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“Representation” … and “Consent”
“Representation” … and “Consent”
Democracy is an incredibly successful long con. It works because of theillusion of consent. People actually believe they are “represented.”
And so, they accept impositions that would otherwise be intolerable, if imposed on them by a king or afuhrer or generalissimo.
But when the “people” have decided… .
Except of course, they’ve done no such thing. It is all an illusion, a rhetorical sleight-of-hand that deftly hides the reality that it is not the “people” who decideanything but rather a small handful of individuals who wield vast – almost unlimited – power by claiming to act on their behalf.
Which is a fine-sounding literary device but as a political actuality it is an atrocity.
Have you ever consented to anything the government does to you? Been offered the free choice to accept – or decline? And not subject to violent repercussions in the event you do decide to decline? What sort of contract is it that you’re never actually been presented with but which you’re presumed to have signed – and which you are bound by whether you’ve signed – or not?
It is very odd.
The courts have ruled that by dint of having applied for permission to travel – that is, having applied for a driver’s license – you gave given your implied consent to, well, pretty much anything the state decides to do to you. Even when in flagrant abuse of your alleged rights, as enumerated in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
Yet few, if any of us, have actually consented to this abrogation of our rights.
We are simply told that we have, since we submitted (under duress) to the necessity of obtaining a driver’s license, so as to be able to travel semi-freely, under certain terms and conditions.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Maintaining the Illusion of Stability Now Requires Ever-Greater Extremes
Maintaining the Illusion of Stability Now Requires Ever-Greater Extremes
This much-needed re-set to an economy that serves the many rather than the few is what the Powers That Be are so fearful of.
On the surface, everything still looks remarkably stable in the core industrial economies. The stock markets in Japan, Germany and the U.S. are only a few percentage points off their highs, and we’re constantly assured that inflation no longer exists and official unemployment is low.
In other words, other than the spot of bother in Greece, life is good. Anyone who signs on the dotted line for easy credit can go to college, buy a car or house or get another credit card.
With more credit, everything becomes possible. With unlimited credit, the sky’s the limit, and it shows.
Europe is awash with tourists from the U.S., China and elsewhere, and restaurants are jammed in San Francisco and New York City, where small flats now routinely fetch well over $1 million.
In politics, the American public is being offered a choice of two calcified, dysfunctional aristocracies in 2016: brittleness is being passed off as stability, not just in politics but in the economy and the cultural zeitgeist.
But surface stability is all the status quo can manage at this point, because the machine is shaking itself to pieces just maintaining the brittle illusion of prosperity and order.
Consider what happened in Greece beneath the surface theatrics.
1. Goldman Sachs conspired with Greece’s corrupt kleptocracy to conjure up an illusion of solvency and fiscal prudence so Greece could join the Eurozone.
2. Vested interests and insiders gorged on the credit being offered by German and French banks, enriching themselves to the tune of tens of billions of euros, which were transferred to private accounts in Switzerland at the first whiff of trouble. When informed of this, Greek authorities took no action; after all, why track down your cronies and force them to pay taxes when tax evasion is the status quo for financial elites?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Financial Markets Now Control Everything
The Financial Markets Now Control Everything
The entire economic and political structure is now dependent in one way or another on the continued expansion of financial markets.
The financial markets don’t just dominate the economy–they now control everything. In 1999, the BBC broadcast a 4-part documentary by Adam Curtis, The Mayfair Set ( Episode 1: “Who Pays Wins” 58 minutes), that explored the way financial markets have come to dominate not just the economy but the political process and society.
In effect, politicians now look to the markets for policy guidance, and any market turbulence now causes governments to quickly amend their policies to “rescue” the all-important markets from instability.
This is a global trend that has gathered momentum since the program was broadcast in 1999, as The Global Financial Meltdown of 2008-09 greatly reinforced the dominance of markets.
It’s not just banks that have become too big to fail; the markets themselves are now too influential and big to fail.
Curtis focuses considerable attention on the way in which seemingly “good” financial entities such as pension funds actively enabled the “bad” corporate raiders of the 1980s by purchasing the high-yield junk bonds the raiders used to finance their asset-stripping ventures.
This increasing dependence of “good” entities on players making risky bets and manipulating markets has created perverse incentives to keep the financial bubble-blowing going with government backstops and changing the rules to mask systemic leverage and risk.
The government must prop up markets, not just to insure the cash keeps flowing into political campaign coffers, but to save pension funds and the “wealth effect” that is now the sole driver of “growth” (expanding consumption) other than debt.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
We Are Entering An Era Of Shattered Illusions
We Are Entering An Era Of Shattered Illusions
The structure of history is held together by two essential and distinct kinds of links, two moments in time to which no one is immune: moments of epiphany, and moments of catastrophe. Sometimes, both elements intermingle at the birth of a singular epoch. Men often awaken to understanding in the midst of great crisis; and, invariably, great crises can erupt when men awaken. These are the moments when social gravity vanishes, when the kinetic glue of normalcy melts away, and we begin to see the true foundations of our world, if a foundation exists at all.
Catastrophe occurs when too many people refuse to accept that around us always are two universes at work. There is the cold, hard reality that underlies everything. And on the surface is a veil of deceit and compromise. The more humanity compromises vital truths in order to enjoy the comfort of illusions, the more mind-shattering it will be when those illusions fall away. These two worlds can coexist only for short periods of time, and they will always and eventually collide. There is no other possible outcome.
I think it could be said that the more polarized our realities become, the more explosive and disastrous the reaction will be when the separation is removed. I feel it absolutely necessary to relate this danger because today humanity is living so historically far from the bedrock of reality, political reality, social reality and economic reality that the stage has been set for a kind of full spectrum destabilization that has never been seen before.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
