CNBC News reports that Americans are looking at the possibility of up to 40 million evictions in the coming months as unemployment payments expire and a federal moratorium on evictions runs out.
“On Friday, the federal moratorium on evictions in properties with federally backed mortgages and for tenants who receive government-assisted housing expired.” CNBC reports. “The Urban Institute estimated that provision covered nearly 30% of the country’s rental units.”
“It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen,” National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel coordinator John Pollock told CNBC, adding that there were 2.3 million evictions in the entirety of 2016 and that “There could be that many evictions in August.”
Here's how the eviction crisis will impact each state. https://t.co/Yl5aDvu2Ar pic.twitter.com/1v2DjrS4sy
— CNBC (@CNBC) July 27, 2020
While ordinary Americans are worried about being evicted from their homes by the tens of millions, the nation’s billionaires are warning the nation of the dangers of communism. After recently drawing fire for repeatedly cheerleading last year’s vicious fascist coup of Bolivia’s leftist government, billionaire Elon Musk is now tweeting anti-Marx memes and warning that leftists are “losing the middle”.
I suppose we could take it as an encouraging sign that plutocrats are with increasing frequency feeling the need to go out and personally yell at the unwashed masses who are being slowly crushed to death by end-stage metastatic neoliberalism for their insufficient submissiveness to the capitalism god. They used to just have their PR people do it, so they must be at least a little nervous.
This is America. This is what America is designed to be. The head of a vast, globe-spanning empire needs its rank-and-file citizens to be poor, powerless, busy and brainwashed at all times, because a lot of power and money rides on keeping the riff raff away from the gears of the imperial machine.
I have traveled through the US, the parts that everyone ignores and Hollywood doesn’t show you, and I have traveled through many countries which are widely considered impoverished. It often surprises Americans when I say this, but the USA is largely a third-world country blanketed in first-world narrative. The way so many of them live compared to the bare minimum standard of living in other wealthy countries is absolutely breathtaking.
And this is entirely by design.
Das Kapital in a nutshell pic.twitter.com/mG44mMkitx
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 27, 2020
I talk about establishment narrative control a lot here, and it’s important to remember that poverty in and of itself can also be a form of narrative control. If you keep a populace impoverished, toiling and constantly terrified of the possibility of losing everything due to a single turn of bad luck or ill health, you ensure that they won’t have the time and psychological spaciousness needed to sit down and examine, for example, why their elections never change anything, or what their nation is doing to other nations.
You also ensure that a critical mass of them will never be able to afford political influence. In a nation where you’re literally incapable of influencing government policy and behavior unless you have a certain amount of wealth at your disposal, depriving the populace of their ability to pool their money toward electing a government which combats income and wealth inequality. The donor class are the only ones who get a say.
In a nation where money equals power and power is relative, you necessarily get a ruling plutocratic class which needs to keep everyone else poor in order to maintain their rule. If everyone is king then nobody is king, so if money makes you king in your society then you necessarily have to actively deprive the majority of money.
This is why I’m always dismissive of theories which insist that you can let the wealthy keep all their wealth and also provide enough for everybody. No you can’t, because the wealthy have a vested interest in keeping everyone from having enough, and they use their wealth as a weapon to enact that agenda in the form of political influence, monopolistic tyranny, and mass media narrative control.
They use their wealth as a weapon. They use poverty as a weapon.
"What is the worst problem in America?"
Homeless people: Economic injustice.
Unemployed/underemployed people: Economic injustice.
The working poor: Economic injustice.
Uninsured people: Economic injustice.
Those soon facing eviction: Economic injustice.
Billionaires: Communism.— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) July 28, 2020
As long as human behavior remains driven by the pursuit of profit, we will continue to see steadily rising amounts of war, ecocide, oppression, exploitation and mass-scale manipulation, because those things are profitable and/or protect the interests of those reaping the profits. We will never, ever profit our way out of any of those problems. The pursuit of profit will only ever make more of them.
The wealthy are only wealthy because they found some clever way to insert themselves as unnecessary middlemen between consumers and the labor, skill, and/or talent which creates the actual thing the consumers are paying for, and skimmed most of the money off for themselves. That’s all “profit” ever is in large-scale corporate operations: it’s the money that parasitic middlemen were able to steal from the real talent and move into their own bank accounts.
This will never create a healthy and harmonious world. It will only ever create more suffering and dysfunction. Something better is needed.
