income
- above the middle class - is what I call the FTE sector, Finance, Technology and Electronics sector
- of people who are doing well, and whose incomes are rising as our national product is growing.
The middle class and below are losing shares of income, and their incomes are shrinking as the Pew
studies, both of them, show.
The model shows that the FTE sector makes policy for itself, and really does not consider
how well the low wage sector is doing. In fact, it wants to keep wages and earnings low in the low
wage sector, to provide cheap labour for the industrial employment.
This model is similar to that pursued in eurozone through the Greek experiment. Yet, the establishment's
decision centers still need the consent of the citizens to proceed. They got it in France with the
election of their man to do the job, Emmanuel Macron.
As already
described , the middle-class, which has not collapsed yet in France, still has
the characteristics that fit to the neoliberal regime. However, it is obvious that this tank of voters
has shrunk significantly, and the establishment is struggling to keep them inside the desirable 'status
quo' with tricks like the supposedly 'fresh', apolitical image of Emmanuel Macron, the threat of
Le Pen's 'evil' figure that comes from the Far-Right, or, the illusion that they have the right to
participate equally to almost every economic activity.
For example, even in Greece, where the middle class suffered an unprecedented reduction because
of Troika's (ECB, IMF, European Commission) policies, the last seven years, the propaganda of the
establishment attempts to make young people believe that they can equally participate in innovative
economic projects. The media promotes examples of young businessmen who have succeed to survive
economically through start-up companies, yet, they avoid to tell that it is totally unrealistic to
expect from most of the Greek youth to become innovative entrepreneurs. So, this illusion is promoted
by the media because technology is automating production and factories need less and less workers,
even in the public sector, which, moreover, is violently forced towards privatization.
As mentioned in
previous article , the target of the middle class extinction in the West is to
restrict the level of wages in developing economies and prevent current model to be expanded in those
countries. The global economic elite is aiming now to create a more simple model which will be consisted
basically of three main levels.
The 1% holding the biggest part of the global wealth, will lie, as always, at the top of the pyramid.
In the current phase, frequent and successive economic crises, not only assist on the destruction
of social state and uncontrolled massive privatizations, but also, on the elimination of the big
competitors.
In the middle of the pyramid, a restructured class will serve and secure the domination of
the top. Corporate executives, big journalists, scientific elites, suppression forces. It is characteristic
that academic research is directed on the basis of the profits of big corporations. Funding is directed
increasingly to practical applications in areas that can bring huge profits, like for example, the
higher automation of production and therefore, the profit increase through the restriction of jobs.
The base of the pyramid will be consisted by the majority of workers in global level, with restricted
wages, zero labor rights, and nearly zero opportunities for activities other than consumption.
This type of dual economy with the rapid extinction of middle class may bring dangerous instability
because of the vast vacuum created between the elites and the masses. That's why the experiment is
implemented in Greece, so that the new conditions to be tested. The last seven years, almost every
practice was tested: psychological warfare, uninterrupted propaganda, financial coups, permanent
threat for a sudden death of the economy, suppression measures, in order to keep the masses subservient,
accepting the new conditions.
The establishment exploits the fact that the younger generations have no collective memories of
big struggles. Their rights were taken for granted and now they accept that these must be taken away
for the sake of the investors who will come to create jobs. These generations were built and raised
according to the standards of the neoliberal regime 'Matrix'.
Yet, it is still not certain that people will accept this Dystopia so easily. The first signs
can be seen already as recently,
French workers seized factory and threatened to blow it up in protest over possible closure
. Macron may discover soon that it will be very difficult to find the right balance in
order to finish the job for the elites. And then, neither Brussels nor Berlin will be able to prevent
the oncoming chaos in Europe and the West.
"... In just the past month, the Valley has seemed like it's happily living in some sort of sadomasochistic bubble worthy of a bad Hollywood satire. ..."
It has been said that Silicon Valley, or the 50 or so square-mile area extending from San Francisco
to the base of the peninsula, has overseen the creation of more wealth than any place in the history
of mankind. It's made people richer than the oil industry; it has created more money than the Gold
Rush. Silicon chips, lines of code, and rectangular screens have even minted more wealth than religious
wars.
Wealthy societies, indeed, have their own complicated incentive structures and mores. But they
do often tend, as any technological entrepreneur will be quick to remind you, to distribute value
across numerous income levels, in a scaled capacity. The Ford line, for instance, may have eventually
minted some serious millionaires in Detroit, but it also made transportation cheaper, helped drive
down prices on countless consumer goods, and facilitated new trade routes and commercial opportunities.
Smartphones, or any number of inventive modern apps or other software products, are no different.
Sure, they throw off a lot of money to the geniuses who came up with them, and the people who got
in at the ground floor. But they also make possible innumerable other opportunities, financial and
otherwise, for their millions of consumers.
Silicon Valley is, in its own right, a dynasty. Instead of warriors or military heroes, it has
nerds and people in half-zip sweaters. But it is becoming increasingly likely that the Valley might
go down in history not only for its wealth, but also for creating more tone deaf people than any
other ecosystem in the history of the world.
In just the past month, the Valley has seemed like it's happily living in some sort of sadomasochistic
bubble worthy of a bad Hollywood satire. Uber has endured a slate of scandals that would have
seriously wounded a less culturally popular company (or a public one, for that matter). There was
one former employee's allegation of
sexual harassment (which the company reportedly investigated); a report of
driver manipulation ; an unpleasant video depicting C.E.O. Travis Kalanick furiously berating
an Uber driver; a story about secret software that could
subvert regulators ; a report of
cocaine use and groping at holiday parties (an offending manager was fired within hours of the
scandal); a lawsuit for potentially buying
stolen software from a competitor;
more
groping ; a slew of
corporate exits ; and a
driverless car
crash . (The shit will really hit the fan if it turns out that Uber's self-driving technology
was
misappropriated from Alphabet's Waymo; Uber has called the lawsuit "baseless.")
Then there was Facebook, which held its developer conference while the Facebook Killer was on
the loose. As Mat Honan of BuzzFeed
put it so eloquently: "People used to talk about
Steve Jobs
and Apple's
reality distortion field . But Facebook, it sometimes feels, exists in a reality hole. The company
doesn't distort reality-but it often seems to lack the ability to recognize it."
And we ended the week with the ultimate tone-deaf statement from the C.E.O. of Juicero, the maker
of a
$700 dollar-soon-reduced-to-$400 dollar juicer that has $120 million in venture backing. After
Bloomberg News discovered that you didn't even need the $700-$400 juicer to make juice (there are,
apparently, these
things called hands ) the company's chief executive, Jeff Dunn , offered a
response
on Medium insinuating that he gets up every day to make the world a better place.
Of course, not everyone who makes the pilgrimage out West is, or becomes, a jerk. Some people
arrive in the Valley with a philosophy of how to act as an adult. But here's the problem with that
group: most of them don't vociferously articulate how unsettled they are by the bad actors. Even
when journalists manage to cover these atrocious activities, the powers of Silicon Valley try to
ridicule them, often in public. Take, for example, the 2015 TechCrunch Disrupt conference, when a
reporter asked billionaire investor Vinod Kholsa -who evidently believes that
public beaches should belong to rich people -about some of the ethical controversy surrounding
the mayonnaise-disruption startup Hampton Creek (I can't believe I just wrote the words "mayonnaise-disruption").
Khosla responded with a
trite and
rude retort that the company was fine. When the reporter pressed Khosla, he shut him down by
saying, "I know a lot more about how they're doing, excuse me, than you do." A year later and the
Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into whether the company
defrauded
investors when employees secretly purchased the company's own mayonnaise from grocery stores
. (The Justice Department has since dropped its investigation.)
When you zoom out of that 50-square-mile area of Silicon Valley, it becomes obvious that big businesses
can get shamed into doing the right thing. When it was discovered that Volkswagen lied about emissions
outputs, the company's C.E.O.
was forced to resign . The same was true for
the chief of Wells Fargo , who was embroiled in a financial scandal. In the wake of it's recent
public scandal, United recently
knocked its C.E.O. down a peg . Even Fox News, one of the most bizarrely unrepentant media outlet
in America, pushed out
two of the most important people at the network over allegations of sexual harassment. ( Bill
O'Reilly has said that claims against him are "unfounded"; Roger Ailes has vociferously denied allegations
of sexual harassment.) Even Wall Street can (sometimes) be forced to be more ethical. Yet Elizabeth
Holmes is still C.E.O. of Theranos.
Travis
Kalanick is still going to make billions of dollars as the chief of Uber when the company eventually
goes public.
The list
goes on and on .
In many respects, this is simply the D.N.A. of Silicon Valley. The tech bubble of the mid-90s
was inflated by lies that sent the NASDAQ on a
vertiginous downward spike that eviscerated the life savings of thousands of retirees and Americans
who believed in the hype. This time around, it seems that some of these business may be real, but
the people running them are still as tone deaf regarding how their actions affect other people. Silicon
Valley has indeed created some amazing things. One can only hope these people don't erase it with
their hubris.
E-commerce start-up Fab was once valued at $900 million, a near unicorn in Silicon Valley terms.
But after allegedly burning through $200 million of its $336 million in venture capital, C.E.O. Jason
Goldberg was forced to shutter its European arm and lay off two-thirds of its staff.
Fired in 2014 from his ad-tech firm RadiumOne following a domestic-violence conviction, Gurbaksh
Chahal founded a new company to compete with the one he was kicked out of. But Gravity4, his new
firm, was sued for gender discrimination in 2015, though that case is still pending, and former employees
have contemplated legal action against him.
Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Open Markets Program at New America.
Silicon Valley is the story of overthrowing entrenched interests through innovation. Children
dream of becoming inventors, and scientists come to Silicon Valley from all over the world. But something
is wrong when Juicero and Theranos are in the headlines, and bad behavior from Uber executives overshadows
actual innovation.
$120 million in venture funding from Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, for a juicer? And the
founder, Doug Evans, calling himself himself Steve Jobs "in his pursuit of juicing perfection?" And
how is Theranos's Elizabeth Holmes walking around freely?
Eventually, the rhetoric of innovation turns into .... a Google-backed punchline.
These stories are embarrassing, yes. But there's something deeper going on here. Silicon Valley,
an international treasure that birthed the technology of our age, is being destroyed.
Monopolies are now so powerful that they dictate the roll-out of new technology, and the only
things left to invest in are the scraps that fall off the table.
Sometimes those scraps are Snapchat, which managed to keep alive, despite what Ben Thompson calls
'
theft ' by Facebook.
Sometimes it's Diapers.com , which was destroyed
and bought out by Amazon through predatory pricing. And sometimes it's Juicero and Theranos.
It's not that Juicero and Theranos that are the problem. Mistakes - even really big, stupid ones
- happen.
Pucker
February 24, 2017 at 9:51
am
#
Apparently, the code words like "pizza", "cheese", "hotdog", "pasta", etc. are
from an FBI list of code words commonly used by pedophiles. These words appear
in the Podesta emails. They're not just found in the Podesta emails.
On page 20, it says that the strongest indicator of a pedophile is a person
who collects child pornography. John Podesta's brother collected sexually
bizarre and sadistic photos of young children.
hmuller
February 24, 2017 at
10:06 am
#
Good point, Pucker. All the pro-Podesta apologists can't explain away the
code language. Especially, disturbing are remarks (I think by owner James
Alefantis) about 4 sick pizzas left over from the last session on sale for
$1000. Be sure and dispose of them properly."
Then there's Laura Silsby
rescued from a Haitian jail by the Clintons after being caught trafficking
in children for prostitution.
Either JHK can't believe that such blatant evil exists in the world or
he's pimping for that well entrenched crowd.
malthuss
February
24, 2017 at 5:01 pm
#
I have pages of Word docs and have listened to too many facts,
Start with
You Tube, Titus Frost, especially hhis talk and
display of sick 'art' on his PIZZA BRAIN –investigated.
Why is Katy Perry and the other bimbo, Miley, wearing Pizza
Costumes?
and,
WHAT IS PIZZAGATE
CHILD SEX SLAVERY
PEDOPHILE RING
BILL CLINTON SEX SCANDAL
BILL CLINTON PEDOPHILIA
BILL CLINTON SEX SLAVE ISLAND
BILL CLINTON ORGY ISLAND
LAURA SILSBY HAITi CHILD TRAFFICKING
MONICA PETERSON
CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING
CLINTON HAITI
THE CLINTON FOUNDATION
JEFFREY EPSTEIN
LOLITA EXPRESS
PEDOPHILE ISLAND
ROGER CLINTON COCAINE
ROGER CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL PARDON
DAN LASATER
DAN LASATER PRESIDENTIAL PARDON
PIZZAGATE EVIDENCE
PIZZAGATE PROOF
PIZZAGATE DOCUMENTARY
END TIMES NEWS REPORT
JAKE MORPHONIOS
JAMES ALEFANTIS
JOHN PODESTA
TONY PODESTA
COMET PING PONG
etc.
Janos Skorenzy
February
24, 2017 at 3:26 pm
#
Most intellectuals hate Conspiracies for two reasons: one good and one
bad. On the good side, there is just too much lunacy and crackpottery
once conjecture and Freud's "primary process" (fantasy) get going. On
the bad side, they hate not having full information or at least a
partial store of consensus information from which to analyze. But Life
is Conspiracy – and sometimes we have to go with what we have. In this
regards, detectives are superior to intellectuals: they do it all the
time. Ditto scientists. It's the inductive process. Once you get
enough you form a hypothesis. Then you test it. That's all we're
asking for in regards to this case. And I think we both agree: what
they would find would bring down the System.
And there are two reasons these people can get away with it: one
because of the number of the Elite who are involved. And second
because people think a priori that it's not possible that such evil
exists or that they could get away with it. Because people think it
can't exist and they couldn't get away it enables them to get away
with it.
Walter B
February
24, 2017 at 7:47 pm
#
The utilization of "Conspiracy theorist" came about after the
common man on the street started waking up to the fact that he was
being screwed by those in power and lied to consistently. Did you
know that during World War II, President Roosevelt, was onboard the
battleship USS Iowa in route to North Africa when it was
"accidently torpedoed" (the fish detonated in the ship's wake and
did not actually impact the ship) by the US destroyer, the William
D. Porter? Well it's the first I am hearing of it so I guess that
these people are pretty good at keeping things quiet when they go
wrong, especially REALLY wrong
I am reading the trilogy of the war by Rick Atkinson, and in the
second book in the series, The Day of Battle, the revelation was
detailed much to my surprise. If our own people can accidently fire
a live torpedo at one of our own battleships, especially the one
that happens to be transporting the standing President of the
United States on it at the time, well there is no telling what
supreme act of incompetence they will pull of next.
Those who rule lie their asses off every damned day and cover up
every damned screw up they create until enough time goes by so that
those that are now in the general public don't give a damn anymore.
You would have to be retarded or on their payroll to believe
otherwise.
People of privilege will always risk
their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual
myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges,
however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity
of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared with that of the rich.
-John Kenneth Galbraith
The Age of Uncertainty (1977)
Chapter 1, p. 22
"People of privilege will always
risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage."
I would say this is rational. Surrendering advantages will generally weaken your position and
thus increase the risk of complete destruction or being stripped of further advantages. Also
quite often members of the elite, individually or as a group, have likely acted in ways that
enraged their opponents to the point that they will likely not stop at just stripping advantages
until a "reasonable" point, but indeed seek complete destruction. History is full of things
like guillotines and hunting down and murder or lifelong imprisonment of all family members
(who have not been plausibly disavowed or disassociated while the old regime was still comfortably
in power).
Of course in the past, rulers
and elites were often dethroned by other elites, with popular uprisings only used as a temporary
tool. In any case, once it gets close to that point, it's an all or nothing fight for either
side.
There have been examples where
elites have ceded advantages in a peaceful transition. But that usually happen in a context
where there had already been gradual transitions to shared/broader power in the past (generally
not peaceful in the initial stages). The UK and its royals/nobility are an obvious example,
probably also Scandinavia which are mostly still nominally kingdoms (?), or the royal family
and former or still existing nobility has influence but officially only a figurehead role.
The transition to democracy happened largely peacefully in the past 1-2 centuries, prior to
that not so much.
"Surrendering advantages will
generally weaken your position and thus increase the risk of complete destruction or being
stripped of further advantages."
This is not a chess party. Sometimes people kill each other
if differences are irreconcilable. In 1917 a lot of Russian bankers were simply killed.
"... I am glad to see that this is what you guys argued for with all of your "free trade" agreements that you pushed for over the last several decades. Sadly, this is exactly what led us to Trump as president. ..."
"... Their models told them precisely that some people would suffer and others gain, but also that with appropriate redistribution everybody could gain. But appropriate redistribution was never forthcoming. Time for a national dividend. ..."
"... Appropriate redistribution will NEVER be forthcoming. It is so easily demonized, and people don't want redistributed income. They want jobs! ..."
Much like how the biggest environmentalist
is the one who already has her house built, the economists safely in their ivory tower and comfortable
with their tenured positions in academia were more than happy to volunteer the American working class
to give up some of their wealth so that people living in extreme property in the developing world
could have slightly better positions.
I am glad to see that this is what you guys argued for with
all of your "free trade" agreements that you pushed for over the last several decades. Sadly, this
is exactly what led us to Trump as president.
Their models told them precisely
that some people would suffer and others gain, but also that with appropriate redistribution
everybody could gain. But appropriate redistribution was never forthcoming. Time for a national
dividend.
"... "Financialization is a key feature of neoliberalism. It refers to the capturing impact of financial markets, institutions, actors, instruments and logics on the real economy, households and daily life. Essentially it has significant implications for the broader patterns and functioning of a (inter)national economy, transforming its fabrics and modificating the mutual embeddedness of state-economy-society." ..."
"... That's why neoliberalism is often called "casino capitalism" ..."
"... Johnson wishes that the wealthy would adopt a greater "spirit of stewardship," an openness to policy change that could include, for instance, a more aggressive tax on inheritance. "Twenty-five hedge-fund managers make more money than all of the kindergarten teachers in America combined," he said. ..."
Greta Krippner of the University of Michigan writes that financialization refers to a "pattern
of accumulation in which profit making occurs increasingly through financial channels rather than
through trade and commodity production." In the introduction to the 2005 book Financialization
and the World Economy, editor Gerald A. Epstein wrote that some scholars have insisted on a much
narrower use of the term: the ascendancy of shareholder value as a mode of corporate governance,
or the growing dominance of capital market financial systems over bank-based financial systems.
Pierre-Yves Gomez and Harry Korine, in their 2008 book Entrepreneurs and Democracy: A Political
Theory of Corporate Governance, have identified a long-term trend in the evolution of corporate
governance of large corporations and have shown that financialization is one step in this process.
Oleg Komlik asserts that financialization is a state project, stressing that:[2]
"Financialization is a key feature of neoliberalism. It refers to the capturing impact of financial
markets, institutions, actors, instruments and logics on the real economy, households and daily
life. Essentially it has significant implications for the broader patterns and functioning of
a (inter)national economy, transforming its fabrics and modificating the mutual embeddedness of
state-economy-society."
Michael Hudson described financialization as "a lapse back into the pre-industrial usury and
rent economy of European feudalism" in a 2003 interview:[3]
"only debts grew exponentially, year after year, and they do so inexorably, even when–indeed,
especially when–the economy slows down and its companies and people fall below break-even levels.
As their debts grow, they siphon off the economic surplus for debt service (...) The problem is
that the financial sector's receipts are not turned into fixed capital formation to increase output.
They build up increasingly on the opposite side of the balance sheet, as new loans, that is, debts
and new claims on society's output and income.
[Companies] are not able to invest in new physical capital equipment or buildings because they
are obliged to use their operating revenue to pay their bankers and bondholders, as well as junk-bond
holders. This is what I mean when I say that the economy is becoming financialized. Its aim is
not to provide tangible capital formation or rising living standards, but to generate interest,
financial fees for underwriting mergers and acquisitions, and capital gains that accrue mainly
to insiders, headed by upper management and large financial institutions. The upshot is that the
traditional business cycle has been overshadowed by a secular increase in debt. Instead of labor
earning more, hourly earnings have declined in real terms. There has been a drop in net disposable
income after paying taxes and withholding "forced saving" for social Security and medical insurance,
pension-fund contributions and–most serious of all–debt service on credit cards, bank loans, mortgage
loans, student loans, auto loans, home insurance premiums, life insurance, private medical insurance
and other FIRE-sector charges. ... This diverts spending away from goods and services.
