Dear Friends

Have set up a site for ideas from thinkers, philosophers and activists on a post-capitalist world.

It is at: Philosophers for change

Peace be with you

 

The sign over some of the concentration camps during the Nazi reign of terror was the infamous “Work Will Set You Free” eponymously reflected in this post’s title. What does not seem clear at the moment is the connection and logical extension of the current work paradigm the world over from the events and psychology of the concentration camp.

In other words, whatever a person’s ideological bent the work world or labour today has the characteristics in many ways of what could be found in a concentration camp.

Exaggerated you say, as you quickly whip out your iPhone to set up the next appointment and worry about getting a three month annual bonus or worse, whether your mollycoddling of your superiors will allow you a larger cubicle and perhaps your own office space; never mind those who are not sure what Skype is and are waiting to load the next lorry with rocks from a quarry wondering how long they can do this past 40 years of age: and so many of us continue in this vein of wage slavery until death finally makes us part from it all. So we hope.

But there is more to all of the above than meets the eye.

[However, it needs be clear that this post is meant mainly for those who are familiar with the issues in it. It is also meant for those who may be familiar with most of the earlier posts on this site. For those who are, for want of better expression, reading stuff like this for the first time, it is understandable if you find much here that stretches your credulity. Even for those who have thought through some of the ideas here, there may be some resistance to what is discussed. But if readers are impelled from here to start doing their own research and finding out for themselves the truths about the world we live in, then writing this post has been worthwhile.]

Most of the references in this post are made to a ground breaking book entitled The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp by Wolfgang Sofsky, (English translation, 1999). When I first read this original book over 10 years ago, what overwhelmed me was not so much its courage and tremendous insights but the almost nauseating content due to its subject matter. It is well written and not exploitative at all as it is basically an academic (but highly readable) work. Yet despite the restrained disgust expressed by Sofsky and his clinical description and analysis of what took place in the concentration camps (CCs), one needs an intellectually strong stomach to endure reading it from beginning to end.

Needless to say, you cannot breeze through such a book as if a bestselling novel. I read it bit by bit with some trepidation of what else I would have to learn about human history. A lot of what I read -- I resisted -- and so didn’t quite absorb the ideas first time around. The book needed a second read but I did not have the strength to do so then. Ten years later and quite recently, I forced myself to read it again. It was still tough to go through but I was better prepared; and suddenly something clicked about what it said and the world we live in.

Also, we live in a world well versed with Abu Ghraib and its nefarious activities. Things like that prepare you better for reading through the horrors of the Nazi regime. Which brings me to one of the key ideas in this post: in a post-September 11 we-are-all surrounded-by-terrorists world, the need to re-visit the past to let it shed light on the present is not just a necessity, it is a duty.

I repeat – a duty.

If you have any doubt as to what happened at Abu Ghraib and what it stood for, read Philip Zimbardo’s fairly recent The Lucifer Efffect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil which is not only well researched and documented but clearly, brilliantly, and honestly written yet just as hard to read as Sofsky’s work (due to the subject matter).

The use of doublespeak by those who choose to enslave us and spread darkness as much as possible is legion. But few can have the watermark of irony and terror revealed by the choice use of words in the Nazi concentration camps’ motto “Work shall set you free” and that of the CIA’s “the truth shall set you free”.

One thing is certain, if Conrad wrote his magnificent The Heart of Darkness today, the last words of Kurtz would not be “the horror, the horror’, but “the terror, the terror” and in that he would be much closer in vision to the grand and unsettling work of H.P. Lovecraft.

Yet, we can take it as self evident that what man turns into darkness he can return back to the light.

Skulls and Bones

The basic points that Sofsky raises in The Order of Terror, revolves around the organized, bureaucratized and, in a sense, industrialized nature of the CCs. That they were created and managed not just by those who were pathological but those who in most instances were intent on running as efficient a machinery of torture and death as possible.

It is no secret that prototype IBM computer systems, or business machines, were used in cataloguing and managing the data of the internees and victims of the camps. They would have been used to manage the data of the staff and officers of the camps as well. This point is not raised by Sofksy but it is mentioned to highlight the well thought through organized structure the CCs were operating under: and that is a point Sofsky is at pains to make.

We can only wonder at this stage what computer systems and machines were used for similar purposes at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo -- though it can be imagined Apple users pointing one way and others saying, ‘Don’t look at me’. But no one can ever say that their products in data management are not tinged with blood. And most of us thought that the work of Terror was often an ad hoc thing – it isn’t. I don’t mean the crazies who go about blowing up things for a lark or a supposed Cause, I mean a systematic and systemic use of planning and calculation to unleash Terror on all of us.