______________________
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73 responses to “As US Eviction Crisis Looms, Remember That Poverty Is Weaponized By The Elite”
Nick Brana was interviewed on the eviction crisis July 24, 2020 on The Jimmy Dore Show. Nick was with the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign, and decided to form Movement for a People’s Party as his response to the heartbreak and betrayal of Sanders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzkRP7FySUY
The interview starts at 6:20, if you want to skip the introductory rant.
The whole video is 37 minutes. At 14:00 Nick describes how fake progressive
Pramila Jayapal said she wouldn’t challenge her party.
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I’ve never seen Nick so fired up. He said he was the second most disgusted he’s ever been in his life.
One question that keeps floating up from the abyss of my subconscious is – what if everyone just stopped paying mortgages to central banks? And credit cards? What would happen? They’d fail pretty fast right? If we all just stopped at the same time? Too many to evict, especially with no income to pay hired thugs and politicians. Then could we all just stay put, and live our lives. Why do they own our houses, what value is brought to my community by paying most of my income to some mystery banking conglomerate? Who among us would be hurt, other than the big machine? Pay cash or barter = no payroll tax stolen for the war machine = no money for fat cats, so they’d starve right? I grow potatoes on my lawn, and trade you for your backyard chicken eggs. And we build from there. Could it be so simple? A girl can dream anyway.
The TV series “Mr. Robot” explored the idea of what would happen if hackers destroyed all credit information worldwide, and prevented our corporate overlords from being able to collect existing debt. I thought it was interesting. (No pun intended.) They imagined it as a disaster with unintended consequences. I guess people were unable to access cash, because their bank accounts were not there.
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There was an attempt in my local area years ago to create a barter economy with printed labor dollars or something. The denominations were in hours of labor. So you could volunteer at the local food co-op or something and be paid in these IOU’s, and then use them to buy food there, or at one of a few other businesses that participated. It didn’t last though. I’m not sure why. Maybe not enough participation.
“Interesting” indeed! I’m using that one 😉
Rich prople ard not evil. Nor are they just clever. Somewhere along the line they got lucky or worked really hard to build something from nothing. They put in 16 hr days for years to acheive their wealth. This applies to the first generstion only. True wealth begets more wealth for subsequent generations. These later generations often feel entitled and out of touch with the common man. Howevef remember to employ people and give them a job you must have employers. These wealthy employers are but a necessary cog in the economic chain.
No one is inherently wealthy.
“I started my first business with a small loan from my father, of One Million Dollars”
Donald Trump
Fight Australia’s descent into a police state!
“In recent months the Australian government has used the COVID-19 pandemic as cover to launch a raft of new policy initiatives in concert with the latest war plans of our “dangerous” Anglo-American allies. These include: new defence and force structure plans; new powers for spy agencies to ramp up police state laws; escalated spying, including on your bank account; an increase in the capacity for cyber warfare; and a crackdown on social media freedoms. With parliament being suspended twice in five months, government ministers have been able to ram this agenda through with little scrutiny. In mid-2018 independent MP Andrew Wilkie declared “Australia is a pre police state” (emphasis added). There is no longer any doubt that we have arrived. The Australian Alert Service has exposed this agenda and the covert means by which it is being carried out in a series of articles:
“Governing by decree” (15 July 2020) reveals the legislative tricks government ministers are regularly using to legislate without a parliamentary vote. These can even be used to amend past legislation without due process or scrutiny.
“Dutton moves to expand police state under cover of COVID-19” (3 June 2020) reports on the ASIO Amendment Bill 2020, which contains provisions that can be decreed by the minister alone, and are not able to be blocked by MPs with the usual procedures. The bill, which has been under review by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and is not yet law, would lower the age for detention and interrogation of children to 14 years of age and limit the ability of detainees to choose their own lawyer.
Also reviewed is the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (International Production Orders) Bill 2020 to legalise the long-term information sharing between Five Eyes nations, which allows our intelligence agencies to spy on us by accessing partner surveillance data.
“Morrison’s indefensible Defence plan re-commits to Cold War with China” (8 July 2020) reviews updates to the nation’s defence plan and increased military spending directed at consolidating Australia as an Anglo-American outpost in the spurious “dominant global contest of our age”—between the US and China.
“COVID-19 ramps up corporatised ‘Western’ censorship agenda” (20 May 2020) documents the collusion between governments, intelligence agencies and social media platforms in an effort to control public opinion and suppress dissent under the guise of “fighting fake news”.