"Financialization is a key feature of neoliberalism. It refers to the capturing impact of financial
markets, institutions, actors, instruments and logics on the real economy, households and daily
life."
That's why neoliberalism is often called "casino capitalism"
Meanwhile neoliberal "masters of the universe" are buying private jets and create plans to evacuate
families to NZ in case pitchforks arrive to their residencies
By January, 2015, Johnson was sounding the alarm: the tensions produced by acute income inequality
were becoming so pronounced that some of the world's wealthiest people were taking steps to protect
themselves. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Johnson told the audience, "I know
hedge-fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand
because they think they need a getaway."
Johnson wishes that the wealthy would adopt a greater "spirit of stewardship," an openness
to policy change that could include, for instance, a more aggressive tax on inheritance. "Twenty-five
hedge-fund managers make more money than all of the kindergarten teachers in America combined,"
he said.
"Being one of those twenty-five doesn't feel good. I think they've developed a heightened sensitivity."
The gap is widening further. In December, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a
new analysis, by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, which found
that half of American adults have been "completely shut off from economic growth since the 1970s."
Approximately a hundred and seventeen million people earn, on average, the same income that
they did in 1980, while the typical income for the top one per cent has nearly tripled. That gap
is comparable to the gap between average incomes in the U.S. and the Democratic Republic of Congo,
the authors wrote.
"... Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website ..."
"... One truck parked on the runway, or a large concrete block dumped there has just shut down the entire airport for the private jets fleeing or arriving to pick up the exiters in anything other than a helicopter. ..."
"... Look at what happened to Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin (paranoid), Hussein, Gaddafi the list goes on These people are delusional and believe they are above the system ..."
Posted on
January 25, 2017
by
Yves Smith
Yves here. A former private equity partner mentioned the New Yorker story on
0.1% bunkering. He noticed how they focused on the private jet pilot as a point
of vulnerability, that he might fly his family out and leave them stranded. So
the approach is to assure him that his relatives get seats on the plane too.
Johnson told writer Evan Osnos of the mounting anxiety he had encountered
among hedge-fund managers and other wealthy Americans he knew. "More and more
were saying, 'You've got to have a private plane," Johnson said. "You have to
assure that the pilot's family will be taken care of, too. They have to be on
the plane.' "
Osnos writes: "By January, 2015, Johnson was sounding the alarm: the
tensions produced by acute income inequality were becoming so pronounced that
some of the world's wealthiest people were taking steps to protect themselves.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Johnson told the audience,
'I know hedge-fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and
farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway.' "
Johnson bemoaned the lack of a "spirit of stewardship" and openness to more
aggressively redistributive tax policy among the wealthy.
"Twenty-five hedge-fund managers make more money than all of the
kindergarten teachers in America combined," he told the New Yorker. "Being one
of those twenty-five doesn't feel good. I think they've developed a heightened
sensitivity."
If anything, Osnos wrote, inequality is widening, noting recent statistics
from the National Bureau of Economic Research that showed that while incomes
for the top 1 percent of Americans have nearly tripled, half of the population
was earning at the same level they did in 1980, comparing America's wealth gap
to that seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"If we had a more equal distribution of income, and much more money and
energy going into public school systems, parks and recreation, the arts, and
health care, it could take an awful lot of sting out of society," Johnson said.
"We've largely dismantled those things."
He saw elite anxiety as an indicator America's social crisis.
"Why do people who are envied for being so powerful appear to be so afraid?"
Johnson said. "What does that really tell us about our system? It's a very odd
thing. You're basically seeing that the people who've been the best at reading
the tea leaves-the ones with the most resources, because that's how they made
their money-are now the ones most preparing to pull the rip cord and jump out
of the plane."
Not to be too snarky this early in the morning but:
"Twenty-five hedge-fund managers make more money than all of the
kindergarten teachers in America combined," he told the New Yorker.
"Being one of those twenty-five doesn't feel good. I think they've developed
a heightened sensitivity."
If it does not feel good then stop doing it.
As presently structured the kindergarden teachers lack the power to upend
the political order and to create something equal. Despite widespread support
for better schools the political parties compete to crapify them
for
the benefit of those hedge fund managers
.
If one or two those managers chose to place a damn phone call they could
change that, they could make a more equal society, they could reduce the odds
that they will be up against a wall.
Amen! This issue drives a nail through the conservative ideal of personal
responsibility and self manufacturing. If your poor then it's your fault.
You're too stupid, lazy, etc. to succeed. But if your rich and hated, well
then, you're just a victim of the system and institutions that created you.
This reminds me of a comic I recently read. Enjoy.
Hint to everyone. The rich guys worried about this are the
1%'s version of "preppers". 90% of the 1% have no contingency
plan whatsoever.
What they do have is second homes. Or third homes.
Florida/California/Arizona for the winter, and
Wyoming/Colorado/Montana during the summer.
Many of these places are geographically isolated, with a
local population base highly motivated to protect their stuff
from the Zombie Apocalypse. And hostile to the wretched refuse
from the coasts and metroplexes. Not to mention heavily armed.
Yeah, a smart leader of the wretched refuse could lay siege
to these places. But I suspect they will be too busy protecting
their own turf, rather than going a couple of hundred miles out
in the boonies to look for trouble.
These aren't 1%. They are 0.1%. And Omidyar is big on
this, he has multiple homes well stocked in all sorts of
isolated places.
You are missing that the New Yorker and Johnson says this
is pretty prevalent in the 0.1%. And these people have better
access to information than the rest of us and many of them
have made their money by making astute bets about the future.
If you ascribe to Łobaczewski's
Political Ponerology
, or even
the Five Percenters
, these super rich individuals aren't normal. They
don't think like most of the population.
It doesn't take much to know that the systems we've created are designed
to promote and reward an unempathetic person. And while I'm not always
convinced entirely by Łobaczewski's words, or the five percenters, one gets
the feeling that the twenty five hedge fund managers in question are
incapable of thinking any other way.
Actually
we
didn't create the systems we sat on our butts and
the unempathetic people took advantage. The problem with high-functioning
psychopaths is, as we all know, they can fake normal for necessary
stretches of time.
It's more insidious than that. Increasing wealth decreases empathy.
The poor are much more likely to care for and help their neighbors
than the rich.
The ability to pull the rip cord and bail to a hopefully safer place
makes you think of the need to take the pilot's family, not the
neighbor's.
And yet even guys like this Johnson fellow can't seem to drop that
last line of hogwash - that these rich people are best at "reading the
tea leaves" - rather than that they were just lucky in one or two
decisions or friendships. Give me a break. The rich are rich because
they are lucky and immoral. That's really it. Until the people fully
learn this lesson to their bones this country will continue its
decline. Good news is most of the millennials seem to have largely
been born knowing it.
Why do they think the places they are going to will be immune from the
upheaval? A lot of people leave places thinking they will be safe in the new
place, and then the disorder spreads and hits them again. Many refugees in WW
II were turned into refugees multiple times (if they survived) – many of them
had started out in the elite and wealthy in their country. Similar things are
happening in the Middle East now.
They also are betting that they can identify the moment in which to leave
and will be able to do so safely. The odds of doing that are similar to calling
the day of the big plunge in the stock market a week in advance. Airports are
usually one of the first places that organized rebellions or coups seek to
control, so getting there through rioting crowds will not necessarily solve
their escape route issue. As many evacuation plans (e.g. New Orleans in
Katrina) have shown, events have the ability to confound plans.
I assume that their concerns about inequality and anarchy is why so many are
lobbying to destabilize Social Security and Medicare in order to erase all hope
for the bottom 80%, so that they will believe that anarchy and rebellion is the
only solution. The creation of anarchy and rebellion is generally the result of
intentional acts by the elite to marginalize much of the population. It is a
choice, not an inevitability. But it is probably like teen sex, where they know
they aren't supposed to do it but they just can't stop themselves. Just say NO
elites! You are supposed to be able to control those greed impulses. Inequality
celibacy is the solution.
If America goes "mad max" the rest of the civilized world isn't going to
be far behind. The likely landing sites for those private jets are in
Europe, Canada or other G-7 type of nations.
Unless you have enough money to buy a private island, and hire a security
force to protect you, chances of staying immune are slim, IMO. Few will be
able to pull this off.
The idea of hiring other people to protect you implies that you have
something of value that those with primitive power cannot take from you
when they please. I'm not sure what "currency" that would be in a post
apocalyptic world.
Authoritarians look for "leadership" . if you can fake that then
its not hard to get people to protect your "wealth", whatever that
happens to consist of, for a share of it and power over those below.
Read the New Yorker article! These rich geniuses are stocking up on
gold
and bitcoin!
. HAH. As if bitcoin would be worth squat in a
collapse situation.
"Let me just plug in my laptop so I can get to my digital bitcoin
vault and pay you oh. Uh would you accept my daughter as payment?"
Yes, all that bitcoin is going to be really useful when you need
medical services from one of the few doctors left, or when the
locals show up with guns at your compound wanting some of your
grain.
Elites are not all equal if the system implodes and consumers can't
spend, the rich who got that way from non-essential consumer spending
will fall faster than those who got rich on staples. My bet is that if
times get tough, these elite will stab each other in the back.
I heard someone say making money was as addictive as heroine, cocaine
etc. So, "just say NO" may not be as easy as it sounds. ( One day, we may
see Money Rehab Centers in New Zealand? or Davos?)
Well, jail those addicted to money the way we already jail those
addicted to the drugs you mention. As an added bonus, while they're
locked up they can make some scratch from the increase in value of their
private prison stock holdings . . . off shore, of course.
NZ is food self-sufficient (it's a net food exporter), energy
self-sufficient, and far enough for anyone to invade easily – especially if
you assume "stone age"/"mad max" scenario (i.e. you don't get there easily
like you might to Oz from Indonesia). If you get a large farm in NZ, you can
become pretty much self-sufficient reasonably easily.
NZ population is about 4.5m, on area of the size of Great Britain (the
island, not the nation). Most of that is concentrated in a few cities – say
more than half is in the North Island, which is the smaller one. But even in
North Island there is a LOT of space.
So, NZ can be the perfect bunker for a squillionaire.
sure, assuming these squillionaires know how to be self-sufficient.
How long has it been since any of these rich and "powerful" actually
cooked a meal? Or changed a light bulb? Or done routine maintenance on
anything? Self sufficiency ain't easy. I'm reminded of the elite
civilization in Hitchhiker's Guide that all died of infection from dirty
phones after they shipped all the worthless mouths, including phone
cleaners, off planet. 50 pesos says these New Zealand-bound richies
starve to death when they can't figure out how to use the microwave to
cook their foie gras. Good riddance.
Sure, there's a lot of them who are pampered beyond the kings of
yore. But quite a few them spend their time doing stuff like
wilderness trekking/survival, even running their own ranches etc. What
part of the squillionaire population that is is hard to say, but the
hedgies I spoke to in 2007/8 (of which most were sub-suillionaires
TBH, mere centa-millionairies) were well aware of this and some of
them even too to doing agri uni courses just for that. I met more
people who knew about (for example) permaculture between those people
than any other group.
Ha, marvelous! I find the fact that they've been fearfully
looking over their shoulder since at least 2007/2008 delightful.
Make Elites Great Again indeed.
And I think we would all be well served if they went back and
re-read (i'm assuming they don't spend a lot of time practicing)
their Holmgren and Mollison. Permaculture doesn't mean what they
think it means
This is true. Look at Oliver Queen! Seriously, though, the
hilarious thing from the article is Steve Huffman saying he's
likely to be a leader after the apocalypse, because he is a
"leader" now. Sure, tell it to Trotsky when you meet him in the
next world, buddy.
By the way, having myself made so many errors using SI units,
some in this very locale, I will still submit that people with
hundreds of millions of dollars might properly be labeled
hectomillionaires.
In this "mad max" scenario, who will control the thousands of nuclear
bombs around the world? In addition, will the "squillionaire" be safe on
the island of New Zealand after they brought about conditions leading up
to chaos due to their endless greed? Wouldn't it be more likely that the
conclusion would be to drop the first bombs in the locations where the
wealthy congregate?
Although I understand the psychology behind wealth acquisition, it
still amazes me that someone would rather see chaos in the world (and
even in their local environment) before they would give up their wealth.
One truck parked on the runway, or a large concrete block dumped there
has just shut down the entire airport for the private jets fleeing or
arriving to pick up the exiters in anything other than a helicopter.
May I suggest a name for a new political party?
"The Guillotine Party"
In 2007-8 the trend was go get a sailing boat, full of provisions,
moored in driving distance. Not so conspicious, doesn't rely on large
infrastructure (it's not just take-off airport, it's also air-control,
refuelling stops etc.). Of course, you must know how to sail it (which
lot o hedgies do) and navigate (which fewer can do w/o GPS).
The 1%ers will be long gone before the zombies get the news that the S
has HTF.
They won't even need to leave the USA to find "safe havens" The
Chinese 1% have figured this out already, as real estate sales of the
West Coast should indicate.
The Midwest/Plains state farmers are much more likely to sell food to
1%ers in isolated mountain/desert enclaves, than the coast-based wretched
refuse.
Face it. The "Zombie Apocalypse" is a win-win for the 1%ers. Not that
I like it. But you gotta remember that the Apocalypse will burn itself
out in a relatively short time. It won't be the 1%ers who will get
hammered; the 1%ers will throw the suburban 10%ers to the wolves. And
even if they start at step zero on Day One, they have tons of resources
to develop a plan.
Look at the Paulson/Bloomberg/I forget who else county by county
forecast of temps in 2040.
The Upper Midwest will turn into a bake oven.
And they want NZ for the self sufficiency and isolation. If
outsiders are trading with you, they know where you are and can take
what you have. That is what they fear over all.
Look at what happened to Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin (paranoid), Hussein,
Gaddafi the list goes on
These people are delusional and believe they are above the system
Look at all the Industrialists behind Hitler, almost none of which
were tried for their crimes and most kept their wealth (that is still
around today).
Reality is a lot harsher than most realize. Most revolutions end with
little change; or, change that simply invokes a new circle of elite. Look
at all the coups & revolutions in Brazil. It went nowhere. One oppressive
regime replaced by another.
The Elites may not yet realize how un-exceptional they are. But what
they do realize is that in the Age of Information, everyone else knows
how un-exceptional they are. We also know how much EXCEPTION they get
from the system which is basically everything important: taxes,
healthcare, and most importantly, the law.
I'm just waiting for the Black Swan moment. My prediction is simple:
the Millenials will eventually near their mid thirties en-masse in the
next decade. They will begin to realize, if they haven't already, that
not only did the banks cause and get away with one of the largest bubbles
in history, but the banks will also get all the realstate owned by the
baby boomers that are already up to their eyes in debt, and that their
children (Millenials) wont be able to pay off in their entire lifetime
due to lower socio-economic standards, student loans, available full-time
jobs, etc.
Essentially, the Elites of the Baby Boomer generation, that love to
constantly illustrate how dumb the Millenials are, already sowed the
destruction of their own system. They killed affordable healthcare. They
killed affordable housing, and thus forced the rentier economy. They
killed affordable education. They killed reasonable taxation. Thus, the
current Millenial is stuck between massively rising costs of living and
little to no availability of well paying jobs.
They killed the heart of consumerism and are now, some decades later,
realizing it.
I've had hedge fund clients who have been prepping for 15 years. They always
pestered me for info because of my military and certified redneck background.
I've always thought that people in small rural farm communities have a better
chance than 1%ers with all their capital. You need a bit of arable land, water
source, and the ability to band with friends, neighbors, and family to defend
it with arms. Nothing that sophisticated.
I suspect the real deficiency for the 1%ers is not bunkers, planes, and gas
masks . it's not having enough true comrades if the s really does hit the f.
Not to mention that the 1%'ers have no real skills. I doubt they pay
attention to the passing of seasons, understand animal breeding or how
plants grow, or how to talk with normal human beings without beginning with
either an adversarial or a monetary relationship. They have never had
calluses. They've never done backbreaking work in the rain or snow. Many of
them probably haven't driven themselves anywhere in years.
New Zealand is an extremely rugged place. Farming in New Zealand has got
to be tough. Hope they like mutton! NZ also imports a lot of their fossil
fuels as well as their computers, machinery, cars, etc. Can you see a
financial officer trying to seat a plowshare to work the side of a mountain?
I can't.
I reckon they think they will hire/buy someone to do those things for
them. They've always been able to, right? "Come work for me doing these
things and I'll make sure you're fed and have a roof over your head." Or
they think "how hard can it really be?" because the dumb serfs do it.
maybe you underestimate the 1% the way some supposedly underestimate
Trump. They might be tougher and more skilled than you think. But what
should not be underestimated is the cruelty and lack of basic morality
represented in the 1% prepper mentality.
Some rich no doubt have decent survivability skills.
The thing is, they need allies. In a collapse situation, it's not
"every man for himself", it is "every community for itself". They
would have to bribe a large segment of the Kiwi population if they
flee to NZ or wherever they are hiding. Typically if somewhere
collapses, then the gangs take over. Without a decent community you
are helpless against them.
If the US melts down, that would lead to global economic meltdown.
New Zealand would not be very far behind.
Compounding that, the rich are often ruthless. They may be mentally
competent, but ruthless. They will alienate locals if that happens.
Without an entire community that is capable of survival skills, their
odds aren't good. They need the locals on their side. They will stand
out if they try to "blend in".
New Zealand, although inequality has risen, once idealized itself
as an egalitarian culture. As far as the other destinations like
Canada and much of Europe is also a lot more economically egalitarian
in its outlook. Hint: The rest of the West is not as brainwashed as
the US is by right wing economic propaganda.
One very big danger is that a collapse may worsen inequality. A
good example might be Argentina and their debt crisis.
The 1%ers who grew up or live in in BFE will do okay. They may
not even need to leave town.
The NEC (especially NYC) and Left Coast/Silicon Valley D##kweeds
are the ones who will need to head to the South Pacific. The
wretched refuse knows full well who was behind selling the
country/jobs to China.
Volunteered at my local school to build stage sets. Some hedge fund
hotshot who drove an S Class Mercedes sneeringly assisted me.
I handed him a Makita drill with a Phillips bit and showed him how to put
3″ screws into the 2x4s to connect them. He dismissed me with that "I
make tens of millions and I can do it" look.
After he stripped the heads on a bunch of screws and the drill buckled
on him a bunch of times, I offered to give up the chop saw and do the
screwing. He persevered until he put a screw through his hand.
The "I refuse to scream because I make millions" look on his face was
worth the day's labor.
I find it amusing to think that close knit rural communities (well armed,
know the land) are going to let any outsiders without local ties get to
their precious redoubt. They might be getting picked up in armor plated
vehicles but a well placed large oak tree felled across the road is going to
deny entry. Helicopters are vulnerable to small arms fire. Will the guards
be locals or will their families be inside like the pilots? Seems like a lot
of operational security holes or the need for a substantial amount of extra
resources for all the support staff. Unless they are doing this in their own
rural hometown (and hopefully haven't burned bridges on their way to
fortune), I would file this under wishful thinking.
The elite plan on staying on bolt holes while well armed rural
communities will war with each other. Should be fun, sneak attacks to
salt the land, poison the livestock, dump e-coli in the water.
If you want a rough historical instance of all this, I recommend
Gregory of Tours, "History of the Franks". What tended to happen was that
the "Kings" lost their power to the Mayors of the Palace (as they were
the dudes who 'implemented' the Kings wishes).
"You need a bit of arable land, water source, and the ability to band
with friends, neighbors, and family to defend it with arms. Nothing that
sophisticated."
These are the basis of all successful social systems and what nations, at
their best, used to do. The Neoliberal order has seen states reduced to
platforms for wealth extraction and the NeoLib winners can't imagine a world
without societies to loot because their own looting is all thats ever seemed
good to them.
The idea of creating surplus value for a community and continually
improving the prospects of that community over time isn't even a thinkable
thought for them.
My knowledge of high net worth individuals working on safe havens goes
back about 10 years so a little less than Gilford.
I know of compounds being purchased/built with full sets of facilities
taking into account all of the security issues that the best experts could
envision and far beyond what anyone has mentioned here. We are talking
hardened facilities, which are self sufficient, arsenals, housing for
support staff like well trained security staff, agricultural expertise,
mechanical expertise, etc And their families. And being located within
support distance of other HNW individuals who are doing the same thing.
