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‘The Communist Manifesto’ (2015 edition)
‘The Communist Manifesto’ (2015 edition)
In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx wrote that “a specter is haunting Europe — the specter of communism.”
That image has been much adapted. The specters that have been held to haunt the Europe of today include Americanization, privatization, the far right, and the breakup of the euro, among others. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said recently that today’s haunting specter is “economic stagnation,” daring to invoke Marx from the heart of the City of London.
But now, the original specter in 1848, wandering unheeded for many decades, is back, hovering again over the old continent. Communism is again haunting Europe.
Syriza, which won the Greek parliamentary elections last month and is the dominant party in the country’s coalition government, is a layered confection of mainly hard-left parties, survivors of — and combatants in — the splits, wars and betrayals of a Greek left whose members had been, over the years since the war, outlawed, imprisoned, tortured and, in the last three decades, marginalized.
The new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, was a leader of the youth wing of one of the communist parties. Its finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, says he is a libertarian Marxist. The party has promised to raise wages, rehire sacked public-sector workers and nationalize sectors of the economy. In an interview with Britain’s Channel Four news, Varoufakis said that his government would confront the “oligarchic system” in Greece — the mix of political leaders, wealthy business people and their media — and “destroy” it.
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Meet the Extreme Super Rich – A List of the 80 People Who Own Half the World
Meet the Extreme Super Rich – A List of the 80 People Who Own Half the World
Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to make it clear that the definition of oligarch, a term I use a lot, does not center solely around money.
Late last year, in the post Inside the Mind of an Oligarch – Sheldon Adelson Proclaims “I Don’t Like Journalism,” I attempted to frame the word oligarch as I use it. I wrote the following:
In a nutshell, while many oligarchs are extremely wealthy (or have access to extreme wealth), not all people with extreme wealth are oligarchs. The term oligarch is reserved for those with extreme wealth who also want to control the political process, policy levers and most other aspects of the lives of the citizenry in a top-down tyrannical and undemocratic manner. They think they know best about pretty much everything, and believe unelected technocrats who share their worldview should be empowered so that they can unilaterally make all of society’s important decisions. The unwashed masses (plebs) in their minds are unnecessary distractions who must to be told what to do. Useless eaters who need to be brainwashed into worshipping the oligarch mindset, or turned into apathetic automatons incapable or unwilling to engage in critical thought. Either outcome is equally acceptable and equally encouraged.
With that out of the way, Five-Thirty-Eight provided the following:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Greece at the Crossroads: the Oligarchs Blew It
Greece at the Crossroads: the Oligarchs Blew It
Once one oligarchy falls, it will threaten to topple a long line of oligarch dominoes.
A great many narratives invoking Greece are being tossed around, but only one really encapsulates the unvarnished truth: the Oligarchs blew it. The oligarchs in both Greece and the European Union/ECB had the opportunity a few years ago to trade some of their outsized wealth and political power for stability and sustainable expansion.
Instead, they chose to not just cling to every shred of their outsized wealth and power but to actively increase it. Their greed and hubris has now put their entire system of parasitic wealth extraction at risk of collapse. Their political stranglehold on power has been weakened, and there’s no going back: they blew it, and now it’s too late. The debt-serfs have finally had enough.
If you enter Greece in the custom search box on this site, six pages of blog entries come up. I have addressed the situation in Greece many times; this summarizes my conclusion:
Greece, Please Do The Right Thing: Default Now (June 1, 2011)
Thankfully, many in Greece have reached the same conclusion, for the same reasons:
Greece’s New FinMin Warns “We Are Going To Destroy The Greek Oligarchy System”
The basic problem is that Greece Is a Kleptocracy (June 28, 2011). Greece has shown the world how oligarchies can expand their wealth and power even as their populace slides deeper into poverty. A recent article, Misrule of the Few: How the Oligarchs Ruined Greece, lays out the key dynamics.
Writer Pavlos Eleftheriadis pulls no punches:
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“Serfdom is the New Normal” – Talkin’ Oligarch Blues with Perpetual Assets | Liberty Blitzkrieg
“Serfdom is the New Normal” – Talkin’ Oligarch Blues with Perpetual Assets | Liberty Blitzkrieg.
“Oligarchs like protecting themselves from peasants…”
– Gus Demos of Perpetual Assets
The guys at Perpetual Assets are not only fellow warriors in the struggle against oligarchy and fascism in the USSA, they are also friends. It’s been great getting to know them over the years, and working with them in this existential struggle we face.
The way in which they have chosen to make a difference is in hard-asset protection, which is why they started the company. With civil asset forfeiture currently in the spotlight, it’s worth remembering that there has been a marked rise not just in occurrences of civil asset forfeiture, but also in scope. Any asset that you do not control is potentially at risk. One of the ways in which Perpetual Assets tries to help in this regard is to jailbreak your retirement account through an LLC IRA, with which you can even take home delivery of gold and silver bullion. Check out their tutorial on the process here.
Moving along, I think the following interview is one of the best I’ve ever done. It was more a discussion than anything else, and the range of topics discussed is incredibly expansive. From moats around the White House, to agent provocateurs. From the feasibility of anarchy, to the precious metals market. It has it all. Enjoy!
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Challenges of Defending Your Child’s Mind from Propaganda | Liberty Blitzkrieg
The Challenges of Defending Your Child’s Mind from Propaganda | Liberty Blitzkrieg.
In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace.They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of the war.
– Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations
Let’s face it, your child’s mind is fertile ground for oligarchs, corrupt politicians and any other thieving member of the so-called “ruling elite” who aim to enslave the masses both mentally and monetarily. Unfortunately, the propaganda that comes from the government and our largest corporations is perceived as being absolute truth by most people. If you’re like me, at one point in time you had to wake up to it all and accept that you had been completely brainwashed for the first few decades for your life.
On a parental level, defending my child’s mind against blatant lies and deceit from the media, military industrial complex and corporatism is really not that difficult. But what about their grandparents, cousins or the kids next door?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Mel Watt, Federal Housing Finance Agency Head, is Pushing Banks to Make Extremely Risky Home Loans | Liberty Blitzkrieg
Mel Watt is one of the most dangerous financial oligarch puppets operating in America today. The first time he came across my radar screen was back in 2009, when he “gutted” Ron Paul’s End the Fed bill while it was in subcommittee, something I outlined in the post: Leverage in PE Deals Soars Despite Fed Warnings; Amidst Insatiable Demand for Risky Fannie Mae Debt.
Then in May of this year, I zeroed in on his latest authoritarian maneuver after being appointed to head the FHFA in the post: New Massive Federal Database to Hold Financial Information on Hundreds of Millions of Americans. Here’s an excerpt:
…click on the above link for the rest of the article…