“Spies on the rise as nation gets battle-ready” (15 July 2020) reports on the upgrade of spying by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), whose big recruitment drive is justified by exaggerated claims of cyber-attacks on a range of critical infrastructure and services. Conveniently, the increase in surveillance includes greater access to customer bank data justified by the economic consequences of the COVID lockdown. Bank regulator, APRA, is now working closely with both ASIO and global intelligence agencies.
War and fascist controls are the age-old reaction to a financial crisis like the one currently underway, but there is another way out—through economic development and cooperation. Join the Citizens Party in organising a coalition across parties and institutions to bring this about.”
A Public Service Warning:
Please be aware that the standard test for when a President is lying does not apply to the current President. Just because you can not see Donald Trump’s lips moving, that does not mean he is not lying.
Donald Trump can lie with his thumbs!
Caitlin Johnstone wrote:
> In a nation where you’re literally incapable of influencing government policy and behavior unless you have a certain amount of wealth at your disposal, depriving the populace of their ability to pool their money toward electing a government which combats income and wealth inequality. The donor class are the only ones who get a say.
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There is also — you know, that’s a classic — the hyperactive revolving door between top government positions and top lucrative jobs at defense contractors, war profiteering banks, corporations, and the like. In both directions, but it can as well be a nice way for Wall Street to say to public officials “thank you for your service”:
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Revolving Door Out Of Control… — Redacted Tonight
Thanks for your work, you’re one of the best writers out there, and I deeply appreciate what you do! This article reminded me of a rap I wrote around a decade ago, when I was in and out of jail.
Down with the republic, up with democracy
I don’t need a representative to talk for me
Fuck this bloated government bureaucracy
And this economy that requires inequality
Question everything, my philosophy’s like Socrates
Dropping pearls of wisdom while the swine dropping me
But I stay waiting on the day that I can cop some tree
And pearl a g up in tobacco leaf with my Gs
I’m chopping cheese just so I can see some cheese
Cuz jobs at factories the best you’ll see without degrees
I spent a lot of time pondering what righteousness really means
And found fighting poverty puts righteousness out of reach
Really, reality is what turns men into beasts
There’s a duality to morality when it’s down to him or me
See, the system’s set up so that some of us are casualties
And that’s fucked up, when everyone could have a piece
In this age of modern communications, a direct democracy is quite possible. We’ve advanced a fair bit since the age when horses and sailing ships were considered fast communication. So, why are we still using their system when they had to have representatives in a capital that took a week to reach by mail?
Direct Democracy is quite possible in this modern age.
I don’t think most people want to do it. It is hard to interest them even in participating in local cooperatives. At work, you can’t get them to join a union, much less think about taking over and running the business. Communication is not the problem. I would say the problem is a culture of infantile thought and behavior. Look at who they elect.
It seems to me that China’s government controls their corporations and the corporations control the U.S. government. Isn’t this really a distinction without difference?
Anything is better than having a corporate CEO making life and death decisions about you.
To rise to the top of a political process, you have to be a people person. You have to know how to bring people together in a compromise that gives both a part of what they want.
Corporate CEOs are good at stabbing people in the back and cheating to win. They have no morals. The system is designed such that nobody with morals can get within kilometers of a CEO job. Only those with absolutely no morals can be the best of the pack and climb to the top of a corporate dog pile. Even a shred of morals means you never rise above vice-president in a corporation.
Politicians ain’t saints, but if I have to chose between a politician or a corporate CEO deciding if I live or die, I’ll take the politician any day.
even Mcconnel and his ilk?
Guess I just don’t feel like it’s the politicians actually making those decisions. Not anymore, if they ever did. Certainly not since the Citizens United decision in 2010.
“…Americans are looking at the possibility of up to 40 million evictions in the coming months as unemployment payments expire and a federal moratorium on evictions runs out.”
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We humans are pretty simple when you come right down to it. Give us a space to live in, something to put in our bellies, someone to hug at night, and most of us are pretty good with that. The problem today is that circumstances are conspiring to take away the roof over our head, the food from grocery shelves and restaurant tables, and people being stressed and angry and afraid are becoming less huggable. When people are threatened with the loss of basic necessities of life, bad things happen. Look at what happens in the animal kingdom when that happens and you’ll get an idea of what to expect in our world in the coming days from “civilized” humans.