I won't go on other than to say these folks are not stupid and can think
of all the issues quite well themselves or hire those with the expertise to
do so. And they have the money and time to make it work.
You still need to have staff that are loyal to you for intrinsic
reasons, not because you are paying them. Society goes "Lord of the
Flies" very, very quickly in the absence of intrinsic social structures.
These types of compounds would become tribal very quickly if they are
largely cut off from the rest of the world. Some of the 1% would thrive,
many would probably be taken over by their staff.
The failures in Afghanistan and Iraq were because it is difficult to
impose order on tribes from the outside. It has to be organic if it is to
last. The leader must be respected (or feared) by the community or it is
replaced, often violently. Just having money in a world where money has
lost much of its meaning isn't enough.
Staff will never stay loyal. Water systems, food systems, air
systems are all vulnerable. Only 1%ers with robots, no staff? Robots
are vulnerable.
What's odd is they may never be able to reproduce as a bratty
teenager could have an outsize impact. If the theory would be to
quarantine certain tolerated populations, it would requiring all
individuals and the individuals are still vulnerable.
The currency will be shelter, food and privileges not paper
contracts, paper or digital money. In any group, there will be the
sociopaths who manipulate and steal more resources for themselves and
others who won't will punish that behavior.
In 2006, the DHS's Department of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ran an
internationally cooperative investigation
into the purchase of subscriptions of child
pornography online. Code-named Project Flicker, the investigation uncovered the identities of
30,000 child porn subscribers in 132 different nations. Some 250 of these identities belonged to
civilian and military employees of the U.S. Defense Department, who gave their real names and
purchased the porn with government .mil email addresses-some with the highest security clearances
available. In response, the Pentagon's Department of Criminal Investigative Services (DCIS)
cross-referenced ICE's list with current employment roles and began a series of prosecutions.
A
DCIS report
from July 2010 shows that 30 of these individuals were investigated, despite
uncovering a new total of
264 Defense employees
and contractors who had purchased child pornography online. 13 had Top
Secret security clearance. 8 had NATO Secret security clearance. 42 had Secret security
clearance. 4 had Interim Secret security clearance. A total of 76 individuals had Secret security
clearance or higher.
Yet, the investigations were halted entirely after only some 50 total names were investigated
at all, and
just 10 were prosecuted
.
A full 212
of the individuals on ICE's list were never even given the most cursory
investigation at all. (Note: The number 5200 keeps popping up in sources covering this-for
instance,
see here
-and I'm not sure what that number is for: American subscribers? Pentagon email
addresses that weren't confirmed to have actually been used by Pentagon employees, but still may
have been? I'll leave it to anyone interested enough to pursue these individual leads to see if
they can figure that out and get back to us.)
In 2011, the story resurfaced when
Anderson Cooper covered it
with (again) Senator Chuck Grassley on CNN. After this, the story
appears to have sunk straight back down into the memory hole yet again. Neither Anderson Cooper
nor CNN appear to have given a follow–up in the five years since the story of the failed
investigation first aired-why not? And why wasn't the first airing enough to lead to mass outrage
and calls for action anyway? See
here
for another summary of the squashed investigation from 2014.
"... The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal first "broke" in the far-right blogosphere. The accusation they made was that these gangs were being allowed to operate undisturbed because everyone was too afraid of "appearing racist" to properly investigate them . . . and nobody listened to the far-right bloggers who were breaking this story because they were afraid of "appearing racist" if they gave any credibility to those far-right sources, too. Never mind that it seemed paranoid to rely on bloggers ..."
"... the far-right blogosphere turned out to be right. ..."
"... those people ..."
"... The Podesta Emails ..."
"... The evidence is of wildly varying levels of quality, ranging from the pareidolia of "Jesus is appearing to me in my toast" to "wait, that's actually pretty damn creepy." The mountain of claims and observations and speculations being compiled in places like Voat and Steemit are too overwhelming for any one person to hope to wade through sorting wheat from chaff, and while I don't intend to try, I will summarize some just a little bit of it here. ..."
"... While many of these claims are wild speculation over coincidences (though by no means all of them are), at some point I think a bunch of weird coincidences involving pedophilia and kids becomes sort of damning in and of itself. In one email , Podesta is among those being invited to a farm and the host says, "Bonnie will be Uber Service to transport Ruby, Emerson, and Maeve Luzzatto (11, 9, and almost 7) so you'll have some further entertainment, and they will be in [the] pool for sure ." ..."
"... Could that have an innocent explanation? Sure, maybe. But inviting a group of adult men to a gathering and calling young children "further entertainment" while listing their ages is ..."
"... All the Children ..."
"... Here are just a few of the more "institutional" coincidences involved in the story: one of the men on the small list of people found "liking" photos like this one on these individuals' Instagram accounts is Arun Rao , the U.S. Attorney Chief, charged with prosecuting cases of child pornography. ..."
"... Besta Pizza, the business whose logo so closely resembled the "little boy lover" logo, is owned by Andrew Kline , who was one of four attorneys in the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit of the Department of Justice. Isn't it just a little ..."
"... The disturbing bit is that the photo uses the tag "#chickenlovers," and "chicken lover" is in fact ..."
"... Chicken Hawk ..."
"... Furthermore, Tony Podesta's favorite ..."
"... In addition to Jeffrey Epstein, the Podesta brothers are also friends with convicted sex offender Clement Freud as well as convicted serial child molester Dennis Hastert . ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... And we do know that this has happened before. ..."
"... The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal ..."
"... how we should respond to the possibility. ..."
Beginning in 1997, in an English town of more than 100,000 people, eight Pakistani men stood at
the core of a group involving as many as three hundred suspects who abused, gang-raped, pimped and
trafficked, by the most conservative estimate, well over a thousand of the town's young girls for
years.
The police were eventually accused of not just turning a blind eye, but of
participating in the abuse - even supplying the Pakistani gangs with drugs and tipping them off
when they heard of colleagues searching for children they knew to be in the gangs' possession.
Others were afraid of investigating the gangs or calling attention to their behavior because it
would have been politically incorrect to accuse the town's ethnic community of such a rampant and
heinous crime - in the words of one English writer, "
Fears of appearing racist trumped fears of more children being abused ."
But when this story first broke, guess where it appeared?
Here's how a blogger writing under the name Mehrdad Amanpour tells the story of how the story first started reaching people:
Some years ago, a friend sent me a shocking article. It said hundreds of British girls were
being systematically gang-raped by Muslim gangs. It claimed this was being covered-up.
I've never had time for conspiracy theories, especially when they look as hateful as those
in the article. So I checked the links and sources in the piece. I found an American racist-far-right
website and from there, saw the original source was a similarly unpleasant website in the UK.
I did a brief search for corroboration from reputable mainstream sources. I found none. So
I wrote a curt reply to my friend: "I'd appreciate it if you didn't send me made-up crap from
neo–Nazi websites."
Some months later, I read the seminal exposé of the (mainly) ethnic-Pakistani grooming gang
phenomenon by Andrew Norfolk in The Sunday Times .
I was stunned and horrified - not just that these vile crimes were indeed happening and endemic,
but that they really were being ignored and "covered-up" by public authorities and the mainstream
media.
The
Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal first "broke" in the far-right blogosphere. The accusation
they made was that these gangs were being allowed to operate undisturbed because everyone was too
afraid of "appearing racist" to properly investigate them . . . and nobody listened to the far-right
bloggers who were breaking this story because they were afraid of "appearing racist" if they gave
any credibility to those far-right sources, too. Never mind that it seemed paranoid to rely on
bloggers to report truths like these when the allegations were so wide-reaching, involving
a literal conspiracy within the police force.
And yet, years after no one was willing to take them seriously, the far-right blogosphere
turned out to be right.
Well over a thousand (mostly) white young girls were being abused by (mostly) Pakistani
gangs.
And the authorities were covering it up.
We are now, once again, in the stage of an evolving scandal that Mehrdad Amanpour described his
experience with above. Just to be clear, I'm not going to commit myself to the idea that this is
going to be as huge as Rotherham was. We should be careful: we don't know what would or wouldn't
be confirmed with a proper investigation. The question here is not whether we've gotten to the bottom
of this online. The question is whether there is enough here to justify thinking there should be
a proper investigation.
And the parallel with Rotherham is that the relatively small number of people asking for that
are mostly the loathsome kinds of people who run "racist far-right websites." So, since the claims
are inherently conspiratorial, and the mainstream doesn't want to be associated with those people
who are talking about it, it is once again all too easy to just dismiss the claims out of hand
as paranoia run wild.
Again, the evolution of the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal was an extremely
painful lesson that the mainstream can be wrong and the "paranoid racist far-right"
can be right. And that lesson was far too expensive to simply let go to waste.
The name of this scandal is Pizzagate.
It gets the name for two reasons: first, because at the center of the scandal are high-level Washington
insiders who own a handful of businesses in the DC area, including a couple pizzerias (Comet Ping
Pong and Besta Pizza), who have fallen under suspicion for involvement in a child sex abuse ring.
Second, because the first questions arose in peoples' minds as a result of some very bizarre emails
revealed by Wikileaks in The
Podesta Emails that, quite simply, just sound strange (and usually involve weird
references to pizza). One of the strangest emails involves Joe Podesta being asked this question:
"The realtor found a handkerchief (I think it has a map that seems pizza-related). Is it yours?"
The evidence is of wildly varying levels of quality, ranging from the pareidolia of "Jesus
is appearing to me in my toast" to "wait, that's actually pretty damn creepy." The mountain of claims
and observations and speculations being compiled in places like
Voat and
Steemit are too overwhelming
for any one person to hope to wade through sorting wheat from chaff, and while I don't intend to
try, I will summarize some just a little bit of it here.
While many of these claims are wild speculation over coincidences (though by no means all
of them are), at some point I think a bunch of weird coincidences involving pedophilia and kids becomes
sort of damning in and of itself. In
one email , Podesta
is among those being invited to a farm and the host says, "Bonnie will be Uber Service to transport
Ruby, Emerson, and Maeve Luzzatto (11, 9, and almost 7) so you'll have some further entertainment,
and they will be in [the] pool for sure ."
Could that have an innocent explanation? Sure, maybe. But inviting a group of adult men to
a gathering and calling young children "further entertainment" while listing their ages is
weird , whether it ends up having an explanation or not.
If I was getting messages that listed the ages of young children that would be in a pool
And it turned out that the logo for my business contained a symbol strikingly close to
the "little boy lover" logo used by pedophiles to signify that their interest is in young boys rather
than girls . . .
And the bands that showed up at my restaurant had albums called All the Children
with images on the cover
of a child putting phallic-shaped objects into his mouth . . .
. . . and were found making creepy jokes about pedophilia (in reference to Jared Fogle: "
we all have our preferences
. . . ") . . . and there were instagram photos coming out of kids ("jokingly?") taped
to the tables in my restaurant . . .
. . . frankly, I would start asking questions about myself.
Here are just a few of the more "institutional" coincidences involved in the story: one of
the men on the small list of people found "liking" photos like this one on these individuals' Instagram
accounts is
Arun Rao , the U.S. Attorney Chief, charged with prosecuting cases of child pornography.
Besta Pizza, the business whose logo so closely resembled the "little boy lover" logo, is
owned by
Andrew Kline , who was one of four attorneys in the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit of the
Department of Justice. Isn't it just a little unusual that someone that high up in a human
trafficking division would fail to notice the symbolism?
For yet another coincidence,
Lauren Silsby-Gayler is the former director of The New Life Children's Refuge in Haiti. It is
a matter of public record that she was caught, prosecuted, and sent to jail while in that role for
trying to abduct dozens of children, most of whom had homes and families. The
main lawyer paid
to represent Silsby-Gayler, "President of the Sephardic Jewish community in the Dominican Republic,"
was himself suspected of involvement in human trafficking.
When the Clintons gained influence in the region, one of their first acts was to work to
get Silsby-Gayler
off the hook . Among the Podesta Wikileaks are
State Department emails
discussing their case. Meanwhile, she now works on the executive board of
AlertSense . . .
which collaborates with IPAWS to send out nation-wide Amber Alerts.
While some of the supposed "codewords" people have claimed to have identified in Pizzagate appear
to be made up, there is at least one unambiguous instance: here is an Instagrammed photo posted by
James Alefantis, the owner of Comet Ping Pong that appears innocent enough: a man carrying a young
child with a beaded necklace draped around both of their necks.
The disturbing bit is that the photo uses the tag "#chickenlovers," and "chicken lover" is
in fact an established term to refer to a pedophile - someone who loves "chicken," which
is also unambiguously an established term to refer to underage children (you can see this in the
gay slang dictionary subset of the
Online Dictionary
of Playground Slang ).
Complain all you want about the "speculative" and "paranoid" online discussions of Pizzagate,
but when you have clearer-cut cases like this one where James Alefantis absolutely, unquestionably
did in fact post a photo of a man holding an infant and the one and only hashtag he used for the
photo involved a term that unquestionably is a reference to pedophilia, in a context where it is
clear that there is nothing else here that "chicken" could possibly have been referring to, the likelihood
that more speculative claims might have truth to them is increased.
There is a 1994 documentary expose on NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association) called
Chicken
Hawk .
Here is yet another reference from a watchdog group from 2006, proving that this one existed
well before Pizzagate surfaced. Another confirmed fact dug up by the paranoid right-wing conspiracy
nuts on the Internet?
So here are a few more things we do know. We know that Bill Clinton has taken dozens
of international flights on a plane colloquially known as the "
Lolita Express " with Jeffrey Epstein, a man who spent 13 months in jail after being convicted
of soliciting a 13-year-old
prostitute . We know that Hillary Clinton's staff knew that
Anthony Weiner was sexting underage girls all the way back in 2011 - and covered it up. Guess
whose laptop revealed evidence that Hillary Clinton went on flights on Jeffrey Epstein's "
Lolita Express " along with Bill? That's right: Anthony Weiner's.
Now do you understand why the mainstream media was so eager to spin these emails as just a "distraction"
during the election?
The staff that ignored Weiner's sexting of young children included John Podesta himself, whose
brother Tony is one of the very men at the center of Pizzagate. Tony Podesta has rather warped tastes
in art. For instance, he owns a bronze statue of a decapitated man in a contorted position identical
to a well-known photograph of one of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's victims:
(See
here for the disturbing photo of the real victim.)
The same news story that features the image above also mentions the fact that John Podesta's
bedroom contains multiple images from a photographer "known for documentary-style pictures
of naked teenagers in their parents' suburban homes.")
Furthermore, Tony Podesta's favorite artist is Biljana Djurdjevic, whose art heavily
features images of children in BDSM-esque positions in large showers. Here's one with a row of young
girls in a shower with their hands behind their backs in a position that suggests bondage:
Here's one with a young boy in a shower tied up in the air with his hands over his head:
In addition to Jeffrey Epstein, the Podesta brothers are also friends with convicted sex offender
Clement Freud as well as convicted serial child molester
Dennis Hastert .
We do know that the New York Times , which is now dismissing Pizzagate in its
entirety as a hoax, is run by Mark Thompson - who was credibly accused a few years back of lying
to help cover up a scandal involving another high-profile public figure involved in child sex abuse,
Jimmy Savile
, during his time as
head of the BBC .
And we do know that this has happened before.
Lawrence King , the
leader of the Black Republican Caucus, who sang the national anthem at the Republican convention
in 1984, was accused by multiple claimed victims of trafficking and abusing boys out of the Boys
Town charity for years. You can
hear the chilling testimony
from three people who claim to have been victimized by King in a documentary produced shortly
after the events transpired.
You can hear the FBI, even after they received extensive testimony from victims, explain in their
own words that they weren't going to prosecute King because if anything were wrong with him, he would
have been prosecuted by a lower authority already. Eventually, King was found "O. J. guilty" of abusing
Paul Bonacci - convicted in civil court, acquitted in criminal court.
But that's not the question here. The question is how we should respond to the possibility.
Do we take the possibility seriously? History clearly indicates that we should. Even if it did
turn out to be nothing at all, I would still be more proud to belong to a community willing
to take the possibility seriously and call for investigation than I would to belong to a community
that dismissed the possibility far too hastily and luckily turned out to be right - even as it did
this and turned out to be wrong in so many cases like Rotherham before.
The real horror here would be to live in a society that responded as Reddit has - by shutting
down the whole conversation entirely, banning
r/pizzagate even while keeping subreddits like r/pedofriends, "a place for (non-offending) pedophiles
and allies to make friends with each other!" alive.
Over on his blog,
Scott Adams
asks us to keep in mind cases where confirmation bias did lead to false allegations of institutional
pedophilia, to caution against excessive confidence. (He hastens to add: "I want to be totally clear
here that I'm not saying Pizzagate is false. I see the mountain of evidence too. And collectively
it feels totally persuasive to me. It might even be true. I'm not debating the underlying truth of
it. That part I don't know.")
But which is worse? If all the evidence coming out of Pizzagate is entirely
false, what have we lost by spending time on it? On the other hand, if even five percent of the allegations
that have been made surrounding the topic are true, what have we lost by ignoring them? Which is
worse: spending too much time pursuing and thoroughly vetting false leads, or looking the other way
while any amount of child abuse goes on?
According to the FBI's National Crime Information
Center (NCIC) database, nearly 470,000 children disappear in the United States alone each year.
This number is dubious for a number of reasons. It
looks like some number of runaways
end up in the NCIC count, and to make matters worse, repeat offenders can make it into the data multiple
times. So that would suggest that the real number must be lower than this tally; but on the other
hand, we also know that many missing children are never reported in the first place, so it's possible
that that could boost the number back up. The bottom line, however, seems to be that there is no
reliable way to determine how many total children are actually missing in the U.S.
Either way, though, even if correcting for these errors took out 90% of the disappearances in
the NCIC database, and there were no unreported disappearances to account for at all, I think even
the resulting 50,000 per year would still be enough to call the problem systematic and justify suspicion
that these disappearances could well involve organized efforts-given that we already know of so many
pedophile rings in so many powerful institutions.
In 2013, Canada busted a ring involving
more than 300 adults , who had teachers, doctors, and nurses heavily represented among them.
A pedophile ring has just been identified in the
highest levels of UK football (Americans
know the sport as soccer). Norwegian police also just uncovered a ring of 50 organized pedophiles
mostly
working in the tech sector , once again including elected officials, teachers, and lawyers. The
Vatican scandals can practically go without mention - institutional involvement in child sex exploitation
is nearly an a priori given.
And the children that are being raped and murdered in the photos passed around by these
child porn rings are coming from somewhere . And when figures like politicians, teachers,
and lawyers are involved in the rings, it's hardly inconceivable that they could be involved in disappearances.
Have we identified one here?
Only time will tell. But we deserve to be paid attention. We deserve to have the matter taken
(Reprinted from Counter-Currents
Publishing by permission of author or representative)
About rich bastards in Finance and Sillycon Valley going all Prepper,
figuring out ways to safeguard their wealth and comfort and privilege if/when
SHTF and our society collapses.
The good news: IF SHTF in a way such as they fear, the gloves get to come
off and there'd be no law enforcement to protect them. It becomes 1%er hunting
season.
The thing is I really truly suspect that this is how the rich think.
It's enough to make one sensibly and rationally hate the rich, if one
didn't already that is.
"In private Facebook groups, wealthy survivalists swap tips on gas
masks, bunkers, and locations safe from the effects of climate change."
never mind the absurdity of imagining there are private FB groups,
native Americans are facing down the full force of the police state to
protect the environment and their land out of a larger purpose and these
rich people who may actually have some influence make it their priority
to just personally be somewhere safe from the effects of climate change
(as if that were possible haha). Like Gandhi is rumored to have said:
Western civilization – it would be a good idea.
I think you're right in how they think. "I would rather spend 1,000
dollars on myself then give 1 dollar to help someone else (and protect
myself in the long run)" does seem to be the thought process.
To continue in that vein. "But you would be saving $999 if you gave
$1";
"What did they do to *earn* my largesse?"
Truly baffling when looked at rationally, but as a species we're
not all that rational.
Awww it's touching isn't it? The naive way the billionaires think their
pilots and armed guards would continue to obey their orders in a
doomsday/survival scenario
Ya, they really should play some Fallout. The real life
"vault-builders" may have other ideas.
Plus, the Machiavellian maxim about fortresses not being all that
safe, but the respect of the people being a true safeguard for a prince.