In other words – organized Terror.

With all that is organized, the time factor of things cannot be ignored. So unsurprisingly, one of the things that Sofsky looks at is the manipulation of time at the CCs. In a section that deals with the management of time in the camps and its effect on prisoners, he writes (italics and bold mine):

“Social time is an objective, imposed standard time of organization, but power can arbitrarily expand, slow down, or accelerate it. Camp time was more than the external compulsion characteristic of all social time. Camp power permeated inner time-consciousness, sundering all the internal band that laces together memory, expectation, and hope. Absolute power far surpasses the familiar forms of organized temporal control. It is not satisfied simply with synchronization and coordination of events. It destroys the continuity of inner time and severs the ties between past and future, locking people into an eternal present. Far from being satisfied with controlling human bodies, it seizes hold of biographical time and the motions of the mind.” (p73 Sofsky)

Who would believe that what applies to a Nazi CC is consonant with what takes place in the working world for so many people. The situation of time being controlled in a work place scenario and countless others involving organizations, reflects power play. There may be issues of respect and hierarchy involved which may be reasonable, but the focus here and elsewhere is to what is unreasonable and a matter of imposing oneself on another as part of a power play that involves denigrating someone or a group of people or entire societies and even countries. This is also known as the zero-sum game of those who overtly or insidiously subscribe to an absolute power paradigm.

Again, while statements will be made from hereon about how people are treated under the jackboots of corporations and other controllers, please bear in mind that it is with empathy towards those of us who are reasonable and responsible members of society rather than just malingerers.

So, take the example of a job interview in many cases. The prospective employee is made to wait sometimes for quite a bit of time, before being brought before the august interview panel to whom must be shown all due deference (and more). The interviewee has to consciously ensure, unless it’s one of those jobs that want someone with an attitude, that they kowtow towards those who may deign to employ them and help them have access to a bread basket.

From the start of how the time is controlled at an interview, what is made apparent is the relation of control being imposed. The relationship is unequal in which those who choose to see you make it quite clear that they are doing you the favour…and when they let you go for whatever reasons (profit margin, need to maintain fat bonuses for greedy top executives, etc) it should not be forgotten that after all, it was not what you contributed to the firm that matters, but your tacit recognition from the start that you are a being that was afforded employment assistance/opportunity; so who do you think you are when you are disposed of like a spent object from your firm? Get real.

Before more is said on this, look at a sample of what else is quote worthy from that section on time (italics and bold mine):

“Planning is one of the tools of social power…Schedules mark beginning points, end points, phases, transitions, linear sequences or cyclic returns…The fuller the schedule, the less time that remains for unplanned incidents, deviations, the wasting of time. The more dense the temporal grid, the more intensive the use of time. Planning determines the smallest moment; it knows only maximum rapidity, precision, effectiveness. Schedules guarantee effectiveness and provide a criterion for its monitoring. In its factorylike organizational form, the camp resembles other disciplinary institutions that gain stability by regimenting everyday temporal sequences.

But absolute power has only a limited interest in a rigid institutionalization of time. It regularly departs from the standardized time tracks it has instituted. As in any formal system, the regulation of time is an effective technology of power;…[but] Terror alternates between planning and disorder; between regulation and assault…By reserving for itself the choice of deviations and special times, power secures its rule over time. The temporal law of absolute power is not calculability, but the free variation of tempo, the shift between duration and abrupt suddenness, hectic rush and waiting, rest and shock.” (p73-4 Sofsky)

These words give a clearer context on the manipulation of time by those who control or are in a position of power over others whatever the situation it may apply to. Simply witness the way, in many instances, it is built into an employment contract that people can be made or ‘asked’ to work longer hours and do more than is required. It may be necessary in certain cases to do so and employees may understand that sacrifices must be made, but how often is it the case that employers exploit, bully and treat miserably those who are working for them (apparently this aspect of the contract is written in invisible ink between the lines)?

The reason for this is because the employment and economic structure of the world is quite often one that is pyramidal in shape with an emphasis on a master-slave relationship. With computers, world wide communications and so-called globalization we have employers squeezing all arteries and veins of a person at any time of the day 365 ¼ days a year to make them serve the god-like corporation or boss man; or, to assuage their petty egos aspiring for some display of absolute power.