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“…the USA is largely a third-world country blanketed in first-world narrative.”
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In the old Monkees TV show (the music group), in one episode a Monkee was told that they were nothing but a third-rate band. To which, the Monkee indignantly replied, “HEY, we’re SECOND RATE!” If only our leadership would have more of such honesty.
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“The wealthy are only wealthy because they found some clever way to insert themselves as unnecessary middlemen…”
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Wealthy people honestly believe that either God has ordained them to be Rich Elite (Blankers), or at least that they deserve such wealth out of some kind of delusional sense of entitlement. It’s damn near impossible to break through that personal narrative they have fully baptized themselves in. The corollary to this is that “poor” people deserve to be poor because they just “aren’t one of Us”. Nice, neat, and very sick philosophy for them to go through life with. But many generations have done this, with many more to follow unless something extremely nasty comes our way either from within our planet or from deep space.
Peace!
Bread!
Land!
Not every generation in every place has done accepted what they were told.
I loved the Monkees. There was an episode with Pat Paulson as a guest star. He was a comedian who ran for president in real life. I think one of his lines on the show was, “That’s tricky thinking, and not the right answer.” Heh heh.
If we could get the enforcers of evictions to refuse to evict —
that would be something powerful…
It would also be something if crowds turned out to obstruct or impede the evictions one after another—large groups of people standing in yards, streets, sidewalks, etc.–ideally wearing yellow vests.
I think something more institutional may be required, like expropriating all residential and small-business rental properties and reducing the rent to cost of maintenance capped according to household income. In the case of residential mortgages, the mortgage itself can be expropriated and the bank compensated for its original investment only with the same funny money that has been used to vastly inflate real estate assets in recent years. So also the former owners of rental properties.
After termination of the Empire, Medicare for all, and free higher education, these could be points #4 and #5 on the program of the New Communist Party, since Mr. Musk has happily advanced the possibility of there being one.
It seems that the problem is that governments fail to respect human rights?
If you read article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it says:
“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.”
Keeping my Rosary on hand!
Yes, but where does it say that it must be given to them. There is no free lunch in life.
Life itself is a free lunch. Who paid to be born? We are here only by gift, and we should learn to live in a manner that acknowledges that, or as Schweitzer put, reverences that.
If there weren’t we would all be dead — obviously.
The more I look at it, the more it resembles the world from a certain DS9 episode called “Past Tense”. Rich people completely disjointed from the realities of the real world. The real world where the picture, at first, is looking much better than it really is, until you realize “the poverty” is shoved away to be hidden.
If these people really end up evicted from their homes, what will happen to them? Will they be sorted out into these “sanctuary districts” to make them go away in order to make the country seem less impoverished than it really is?
People should watch it. It is them. And it was supposed to be just 4 years in the future from now.
And the authors are just about to get their timing right.
Yes, I agree.
The fairy tale of the American dream can be realized by some who have the means, drive or ability to play the game just enough to obtain a degree of wealth comfort. “The American Dream” certainly has been exploited by the psychopaths to the extreme of an all encompassing wealth confiscation. The tragic reality is, the majority of Americans are going along with the “This is the best country in the world to live in! ” narrative; for, as George Carlin quipped, “They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it.”
So you think the worker can somehow be inspired to produce more than he consumes without an incentive (i.e., profit). Your entire rationale for socio/economic justice relies on the species assumption that creativity and human advancement can be optimally achieved if we can just find that evasive, utilitarian benevolent power structure to lead us to the promised land. News alert: All power structures (read that states, religions, large corporations, et al) are based on rapacious exploitation of the weak and ignorant. You don’t achieve justice by “taking” anything from someone else. My body, my life, my choices, my honestly acquired property, my dreams, my beliefs—belong to ME. I will alone decide with whom to share what belongs to me.
You too may be eligible for emergency Paycheck Protection Program funds to buy a nice car.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/ppp-lambo-fraud-726530
Government money for the taking.
https://fee.org/articles/runaway-fraud-plagues-the-massive-unemployment-program-congress-is-about-to-extend-report-finds/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_FEEDaily
Call your local Republican for more information. Remember, donors to the Trump Campaign get first in line for PPP money!
I like this laconic summary of isms , and have used it often myself when arguing with idiots . Well done !