I mean if I was a multi-billionaire, I'd move to Detroit rebuild the
infrastructure, and turn the city into an estate with loyal citizens. I
keep them safe now, SHTF, they keep me safe. If nothing happens, then
they benefit greatly, and I'll be remembered by history as a decent
person.
I have to be "that guy," but the Vault Tec vaults were built as
elaborate social experiments to determine how to best transport
colonists on theorized, future spacecraft. The U.S. didn't intend
to launch a mass nuclear strike, but the Chinese saw the start of
the vault experiment as preparation for a first strike. The
fascists didn't even under their own experiments properly.
That's ok. I love the Fallout Lore. Is the space colony
Bethesda lore or Interplay lore?
I like that even the Vault-ride showing the colonies .they
were doing experiments on ride patrons, and the scientists doing
the experiments were having experiments performed on them!
Fun fact to keep in mind: those silos or other fancy bunkers with air
filtration to clean out chemical, biological, or nuclear contaminants
will not block carbon monoxide or any oxygen displacing gas. So, once
rich Silicon Valley or Wall St piece of shit bunkers down, you pull a car
or truck up to their air intakes and start pumping your exhaust in. Fill
the fancy bunker with carbon monoxide, halon, etc.
Bastards deserve the had chamber of their own making.
Seeing how the billionaires and cent-millionaires choose to use their
money for this makes a strong case for increasing taxes on them A LOT.
[For those who haven't read the article, it's about some entrepreneurial
Doomsdayers creating "condos" in abandoned missile silos near Wichita. Or
moving to New Zealand.]
I did love the part about how you need to take the
family
of the pilot who's manning your escape helicopter with you as you depart
from the crashing "civilization."
Derp, apparently they forgot that Bitcoins arnt accessible if theres no
electricity or internet. God, that makes the guys who stock up on gold coins
look like geniuses in comparison.
Neoliberals seem very concerned not to have a label. I posit this is because the founders of the
malign ideology didn't want their victims be able to reliably identify them. The deliberately and misleadingly
promote the view of the economy as an isolated scientific subject, like the interior of a test tube,
and treat politics and policy as a sort of exterior force, that can be isolated from the world of the
chemist and pushed off-to-one side. Neoclassic economists consistently and deliberately blinds itself
to politics and the dynamics of power, despite the deep entanglement of politics with everything economic.
"I look at politics and the economy and see one thing, not two things, and I am astonished at the extent
to which economists focus on the part they like to play with intellectually, while deliberately looking
away from what is probably the more important part. "
Notable quotes:
"... when left-wing people say that economists are defenders and supporters of the current order of things, they have a point: ignoring power relationships and their impact on the world supports the continued existence of those relationships. ..."
"... Neoliberalism may have been in part so successful because it appeals to (and tries to explain many things in terms of) a narrative of competition (and assignment of reward and acknowedlgement) by merit. ..."
"... Most people, esp. when young (still largely sheltered) or (still) successful, probably have an exaggerated assessment of their own merit (absolute and relative) - often actively instilled and encouraged by an "enabling" environment. ..."
"... It promises a lake Wobegon of sorts where everybody (even though not all!) are above average, and it is finally recognized. ..."
What Wren-Lewis misses, I think, is that something I've noticed in my roughly a decade of reading
economic blogs on the Internet. Economists have blinkers on. They want to view the economy as an
isolated scientific subject, like the interior of a test tube, and treat politics and policy as a
sort of exterior force, that can be isolated from the world of the chemist and pushed off-to-one
side. It seems fairly clear to me that the two elements--politics and the economy--are obviously
continuously co-mingled, and have all sorts of feedback loops running between them.
The discipline really consistently and deliberately blinds itself to politics and the dynamics
of power, despite the deep entanglement of politics with everything economic. Wren-Lewis admits that
macroeconomists "missed" the impacts of very high financial sector leverage, but finds that now that
economists have noticed it, and suggested remedies, that the power of bank lobby prevents those remedies
from being enacted. But shouldn't the political power of the finance lobby been a part of economic
analysis of the world along with the dangers of the financial sector's use of extreme leverage? Does
he think the two phenomena are unrelated?
Shouldn't economics pay more attention to the ongoing attempts of various groups to orient government
policy in their favor, just like they pay attention to the trade deficit and GDP numbers?
I look at politics and the economy and see one thing, not two things, and I am astonished at the
extent to which economists focus on the part they like to play with intellectually, while deliberately
looking away from what is probably the more important part. Its like economists obsessively focus
on the part that can be studied via numbers (money) and don't' want to think about the part that
is harder to look quantify (political policy). And there is a political issue there, which Mr. Wren-Lewis,
keeps ignoring in his defense of "mainstream economics."
The neoclassical economics tendency of not looking at power relationships makes power imbalances
and their great influence on economics seem like "givens" or "natural endowments", which is clearly
an intellectual sin of omission.
Many people, even within the halls of mainstream economics, note economists are "uncomfortable"
with distributional issues.
Whether they like the implication or not, economists need to acknowledge that this discomfort
has a profoundly conservative intellectual bias, in the sense that it make the status quo arrangement
of society seem "natural" and "normal", when it is obviously humanly constructed and not in any sense
"natural." So when left-wing people say that economists are defenders and supporters of the current
order of things, they have a point: ignoring power relationships and their impact on the world supports
the continued existence of those relationships.
Mr. Wren-Lewis seems like a nice guy, but he needs to take that simple home truth in. I'm not
sure why he seems to struggle so with acknowledging it.
Oh you mean the success of being able to raise asset prices without the growth in wages, make
education costly and unaffordable without student loans, not chargeable under bankruptcy, spruce
up employment figures by not counting the people who have stopped look for jobs because they cannot
find one, make people debt serfs, make savers miserable by keeping interest rates at zero and
making them take risks that they may not want to take though it is picking pennies in front of
a steamroller, keeping wages stagnant for decades and thus impoverishing people.
The list of successes is endless and you should be glad we are NOT talking about them. Because
if we do, the clan called economists might well be torched.
Neoliberalism may have been in part so successful because it appeals to (and tries to explain
many things in terms of) a narrative of competition (and assignment of reward and acknowedlgement)
by merit.
Most people, esp. when young (still largely sheltered) or (still) successful, probably
have an exaggerated assessment of their own merit (absolute and relative) - often actively instilled
and encouraged by an "enabling" environment.
A large part is probably the idea that "markets" are "objective" or at least "impartial" in
bringing out and rewarding merit - also technology and "data driven" technocratic management,
which are attributed "objectivity". All in the explicitly stated or implied service of impartially
recognizing merit and its lack.
It promises a lake Wobegon of sorts where everybody (even though not all!) are above average,
and it is finally recognized.
"Neoliberalism may have been in part so successful because it appeals to (and tries to explain
many things in terms of) a narrative of competition (and assignment of reward and acknowedlgement)
by merit."
"... "the high military, the corporation executives, the political directorate have tended to come together to form the power elite of America." ..."
"... He describes how the power elite can be best described as a "triangle of power," linking the corporate, executive government, and military factions: "There is a political economy numerously linked with military order and decision. This triangle of power is now a structural fact, and it is the key to any understanding of the higher circles in America today." ..."
"... During the election campaign the power elite's military faction under Trump confounded all political pundits by outflanking and decisively defeating the power elite's political faction. ..."
"... At the time this was the highest level internal US intelligence confirmation of the theory that western governments fundamentally see the Islamic State as their own tool for regime change in Syria. The military faction began a steady stream of "one-sided" leaks to Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh who published one article after another that undermined the political (Obama administration) and corporate (CIA and intelligence) factions of the power elite, while painting the military faction in a positive light. ..."
"... The first article entitled Whose Sarin? was published on 19 December, 2013 and concerned the East Ghouta sarin gas attack of August 21, 2013. Hersh documents a clear campaign within the power elite's military faction to "foot-drag" and hopefully block the planned US retaliation for crossing President Obama's "red line": "[S]ome members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were troubled by the prospect of a ground invasion of Syria as well as by Obama's professed desire to give rebel factions non-lethal support. In July, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, provided a gloomy assessment, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee in public testimony that 'thousands of special operations forces and other ground forces' would be needed to seize Syria's widely dispersed chemical warfare arsenal, along with 'hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines and other enablers'." ..."
"... A cornered Obama welcomed a draft UN resolution calling on the Assad government to get rid of its chemical arsenal. The political faction's step-down pleased many senior military officers, explains Hersh: "One high-level special operations adviser told me that the ill-conceived American missile attack on Syrian military airfields and missile emplacements, as initially envisaged by the White House, would have been 'like providing close air support for al-Nusra'." ..."
"... General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs had irritated many in the Obama administration by repeatedly warning Congress over the summer of the danger of American military involvement in Syria. The military faction also had the advantage of a British intelligence report of a sample of sarin, recovered by Russian military intelligence operatives, proving it was not from the Syrian army. Further suspicions were aroused within the military faction when more than ten members of the al-Nusra Front were arrested in southern Turkey with two kilograms of sarin. Hersh quotes his internal military source: "'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.'" ..."
"... Further revelations included how the Obama administration, through the CIA, had by early 2012 created a "rat line", a back channel highway into Syria, used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to jihadists, some of them affiliated with Al-Qaeda. ..."
"... Hersh's source explains how a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the assault by a local militia on the American consulate and a nearby undercover CIA facility in Benghazi, which resulted in the death of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others in September 2012, revealed a secret agreement for the "rat line" reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations: "By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria." ..."
"... After Washington abruptly ended the CIA's role in the transfer of arms from Libya the "rat line" continued and became more ominous: "'The United States was no longer in control of what the Turks were relaying to the jihadists,' the former intelligence official said. Within weeks, as many as forty portable surface-to-air missile launchers, commonly known as manpads, were in the hands of Syrian rebels." ..."
In a recent UNZ article titled:
Political science's "theory of everything" a concise map of the US establishment, both the
visible and invisible government was mapped. Based on this map a theory emerged that showed how the
visible government has been subverted by an invisible unelected government that was described as
a corporate-deep-state. The levels of the US establishment were identified as a power elite conspiratorial
leadership overseeing a corporatocracy and directing a deep state that has gradually subverted the
visible US government and taken over the "levers of power."
The power elite
The invisible rulers of the US establishment were revealed by Professor C. Wright Mill in his
article titled, The Structure of
Power in American Society (The British Journal of Sociology, March 1958), in which he explains
how, "the high military, the corporation executives, the political directorate have tended to come
together to form the power elite of America."
He describes how the power elite can be best described as a "triangle of power," linking the corporate,
executive government, and military factions: "There is a political economy numerously linked with
military order and decision. This triangle of power is now a structural fact, and it is the key to
any understanding of the higher circles in America today."
The 2016 US election, like all other US elections, featured a gallery of pre-selected candidates
that represented the three factions and their interests within the power elite. The 2016 US election,
however, was vastly different from previous elections. As the election dragged on the power elite
became bitterly divided, with the majority supporting Hilary Clinton, the candidate pre-selected
by the political and corporate factions, while the military faction rallied around their choice of
Donald Trump.
During the election campaign the power elite's military faction under Trump confounded all
political pundits by outflanking and decisively defeating the power elite's political faction.
In fact by capturing
the Republican nomination and overwhelmingly defeating the Democratic establishment, Trump and the
military faction not just shattered the power elites' political faction, within both the Democratic
and Republican parties, but simultaneously ended both the Clinton and Bush dynasties.
During the election campaign the power elite's corporate faction realised, far too late, that
Trump was a direct threat to their power base, and turned the full force of their corporate media
against Trump's military faction, while Trump using social media bypassed and eviscerated the corporate
media causing them to lose all remaining credibility.
As the election reached a crescendo this battle between the power elite's factions became visible
within the US establishment's entities. A schism developed between the Defense Department and the
highly politicized CIA This schism, which can be attributed to the corporate-deep-state's covert
foreign policy, traces back to the CIA orchestrated "color revolutions" that had swept the Middle
East and North Africa.
The covert invasion of Syria
A US Pentagon, DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was
circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State
Dept., and many others.
Astoundingly, the
declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN]
OPPOSITION THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY
IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION
WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME ".
The document shows that as early as 2012, US intelligence predicted the rise of the Salafist Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy,
the report envisions the terror group as a US strategic asset.
At the time this was the highest level internal US intelligence confirmation of the theory that
western governments fundamentally see the Islamic State as their own tool for regime change in Syria.
The military faction began a steady stream of "one-sided" leaks to Pulitzer Prize winning investigative
journalist, Seymour Hersh who published
one article after another
that undermined the political (Obama administration) and corporate (CIA and intelligence) factions
of the power elite, while painting the military faction in a positive light.
Whose sarin?
The first article entitled
Whose Sarin?
was published on 19 December, 2013 and concerned the East Ghouta sarin gas attack of August
21, 2013. Hersh documents a clear campaign within the power elite's military faction to "foot-drag"
and hopefully block the planned US retaliation for crossing President Obama's "red line": "[S]ome
members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were troubled by the prospect of a ground invasion of Syria
as well as by Obama's professed desire to give rebel factions non-lethal support. In July, General
Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, provided a gloomy assessment, telling the Senate Armed
Services Committee in public testimony that 'thousands of special operations forces and other ground
forces' would be needed to seize Syria's widely dispersed chemical warfare arsenal, along with 'hundreds
of aircraft, ships, submarines and other enablers'."
A cornered Obama welcomed a draft UN resolution calling on the Assad government to get rid of
its chemical arsenal. The political faction's step-down pleased many senior military officers, explains
Hersh: "One high-level special operations adviser told me that the ill-conceived American missile
attack on Syrian military airfields and missile emplacements, as initially envisaged by the White
House, would have been 'like providing close air support for al-Nusra'."
The Red Line and the Rat Line
The second article titled
The Red Line and the Rat Line was published on 17 April, 2014 and explains why Obama delayed
and then relented on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya: "The answer lies in a clash
between those in the administration (political faction) who were committed to enforcing the red line,
and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous."
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs had irritated many in the Obama administration
by repeatedly warning Congress over the summer of the danger of American military involvement in
Syria. The military faction also had the advantage of a British intelligence report of a sample of
sarin, recovered by Russian military intelligence operatives, proving it was not from the Syrian
army. Further suspicions were aroused within the military faction when more than ten members of the
al-Nusra Front were arrested in southern Turkey with two kilograms of sarin. Hersh quotes his internal
military source: "'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence
official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts
in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red
line threat.'"
Further revelations included how the Obama administration, through the CIA, had by early 2012
created a "rat line", a back channel highway into Syria, used to funnel weapons and ammunition from
Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to jihadists, some of them affiliated with
Al-Qaeda.
Hersh's source explains how a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the assault by a local militia
on the American consulate and a nearby undercover CIA facility in Benghazi, which resulted in the
death of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others in September 2012, revealed a secret
agreement for the "rat line" reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations:
"By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the
CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria."
After Washington abruptly ended the CIA's role in the transfer of arms from Libya the "rat line"
continued and became more ominous: "'The United States was no longer in control of what the Turks
were relaying to the jihadists,' the former intelligence official said. Within weeks, as many as
forty portable surface-to-air missile launchers, commonly known as manpads, were in the hands of
Syrian rebels."
The Killing of Osama bin Laden
The third article titled
The Killing of Osama bin Laden was published on 17 April, 2014. The Obama administration
needed a public relations win on the eve of his second term election and according to Hersh's military
source: "'the killing of bin Laden was political theatre designed to burnish Obama's military credentials.'"
Hersh's article goes on to systematically debunk the Obama administration's entire clumsy cover
story while implicating the Saudis and Pakistanis who financed and protected Osama bin Laden. He
goes on to reveal that once he had outlived his usefulness, to the Pakistanis, he was traded to the
Americans who murdered him in cold blood and tossed his mutilated body parts over the Hindu Kish
mountains.
The article further reveals how the Senate Intelligence Committee's long-delayed report on CIA
torture, released in December 2013 concluded that the CIA lied systematically about the effectiveness
of its torture programme in gaining intelligence that would stop future terrorist attacks in the
US.
Military to Military
Hersh's fourth article titled
Military
to Military was published on 7 January 2016, and details how an exasperated military faction
continued to repeat warnings that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to Libyan style chaos and,
potentially, to Syria's takeover by jihadi extremists. They were continuously ignored by both the
political faction and the intelligence services: "[A]lthough many in the American intelligence community
were aware that the Syrian opposition was dominated by extremists the CIA-sponsored weapons kept
coming General Dempsey and his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff kept their dissent out of
bureaucratic channels, and survived in office. General Michael Flynn did not. 'Flynn incurred the
wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria,' said Patrick Lang, a retired
army colonel who served for nearly a decade as the chief Middle East civilian intelligence officer
for the DIA. 'He thought truth was the best thing and they shoved him out. He wouldn't shut up.'
Flynn told me his problems went beyond Syria. 'I was shaking things up at the DIA – and not just
moving deckchairs on the Titanic. It was radical reform. I felt that the civilian leadership did
not want to hear the truth. I suffered for it, but I'm OK with that.'"
Hersh's paper further highlights a rebellion under the leadership of Joint Chiefs of Staff that
was then led by General Martin Dempsey. He began to send a flow of US intelligence through allied
militaries to the Syrian Arab Army and he orchestrated a deliberate plan to downgrade the quality
of the arms being supplied to the rebels by the CIA The military's indirect pathway to Assad disappeared
with Dempsey's retirement in September 2015. The political faction then replaced Dempsey, as chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, with General Joseph Dunford who advocated a "hard line" on Russia.
The power elite's military faction realised that radical reform could not begin until the military
faction had full political support behind them.
Rise of the Generals
In the 2016 US election Trump with the full weight of the military faction behind him pulled off
a stunning victory against the entire political faction – defeating both the Democratic and Republican
Party machines – and the corporate media.
The cornerstone of the corporatocracy, the Wall Street lobby, due to the sheer amount of fiat
petrodollar based money it generates, and the influence it has over the US establishment was officially
dethroned. The locus of power within the power elite had suddenly and dramatically shifted from Wall
St to the Pentagon.
Although the situation is very fluid on the eve of the Trump presidency a map highlighting the
US establishment entities supporting either Trump or his defeated opponent Clinton can be arguably
mapped below.
Trump quickly named security hardliners including past and present generals and FBI officials,
to key security and intelligence positions while the corporate media accused Trump of having a starry-eyed
fascination with the brass of America's losing wars.
Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who was forced from his position as director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency in 2014, will be President-elect Donald Trump's national security adviser. Army
retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg will be serving in a supporting capacity to Flynn as chief
of staff of the National Security Council (NSC).
Trump selected retired General James Mattis to lead the Department of Defense. Mattis, a
documented war criminal , had helped cover up the 2005 Haditha massacre of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians
by US soldiers. His soldiers also directly committed war crimes in the US sieges of Fallujah in 2004,
when his forces not only used white phosphorus but fired on and killed up to 5,000 innocent civilians.
General Mattis has called for a "new security architecture for the Mideast built on sound policy
Iran is a special case that must be dealt with as a threat to regional stability, nuclear and otherwise."
On a positive Mattis also got Trump to
reconsider his stance on torture stating, "'I've never found it to be useful."
General John Kelly, another long-serving Marine with a reputation for bluntness, has been picked
to head the Department of Homeland Security. He is the most senior US officer to have lost a child
in the "war on terror". His son Robert, a first lieutenant in the marines, was killed in combat in
Afghanistan in 2010. He therefore strongly opposed efforts by the Obama administration to close the
prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, claiming that the remaining detainees were "all bad boys," both
guilty and dangerous.
And in selecting career military men like Flynn, Mattis and Kelly as his senior civilian advisers
on military matters, Trump is in essence strengthening defense while creating rival intelligence
entities that will remain loyal to his military faction.
Meanwhile Big Oil's Rex Tillerson - the former CEO of world's largest oil company, ExxonMobil
- is to be Secretary of State. He has a two-decade relationship with Russian President Vladimir V.
Putin, who awarded Tillerson the Order of Friendship in 2013.
Mindful of others who defied the US establishment, Trump's supporters delivered an ominous warning
to rival power elite factions that
should Trump be assassinated then a civil war would follow. In reality an assassination in today's
climate, without the support of the corporatocracy's now discredited media, would usher in martial
law and further ensconce the military faction within their seat of power.
