Saturday, February 18, 2017
G.W. Matson: JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE PARANOID
G.W. Matson: JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE PARANOID: "Robbery, whether of land or a way of life, requires force or at least its credible threat; it's why thieves carry guns, and often ...
JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE PARANOID
"Robbery, whether of land or a way of life, requires force or at least its credible threat; it's why thieves carry guns, and often use them."
Naomi Klein
The Shock Doctrine
As a businessman, Donald Trump is well aware that he did not win the presidential election in a landslide. Still, he makes the claim: Is he setting America up for another "deal"? America's current one-party government is dismantling what remains of the New Deal, against the will of the American people, while Trump hides the pea, again, under a false election controversy. The drama will end with corporate interests (Trump being one) robbing the country--and the people, realizing they have been robbed, will have to "get over it." We will be reminded that we do not have a democracy. We have a republic, whereby a few rule for the benefit of all. And the few who rule will decide who benefits most. When Donald Trump says "I will be your voice," he invites the rest of us to keep quiet. Some Americans--yes, Americans--will like that freedom. Those who speak out will not be allowed to spoil the party. Force comes in here.
State coercion is now quite sophisticated. Beheading, stoning, and firing squads have fallen out out of fashion, though some despots in small countries are trying to revive the traditions. Dachaus and Gulags are also obsolete, at least on the grand scale of old times. Elites no longer need such gross displays of brute force to retain their power. Certainly, these methods are still available, and are still used by dictators here and there. But to plutocrats who rule on a global scale, who covet real power, subtler and more effective methods are available. That boot can be kept on the human face most of the time without the face's owner even knowing it.
When face owners do become aware of the boot, our corporate rulers have refined ways to make them see reason...cultural, social, bureaucratic, and economic in nature...some artistically simple. They who control the economy control jobs, and high unemployment rates keep most troublemakers harmless if not quiet. The threat of force is there: Starvation is brutal. But it is a step removed from the plutocrats who are manipulating the threat. With joblessness high, the rich can get people to work for less, to surrender medical and pension benefits. The rich can put the money they have taken into stocks--robbery plain and simple.
When the workers start to complain, the powerful point out "others" who are making life tough for the "real American good people." Since tribalism goes back untold thousands of years, humans are already programmed to hate those who look or sound strange; those who pray differently, come from different places, or in the age of electronic information, live far away. Dwelling on and denigrating peoples' superficial differences make it difficult to realize how much in common we all have. If the elites play their cards right they can even convince people to brutalize one another over superficial differences, thus saving both money and blame. Serious rebellion, through force, is out of the question. Police, now equipped with armor, often behave more like occupying colonial armies than neighborhood protectors. And though some individual cases of police brutality may have rational explanations, there is no doubt that police in America are killing far more citizens than police anywhere else in the "advanced" world. And when we allow violence to be routinely visited on "others", we automatically give police the authority to do the same to us.
American upper class citizens, like those everywhere, crave the acquisition, retention, and expansion of power. Having lost some of that power in the Great Depression (when Franklin Roosevelt, termed by the upper class he came from a "traitor to his class", instituted measures to reduce some of the social and economic differences between classes) they have ever since been plotting and implementing a coup to restore their power. Having achieved gradual success over the past forty years, they have now completed the coup. The only struggle now is between those in the upper crust, concerning who will be in charge. The rich and powerful do not consider Donald Trump to be their first choice, even though he is one of them. Still, he can be counted on to enhance his assets--and therefore their own. However, there are risks with their base.
The French aristocrats thought they could control the Jacobins, and the German capitalists and Junkers thought they could control the Nazis. Hope springs eternal, and greed crowds out rational thought. But if civilization survives, the one percent should see their fortunes improve dramatically, at the expense of everyone else. America's flirtation with fascism is over. It has become a date rape.
Naomi Klein
The Shock Doctrine
As a businessman, Donald Trump is well aware that he did not win the presidential election in a landslide. Still, he makes the claim: Is he setting America up for another "deal"? America's current one-party government is dismantling what remains of the New Deal, against the will of the American people, while Trump hides the pea, again, under a false election controversy. The drama will end with corporate interests (Trump being one) robbing the country--and the people, realizing they have been robbed, will have to "get over it." We will be reminded that we do not have a democracy. We have a republic, whereby a few rule for the benefit of all. And the few who rule will decide who benefits most. When Donald Trump says "I will be your voice," he invites the rest of us to keep quiet. Some Americans--yes, Americans--will like that freedom. Those who speak out will not be allowed to spoil the party. Force comes in here.
State coercion is now quite sophisticated. Beheading, stoning, and firing squads have fallen out out of fashion, though some despots in small countries are trying to revive the traditions. Dachaus and Gulags are also obsolete, at least on the grand scale of old times. Elites no longer need such gross displays of brute force to retain their power. Certainly, these methods are still available, and are still used by dictators here and there. But to plutocrats who rule on a global scale, who covet real power, subtler and more effective methods are available. That boot can be kept on the human face most of the time without the face's owner even knowing it.
When face owners do become aware of the boot, our corporate rulers have refined ways to make them see reason...cultural, social, bureaucratic, and economic in nature...some artistically simple. They who control the economy control jobs, and high unemployment rates keep most troublemakers harmless if not quiet. The threat of force is there: Starvation is brutal. But it is a step removed from the plutocrats who are manipulating the threat. With joblessness high, the rich can get people to work for less, to surrender medical and pension benefits. The rich can put the money they have taken into stocks--robbery plain and simple.
When the workers start to complain, the powerful point out "others" who are making life tough for the "real American good people." Since tribalism goes back untold thousands of years, humans are already programmed to hate those who look or sound strange; those who pray differently, come from different places, or in the age of electronic information, live far away. Dwelling on and denigrating peoples' superficial differences make it difficult to realize how much in common we all have. If the elites play their cards right they can even convince people to brutalize one another over superficial differences, thus saving both money and blame. Serious rebellion, through force, is out of the question. Police, now equipped with armor, often behave more like occupying colonial armies than neighborhood protectors. And though some individual cases of police brutality may have rational explanations, there is no doubt that police in America are killing far more citizens than police anywhere else in the "advanced" world. And when we allow violence to be routinely visited on "others", we automatically give police the authority to do the same to us.
American upper class citizens, like those everywhere, crave the acquisition, retention, and expansion of power. Having lost some of that power in the Great Depression (when Franklin Roosevelt, termed by the upper class he came from a "traitor to his class", instituted measures to reduce some of the social and economic differences between classes) they have ever since been plotting and implementing a coup to restore their power. Having achieved gradual success over the past forty years, they have now completed the coup. The only struggle now is between those in the upper crust, concerning who will be in charge. The rich and powerful do not consider Donald Trump to be their first choice, even though he is one of them. Still, he can be counted on to enhance his assets--and therefore their own. However, there are risks with their base.
The French aristocrats thought they could control the Jacobins, and the German capitalists and Junkers thought they could control the Nazis. Hope springs eternal, and greed crowds out rational thought. But if civilization survives, the one percent should see their fortunes improve dramatically, at the expense of everyone else. America's flirtation with fascism is over. It has become a date rape.
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