The” War on Poverty” , an LBJ electioneering device was lost the and declared over with appointment of Mr Reagan to the POTUS throne during the 1980s ? Mr Musks wealth was built on the backs of South African slaves initially . He is a better example of the horror that is todays elitist than Mr Trump . Das Kapital as anyone who has actually read it knows was a treatise in support of Adam Smith’s moral capitalism , and out of date before it was even published in England . Mr Marx is as always a “straw-man” and or “red herring” in The US , as even Emma Goldman discovered over a century ago !
Any graph of what percentage of money that ordinary people were getting in the economy shows it reached its peak under LBJ. Its been all downhill from there, with eras like the Reagan and now Trump administrations looking like the slope of a ski jump.
———-
In the 1960’s, it was possible for an ordinary American to support a family on one paycheck, own two cars, take summer vacations and save to send their children to college. You saw boats and campers in the driveways of ordinary homes, and the camper was not there because Uncle Bob and Aunt Jane have to live there after the bank took their home. That’s what a normal ‘good’ job would get you in the 1960’s. By ‘good’ job I mean pretty much anyone where you were a good employee and stuck with the company for a few years.
Everything a President does is always an electioneering device. Free the slaves was an election device that created a third party from out of nowhere and propelled Abe Lincoln into the White House. But that doesn’t mean it was a bad idea.
Here is a simple explanation from a homeless guy on youtube. Socialism without Capitalism is Communism. Capitalism without Socialism is Fascism. We must seek balance for a healthy society.
Capitalism with Limits.
There’s a lower limit. You can not have a lower income in a period than that.
There is an upper limit. You can not make more income in a period than that. Quit working and go remember what your kids look like.
A fair society would have those limits relatively close to each other. Enough that everyone gets to survive and live with dignity, but there is room for people to be creative and work and enjoy their success. If they are really successful, we throw them a Retirement Party, congratulate them on having enough money to live quite wonderfully for the rest of their lives, and give them a trophy and tell them to go home.
The problem with today’s world is that there are some people who want to own absolutely everything. They make a lot of poor people by doing so.
well said George and Khatika!
Again we’re blessed with one of Caitlin’s best posts. “As long as human behavior remains driven by the pursuit of profit, we will continue to see steadily rising amounts of war, ecocide, oppression, exploitation and mass-scale manipulation, because those things are profitable and/or protect the interests of those reaping the profits. We will never, ever profit our way out of any of those problems. The pursuit of profit will only ever make more of them.” People and planet over profit–this must become the rallying cry for millions of Americans and billions of others similarly situated, and maybe the coming onslaught of evictions and other financial devastation caused by the Covid Crisis will trigger the mass reopening of eyes, minds, and hearts. Some of Caitlin’s readers might want to check out the latest post by another superb Australian blogger, a post which primarily addresses the Australian situation which differs only in degree from the tidal wave about to hit the U.S.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=45472#view_comments
the problem is greed ,not a reasonable profit.
Profit is greed, receiving income from the work of others, as opposed to income earned through one’s own labor.
The movie “Tomorrowland” is one of the most important, smartest attempts made so far at “waking up” both the bewildered herd AND its Elite to the ongoing, worsening human crisis. Here’s Governor Nix’s complete speech near the end of the movie.
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“Let’s imagine……………if you glimpsed the future; you were frightened by what you saw; what would you DO with that information? You would go to…….the politicians, captains of industry?
And how would you convince them? Data? Facts? Good luck. The only facts they WON’T challenge are the ones that keep the wheels greased and the dollars rolling in.
But what if… what if there was a way of skipping the middle man and putting the critical news directly into everyone’s head?
The probability of wide-spread annihilation kept going up. The only way to stop it was to show it—to scare people straight ……….because what reasonable human being wouldn’t be galvanized by the potential destruction of everything they’ve ever known or loved?
To save civilization, I would show its collapse.
But how do you think this vision was received? How do you think people RESPONDED to the prospect of imminent doom?
They gobbled it up like a chocolate eclair! They didn’t fear their demise, they re-packaged it. It could be enjoyed as video-games, as TV shows, books, movies. The entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse and sprinted towards it with gleeful abandon.
Meanwhile, your Earth was crumbling all around you.
You’ve got simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation. Explain that one!
Bees and butterflies start to disappear; the glaciers melt; algae blooms.
All around you the coal mine canaries are dropping dead and YOU WON”T TAKE THE HINT!