Your time is not your own. Once you sign the Faustian pact with your boss man you’ve in effect sold your soul to them, and they make you pay for it over and above what they pay you. In fact, soon you will have to try and be like them to rise up the ranks of the boss men and women so that you can exercise similar master-slave paradigm roles/ functions over the other lower beings in the food chain.

How many people actually live in fear of what they say and do at the work place? Is it a work place or a CC? What is in place in microcosm is an Order of Terror. Countless times in various work scenarios, I have been told by people/colleagues how if they do this or that (usually that which is reasonable) and worse, do what is right or a matter of principle, they’re putting their ‘livelihood on the line’; other memorable phrases include ‘putting my head on the block’, ‘taking a real risk’ (as opposed to just a ‘risk’), ‘exposing my back’, ‘this could be It for me’, ‘they will hang me out to dry’ or ‘I’ll be out on the streets’ (many of which make nice titles for songs, the latter phrase in particular would make a good chorus these days).

Does this really sound like a workplace, never mind a healthy and pleasant work environment? It sounds like…exactly, ‘Sieg heil’ boss man.

Before proceeding further, we need to be clear about some terms. If the word ‘terrorist’ is used, it would refer to the usual villains who take people hostage, blow up things and have a pathological tenacity in causing harm to others. But the term ‘Terror’ (with the capital ‘T’) signifies a higher order of rapscallions who are using brutal and often subtle and sophisticated means of control, and fear instilling methods over people; in that context those who perpetuate such Terror are Terrorists. They consciously, or otherwise, engender the Order of Terror.

Yet when the terrorists operate purposively or subconsciously as part of Terror, then they too are part of the network of the higher order Terrorists.

The Order of Terror, unless it appears as part of a quoted text, will be represented throughout as OT.

Work as Violence

The groundbreaking work by the late Studs Terkel, especially his books Hard Times and Working, makes it quite clear that work/labour in most cases is a form of violence. It is a daily and unremitting violence inflicted on us just as we, unfortunately, inflict it on others. In many cases, we can see that the terms ‘work’ and ‘labour’ that refer to employment are usually references to the arduous nature and terrors of the workplace. Never mind the politicking and backstabbing, the exploitation and abuse that are never ending undercurrents of the workflow; just the work effort involved daily when it is continuous and relentless, irrespective of whether it is not so physical or literally back breaking, is enough to wear out the strongest amongst us.

The violence of labour is not just the act of producing something tangible or intangible. The violence also comes in the form of the physical, mental and emotional stress it can unleash on the individual engaged in almost any form of work including what they impose on others as they try to manage their loads and stay afloat – sadly in many cases at the expense of others. Violence in labour seems in-built in the way we do things: we are led to believe it is a systemic nature of the beast called humanity and that its nature is one that is indeed brutish, nasty and short lived in good will.

But back to our man Sofsky and the CCs (italics and bold mine):

“The camp invented numerous senseless tasks that had only one purpose: to drain and emaciate individuals, to grind them down. Absolute power strips labour of its purposive structure, expanding it endlessly. It has no interest in products or results. It is oriented to the process of working itself, to the duration of the suffering. It transforms hard effort and strain into a deadly pressure for annihilation. The social relation of power overlays the objective relation of labour, shaping it almost totally. Violence is not a means of labour; labour is means of violence. The prisoners did not belong to a slave class of outsiders. They were part of the class of the expendable and superfluous, the wretched and lost.” (p 172, Sofsky)

There is a dual meaning to what Sofsky says that applies to what is explored here. On one level it is the violence that is implicit in labour (which can lead to ‘productive’ goals), and the other which is an expression of (absolute) power over others. In some cases the two are conflated. But it is no surprise to most that a lot of the deployment of labour is a power game and while not always reaching that pinnacle of the pyramid, it is an attempt in some form of trying to embody absolute power.

While it would appear often times that showing up or speaking up against the boss man is a variation of cocking-a-snook against power, the offence to the boss man usually lies at a deeper level which is the perceived antagonistic stance of the sniveling subordinate towards the boss man’s sense of absolute power.