Playing chess like Putin
Trump and his military faction appear to greatly admire Putin personally, and in September 2016
during the NBC Commander-in-Chief Forum Trump stated: "I will tell you that, in terms of leadership,
he's getting an 'A' and our president is not doing so well." Trump's military faction, unlike the
other two factions sees Russia as more of a partner than an adversary and he is deeply committed
to reorienting American foreign policy in a pro-Russian direction.
Trump knows Putin's history well and appears intent on following in his footsteps. Putin took
office by
striking a deal with Russia's political elite to protect former Russian President Yeltsin and
his family from prosecution in exchange for Putin becoming Prime Minister and later President.
Then on July 28, 2000, after they had funded his election campaign, Vladimir Putin gathered the
18 most powerful businessmen (corporatocracy) in Russia and denounced the corporate elite as creators
of a corrupt state. During the transition from Communism in the 1990s these oligarchs – the majority
Jewish – had taken control of every single lever of power in Russia including the central bank, the
mass media and even the Kremlin.
In a second meeting on January 24, 2001, Vladimir Putin met with 21 leading oligarchs and stressed
that the Russian state had no plans to re-nationalize the economy, but added that they should have
"a feeling of responsibility [to] the people and the country" and asked them to donate $2.6 million
to a fund he was setting up to help families of soldiers wounded or killed in action.
True to his word the oligarchs that complied were allowed to keep the money they had looted from
the Russian people. Those that didn't comply, like Berezovsky and Gusinsky, Russia's two most infamous
and hated oligarchs, were gradually pushed out, and in some cases even imprisoned.
After defeating the oligarchs and gaining control of their media Putin then began to methodically
cleanse the Russian government and the Kremlin of corporate influence.
Corporatocracy
Professor Jeffry Sachs calls the US corporate conspiracy The Rigged Game in which the political
system has come to be controlled by powerful corporate interest groups – the "corporatocracy" – who
dominate the policy agenda. Sachs explains how "[a] healthy economy is a mixed economy, in which
government and the marketplace both play their role. Yet the federal government has neglected its
role for three decades."
President Trump appears to have taken a page from Sach's book and, even before taking office,
is signalling that his government will not neglect its role.
During an interview with Fortune on April 19, 2016, Donald Trump explicitly explained how
he planned on taking back the economic "levers of power" from Wall Street's Federal Reserve by supporting:
"proposals that would take power away from the Fed, and allow Congress to audit the U.S. central
bank's decision making."
On December, 6, 2016 it was the
military industrial complex's Boeing that felt the brunt of his attack when President-elect Donald
Trump called for the scrapping of multi-billion dollar plans for Boeing to build a new Air Force
One, calling the costs "ridiculous and totally out of control." He then followed this up on December
12, 2016, when he took on the
Lockheed Martin by attacking the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on Twitter, saying the cost of the
next-generation stealth plane is "out of control," stating: "Billions of dollars can and will be
saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th."
In an early December
interview with TIME ahead of his selection as TIME's Person of the Year, Trump railed against
the Healthcare lobby when he stated that he doesn't "like what's happened with drug prices" and that
he will "bring down" the cost of prescription medication.
Even earlier, on January 2016, at Liberty University, Trump had startled Silicon Valley when he
promised to punish companies that offshore production by placing
tariffs on their imports coming back to the US: "We're going to get Apple to build their damn
computers and things in this country instead of in other countries."
The Big Oil lobby, initially ambivalent, now appears to have put its weight behind Trump. There
are signs that the Big Oil lobby may have fallen out with the corporatocracy over the economic sanctions
on Russia and access to its vast untapped oil fields, as well as Saudi Arabia's two years of flooding
the global market with cheap crude in order to drive oil prices down and economically damage the
Russian economy. This policy had made both US shale oil and US energy independence unsustainable.
While the corporatocracy will survive, the days of crony capitalism appear to be coming to an
end.
The death of neoliberalism
The Trump election, much like Brexit before it, signals an entirely new development not witnessed
since the shift towards neoliberalism under President Reagan over 40 years ago. Trump has promised
to end the neoliberal, hyper-globalisation ideology in which the interests of the working class have
been sacrificed in favour of the corporatocracy that has been encouraged to invest around the world
depriving Americans of their jobs.
The global financial crisis of 2008, the worst since the great depression of 1931, saw Wall Street
bailed out by the taxpayers while the responsible bankers were not prosecuted for their crimes. Under
the Obama administration this was further compounded by rejecting bailouts for homeowners, oversee
growing inequality, militarisation, covert operations and the facilitating of overseas war crimes.
Meanwhile, nine years on, the neoliberal practice of quantitative easing has failed to revive
the economic patient who remains on "life support." This after effect of the global financial crisis
has served to undermine the peoples' faith and trust in the competence of the power elite's political
faction and the corporate media. Trump's ascendency thus signals the beginning of the end of the
neoliberal era.
Trumps promise to, "Put America first," pulls the plug on neoliberalism's economic life support
and imposes a new era of economic nationalism. The military faction will abandon unfettered capitalism,
free trade agreements and globalisation in favour of de-globalisation, economic nationalism, rebuilding
of infrastructure, the middle class and manufacturing.
The table below is fluid but is based on current policy details, revealed by Trump, and details
how the current neoliberal policies may gradually shift to policies of economic nationalism.
Government departments
Masses' Policies
Neo-Liberal Policies
Economic nationalism Policies
Corporatocracy lobbies
Dept. of State
Establishment of friendly relations with other nations.
Maintenance of the petrodollar through the support of compliant authoritarian nations or
covert funding of unstable extremists to overthrow non-compliant nations
Maintenance of the petrodollar through the support of compliant authoritarian nations.
Multilateral approach of working with Russia while continuing to isolate China and Iran
Wall Street-Washington complex
Dept. of the Treasury
Lower and fairer tax system that incentivises workers and savers
Financialisation, corporate subsidies, tax loopholes and overseas tax havens.
nationalisation, cutting of corporate subsidies, closing of tax loopholes and overseas
tax havens.
Universal human rights, equal justice and fair trials
Non-prosecution of criminal bank leaders, with prosecution of deep state whistle blowers.
Prosecution of corporate crime, Non-prosecution of military and police crimes, continued
prosecution of deep state whistle blowers.
Dept. of Housing & Urban Development
Affordable and easily accessible housing.
Financialisation, housing speculation and homelessness.
Removal of "red tape", opening up of land for building
Dept. of Defense
Security and Defense of citizens against foreign enemies
Maintenance of the petrodollar, full spectrum dominance, exceptionalism, war on terrorism
and the militarization of foreign policy .
Maintenance of the petrodollar, full spectrum dominance, multi-polarity, war on terrorism
military-industrial complex
Dept. of Veterans Affairs
Support and subsidies for veterans
Cheap outsourced care facilities and abandoned veterans.
Renationalisation of care facilities and housing, medical and mental care
for war veterans.
Dept. of Transport
Electric vehicles, subsidised transport and easily accessible transportation
grid.
Subsidised car-centric policies and urban planning.
Subsidised car-centric policies and urban planning.
Big Oil-transport-military complex
Dept. of Energy
Environmental protection, reliable and nationalised mostly renewable energy
supply.
Subsidised fossil fuel energy dependence and debunking of climate change.
Subsidised fossil fuel energy dependence and debunking of climate change.
Dept. of the Interior
Management and conservation federal land and natural resources.
Waiving of environmental protection, access for sea lanes, pipelines, mining
and resource extraction.
Waiving of environmental protection, access for sea lanes, pipelines, mining
and resource extraction.
Dept. of Health & Human Services
Subsidised and universal Healthcare.
mandatory healthcare and privatisation.
privatised healthcare
Healthcare industry
Dept. of Homeland Security
Security and Privacy.
Mass Surveillance and copyright enforcement.
Mass Surveillance
Silicon Valley
Dept. of Agriculture
Healthy, nutritious and affordable food.
Food monopolisation and dependence through patented GMOs.
Breaking up of monopolies, increased competition.
Big Ag (Monsanto)
Dept. of Education
Subsidised and universal education.
Class-based privatisation and outsourcing.
Increased investment in education.
Organised Labor
Dept. of Labor
Jobs and decent wages.
Outsourcing, mass immigration to lower wages, commodification of Labor, deregulation,
deindustrialisation, under employment and unemployment.
Reshoring, border controls to boost wages, return of skilled labor, reregulation,
reindustrialisation, full employment, lower taxes
All lobbies
Monetary hegemony strategy
The power elite's monetary hegemony petrodollar strategy will remain unchanged under Trumps' military
faction. However, Trump's foreign policy signals the end of America's unipolar moment, the period
that was called the "new world order" by George Bush after the collapse of the former USSR and the
US's 1991 Gulf War victory.
It took the actions of former
rogue CIA operatives,
called Al Qaeda, to give the US an excuse to invade and conquer key economic chokepoints and
geopolitical pivot nations, in the heart of the world's oil reserves that would give the power elite
global economic and military dominance. These power elite plans were given to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, at the time, and documented in a memo that a puzzled senior staff officer showed to General
Wesley Clark:"[W]e're going to
take out seven countries in five years , starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya,
Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."
The Republican-led neoconservative "war on terror" phase, that took place from 2001 to 2011, symbolised
the overt US invasion, occupation and destruction of primarily Afghanistan and Iraq. When worldwide
condemnation combined with Iraqi military resistance proved too great, the power elite were forced
to switch to more covert means.
Under the new Obama administration, a Democratic-led, CIA-orchestrated "Arab Spring" took place
from 2011-2016 and symbolised the covert invasion of Libya and Syria using reconstituted terrorist
death squads. The power elite had not only used the 9/11 attack conducted by elements of their rogue
terrorist death squads to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, but they were now going to reconstitute a
compliant group of the same terrorists and use them to covertly invade Libya and Syria.
With the Syrian government's capture of Aleppo in late 2016, it became apparent to all observers
that both the overt and covert US invasions were soundly defeated primarily by heroic resistance
forces in Iraq and Syria, respectively.
With the barbaric US invasions blunted, the Trump administration now represents a rear-guard attempting
to hold onto key nations in the heart of the world's global energy reserves and maintain the US's
petrodollar monetary hegemony backing, while Trump transitions his economy from a financial to an
industrial economy. Trump will thus continue to secure the GCC nations, especially Saudi Arabia,
provided they reign in their terrorist death squads, plaguing the Middle East. Israel will also be
fully supported and used to maintain the current Middle Eastern stalemate against Iran.
It is however Trump's détente with Russia that is truly significant as it signals the end of the
unipolar "new world order." Russia will once again be allowed its own "sphere of influence." This
will most likely see Crimean reunification accepted the return of economically plundered Ukraine
to Russian influence and the Russian presence in Syria acknowledged.
In return the military faction wants to desperately break up the tripartite strategic Eurasian
team of Russia-China-Iran. The military faction wants Russia to help block China's rise in the South
China Sea and to contain Iran. The military faction appears to have been inspired by documented war
criminal, Henry Kissinger, who at
the Primakov lecture in February 2016 stated: "The long-term interests of both countries call
for a world that transforms the contemporary turbulence and flux into a new equilibrium which is
increasingly multipolar and globalized ..Russia should be perceived as an essential element of any
new global equilibrium, not primarily as a threat to the United States." Draining the swamp?
For the first time in memory the US establishment, consisting of the visible US Government and
the invisible corporate-deep-state that has subverted it, have had a dramatic schism. Contrary to
corporate media hand-wringing, the 2016 US election for the masses was never about a choice for Trump
over Clinton, it was in reality a choice of, the same united power elite maintaining the same US
establishment under President select Clinton, versus a divided power elite led by Trump's military
faction.
This seminal moment represents a change of both US strategy and tactics that have been used to
maintain the US's economic and military power.
Strategically, while the power elite have finally abandoned America's unipolar moment, they will
now maintain the US as a multipolar global hegemon receiving its petrodollar tribute. Their plans
are to finally grant Russia, but not China, its own "sphere of influence" and to cleave it away from
its Eurasian and Middle Eastern allies.
Economically and tactically neoliberalism, as an ideology, is now officially dead. The power elite's
corporatocracy (corporate faction) will be tamed and replaced by a protectionist, localised, rebuilding
of America's manufacturing base.
While not exactly "draining the swamp," the new Trump administration plans on "fencing off some
of the alligators" that have devoured so many innocents during 40 years of neoliberalism at home
and militarism abroad.
To listen to a podcast by the author explaining how the political science's "theory of everything"
may help to predict the new Trump administration select the following link:
Disillusioned
in Davos : Edmund Burke famously cautioned that "the only thing necessary for the triumph
of evil is for good men to do nothing." I have been reminded of Burke's words as I have observed
the behavior of US business leaders in Davos over the last few days. They know better but in their
public rhetoric they have embraced and enabled our new President and his policies.
I understand and sympathize with the pressures they feel. ... Businesses who get on the wrong
side of the new President have
lost billions of dollars of value in sixty seconds because of a tweet. ...
Yet I am disturbed by (i) the spectacle of financiers who three months ago were telling anyone
who would listen that they would never do business with a Trump company rushing to praise the
new Administration (ii) the unwillingness of business leaders who rightly take pride in their
corporate efforts to promote women and minorities to say anything about Presidentially
sanctioned intolerance
(iii) the failure of the leaders of global companies to say a critical word about US efforts to
encourage the breakup of European unity and more generally to step away from underwriting an open
global system (iv) the reluctance of business leaders who have a huge stake in the current global
order to criticize provocative rhetoric with regard to China, Mexico or the Middle East (v) the
willingness of too many to praise Trump nominees who advocate blatant protection merely because
they have a business background.
I have
my differences with the new Administration's
economic policies and suspect the recent market rally and run of economic statistics is a
sugar high. Reasonable people who I respect differ and time will tell. My objection is not to
disagreements over economic policy. It is to enabling if not encouraging immoral and reckless
policies in other spheres that ultimately bear on our prosperity. Burke was right. It is a lesson
of human experience whether the issue is playground bullying, Enron or Europe in the 1930s that
the worst outcomes occur when good people find reasons to accommodate themselves to what they
know is wrong. That is what I think happened much too often in Davos this week.
No man, who is not inflamed by vainglory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single,
unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours are of power to defeat the subtle designs and
united Cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they
will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
-- Edmund Burke
anne -> anne... , -1
Edmund Burke famously cautioned that "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for
good men to do nothing."
The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits
By Milton Friedman - New York Times
When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the "social responsibilities of business in
a free-enterprise system," I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered
at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they
are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned "merely" with profit
but also with promoting desirable "social" ends; that business has a "social conscience" and takes
seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding
pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers. In fact
they are–or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously–preaching pure and unadulterated
socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that
have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades....
When I used to read Delong's blog before Delong went off on Sanders because Delong thought that
Hillary Clinton would give Delongs son a job...
There was economics student that penned a response where he mentioned that the economics profession
generally dislikes models with negative externalities. But truly loath models that incorporate
positive externalities.
A positive externality is where some action on your part benefits you _and_ benefits some third
party.
One can assume Milton Friedman and his followers find that concept revolting indeed.
While I was not in Davos, I read about the proceedings and meeting in the Western European and
Chinese press and was impressed by the community emphasis placed on social justice. Possibly there
was considerable individual resistance to the public theme, and Lawrence Summers would readily
sense such resistance, but the public theme from the speech by Xi Jinping on was encouraging and
portrayed in Western Europe and China as encouraging.
Let me rephrase: Name me some Fortune 500 companies who consider potential societal impacts of
their actions and, as a result, sometimes make decisions which don't maximize their profits but
are the "right" thing to do for the community/their workers/the environment/etc.? What Fortune
500 companies are motivated by things beyond maximizing profits for shareholders?
My point is that corporate leaders who are charged to act to maximize profits will always be
cowards when it comes to moral and ethical issues. If their job is to maximize profits. If they
don't want to lose their job then that's what they'll do - act to maximize profits. Where would
Summers get the idea that they would act any differently? Do the people he's referring to have
a track record of choosing the moral high ground over profits? If they do then I could understand
surprise and disappointment that they're folding. But they've never had to face that choice before
let alone chosen moral high ground over money, have they?
My point is that corporate leaders who are charged to act to maximize profits will always be cowards
when it comes to moral and ethical issues. If their job is to maximize profits. If they don't
want to lose their job then that's what they'll do - act to maximize profits. Where would Summers
get the idea that they would act any differently? Do the people he's referring to have a track
record of choosing the moral high ground over profits? ...
I recall Summers/Romer with both houses and Obama blowing their chances to do something for the
middle/working class.
Summers/Delong said if the stimulus was too small we could always get another later, yet that
chance to do something never came and he did nothing.....
I'd like Larry to ponder whether it was he who did nothing.
From comments: "Saying Davos without Trump is like Hamlet without the prince implies a dignity
about the event which is rather far fetched. More like the Dark Side without Darth Vader ... trouble
is, Davos ain't fiction." "The biggest cabal of sociopathic criminals the world has ever
known."
Notable quotes:
"... This is not new. Klaus Schwab, the man who founded the World Economic Forum in the early 1970s, warned as long ago as 1996 that globalisation had entered a critical phase. "A mounting backlash against its effects, especially in the industrial democracies, is threatening a very disruptive impact on economic activity and social stability in many countries," he said. ..."
"... Schwab's warning was not heeded. There was no real attempt to make globalisation work for everyone. Communities affected by the export of jobs to countries where labour was cheaper were left to rot. The rewards of growth went disproportionately to a privileged few. Resentment quietly festered until there was a backlash. For Schwab, Brexit and Trump are a bitter blow, a repudiation of what he likes to call the spirit of Davos. ..."
"... It would be wrong, however, to imagine that business is terrified at the prospect of a Trump presidency. Boardrooms rather like the idea of a big cut in US corporation tax. They favour deregulation. They purr at plans to spend more on infrastructure. Wall Street is happy because it thinks the new president will mean stronger growth and higher corporate earnings. ..."
"... 'Policy decisions-not God, nature, or the invisible hand-exposed American manufacturing workers to direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world. Policymakers could have exposed more highly paid workers such as doctors and lawyers to this same competition, but a bipartisan congressional consensus, and presidents of both parties, instead chose to keep them largely protected.' ..."
"... Good article by the way. Recommend others to read. Thanks. ..."
"... Stop trying to shackle every conservative to the desperate and ugly views of the few. Deplorables and their alt-right kin, are so small in number. We ought keep an eye on the Deplorables but little else ... they're politically insignificant. I wish you'd stop trying to throw the average Republican voter into the basket of bigoted, racist rednecks. It's deplorable! ..."
"... Saying Davos without Trump is like Hamlet without the prince implies a dignity about the event which is rather far fetched. More like the Dark Side without Darth Vader ... trouble is, Davos ain't fiction. ..."
"... Why would Daniel go into the lion's den? Trump is committed to stopping the excesses of the "swamp rats" most of whom are at Davos. The world will be turned on its head in 2017; it is going to be interesting to watch the demise of those at the top of the pyramid. ..."
"... What exactly is the "Spirit of Davos" then? A bunch of fat, rich elderly men and their hangers-on troughing themselves to the point of bursting on fine wines and gourmet food, while paying lip-service to the poor? ..."
"... One question for Davos might be: how are you going to resolve differences between the vast majority of people who exist as national citizens, and the multinational elite? It's not a new question. ..."
"... Multinationals, corporate and individuals, can dodge the taxes which pay for services we all rely on but especially citizens. ..."
"... Davos is not restricting attendance to high office bearers. Trump could have gone, had he wanted to, or he could have sent one of his family/staff - that's how Davos works. ..."
"... Bilderberg is by invitation, as far as I know, Davos by application and paying a high membership, plus fee. But the fact he is not represented could be a good sign if it means that the focus is on solving domestic issues as opposed to spending so much time and resources on international ones. ..."
"... My own take on the annual Davos circus is as follows:. It is a totally useless conclave and has never achieved anything tangible since its inception. ..."
"... This gives an excellent opportunity for those who hold so-called "numbered" or other secret bank accounts in the proverbially secretive Swiss banks to have their annual tete-a-tete with their bankers and carry out whatever maintenance has to be done to their bank accounts. After all, in tiny Switzerland, it is only a hop from one town to another. No one will miss you if you are not visible for a day or two. If any nosy taxman back home asks: "What was the purpose of your visit to Switzerland?", one can say with a straight face: "Oh, I was invited to be a keynote speaker at Davos to talk about the increasing income disparity in the world and on what steps to take to mitigate it."! ..."