In every moment there’s the possibility of a better future, but you people won’t believe it. And because you won’t believe it, you won’t DO what is necessary to make it a reality. So you dwell on this, oh, terrible future. You resign yourselves to it for one reason…… because THAT future does not ask anything of you TODAY.
So yes, we saw the iceberg and warned the Titanic ……but you all just steered for it anyway, full steam ahead. Why? Because you WANT to sink! You gave up!”
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You know what’s so ironic? The bewildered herd is so UNIMAGINABLY well brainwashed that it can not “figure out” that it will NOT be told of impending doom by its (in a different way) brainwashed Elite.
The herd believes so much in the sincerity and good will of “authorities”, along with the effectiveness of “the system” (the Matrix) in which it has been raised, it cannot grasp that the Elite and their great system could possibly fail catastrophically. The herd’s brains literally can not “see” reality, just like bulls in the ring cannot see what’s going on behind that strange looking guy’s cape.
For example, just ask the dead who lived and killed in the trenches of WWI, or marched right into the “showers” in Auschwitz, what THEY would have said to those who told them what the future had in store for them.
“Impossible!”, they would have replied.
Even when hermits or movie producers try to explain it to “voters” through appeals to their imagination, or movies like Tomorrowland or The Matrix, because those individual human beings are not hearing or reading or seeing this terrible-but-accurate elucidation of the real world on their master-Elite’s newspapers or web sites or TV “news” shows, or in the Elite’s public school classrooms’ Elite-approved textbooks, those individuals are INCAPABLE of reacting effectively to impending doom.
In short, these individuals have to / EXPECT TO be told what to do and what to think by those who so effectively control them.
“If things were that bad, we’d hear about it in the news.”
Once again with feeling– NO, WE WON’T!
Accurate descriptions of the real world; the possible “prescriptions” to repair the fatal flaws in the present system, and the “instructions” on how to behave for a truly better future must come NOT from the Elite, but from OURSELVES. The Elite are INCAPABLE of it.
Even if we self-centered voters DID somehow manage to overcome our brainwashing and see reality, because of our educations, we would IMO still have, to put it mildly, great difficulty organizing and creating a plan of action, let alone implementing it. For example, The day AFTER the “out of the blue” collapse (that has been predicted with near certainty for at least the last 49 years), desperately trying to find a foundation-stone of a new system before the ensuing political chaos becomes uncontrollably, irretrievably widespread, we would almost certainly fall back on the centuries-old, fatally-flawed myths that inexorably led to the system that is about to collapse around us — the INFALLIBILITY of greed and that growth is God.
It is a testament to the power of propaganda that what should be obvious is completely lost on we who have been subjected to it every day of our lives. Even the intelligent producers of Tomorrowland, The Matrix, THX1138, Logan’s Run, The Time Machine, Soylent Green, Star Trek, etc. have been, and sitll are, so far anyway, incapable of elucidating even a fictional-but-viable-looking “movie-solution” to humanity’s very real, increasingly serious conundrum. After the enemies in these prescient movies and TV shows were vanquished or escaped from, “they lived happily ever after” is all we temporarily-relieved viewers took home to munch on.
So what is the foundation-stone of the post-systemic-failure going to be? Is it going to be “let the president become Napoleon”; “TBTF banks know what’s best for us”; “stand up and do what comes naturally”; “last man standing”; “dog eat dog”; “might makes right”; “do what our gang says or we’ll kill you”?
Or is it going to be “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
As Klattu told those assembled in front of his flying saucer 66 years ago, “the decision rests with you”.
As it always has been throughout human history, the decision for humanity’s future does indeed rest with us and we and our descendants will suffer the consequences of the decisions we make today, just as we are suffering today the decisions made by our distant ancestors.
i don’t think so. unless you auto-think all the massive decisions made by people will lead us to LIFE….i think not. too many really really stupid, dead zone peephole. way gone.
look at Hindus and Moslems. that would be what? HALF the deciders?
(Bush said HE was the decider–probably for the Ownership Society.)
Then China. Sheeple. Self-protecting. Using coal. Seeking only to know if we are trying to exterminate them with future virus aimed at Asians.
Africa is brain dead. AND they hate each other.
South America is Catholic which means MAFIAS of all colors and Corruption a la modida and rape replacing making out.