In concrete terms what does this mean. It would include:

1. Instilling the sense of who is boss man or woman. This is not so much to maintain a semblance of stability in an organization with some kind of meaningful hierarchy, but just the obverse of absolute power. In an unobvious manner this could include a formal way of addressing someone. Some boss men are informal, but many want to see some form of humility if not subservience shown to them

2. Knowing that you should not argue with someone not because they have conclusively shown why your idea was idiotic or not as effective as theirs, but because the boss man shouldn’t be contradicted (especially in front of others). This involves the secret and not-so-secret meetings among the lesser human staff after the main meetings with the boss men; this is to clarify what the hell exactly boss man or woman wanted (absolute power usually reflects shrewd manipulative thuggery as opposed to actual natural intelligence and common sense). Not a good idea to disagree with boss man, especially in front of others, because it can be seen as a railing against absolute power (in case your mother didn’t tell you…)

3. Whatever is produced may have value, as in a safety feature for a car, but the act of the labour itself in its mechanized and industrialized form is devoid of value as it is devoid of human sincerity in it: it is an act of sheer manufacturing and fabrication. Once someone in an assembly line has become robotic and is ‘producing’ in a meaningless manner, they have been subjugated by the work flow and the boss men supervisors into a situation, as Sofksy says, of one that “overlays the objective relation of labour, shaping it almost totally” (a line that would have made Marx and Engels proud). So there may be an object produced through labour, but labour itself is ultimately valueless as it is mindlessly performed by a labour automaton exemplifying a power relationship of control and fear between worker and boss man and the work flow itself

4. Each time a person leads an overtly ‘productive’ life, through what is described in preceding paragraphs, they are a showcase for labour as violence. Take the teaching profession, where countless tasks of apparent quality control, mind numbing meetings (for the sake of holding them as a work plan for a boss man/ individual staff member/department who have a matrix of objectives that must be ticked in a box using Adobe Acrobat to show that you’re actually working). The filling of class time with dingbat activities for the sake of giving a sense of conforming to the rules of the boss man or work matrix, even if the class proper/lesson of the day is over. The constant electronic and paper form filling as part of the pretence of achieving work objectives; falsifying and exaggerating management, professional or instructional goals so as to justify one’s teaching record; mollycoddling students to ingratiate them into getting good feedback scores which shows how popular an instructor you are; assiduously providing grade inflation to pass as many as possible or make sure that there is a failure or two to fit into some form of ‘bell curve’ – euphemistically known as ‘moderation’. All this is endemic, with the necessary adjustments, to most modern forms of work these days.

5. What doesn’t seem apparent is that violence is being done to us and we are doing similar violence to ourselves and others too. In this process we become “expendable and superfluous, the wretched and lost” wherein we now have to endure spiritual distress over and above everything else. Even for the agnostics and atheists amongst us, the moment we forgo a moral and ethical dimension to our working world and our daily lives, we have begun the downward plunge into spiritual degradation. How many do we know whose health has been ruined by their work and work environment. This applies to not just those whose labour is potentially dangerous like the construction industry, but just being a check out girl at the supermarket, a food stall holder, an office executive or a telephone operator. All this adds to the stress that comes from the use and abuse of power (with intimations of absolute power) including what is transferred back by, let’s say, customers (who reflect back to others their own daily labour and spiritual trauma). So in numerous cases of such daily violence and unpleasantness, people end up succumbing to debilitating illnesses

6. How many have even died from the stress and unhealthiness of the work environment and the type of work they do. I have known people and ex-colleagues who contracted cancer from the anguish, angst, pent up rage and frustration of their daily grind (compounded by other personal issues). But the greater part of our lives is our work world and the serious illness that we procure in this way is largely a sign of our spiritual dysfunction. We have become separated from all that is meaningful, valuable, holy, humane and decent in our daily lives that make up the essence of each human being. No economy that claims to be robust is healthy when its workforce is unhealthy and undergoing torments of the kind we normally associate with the nether regions of the spiritual world.

The wretched of the earth are not just the obvious ones who have been exploited and treated as chattel throughout the ages, these wretched ones are in many cases those of us who look ourselves in the mirror while fine tuning the make up or straightening that new fangled polka dotted tie.

The Living Dead

The working men and women of the world are in many instances reduced to the walking dead. Sofsky tells that many of the inmates of the camps were reduced to nothing more than living corpses known as Muselmanner (bold and italics mine):

“It was no accident that the Muselmanner [‘walking/waking dead’] were reminiscent of the “living dead”. They were only shadows of their former selves. Their actions had sunk below the animal minimum for survival. They hardly heard or saw anything, and reacted only when shouted at or prodded. When action is extinguished, life implodes, contracting to mere existence. In action, people mark a beginning to some sequence, show who they are, express themselves, communicate to and with others. Action is the medium of identity and sociality. A person robbed of action is a nonentity, a no one...Like the pile of corpses, the Muselmanner document the total triumph of power over the human being. Although still nominally alive, they are nameless hulks...The Muselmanner is the central figure in the tableau of mass dying – a death by hunger, murder of the soul, abandonment; dead while still living.” (p199-200, Sofsky)

These are telling lines about our daily struggle to survive. Ask anyone who is living at subsistence level and just managing their loans and children’s education among a host of other things and it will be described as the struggle to survive. During difficult economic times as we are living in now many are just barely scraping by, if at all, and one has to wonder whether this is what being a human being is about.