"... I think globalisation is inhumane. Someone calculated that if labour were to follow capital flows we would see one third of the globe move around on a constant basis. One son in Cape Town a daughter in New York and a brother in Tokyo. It's not how human societies operate we are group animals like herds of cows. We need to be firmly rooted in order to build functioning and humane societies. That is the migration aspect of globalization the other aspect is the complete destruction of diverse cultures. ..."
Trump's influence can also be felt in other ways. The manner in which he won the US election,
tapping in to deep-seated anger about the unfair distribution of the spoils of economic growth,
has been noted. There is talk in Davos of the need to ensure that globalisation works for everyone.
This is not new. Klaus Schwab, the man who founded the World Economic Forum in the early 1970s,
warned as long ago as 1996 that globalisation had entered a critical phase. "A mounting backlash
against its effects, especially in the industrial democracies, is threatening a very disruptive
impact on economic activity and social stability in many countries," he said.
Schwab's warning was not heeded. There was no real attempt to make globalisation work for everyone.
Communities affected by the export of jobs to countries where labour was cheaper were left to
rot. The rewards of growth went disproportionately to a privileged few. Resentment quietly festered
until there was a backlash. For Schwab, Brexit and Trump are a bitter blow, a repudiation of what
he likes to call the spirit of Davos.
It would be wrong, however, to imagine that business is terrified at the prospect of a Trump
presidency. Boardrooms rather like the idea of a big cut in US corporation tax. They favour deregulation.
They purr at plans to spend more on infrastructure. Wall Street is happy because it thinks the
new president will mean stronger growth and higher corporate earnings.
In Trump's absence, it has been left to two senior members of the outgoing Obama administration
– his vice-president, Joe Biden, and secretary of state John Kerry – to fly the US flag.
Just
as significantly, Xi Jinping is the first Chinese premier to attend Davos and has made it clear
that, unlike Trump, he has no plans to resile from international obligations. The sense of a changing
of the guard is palpable.
missuswatanabe
It's the way globalisation has been managed for the benefit of the richest in the developed
world that has been bad for the masses rather than globalisation itself.
I thought this was an interesting, if US-centric, perspective on things:
'Policy decisions-not God, nature, or the invisible hand-exposed American manufacturing
workers to direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world. Policymakers could
have exposed more highly paid workers such as doctors and lawyers to this same competition,
but a bipartisan congressional consensus, and presidents of both parties, instead chose to
keep them largely protected.'
Good article by the way. Recommend others to read. Thanks.
Paul Paterson -> ConBrio
Decent, hardworking Americans facing social and economic insecurity, whether on the right
or left, ought to be the focus. We need to deal with the concerns of the average citizen, however
it is they vote. Fringe groups don't serve our attention given tbe very real problems the country
faces.
Stop trying to shackle every conservative to the desperate and ugly views of the few. Deplorables
and their alt-right kin, are so small in number. We ought keep an eye on the Deplorables but
little else ... they're politically insignificant. I wish you'd stop trying to throw the average
Republican voter into the basket of bigoted, racist rednecks. It's deplorable!
What we should concern ourselves with is the very real social and economic insecurity felt
by many in red states and blue states alike. Those decent and hardworking Americans, regardless
of party, are joined in much. Deplorables aren't the average Republican voter and didn't win
Trump an election - they are too few to win much of anything.
What you keep referring to as Deplorables are decent Americans seeking change and socioeconomic
justice. You are mixing up citizens who happen to vote for the GOP withbwhite nationalist scum.
How dare you tar all conservatives with the hate monger brush!
Spunky325 -> Paul Paterson
Actually, before taking office, Trump strong-armed Ford and GM into putting more money in
their American plants, instead of moving more production to Mexico. He's also questioned cost-overruns
on Air Force One and several military projects which is causing companies to back off. I can't
think of another American president who has felt it was important to keep jobs in America or
who has questioned military spending. Good for him!
Paul Paterson -> Spunky325
You've made it quite clear "you can't think" as you've bought into the ruse. The question
is why are you so boastful about it? Trump's policies are even seen by economists on the right
as creating staggering levels of debt, creating more economic inequality and unlikely to increase
jobs.
Among many flaws, they point out tax proposals that hurt the poor and middle class to such
a degree it almost seems targeted. This is the same economic plot that has failed working Americans
repeatedly. You folks are getting caught up in a time share pitch and embracing policy that
has little chance to help the average American - however it is they vote. It isn't supposed
to but y'all are asleep at the wheel.
DrBlamm0
Saying Davos without Trump is like Hamlet without the prince implies a dignity about
the event which is rather far fetched. More like the Dark Side without Darth Vader ... trouble
is, Davos ain't fiction.
johhnybgood
Why would Daniel go into the lion's den? Trump is committed to stopping the excesses
of the "swamp rats" most of whom are at Davos. The world will be turned on its head in 2017;
it is going to be interesting to watch the demise of those at the top of the pyramid.
bilyou
What exactly is the "Spirit of Davos" then? A bunch of fat, rich elderly men and their
hangers-on troughing themselves to the point of bursting on fine wines and gourmet food, while
paying lip-service to the poor?
Maybe Trump just decided to trough it at his tower and avoid hanging out with a grotesque
bunch of insufferable see you next Tuesdays.
Ricardo_K
One question for Davos might be: how are you going to resolve differences between the
vast majority of people who exist as national citizens, and the multinational elite? It's not
a new question.
Multinationals, corporate and individuals, can dodge the taxes which pay for services we
all rely on but especially citizens.
James Patterson
Xi's statements on a trade war are completely self serving. But his assertions that he is
against protectionism and unfair trading practices is laughably hypocritical. China refuses
to let any Silicon Valley Internet company one inch past the Great Firewall. Under his direction
the CCP has imposed draconian regulations, which change by the week, on American Companies
operating in China making fair competition with local Chinese companies impossible.
The business climate in China is reprehensible. The CCP has resorted to extortion, requiring
that U.S. tech companies share their most sensitive trade secrets and IP with Chinese state
enterprises or get barred from conducting business there. Sadly, U.S. companies entered China
with high expectations and invested hundreds of millions of dollars in factories, labs and
equipment. This threat has caused many CEO's to sacrifice their company's long term viability
by transferring their most closely guarded technological advances to China or face the loss
their entire investment in China. Even so, multinationals are beginning the Chinese exodus
led by those with less financial exposure soon to be followed by companies like Apple despite
significant economic ties.
True, most people believe a 'trade war' with China means America is the defacto loser because
of dishonest reporting. The truth is that America's economic exposure to China is extremely
limited. U.S. exports to China represent only 7% of America's total exports worldwide; which
in turn accounts for less than 1% of total U.S. GDP (Wells Fargo Economics Group 2015). Most
of America's exports to China are raw materials, which can be redirected to other markets with
some effort. So even if China blocked all U.S. exports tomorrow, America's economy could absorb
the blow with minimal damage. This presents the U.S. government with a wide range of options
to deal with China's many trade infractions and unfair practices as aggressively or punitively
as it wishes.
europeangrayling
Poor Davos attendees. You feel for them at their fancy alpine Bilderberg. It's like the
meeting of the mafia organizations, if the mafia became legal and respected now and ran the
world economy. And I don't think those economic royalists at Davos miss Trump, Trump was a
small fish compared to the Davos people. They make Trump look like a dishwasher.
They are just pissed Trump came out against the TPP and those globalist 'free trade' deals,
and doesn't want more regime change maybe. They like everything else about Trump's policies,
the big tax cuts, environmental and banking deregulations galore, it's like Reagan 2.0, without
the 'free trade'. But they really want that 'free trade' though, those guys are used to getting
everything. Imagine if Bernie won, they would really hate that guy, he is also against the
TPPs and trade, and for less war, and against everything else they are used to. And that's
good, if those honorable brilliant Davos gentleman don't like you, that's not a bad thing.
soundofthesuburbs -> soundofthesuburbs
With secular stagnation we should all be asking why is economics so bad?
Keynesian redistributive capitalism went out with Margaret Thatcher and inequality has been
rising ever since (there is a clue there for the economists amongst us).
How did these new ideas rise to prominence?
"There Is No Nobel Prize in Economics
It's awarded by Sweden's central bank, foisted among the five real prizewinners, often to economists
for the 1% -- and the surviving Nobel family is strongly against it."
"The award for economics came almost 70 years later-bootstrapped to the Nobel in 1968 as a
bit of a marketing ploy to celebrate the Bank of Sweden's 300th anniversary." Yes, you read
that right: "a marketing ploy."
Today's economics rose to prominence by awarding its economists Nobel Prizes that weren't Nobel
Prizes.
No wonder it's so bad.
Global elites can use all sorts of trickery to put their ideas in place, but economics is economics
and if doesn't reflect how the economy operates it won't work.
Secular stagnation – what more evidence do we need?
HauptmannGurski -> bcarey
Davos is not restricting attendance to high office bearers. Trump could have gone, had
he wanted to, or he could have sent one of his family/staff - that's how Davos works.
Bilderberg is by invitation, as far as I know, Davos by application and paying a high membership,
plus fee. But the fact he is not represented could be a good sign if it means that the focus
is on solving domestic issues as opposed to spending so much time and resources on international
ones.
Meanwhile, alibaba's Jack Ma said in Davos that the US had spent many trillions on wars in
the last 30 years and neglected their own infrastructure. Money is for people, or some such
like, he said. Just mentioning it here, because the MSM tend to dislike running this kind of
remark.
Rajanvn -> HauptmannGurski
My own take on the annual Davos circus is as follows:. It is a totally useless conclave
and has never achieved anything tangible since its inception.
Did it, in any way, with all the stars in the financial galaxy gathered in one place, warn
against the 2008 global financial meltdown? The real reason why so many moneybags congregate
at a place which would be shunned by all who have no affinity for snow sports may be, according
to my own reckoning, may not be that innocent and may even be quite sinister.
This gives an excellent opportunity for those who hold so-called "numbered" or other
secret bank accounts in the proverbially secretive Swiss banks to have their annual tete-a-tete
with their bankers and carry out whatever maintenance has to be done to their bank accounts.
After all, in tiny Switzerland, it is only a hop from one town to another. No one will miss
you if you are not visible for a day or two. If any nosy taxman back home asks: "What was the
purpose of your visit to Switzerland?", one can say with a straight face: "Oh, I was invited
to be a keynote speaker at Davos to talk about the increasing income disparity in the world
and on what steps to take to mitigate it."!
Roland33
I think globalisation is inhumane. Someone calculated that if labour were to follow capital
flows we would see one third of the globe move around on a constant basis. One son in Cape
Town a daughter in New York and a brother in Tokyo. It's not how human societies operate we
are group animals like herds of cows. We need to be firmly rooted in order to build functioning
and humane societies. That is the migration aspect of globalization the other aspect is the
complete destruction of diverse cultures.
If everyone drives Toyota and everyone drinks Starbucks
we lose the diversity of culture that people claim they find so valuable. And replaces it with
a mono-culture of Levi jeans and McDonalds. Wealth inequality is really something that can
be reduced if you look various countries score higher in this regard than others while still
being highly successful market economies but I think money is secondary to the displacement
and alienation that come with the first two aspects of globalisation. I find it strange that
it is now the right that advocates reversing these neoliberal trends and the left that seems
to champion it. I was conscious during the 90's and anti-globalisation was clearly a left wing
issue. For whatever reason the left just leaves room for the right to harvest the grapes of
wrath they warned about many years ago. Don't blame the "populist" right ask why the left left
them the space.
"... Davos elite faces evaporating trust in "post-trith" era ..."
"... "The most shocking statistic of this whole study is that half the people who are high-income, college-educated and well-informed also believe the system doesn't work." ..."
"... Even wealthy, well educated people understand things aren't working, which begs the question. Who does think the system is working? Well, the people attending Davos, of course. These are the folks who cheer on a world in which eight people own as much as the bottom 50%. ..."
"... The mere fact that billionaire-owned media is so hostile to populism tells you everything you need to know. Behind the idea of populism is the notion of self-government, and Davos-type elitists hate this. They believe in a technocracy in which they make all the important decisions. Populism is dangerous because populism is empowering. It implies that the people ultimately have the power. ..."
"... The global financial crisis of 2008/9 and the migrant crisis of 2015/16 exposed the impotence of politicians, deepening public disillusion and pushing people towards populists who offered simple explanations and solutions. ..."
"... Populism can be dangerous, and it's certainly messy, but it's a crucial pressure release valve for any functioning free society. If you don't allow populist movements to do their thing in the short-term, you'll get far worse outcomes in the long-term. ..."
"... Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. ..."
DAVOS MAN : "A soulless man, technocratic, nationless and cultureless, severed from reality.
The modern economics that undergirded Davos capitalism is equally soulless, a managerial capitalism
that reduces economics to mathematics and separates it from human action and human creativity."
I am not a Democrat or a Republican. I do not consider myself a libertarian, progressive, socialist,
anarchist, conservative, neoconservative or neoliberal. I'm just a 38 year old guy trying to figure
it all out. Naturally, this doesn't imply that there aren't things which I hold dear. I have a strong
belief system based on key principles. It's just that I don't think it makes sense for me to self-label
and become part of a tribe. The moment you self-label, is the moment you stop thinking for yourself.
It's also the moment you stop listening. When you think you have all the answers, anyone who doesn't
think exactly as you do on all topics is either stupid or "paid opposition." I don't subscribe
to this way of thinking.
Despite my refusal to self-identify, I am comfortable stating that I'm a firm supporter of populist
movements and appreciate the instrumental role they've played historically in free societies. The
reason I like this term is because it carries very little baggage. It doesn't mean you adhere to
a specific set of policies or solutions, but that you believe above all else that the concerns of
average citizens matter and must be reflected in government policy.
Populism reaches its political potential once such concerns become so acute they translate into
popular movements, which in turn influence the levers of power. Populism is not a bug, but is a key
feature in any democratic society. It functions as a sort of pressure relief valve for free societies.
Indeed, it allows for an adjustment and recalibration of the existing order at the exact point in
the cycle when it is needed most. In our current corrupt, unethical and depraved oligarchy, populism
is exactly what is needed to restore some balance to society. Irrespective of what you think of Donald
Trump or Bernie Sanders, both political movements were undoubtably populist in nature. This doesn't
mean that Trump govern as populist once he is sworn into power, but there's little doubt that the
energy which propelled him to the Presidency was part of a populist wave.
Trump understands this, and despite having surrounded himself with an endless stream of slimy
ex-Goldman Sachs bankers and other assorted billionaires, his campaign took the following position
with regard to Davos according to
Bloomberg :
Donald Trump won't send an official representative to the annual gathering of the world's economic
elite in Davos, taking place next week in the days leading up to his inauguration, although one of
the president-elect's advisers is slated to attend.
Former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, a regular attendee in the past, told the group he would
skip 2017 after being named in December to head the National Economic Council, said people familiar
with the conference. Other top Trump appointees will also pass up the forum.
A senior member of Trump's transition team said the president-elect thought it would betray his
populist-fueled movement to have a presence at the high-powered annual gathering in the Swiss Alps.
The gathering of millionaires, billionaires, political leaders and celebrities represents the power
structure that fueled the populist anger that helped Trump win the election, said the person, who
asked for anonymity to discuss the matter.
While all of this sounds great, it's not entirely true. For example:
Hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci is planning to travel to Davos, though. The founder of SkyBridge
Capital and an early backer of Trump's campaign, Scaramucci was named on Thursday as an assistant
to the president.
Not that Scaramucci's presence should surprise anyone, he's the consummate banker apologist, anti-populist.
Recall what he
said last month :
"I think the cabal against the bankers is over."
This guy shouldn't be allowed within ten feet of any populist President, but Trump unfortunately
seems to have a thing for ex-Goldman Sachs bankers.
While we're on then subject, let's discuss Davos for a moment. You know, the idyllic Swiss town
where the world's most dastardly politicians, oligarchs and their fawning media servants will gather
in a technocratic orgy of panels and cocktail parties to discuss how best to manage the world's affairs
in the year ahead. Yes, that Davos.
DAVOS, Switzerland – The global economy is in better shape than it's been in years. Stock markets
are booming, oil prices are on the rise again and the risks of a rapid economic slowdown in China,
a major source of concern a year ago, have eased.
First report from Davos is in. Everything's fine.
And yet, as political leaders, CEOs and top bankers make their annual trek up the Swiss Alps to
the World Economic Forum in Davos, the mood is anything but celebratory.
Last year, the consensus here was that Trump had no chance of being elected. His victory, less
than half a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union, was a slap at the principles that
elites in Davos have long held dear, from globalization and free trade to multilateralism.
Moises Naim of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was even more blunt: "There is a
consensus that something huge is going on, global and in many respects unprecedented. But we don't
know what the causes are, nor how to deal with it."
Thank you for your invaluable insight, Moises.
The titles of the discussion panels at the WEF, which runs from Jan. 17-20, evoke the unsettling
new landscape. Among them are "Squeezed and Angry: How to Fix the Middle Class Crisis" , "Politics
of Fear or Rebellion of the Forgotten?", "Tolerance at the Tipping Point?" and "The Post-EU Era".
Ah, a panel on how to fix the middle class. Sounds interesting until you find out who some of
the speakers are.
You really can't make this stuff up. Now back to Reuters .
Perhaps the central question in Davos, a four-day affair of panel discussions, lunches and cocktail
parties that delve into subjects as diverse as terrorism, artificial intelligence and wellness, is
whether leaders can agree on the root causes of public anger and begin to articulate a response.
This has to be a joke. The public has been yelling and screaming about all sorts of issues they
care about from both sides of the political spectrum for a while now. Whether people identify as
on the "right" or the "left" there's general consensus (at least in U.S. populist movements) of the
following: oligarchs must be reined in, rule of law must be restored, unnecessary military adventures
overseas must be stopped, and lobbyist written phony "free trade" deals must be scrapped and reversed.
There's no secret about how strongly the various domestic populist movements feel on those topics,
but the Davos set likes to pretends that these issues don't exist. They'd rather focus on Russia
or identify politics, that way they can control the narrative and then propose their own anti-populist,
technocratic solutions.
A WEF report on global risks released before Davos highlighted "diminishing public trust in institutions"
and noted that rebuilding faith in the political process and leaders would be a "difficult task".
It's not difficult at all, what we need are new leaders with new ideas, but the people at Davos
don't want to admit that either. After all, these are the types who unanimously and enthusiastically
supported the ultimate discredited insider for U.S. President, Hillary Clinton.
Moving along, let's take a look at a separate
Reuters
article previewing Davos, starting with the title.
Davos elite faces evaporating trust in "post-trith" era
Did you see what they did there? The evaporating trust in globalist elites has nothing to do with
"post-truth," but as usual, the media insists on making excuses for the rich and powerful. The above
title implies that elites lost the public truth as a result of a post-truth world, not because they
are a bunch of disconnected, lying, corrupt thieves. Like Hillary and the Democrats, they are never
to blame for anything that happens.
With that out of the way, let's take a look at some of the text:
Trust in governments, companies and the media plunged last year as ballots from the United States
to Britain to the Philippines rocked political establishments and scandals hit business.
The majority of people now believe the economic and political system is failing them, according
to the annual Edelman Trust Barometer, released on Monday ahead of the Jan. 17-20 World Economic
Forum (WEF).
"There's a sense that the system is broken," Richard Edelman, head of the communications marketing
firm that commissioned the research, told Reuters.
"The most shocking statistic of this whole study is that half the people who are high-income,
college-educated and well-informed also believe the system doesn't work."
Even wealthy, well educated people understand things aren't working, which begs the question.
Who does think the system is working? Well, the people attending Davos, of course. These are the
folks who cheer on a world in which eight people own as much as the bottom 50%.
As can be seen fro the above excerpts, one thing that's abundantly clear to almost everyone is
that the system is broken. This is exactly where populism comes in to perform its crucial function.
This is not an endorsement of Trump, but rather an endorsement of mass popular movements generally,
and a recognition that such movements are the only way true change is ever achieved. As Frederick
Douglass
noted in 1857:
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical,
but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of
injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted
with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of
those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held
and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance,
either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly
pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must
pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by
our lives and the lives of others .
The above is an eternal truth when it comes to human struggle. The idea that the most wealthy
and powerful individuals on earth are going to get together in a Swiss chalet and figure out how
to help the world's most vulnerable and suffering is on its face preposterous. Again, this is why
popular movements are so important. They represent the only method we know of that historically yields
tangible results. This is also why the elitists and their media minions hate populism and demonize
it every chance they get. Which is really telling, particularly when you look at the various definitions
of the word. First, here's what comes up when you type the word into Google:
pop·u·lism
/ˈpäpyəˌlizəm/
noun
support for the concerns of ordinary people.