Dissidents get dropped into sulphuric acid or the oceans.
that leaves Russia and EU and the Old British Empire: So WE get to decider the future!
nice. the ones who invented colonialism. perfected monarchy to morph into capitalism.
note cap and head are same thing. head of state, decapitates opponents. “OFF with his HEAD!”
and so greed is good will be the most powerful force on Earth to save this planet for Humans and probably mammals.
does that look good to you?
{and remember 80% of all religions seek only life AFTER Earth, not during. so i would not expect too much luck from that POV.}
Oh well. Back to my video game.
Please, please don’t forget that U.S. santions worldwide, like evictions at home, are part of this same poverty rubric, i.e., economic attrition/siege warfare.
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Attrition_warfare
THANK YOU!
The World is full of Kings and Queens.
They Blind you Eyes
and Kill your Dreams.
There are a few of the wealthy that acquired their wealth by performance of service. A service that folks were happy to pay for. The majority acquired their wealth by using the hammer of the state to destroy competition, avoid responsibility, and force the public to pay for their product, among various other methods. There is no nation that does not promote this, only a slight variation in ever changing degree. The several trillion dollar bailout of the bank cartel and corporations, while throwing a pittance, the$1200 bribe to get us to look the other way while they did it, is a perfect example. The state, banks, and corporations are all members of a club, and you ain’t in it. No modification of the form of government is going to gain you membership.
It could be worse.
You could be a poor person in Israel:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/07/feeding-a-bedouin-roy-oz-and-israels-outrageous-racism/#more-107275
Thanks Caitlin
By enabling substance abuse is another way they control the narrative.
The ‘war on drugs’ is an illusion for public consumption – addicts are unlikely to be ‘rising up’ anytime EVER !
This group of people are not only addicted to any particular substance – they are also addicted to a life filled with drama and chaos.
The complete breakdown of the family unit, resulting in ‘abandonment’ issues (known to be a major cause of mental illness) causing severe ‘personality’ disorders that can only be moderated with – well – drugs.
70% of Americans are thought to be ob some kind of prescription medication.
Your mention of addiction was a nice addition to Caitlin’s down-the-pipe analysis. Thank you for making a great blog even greater.
all kinds of drugs all kinds of addictions.
some like fighing. some like sex. some booze. booze is themost violent.
i guess meth maybe.
but don’t think all drugs are passive that is naive.
lotsa wild angry drugs
Globally nicotine addiction kills more people annually.
Almost everyone on the planet seeks fulfillment.
Problem is, we look for it outside of ourselves.
Money, control, success, status, fame, shiny toys, drugs, booze, sex and violence.
The more we get, the more we want.
Exploitation feeds our addictions.
The US is the epicentre of mass addiction.
Vance Packard and Neil Postman saw it coming forty years ago.
We have dug our grave.
All that’s left for us is to fall into it.
Ms Johnstone, the ” Empire’s Ship ” is sinking; it is only a matter of time before the ” crew ” decides which things ( people ) are useless and no longer needed. The poor with be the first to be thrown overboard; their ” safety nets ” will all be eliminated. The old and the sick will also eventually be thrown overboard as well. Even the ” children ” will be deemed expendable and thrown overboard. Everyone ” not needed ” will be gotten rid of; and quickly. The MSM is gearing the population for this eventually by always showing ” rioters and looters ” who need to be the first thrown over the side of the ship.
“Any system which allows people with wealth/power to have more influence over news media, ideas and information than ordinary people will always necessarily lead to authoritarianism. If you want actual equality and freedom, you need to fully democratize all narrative control.”
When/where has that EVER happened? Socialism? Capitalism? Tribes? Kibbutz? Ecstasy-fueled rave night? Marriage? The dysfunction of human organizations stems from our individual dysfunction.
It is naive to view ourselves as above that, although it’s certainly more comfortable to deny our nature and say we would never be like that. Fixing our institutions starts with fixing ourselves and calling out what is evil and warped within ourselves vs excusing, embracing or denying it.
Tomorrow’s sociopaths and psychopaths are in today’s families, schools and on social media. Just like today’s once were.
The mass delusions we see rampant today is fed by narrative and power, for sure, but it began long before with us individually as we learned to deny and justify our nature rather than seeking to discipline it.
We CAN break their legs! What it will take is the “coming together” of the majority, that is why the CABAL is deliberately creating division among us. That is why MSM is pushing as much DISINFORMATION as possible. Don’t fall for it! And tell them to shove their masks where the sun dont shine baby! Cause they deprive you of fresh air and cause you to inhale toxins, that get trapped in the material when breathing out!
