Home » Posts tagged 'social fragmentation'
Tag Archives: social fragmentation
While the Nation Fragments Socially, the Financial Aristocracy Rules Unimpeded
While the Nation Fragments Socially, the Financial Aristocracy Rules Unimpeded
America’s aristocracy is not formalized, and that’s the secret of its success.
If there is one central irony in American history, it is this: the citizenry that broke free of the chains of British Monarchy, the citizenry that reckoned everyone was equal before the law, the citizenry that vowed never to be ruled by an aristocracy that controlled the government and finance as a means of self-enrichment, is now so distracted by social fragmentation that the citizenry is blind to their servitude to a new and formidably informal financial aristocracy.
From this juncture, ironies abound: the so-called Socialist demands for Medicare for All, “free” college for all and Universal Basic Income (UBI) are encouraged (or perhaps orchestrated) by the financial aristocracy, which rakes in tens of billions of dollars in profits from its banking, healthcare, national defense and higher education cartels: throwing more trillions down the ratholes of Medicare and higher education will only further enrich and empower the financial elites.
As for Universal Basic Income (UBI), the financial aristocracy is cheering loudly for UBI, which would enable debt-serfs to keep servicing their debts. (Is anyone so naive to think that UBI won’t have a clause which enables the deduction of debt payments from the monthly “free money”? Does anyone think the financial aristocracy is going to give $1,000 a month to debt-serfs and then let them default on their debt? Get real!)
The demands for social justice, i.e. that everyone be allowed to be treated the same before the law and enjoy the same rights as other citizens, is a core tenet of American culture. Long before the Constitution was even ratified, the calls to end slavery were becoming louder.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Let’s Talk About Solutions, Not Fake Fixes
Let’s Talk About Solutions, Not Fake Fixes
Since the status quo has no workable Plan B to “growth” in an economy in which household incomes have declined 8.5% in a supposedly expanding economy, real solutions must arise outside the status quo.
It’s a lot easier to talk about what’s wrong with the status quo and fake fixes than it is to talk about real solutions–for a number of reasons.
1. It’s clear to virtually everyone who isn’t being paid to make absurd claims that everything is peachy that the status quo is failing, so discussing the failings is like shooting fish in a barrel.
2. Grousing indignation (at all the failings) is an easy state to sustain; solving problems is an entirely different and not-so-easy state to sustain.
3. Emotional numbness brought on by financial distress and exhaustion reduces interest in solutions–there doesn’t seem to be any when you’re exhausted.
4. The predatory, parasitic status quo generates social fragmentation and an incoherence that breeds disassociation and alienation, neither of which are conducive to discussing solutions.
5. Since the status quo has no workable Plan B to “growth” in an economy in which household incomes have declined 8.5% in a supposedly expanding economy, real solutions must arise outside the status quo, which means the vested interests will lose their stranglehold on wealth and power. This is a no-no, so any solutions that lead to this are marginalized, ridiculed, labeled “impossible,” etc.
6. To solve a problem we must first diagnose the problem correctly. The correct diagnosis of the current pathological status quo is: the problem is not X,Y or Z–the problem is the system itself.
I am indebted to correspondent Tom R. for extracting what might be the core diagnosis of our ills from my discussion with Max and Stacy: “We’ve been brainwashed into financializing the human experience.” (at the 9:20 mark)
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