"it is clear that your populism identifies with the folks on the bottom of the
ladder"
•the quality of appealing to or being aimed at ordinary people.
"art museums did not gain bigger audiences through a new populism"
Or how about the following from Merriam-Webster:
Definition of populist
1 :
a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people; especially, often
capitalized
:
a member of a U.S. political party formed in 1891 primarily to represent agrarian interests
and to advocate the free coinage of silver and government control of monopolies
2:
a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people
-
populism
play \-ˌli-zəm\ noun
-
populistic
play \ˌpä-pyə-ˈlis-tik\ adjective
Aside from the 19th century historical reference, what's not to like about any of the above? The
mere fact that billionaire-owned media is so hostile to populism tells you everything you need to
know. Behind the idea of populism is the notion of self-government, and Davos-type elitists hate
this. They believe in a technocracy in which they make all the important decisions. Populism
is dangerous because populism is empowering. It implies that the people ultimately have the power.
I think a useful exercise for readers during this Davos circus laden week is to note whenever
the word "populism" is used within mainstream media articles. From my experience, it's almost always
portrayed in an overwhelmingly negative manner. Here's just one example from the first of the two
Reuters articles mentioned above.
The global financial crisis of 2008/9 and the migrant crisis of 2015/16 exposed the impotence
of politicians, deepening public disillusion and pushing people towards populists who offered simple
explanations and solutions.
The key phrase in the above is, " populists who offered simple explanations and solutions." This
betrays an incredible sense of arrogance and contempt for regular citizens. Note that it didn't offer
a critique of a specific populist leader and his or her polices, but rather presented a sweeping
dismissal of all popular movements as "simplistic." In other words, despite the fact that the people
mingling at Davos are the exact same people who set the world on fire, they somehow remain the only
ones capable enough to fix the world. How utterly ridiculous.
The good news is that most people now plainly see the absurdity of such a worldview, and understand
that the people at Davos represent a roadblock to progress, as opposed to any sort of solution. While
I don't endorse any particular populist movement at moment, I fully recognize the need for increased
populism as a facet of American political life, particularly at this moment in time.
Populism can be dangerous, and it's certainly messy, but it's a crucial pressure release valve
for any functioning free society. If you don't allow populist movements to do their thing in the
short-term, you'll get far worse outcomes in the long-term.
In the timeless words of JFK:
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
"... Let us state the obvious: None of these men are Roman Emperors, and they haven't got the wherewithal to "blow up" anything but a stock market bubble. They are not Lex Luthors or Gandalfs or Stalins. ..."
"... Their products do not bring about revolutions. They are simply robber barons, JP Morgans and Andrew Mellons in mediocre T-shirts. ..."
"... The vast majority of Silicon Valley startups, the sort that project lofty missions and managed improbably lucrative IPOs despite never having graced the cover of The Economist or the frontal cortex of the president, work precisely like any other kind of mundane sales operation in search of a product: Underpaid cold-callers receive low wages and less job security in exchange for a foosball table and the burden of growing a company as quickly as possible so that it can reach a liquidation event. Owners and investors get rich. Managers stay comfortable. ..."
"... The employees get hosed. None of this is particularly original. At least the real robber barons built the railroads. ..."
Let us state the obvious: None of these men are Roman Emperors, and they haven't got the
wherewithal to "blow up" anything but a stock market bubble. They are not Lex Luthors or Gandalfs
or Stalins.
Their products do not bring about revolutions. They are simply robber barons, JP Morgans
and Andrew Mellons in mediocre T-shirts.
I have no doubt that many are preternaturally intelligent, hardworking people, and it is a
shame that they have dedicated these talents to the mundane accumulation of capital. But there
is nothing remarkable about these men. The Pirates of Silicon Valley do not have imperial ambitions.
They have financial ones.
The vast majority of Silicon Valley startups, the sort that project lofty missions and
managed improbably lucrative IPOs despite never having graced the cover of The Economist or the
frontal cortex of the president, work precisely like any other kind of mundane sales operation
in search of a product: Underpaid cold-callers receive low wages and less job security in exchange
for a foosball table and the burden of growing a company as quickly as possible so that it can
reach a liquidation event. Owners and investors get rich. Managers stay comfortable.
The employees get hosed. None of this is particularly original. At least the real robber
barons built the railroads.
==============================
Why IS Facebook, a not nearly as crappy email system, worth so much money?
Thats like asking why do intestinal parasites want to eat your sh*t? No, they want to eat YOU
.
Does "redneck" = "neoliberal looters"? If so, I'd agree with
the craazy observation. But it's just more of the same poisons the
few have been serving up to the many. The Governator, Snick Rott,
with the cover of a carefully built Chamber of Commerce majority
in the gerrymandered legislature, fired all the PSC members who
showed even the slightest inclination to "regulate" as that term
used to be understood, and put cronies and looters in their spots.
And it is not "redneckery" that produces activities like the ones so mildly described in this
link: "Univita Health Losing Medicaid Contracts,"
http://health.wusf.usf.edu/post/univita-health-losing-medicaid-contracts#stream/0
What this all
meant is that people who take care of sick and disabled people, provide nursing and aide and medical
equipment to them, including low paid aides and nurses, were just not paid by the scammers, who disappeared
into Chapter 7 with all the loot (general revenue money given by the State and feds to Univita, to
pay forward to the actual workers and the small businesses that employed them, many of whom went
under as a result of NONpayment.) F@kking over many of my nursing friends who provide home health
care (which is demonstrably more "efficient" than what Scott also tried to do, force all of them
into cronies' "nursing homes" to be robbed, abused and early-deathed), and of course the people ("worthless
eaters" mostly) who need stuff like oxygen and wheel chairs and dressings and simple attention to
"activities of daily living" also got fokked.
And that "consolidating for business efficiency" of all Medicaid and Medicaid-Medicare payment
management into the solitary monopoly grasping hands of the Univita C-Suite-ers was engineered by
Snick Rott and the smaller scale bunch of looters (compared to the Trumpening) that Sick Snott brought
in with him, all done as a favor to a crony, with a lot of sneaky sh!t to snake it past various "legal
requirements" and "regulatory reviews."
Thank you for your very cognizant and well versed rant! I
find the saga of Mr. Scott to be a well rehearsed meme of so
many, way too many high officials in the land including the next
occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. To put it as politely as possible:
"I'll eat very well, dress very well, have several spacious homes,
drive very expensive cars, clothe my family in furs and diamonds
and ask the public to pay for it all. Thank you very much. I
am a good person."
Ditto much of this for Texas under Gov Good Hair. Medicaid
serves to enrich the wealthy and well connected – the recipients
are merely the conduits of government cash.
Excellent rant!
This is a very weak article from a prominent paleoconservative, but it is instructive what a mess he has in his head as for the
nature of Trump phenomenon. We should probably consider the tern "New Class" that neocons invented as synonym for "neoliberals". If
so, why the author is afraid to use the term? Does he really so poorly educated not to understand the nature of this neoliberal revolution
and its implications? Looks like he never read "Quite coup"
That probably reflects the crisis of pealeoconservatism itself.
Notable quotes:
"... What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. ..."
"... the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration, while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus. ..."
"... The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is this class, effectively the ruling class of the country? ..."
"... The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed, was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists. ..."
"... The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined. ..."
"... Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction. ..."
"... concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class." ..."
"... It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy, and so on. ..."
"... I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom? ..."
"... Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation. ..."
"... Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class. ..."
"... Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment to free-market principles ..."
"... The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service. ..."
"... America's class war, like many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites. ..."
"... Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November. ..."
"... The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. ..."
"... Marx taught that you identify classes by their structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system of production. ..."
"... [New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the Globalized Economy and financial markets. ..."
"... "mobilize working-class voters against the establishment in both parties. " = workers of the world unite. ..."
"... Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide. ..."
"... Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times – nationalism vs. Globalism. ..."
"... The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right in a sense. ..."
"... The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters." ..."
"... The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties' elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA. ..."
"... . And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and used for their own liberal ends. ..."
"... Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class" are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector. ..."
"... The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization, industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization. ..."
"... The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America ..."
"... . Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure most of the public fully grasps or desires ..."
"... There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes. This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but the underlying conflict will always remain. ..."
"... State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those. ..."
"... People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's, per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards. ..."
"... People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions. ..."
"... I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation, but of justice being done period. ..."
"... A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers instead of a nation of producers. ..."
"... It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya ..."
"... Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on. But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled. ..."
"... The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come up in the morning now," ..."
"... That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data point would look just the same. ..."
"... "On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests." This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities in which they lived. ..."
"... The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused. ..."
Since the Cold War ended, U.S. politics has seen a series of insurgent candidacies. Pat Buchanan prefigured Trump in the Republican
contests of 1992 and 1996. Ralph Nader challenged the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party from the outside in 2000. Ron Paul vexed
establishment Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012. And this year, Trump was not the only candidate to confound
his party's elite: Bernie Sanders harried Hillary Clinton right up to the Democratic convention.
What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All
have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. (The libertarian Paul favors unilateral free trade: by his lights, treaties
like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership are not free trade at all but international regulatory pacts.) And while no one would
mistake Ralph Nader's or Ron Paul's views on immigration for Pat Buchanan's or Donald Trump's, Nader and Paul have registered their
own dissents from the approach to immigration that prevails in Washington.
Sanders has been more in line with his party's orthodoxy on that issue. But that didn't save him from being attacked by Clinton
backers for having an insufficiently nonwhite base of support. Once again, what might have appeared to be a class conflict-in this
case between a democratic socialist and an elite liberal with ties to high finance-could be explained away as really about race.
Race, like religion, is a real factor in how people vote. Its relevance to elite politics, however, is less clear. Something else
has to account for why the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration,
while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus.
The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all
faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is
this class, effectively the ruling class of the country?
Some critics on the right have identified it with the "managerial" class described by James Burnham in his 1941 book The Managerial
Revolution . But it bears a stronger resemblance to what what others have called "the New Class." In fact, the interests of this
New Class of college-educated "verbalists" are antithetical to those of the industrial managers that Burnham described. Understanding
the relationship between these two often conflated concepts provides insight into politics today, which can be seen as a clash between
managerial and New Class elites.
♦♦♦
The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier
stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed,
was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists.
Over the next century, however, history did not follow the script. By 1992, the Soviet Union was gone, Communist China had embarked
on market reforms, and Western Europe was turning away from democratic socialism. There was no need to predict the future; mankind
had achieved its destiny, a universal order of [neo]liberal democracy. Marx had it backwards: capitalism was the end of history.
But was the truth as simple as that? Long before the collapse of the USSR, many former communists -- some of whom remained socialists,
while others joined the right-thought not. The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run
by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined.
Among the first to advance this argument was James Burnham, a professor of philosophy at New York University who became a leading
Trotskyist thinker. As he broke with Trotsky and began moving toward the right, Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet
mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs
of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to
the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction.
Burnham called this the "managerial revolution." The managers of industry and technically trained government officials did not
own the means of production, like the capitalists of old. But they did control the means of production, thanks to their expertise
and administrative prowess.
The rise of this managerial class would have far-reaching consequences, he predicted. Burnham wrote in his 1943 book, The Machiavellians
: "that the managers may function, the economic and political structure must be modified, as it is now being modified, so as
to rest no longer on private ownership and small-scale nationalist sovereignty, but primarily upon state control of the economy,
and continental or vast regional world political organization." Burnham pointed to Nazi Germany, imperial Japan-which became a "continental"
power by annexing Korea and Manchuria-and the Soviet Union as examples.
The defeat of the Axis powers did not halt the progress of the managerial revolution. Far from it: not only did the Soviets retain
their form of managerialism, but the West increasingly adopted a managerial corporatism of its own, marked by cooperation between
big business and big government: high-tech industrial crony capitalism, of the sort that characterizes the military-industrial complex
to this day. (Not for nothing was Burnham a great advocate of America's developing a supersonic transport of its own to compete with
the French-British Concorde.)
America's managerial class was personified by Robert S. McNamara, the former Ford Motor Company executive who was secretary of
defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In a 1966 story for National Review , "Why Do They Hate Robert Strange McNamara?"
Burnham answered the question in class terms: "McNamara is attacked by the Left because the Left has a blanket hatred of the system
of business enterprise; he is criticized by the Right because the Right harks back, in nostalgia if not in practice, to outmoded
forms of business enterprise."
McNamara the managerial technocrat was too business-oriented for a left that still dreamed of bringing the workers to power. But
the modern form of industrial organization he represented was not traditionally capitalist enough for conservatives who were at heart
19th-century classical liberals.
National Review readers responded to Burnham's paean to McNamara with a mixture of incomprehension and indignation. It
was a sign that even readers familiar with Burnham-he appeared in every issue of the magazine-did not always follow what he was saying.
The popular right wanted concepts that were helpful in labeling enemies, and Burnham was confusing matters by talking about changes
in the organization of government and industry that did not line up with anyone's value judgements.
More polemically useful was a different concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class."
"This 'new class' is not easily defined but may be vaguely described," Irving Kristol wrote in a 1975 essay for the Wall
Street Journal :
It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial
society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists
and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in
the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy,
and so on.
"Members of the new class do not 'control' the media," he continued, "they are the media-just as they are our educational
system, our public health and welfare system, and much else."
Burnham, writing in National Review in 1978, drew a sharp contrast between this concept and his own ideas:
I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous
actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after
all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers
of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going
to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom?
Burnham suffered a stroke later that year. Although he lived until 1987, his career as a writer was over. His last years coincided
with another great transformation of business and government. It began in the Carter administration, with moves to deregulate transportation
and telecommunications. This partial unwinding of the managerial revolution accelerated under Ronald Reagan. Regulatory and welfare-state
reforms, even privatization of formerly nationalized industries, also took off in the UK and Western Europe. All this did not, however,
amount to a restoration of the old capitalism or anything resembling laissez-faire.
The "[neo]liberal democracy" that triumphed at "the end of history"-to use Francis Fukuyama's words-was not the managerial capitalism
of the mid-20th century, either. It was instead the New Class's form of capitalism, one that could be embraced by Bill Clinton and
Tony Blair as readily as by any Republican or Thatcherite.
Irving Kristol had already noted in the 1970s that "this new class is not merely liberal but truly 'libertarian' in its approach
to all areas of life-except economics. It celebrates individual liberty of speech and expression and action to an unprecedented degree,
so that at times it seems almost anarchistic in its conception of the good life."
He was right about the New Class's "anything goes" mentality, but he was only partly correct about its attitude toward economics.
The young elite tended to scorn the bourgeois character of the old capitalism, and to them managerial figures like McNamara were
evil incarnate. But they had to get by-and they aspired to rule.
Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers
or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following
the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie
to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation.
Part of the tale can be told in a favorable light. New Left activists like Carl Oglesby fought the spiritual aridity and murderous
militarism of what they called "corporate liberalism"-Burnham's managerialism-while sincere young libertarians attacked the regulatory
state and seeded technological entrepreneurship. Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like
Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class.
Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment
to free-market principles. On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the
protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests. The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare
is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service.
The alliance between finance and the New Class accounts for the disposition of power in America today. The New Class has also
enlisted another invaluable ally: the managerial classes of East Asia. Trade with China-the modern managerial state par excellence-helps
keep American industry weak relative to finance and the service economy's verbalist-dominated sectors. America's class war, like
many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining
managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites.
The New Class plays a priestly role in its alliance with finance, absolving Wall Street for the sin of making money in exchange
for plenty of that money to keep the New Class in power. In command of foreign policy, the New Class gets to pursue humanitarian
ideological projects-to experiment on the world. It gets to evangelize by the sword. And with trade policy, it gets to suppress its
class rival, the managerial elite, at home. Through trade pacts and mass immigration the financial elite, meanwhile, gets to maximize
its returns without regard for borders or citizenship. The erosion of other nations' sovereignty that accompanies American hegemony
helps toward that end too-though our wars are more ideological than interest-driven.
♦♦♦
So we come to an historic moment. Instead of an election pitting another Bush against another Clinton, we have a race that poses
stark alternatives: a choice not only between candidates but between classes-not only between administrations but between regimes.
Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes,
"big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the
bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November.
The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite
its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. For the center-left establishment,
minority voters supply the electoral muscle. Religion and the culture war have served the same purpose for the establishment's center-right
faction. Trump showed that at least one of these sides could be beaten on its own turf-and it seems conceivable that if Bernie Sanders
had been black, he might have similarly beaten Clinton, without having to make concessions to New Class tastes.
The New Class establishment of both parties may be seriously misjudging what is happening here. Far from being the last gasp of
the demographically doomed-old, racially isolated white people, as Gallup's analysis says-Trump's insurgency may be the prototype
of an aggressive new politics, of either left or right, that could restore the managerial elite to power.
This is not something that conservatives-or libertarians who admire the old capitalism rather than New Class's simulacrum-might
welcome. But the only way that some entrenched policies may change is with a change of the class in power.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of The American Conservative .
Excellent analysis. What is important about the Trump phenomenon is not every individual issue, it's the potentially revolutionary
nature of the phenomenon. The opposition gets this. That's why they are hysterical about Trump. The conservative box checkers
do not.
"Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big
government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan
establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November."
My question is, if Trump is not himself of the managerial class, in fact, could be considered one of the original new class
members, how would he govern? What explains his conversion from the new class to the managerial class; is he merely taking advantage
of an opportunity or is there some other explanation?
I'm genuinely confused by the role you ascribe to the 'managerial class' here. Going back to Berle and Means ('The Modern Corporation
and Private Property') the managerial class emerged when management was split from ownership in mid C20th capitalism. Managers
focused on growth, not profits for shareholders. The Shareholder revolution of the 1980s destroyed the managerial class, and destroyed
their unwieldy corporations.
You seem to be identifying the managerial class with a kind of cultural opposition to the values of [neo]liberal capitalism. And
instead of identifying the 'new class' with the new owner-managers of shareholder-driven firms, you identify them by their superficial
cultural effects.
This raises a deeper problem in how you talk about class in this piece. Marx taught that you identify classes by their
structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system
of production. Does the 'new class' of journalists, academics, etc. actually own anything? If not, what is the point of ascribing
to them immense economic power?
I would agree that there is a new class of capitalists in America. But they are well known people like Sheldon Adelson, the Kochs,
Linda McMahon, the Waltons, Rick Scott the pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Mitt Romney, Mark Zuckerberg, and many many hedge fund
gazillionaires. These people represent the resurgence of a family-based, dynastic capitalism that is utterly different from the
managerial variety that prevailed in mid-century.
If there is a current competitor to international corporate capitalism, it is old-fashioned dynastic family capitalism. Not
Managerialism.
There is no "new class". That's simply a derogatory trope of the Right. The [neo]liberal elite– educated, cosmopolitan and possessed
of sufficient wealth to be influential in political affairs and claims to power grounded in moral stances– have a long pedigree
in both Western and non-Western lands. They were the Scribal Class in the ancient world, the Mandarins of China, and the Clergy
in the Middle Ages. This class for a time was eclipsed in the early modern period as first royal authority became dominant, followed
by the power of the Capitalist class (the latter has never really faded of course). But their reemergence in the late 20th century
is not a new or unique phenomenon.
In a year in which "trash Trump" and "trash Trump's supporters" are tricks-to-be-turned for more than 90% of mainstream journalists
and other media hacks, it's good to see Daniel McCarthy buck the "trash trend" and write a serious, honest analysis of the class
forces that are colliding during this election cycle.
Two thumbs way up for McCarthy, although his fine effort cannot save the reputation of those establishment whores who call
themselves journalists. Nothing can save them. They have earned the universality with which Americans hold them in contempt.
In 1976 when Gallup began asking about "the honesty and ethical standards" of various professions only 33% of Americans rated
journalists "very high or high."
By last December that "high or very high" rating for journalists had fallen to just 27%.
It is certain that by Election Day 2016 the American public's opinion of journalists will have fallen even further.
Most of your argument is confusing. The change I see is from a production economy to a finance economy. Wall Street rules, really.