Whey are wonderlanders [READ AMERICANS] so consistently brian-f—-d may by 40 years of deep fried industrial chicken pulp and gallons of reconstituted soft drinks, but also market driven pop culture, or we could blame it on digital autism, stroking the touch screen for hours on end .And throw in sixty five years of television mind numbing effects, you end up with it ain’t a pretty picture out there in wonderland.
well, that does it! that one pushes me over the limit of my recalcitrance….we got to begin to: EAT DA RICH!
asset tax. high income taxes. Capture all off shore accounts: declare war on the Caymans, Vanuatu, moldova, Ayn Rand’s Colorado hologram, Monaco, Switzerland, da Bahamas, Isle of Man, tonga, US Virgins…not on Epstein’s list. break out la guillotine. is this the right thing? or am i gonna be standing on some esoteric gourmet beer barrel out there all alone.
hey, Joan D’Arc you be safe in Belmourn, praying for our–my–tiny url to carry da day. and i’m not even published. i married the wrong grrl–she can’t even change a tire. we are the losts.
together.
and here come Ivana with her witto beretta. Biden you say? worse or better or just different. i always voted for jill stein. see how bad i got it?
kesey said Mexico is dead rat, he meant me!
even if EVERYONE agrees with you it’still gonna be:
now what?
Quite correct: “Something better is needed.” May I qualify that: “Something very much better is needed.” This civilization was built on capitalist enslavement of poor laborers and underpaid technicians. Who is brilliant enough to write a new constitution and describe an effective strategy for how we will convince the majority to end this oppressive, violent, short-sighted civilization and build a new and very much better civilization?
Don’t give up, we can do this.
https://youtu.be/GND10sWq0n0
Lol… I can’t believe how good Chitty Chitty Bang Bang still is after all these years.
It was pretty awesome.
You may find an answer to your question here: http://openanthropology.org/libya/gaddafi-green-book.pdf
The wealthy have – ALWAYS – known that they are “at war” with we the common people. Sadly we common folk have been so completely brainwashed that we fail to understand this basic fact of existence. Instead we have been socialized to worship the wealthy the same way we worship our brain-dead film celebrities. In a hierarchical society where wealth equates to power the wealthy will of course – NEVER – give up either their wealth or their power willingly.
We can perish as alienated, individuated, skin-encapulated, “entrepreneurial,” egos – or – we can understand our commonality, our relationship to each other and the planet and all life, and “together” refuse to submit to the continued rule of wealthy psychopaths.
The current American worship of wealth is a relatively recent phenomenon, arising largely in the 1970s and 80s, during my younger years. Watch the older American Christmas classics, for example–“It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” “Christmas Carol”–and the rich man and his minions are generally portrayed as greedy, grasping bastards. I also remember how during the late 60s/early 70s, it was NOT cool to be rich, how the rich kids would play poor on campus, how even a new pair of jeans was buried in sand for a while to make it look worn and seedy and therefore cool. I take some consolation in the thought that if things flipped once, and I saw it happen, they can flip again.
You have said much of what needed saying…though I believe, you could have added that most of these ‘Elites’ gained, keep, and grow their wealth and power though ruthless murderess criminal actions void of any empathy.
Correct but nearly everyone who reads Caitlin’s blog, including me and probably you benefit from wealth and power gained though ruthless murderess criminal actions void of any empathy.
That’s the same misguided thinking that the transnational corporations solicit when discussing the opportunities they bring developing nations with employment for $2 a day. Look how much better off they are — they had nothing and now look at them thrive due to our sweatshop.
I’d suggest you stop mis-directing your focus toward the people, and understand the enemy is/are the capitalist oppressors.
Yes, the enemy is/are the capitalist oppressors. AND most of us are indirectly collaborating with the enemy. We use their banks for credit and loans. We pay taxes and duties. We use their fake fiat currency, etc.
Sociopaths rise to the top. A corporation, itself declared by US SC to be a person, is a sociopath, even a psychopath.
“Sociopaths’ can be particularly identified by ONE trait – they have ‘CHARM’ and lying comes to them as naturally as breathing.
O’Bomber and Nero had it in spades.
Nero’s final words – before taking his own life – “What an artist dies in me”
Which of course – should have been “What a BS artist dies in me ”
Nero played the Lyre (the fiddle had not been invented in 68AD) – Obama (coincidently) also played the Liar !