Basically the stock market used to be a place where working folk invested their money for retirement, mostly through pensions
from unions and corporations. Now it's become a gambling casino, with the "house"-or the big banks-putting it's finger on the
roulette wheel. They changed the compensation package of CEO's, so they can rake in huge executive compensation–mostly through
stock options-to basically close down everything from manufacturing to customer service, and ship it off to contract manufacturers
and outside services in oligarchical countries like mainland China and India.
I don't know what exactly you mean about the "new class", basically its the finance industry against everyone else.
One thing you right-wingers always get wrong, is on Karl Marx he was really attacking the money-changers, the finance speculators,
the banks. Back in the day, so-called "capitalists" like Henry Ford or George Eastman or Thomas Edison always complained about
the access to financing through the big money finance capitalists.
Don't overlook the economic value of intellectual property rights (patents, in particular) in the economic equation.
A big chunk of the 21st century economy is generated due to the intellectual property developed and owned by the New Class
and its business enterprises.
The economic value of ideas and intellectual property rights is somewhat implied in McCarthy's explanation of the New Class,
but I didn't see an explicit mention (perhaps I overlooked it).
I think the consideration of intellectual property rights and the value generated by IP might help to clarify the economic
power of the New Class for those who feel the analysis isn't quite complete or on target.
I'm not saying that IP only provides value to the New Class. We can find examples of IP throughout the economy, at all levels.
It's just that the tech and financial sectors seem to focus more on (and benefit from) IP ownership, licensing, and the information
captured through use of digital technology.
"What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy."
But today we have this: Trump pledges big US military
expansion . Trump doesn't appear to have any coherent policy, he just says whatever seems to be useful at that particular
moment.
[New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative
think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous
Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the
Globalized Economy and financial markets.
Being white is not the defining characteristic of Trumpers because it if was then how come there are many white working class
voters for Hillary? The divide in the working class comes from being a member of a union or a member of the private non-unionized
working class.
Where the real class divide shows up is in those who are members of the Knowledge Class that made their living based on the
old Virtuous Economy where the elderly saved money in banks and the banks, in turn, lent that money out to young families to buy
houses, cars, and start businesses. The Virtuous Economy has been replaced by the Global Economy based on diverting money to the
stock market to fund global enterprises and prop up government pension funds.
The local bankers, realtors, private contractors, small savers and small business persons and others that depended on the Virtuous
Economy lost out to the global bankers, stock investors, pension fund managers, union contractors and intellectuals that propounded
rationales for the global economy as superior to the Virtuous Economy.
Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally
decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those
who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist
Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages
and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide.
Beginning in the 50's and 60's, baby boomers were warned in school and cultural media that "a college diploma would become what
a high school diploma is today." An extraordinary cohort of Americans took this advice seriously, creating the smartest and most
successful generation in history. But millions did not heed that advice, cynically buoyed by Republicans who – knowing that college
educated people vote largely Democrat – launched a financial and cultural war on college education. The result is what you see
now: millions of people unprepared for modern employment; meanwhile we have to import millions of college-educated Asians and
Indians to do the work there aren't enough Americans to do.
Have to say, this seems like an attempt to put things into boxes that don't quite fit.
Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times –
nationalism vs. Globalism.
The core of it is that the government no longer serves the people. In the United States, that is kind of a bad thing, you know?
Like the EU in the UK, the people, who fought very hard for self-government, are seeing it undermined by the erosion of the nation
state in favor of international beaurocracy run by elites and the well connected.
Both this article and many comments on it show considerable confusion, and ideological opinion all over the map. What is happening
I think is that the world is changing –due to globalism, technology, and the sheer huge numbers of people on the planet. As a
result some of the rigid trenches of thought as well as class alignments are breaking down.
In America we no longer have capitalism, of either the 19th century industrial or 20th century managerial varieties. Money
and big money is still important of course, but it is increasingly both aligned with and in turn controlled by the government.
The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government
ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives
are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both
are right in a sense.
The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite
academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been
left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth
and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as
backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against
being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters."
The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties'
elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium
and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these
folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively
harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA.
I have one condition about which, Mr. Trump would lose my support - if he flinches on immigration, I will have to bow out.
I just don't buy the contentions about color here. He has made definitive moves to ensure that he intends to fight for US citizens
regardless of color. This nonsense about white racism, more bigotry in reality, doesn't pan out. The Republican party has been
comprised of mostly whites since forever and nearly all white sine the late 1960's. Anyone attempting to make hay out of what
has been the reality for than 40 years is really making the reverse pander. Of course most of those who have issues with blacks
and tend to be more expressive about it, are in the Republican party. But so what. Black Republicans would look at you askance,
should you attempt this FYI.
It's a so what. The reason you joining a party is not because the people in it like you, that is really beside the point. Both
Sec Rice and General Powell, are keenly aware of who's what it and that is the supposed educated elite. They are not members of
the party because it is composed of some pure untainted membership. But because they and many blacks align themselves with the
ideas of the party, or what the party used to believe, anyway.
It's the issues not their skin color that matters. And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes
on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to
Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and
used for their own liberal ends.
I remain convinced that if blacks wanted progress all they need do is swamp the Republican party as constituents and confront
whatever they thought was nonsense as constituents as they move on policy issues. Goodness democrats have embraced the lighter
tones despite having most black support. That is why the democrats are importing so many from other state run countries. They
could ignore blacks altogether. Sen Barbara Jordan and her deep voiced rebuke would do them all some good.
Let's face it - we are not going to remove the deeply rooted impact of skin color, once part of the legal frame of the country
for a quarter of the nations populous. What Republicans should stop doing is pretending, that everything concerning skin color
is the figment of black imagination. I am not budging an inch on the Daughters of the American Revolution, a perfect example of
the kind of peculiar treatment of the majority, even to those who fought for Independence and their descendants.
________________
I think that there are thousands and thousands of educated (degreed)people who now realize what a mess the educational and
social services system has become because of our immigration policy. The impact on social services here in Ca is no joke. In the
face of mounting deficits, the laxity of Ca has now come back to haunt them. The pressure to increase taxes weighed against the
loss of manual or hard labor to immigrants legal and otherwise is unmistakable here. There's debate about rsstroom etiquette in
the midst of serious financial issues - that's a joke. So this idea of dismissing people with degrees as being opposed to Mr.
Trump is deeply overplayed and misunderstood. If there is a class war, it's not because of Mr. Trump, those decks were stacked
in his favor long before the election cycle.
--------
"But millions did not heed that advice, cynically buoyed by Republicans who–knowing that college educated people vote largely
Democrat–launched a financial and cultural war on college education. The result is what . . . employment; meanwhile we have to
import millions of college-educated Asians and Indians to do the work there aren't enough Americans to do."
Hmmmm,
Nope. Republicans are notorious for pushing education on everything and everybody. It's a signature of hard work, self reliance,
self motivation and responsibility. The shift that has been tragic is that conservatives and Republicans either by a shove or
by choice abandoned the fields by which we turn out most future generations - elementary, HS and college education. Especially
in HS, millions of students are fed a daily diet of liberal though unchecked by any opposing ideas. And that is become the staple
for college education - as it cannot be stated just how tragic this has become for the nation. There are lots of issues to moan
about concerning the Us, but there is far more to embrace or at the very least keep the moaning in its proper context. No, conservatives
and Republicans did engage in discouraging an education.
And there will always be a need for more people without degrees than with them. even people with degrees are now getting hit
even in the elite walls of WS finance. I think I posted an article by John Maulden about the growing tensions resulting fro the
shift in the way trading is conducting. I can build a computer from scratch, that's a technical skill, but the days of building
computers by hand went as fast it came. The accusation that the population should all be trained accountants, book keepers, managers,
data processors, programmers etc. Is nice, but hardly very realistic (despite my taking liberties with your exact phrasing). A
degree is not going to stop a company from selling and moving its production to China, Mexico or Vietnam - would that were true.
In fact, even high end degree positions are being outsourced, medicine, law, data processing, programming . . .
How about the changes in economy that have forced businesses to completely disappear. We will never know how many businesses
were lost in the 2007/2008 financial mess. Recovery doesn't exist until the country's growth is robust enough to put people back
to work full time in a manner that enables them to sustain themselves and family.
That income gap is real and its telling.
___________________
even if I bought the Karl Marx assessment. His solutions were anything but a limited assault on financial sector oligarchs
and wizards. And in practice it has been an unmitigated disaster with virtually not a single long term national benefit. It's
very nature has been destructive, not only to infrastructure, but literally the lifeblood of the people it was intended to rescue.
Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class"
are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector
and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector.
There are two middle classes in the US: the old Business Class and the New Knowledge Class. A manager would be in the Business
Class and a Bureaucrat in the New Class.
The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization,
industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial
revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization.
The New Class were those in the mostly government and nonprofit sectors that depended on knowledge for their livelihood without
it being coupled to any physical labor: teachers, intellectuals, social workers and psychiatrists, lawyers, media types, hedge
fund managers, real estate appraisers, financial advisors, architects, engineers, etc. The New Knowledge Class has only risen
since the New Deal created a permanent white collar, non-business class.
The Working Class are those who are employed for wages in manual work in an industry producing something tangible (houses,
cars, computers, etc.). The Working Class can also have managers, sometimes called supervisors. And the Working Class is comprised
mainly of two groups: unionized workers and private sector non-unionized workers. When we talk about the Working Class we typically
are referring to the latter.
The Trumpsters should not be distinguished as being a racial group or class (white) because there are many white people who
support Clinton. About 95% of Blacks vote Democratic in the US. Nowhere near that ratio of Whites are supporting Trump. So Trumps'
support should not be stereotyped as White.
The number one concern to Trumpsters is that they reflect the previous intergenerational economy where the elderly lent money
to the young to buy homes, cars and start small businesses. The Global bankers have shifted money into the stock market because
0.25% per year interest rates in a bank isn't making any money at all when money inflation runs at 1% to 2% (theft). This has
been replaced by a Global Economy that depends on financial bubbles and arbitraging of funds.
"The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated
by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right
in a sense."
Why other couching this. Ten years ago if some Hollywood exec had said, no same sex marriage, no production company in your
town, the town would have shrugged. Today before shrugging, the city clerk is checking the account balance. When the governors
of Michigan, and Arizona bent down in me culpa's on related issue, because business interests piped in, it was an indication that
the game had seriously changed. Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private
lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure
most of the public fully grasps or desires.
Same sex weddings in US military chapels - the concept still turns my stomach. Advocates control the megaphones, I don't think
they control the minds of the public, despite having convinced a good many people that those who have chosen this expression are
under some manner of assault – that demands a legal change - intelligent well educated, supposedly astute minded people actually
believe it. Even the Republican nominee believes it.
I love Barbara Streisand, but if the election means she moves to Canada, well, so be it. Take your "drag queens" impersonators
wit you. I enjoy Mr. and Mrs Pitt, I think have a social moral core but really? with millions of kids future at stake, endorsing
a terminal dynamic as if it will save society's ills - Hollywood doesn't even pretend to behave royally much less embody the sensitivities
of the same.
There is a lot to challenge about supporting Mr. Trump. He did support killing children in the womb and that is tragic. Unless
he has stood before his maker and made this right, he will have to answer for that. But no more than a trove of Republicans who
supported killing children in the womb and then came to their senses. I guess of there is one thing he and I agree on, it's not
drinking.
As for big budget military, it seems a waste, but if we are going to waste money, better it be for our own citizens. His Achilles
heel here is his intentions as to ISIS/ISIL. I think it's the big drain getting ready to suck him into the abyss of intervention
creep.
Missile defense just doesn't work. The tests are rigged and as Israel discovered, it's a hit and miss game with low probability
of success, but it makes for great propaganda.
I am supposed to be outraged by a football player stance on abusive government. While the democratic nominee is turning over
every deck chair she find, leaving hundreds of thousands of children homeless - let me guess, on the bright side, George Clooney
cheers the prospect of more democratic voters.
If Mr. Trumps only achievements are building a wall, over hauling immigration policy and expanding the size of the military.
He will be well on his way to getting ranked one of the US most successful presidents.
I never understood why an analysis needs to lard in every conceivable historical reference and simply assume its relevance, when
there are so many non constant facts and circumstances. There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it
falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes.
This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially
benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict
is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but
the underlying conflict will always remain.
State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there.
Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they
would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those.
The split on Trump is first by race (obviously), then be gender (also somewhat obviously), and then by education. Even among
self-declared conservatives it's the college educated who tend to oppose him. This is a lot broader than simply losing some "new"
Knowledge Class, unless all college educated people are put in that grouping. In fact he is on track to lose among college educated
whites, something no GOP candidate has suffered since the days of FDR and WWII.
People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's,
per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this
the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards.
People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not
impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions.
I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all
the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable.
Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American.
EliteComic beat me to the punch. I was disappointed that Ross Perot, who won over 20% of the popular vote twice, and was briefly
in the lead in early 1992, wasn't mentioned in this article.
Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli
interests above America's is un-American.
The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable
people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation
where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation,
but of justice being done period.
A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US
dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the
Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation
and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers
instead of a nation of producers.
Who really cares about the federal debt. REally? We can print dollars, exchange these worthless dollars with China for hard
goods, and then China lends the dollars back to us, to pay for our government. Get it?
It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt
dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya
Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market
utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on.
But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled.
And damn the utopianism of you "libertarians" you're worse then Marxists when it comes to ideology over reality.
"State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back
in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would
only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those."
Ah, not it's policy on some measure able effect. The seatbelt law was debate across the country. The data indicated that it
did in fact save lives. And it's impact was universal applicable to every man women or child that got into a vehicle.
That was not a private bedroom issue. Of course businesses have advocated policy. K street is not a K-street minus that reality.
But GM did not demand having relations in parked cars be legalized or else.
You are taking my apples and and calling them seatbelts - false comparison on multiple levels, all to get me to acknowledge
that businesses have influence. It what they have chosen to have influence on -
I do not think the issue of class is relevant here – whether it be new classes or old classes. There are essentially two classes
– those who win given whatever the current economic arrangements are or those who lose given those same arrangements. People who
think they are losing support Trump versus people who think they are winning support Clinton. The polls demonstrates this – Trump
supporters feel a great deal more anxiety about the future and are more inclined to think everything is falling apart whereas
Clinton supporters tend to see things as being okay and are optimistic about the future. The Vox work also shows this pervasive
sense that life will not be good for their children and grandchildren as a characteristic of Trump supporters.
The real shift I think is in the actual coalitions that are political parties. Both the GOP and the Dems have been coalitions
– political parties usually are. Primary areas of agreement with secondary areas of disagreement. Those coalitions no longer work.
The Dems can be seen as a coalition of the liberal knowledge types – who are winners in this economy and the worker types who
are often losers now in this economy. The GOP also is a coalition of globalist corporatist business types (winners) with workers
(losers) who they attracted in part because of culture wars and the Dixiecrats becoming GOPers. The needs of these two groups
in both parties no longer overlap. The crisis is more apparent in the GOP because well – Trump. If Sanders had won the nomination
for the Dems (and he got close) then their same crisis would be more apparent. The Dems can hold their creaky coalition together
because Trump went into the fevered swamps of the alt. right.
I think this is even more obvious in the UK where you have a Labor Party that allegedly represents the interests of working
people but includes the cosmopolitan knowledge types. The cosmopolitans are big on the usual identity politics, unlimited immigration
and staying in the EU. They benefit from the current economic arrangement. But the workers in the Labor party have been hammered
by the current economic arrangements and voted in droves to get out of the EU and limit immigration. It seems pretty obvious that
there is no longer a coalition to sustain the Labor Party. Same with Tories – some in the party love the EU,immigration, globalization
while others voted out of the EU, want immigration restricted and support localism. The crisis is about the inability of either
party to sustain its coalitions. Those in the Tory party who are leavers should be in a political party with the old Labor working
class while the Tory cosmopolitans should be in a party with the Labor cosmopolitans. The current coalitions not being in synch
is the political problem – not new classes etc.
Here in the US the southern Dixiecrats who went to the GOP and are losers in this economy might find a better coalition with
the black, Latino and white workers who are still in the Dem party. But as in the UK ideological culture wars have become more
prominent and hence the coalitions are no longer economically based. If people recognized that politics can only address the economic
issues and they aligned themselves accordingly – the membership of the parties would radically change.
The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia
and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come
up in the morning now,"
"Trump's voters were most strongly characterized by their "racial isolation": they live in places with little ethnic diversity.
"
During the primaries whites in more diverse areas voted Trump. The only real exception was West Virginia. Utah, Wyoming, Iowa?
All voted for Cruz and "muh values".
In white enclaves like Paul Ryans district, which is 91%, whites are able to signal against white identity without having to
face the consequences.
"All three major African, Hispanic, & Asian-American overwhelming support HRC in the election."
That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics
simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data
point would look just the same.
"On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would
benefit hard industry and managerial interests."
This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas
in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute
ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves
versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities
in which they lived.
The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large
institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused.
Superficially, Hemingway was correct. But on a deeper level, he missed the reality of the heightened
sense of entitlement that the very rich possess, as well as the deference that so many people
automatically show to them. The rich shouldn't be different in this way, but they are. In some
other societies, such entitlement and deference would accrue to senior party members, senior clergymen,
or hereditary nobility (who might not have much money at all).
Without a doubt Hemingway had a rather catty attitude toward his literary rival, but in this
instance I think the debunking is merited. It's quite possible that rich people act the way we
would act if we were rich, and that Fitzgerald's tiresome obsession with rich people didn't cut
very deep. Hemingway is saying: take away all that money and the behavior would change as well.
It's the money (or the power in your example) that makes the difference.
In my opinion, the fact that if they had less money would change the way they think, does not
change the fact that, while they have more money, they think differently, and different rules
apply to them.
Addendum: The fact that an Alpha Chimp would act differently if someone else was the Alpha
Chimp does not change the fact that an Alpha Chimp has fundamentally different behavior than the
rest of the group.
"Hemingway is responsible for a famous misquotation of Fitzgerald's. According to Hemingway,
a conversation between him and Fitzgerald went:
Fitzgerald: The rich are different than you and me.
Hemingway: Yes, they have more money.
This never actually happened; it is a retelling of an actual encounter between Hemingway and Mary
Colum, which went as follows:
Hemingway: I am getting to know the rich.
Colum: I think you'll find the only difference between the rich and other people is that the rich
have more money."
Just want to point out that that quote of Hemingways wasnt about Fitzgerald and wasnt even
by Hemingway. Anyway I was more attacking the "rich have more money" thing than I was trying to
defend Fitzgerald, but I feel Fitzgerald got the basic idea right
Apparently Fitzgerald was referring specifically to the attitudes of those who are born rich,
attitudes that Fitzgerald thought remained unaltered by events, including the loss of economic
status.
"They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to
discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into
our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different."
Hemingway suggested that Fitzgerald had once been especially enamored of the rich, seeing them
as a "special glamorous race" but ultimately became disillusioned.
"He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked
him as much as any other thing that wrecked him."
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B. Curtis: Class, neoliberalism and New Zealand 3 The failure to recognise the link
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Republicans recruited
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in this Neoliberal and Neoconservative Period Dave Hill Professor of Education Policy at the
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Good point, Pucker. All the pro-Podesta apologists can't explain away the
code language. Especially, disturbing are remarks (I think by owner James
Alefantis) about 4 sick pizzas left over from the last session on sale for
$1000. Be sure and dispose of them properly."
I have pages of Word docs and have listened to too many facts,
Most intellectuals hate Conspiracies for two reasons: one good and one
bad. On the good side, there is just too much lunacy and crackpottery
once conjecture and Freud's "primary process" (fantasy) get going. On
the bad side, they hate not having full information or at least a
partial store of consensus information from which to analyze. But Life
is Conspiracy – and sometimes we have to go with what we have. In this
regards, detectives are superior to intellectuals: they do it all the
time. Ditto scientists. It's the inductive process. Once you get
enough you form a hypothesis. Then you test it. That's all we're
asking for in regards to this case. And I think we both agree: what
they would find would bring down the System.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
The utilization of "Conspiracy theorist" came about after the
common man on the street started waking up to the fact that he was
being screwed by those in power and lied to consistently. Did you
know that during World War II, President Roosevelt, was onboard the
battleship USS Iowa in route to North Africa when it was
"accidently torpedoed" (the fish detonated in the ship's wake and
did not actually impact the ship) by the US destroyer, the William
D. Porter? Well it's the first I am hearing of it so I guess that
these people are pretty good at keeping things quiet when they go
wrong, especially REALLY wrong