Ask ‘how’s it going’ to those in the US which is supposed to have a rising class of poverty where one in seven people are poor. A country that despite the better inclinations of many of its citizens is busy going into further national indebtedness and still trying to play ‘soldier-soldier’ in some parts of the world. It is almost as if a nation that promoted democracy and freedom has been hijacked by those intent on using it for their own purposes to control the world as much as possible, and run everything including the host body (America) this ghastly virus (the controllers) has inhabited into the ground leaving the world itself as a monument to the living dead.

So many of us just do not have the time to think through many things, nor sit down and have a decent, or intelligent, conversation with anyone about the issues of the day that in effect determine our lives. We have abrogated our abilities as human beings to fulfill our potential by surrendering such important things to others, be it the government (who has some responsibility to cover this gap for people) or ‘intellectuals’ (usually those with a string of academic degrees), neither of whom can be relied on solely without a check and engagement from the populace.

The people on planet Earth are not in charge of their lives in so many ways, certainly not their societies, and sure as heck not their countries. The economic system of wage slavery which is the epitome of the capitalist structure has put some of the most dishonest, disgraceful, egomaniacal, bloody minded and immoral people on any planet in positions of so-called authority and, of course, power (all the time edging towards absolute control). We have given up in being able to actively engage the most important people in our lives like our loved ones, never mind our social and national responsibilities (unless it is fulfilling some task as part of the mindless muddling through of daily life as the living dead).

The common, and understandable, excuse most of us give about barely speaking up and taking part in the life of our communities, society and country is that we don’t have the time; how can we have the time when apart from personal and family issues we have to earn our daily bread with our faces forced into the grind stone? Our heads are sometimes so close to the ground eking out a living that we can become hostile to suggestions to look up and see what is being done to us, or be completely dismissive of alternatives and deliberately place ourselves in ignorance mode, rather than face what is truly happening around us.

True, some of us may be just lazy and not want to take the extra effort to confront what’s wrong in our world, but usually we ‘don’t have the time’, and how can we when we have – or rather allowed – our faces to be forced squarely into the trough and made to sound grunts of complaints or surrender to this-is-how-it-is scenario, and be just grateful to continue to see what we can find in the trough.

And how convenient this situation has been, is and will continue to be, and how much it would facilitate their attempts at control, for those who seek to dominate people and keep them at the base of a pyramid as they continue to exploit everyone by staying on top of it all.

Then there is the constant apprehension of workplace reprisal for doing what is ‘wrong’. Sofsky tellingly writes (bold and italics mine):

“Terrorstraffe (terror punishment)…Punishment is the final link in a chain of situations strung together via the social mechanism of sanction. This chain begins with a threat that forces the actors to decide among alternative paths for action: if they do what is demanded they incur no penalty; if they violate the required norm, they trigger a sanction in response…Absolute power operates in a quite different manner. It creates a “jungle of punishable offenses,” a condition of constant punishability, in which even obedience is no guarantee for avoiding sanctions, and power can intervene at will...To compound matters, many prohibitions had been kept nebulous so that supervisors could arbitrarily define what was an infraction. This absolute power to define the situation used another method: it made demands that could not possibly be met, extending the perimeters of threat to the point that behaviour in accordance with the prescribed norms was sheer impossibility.” (p215, Sofsky)

Most us would resonate with the accuracy of the words here on the use of fear tactics to ensure dominance over others in the workplace. In many contracts there are clauses that stipulate how things can be adjusted in terms of hours required, scope of work, where you are transferred to and how much responsibility can be piled upon you in a manner that is almost always in favour of the employer; and if it is ever in favour of John or Jane Doe there will be some way to circumvent that and insist that you sell your humanity to the corporation/employer for whatever pittance they pay you (pittance because your soul is priceless but there would be those who disagree).

If the boss man decides to promote you, he will. If he doesn’t want to, he will find some reason to justify it. You are entirely at the mercy of the boss men and they intend that you see it that way despite the pretence otherwise. Someone I know who has been with an organization for some years has been criticized for not doing enough or broadening the scope of his responsibilities and range of his work despite the boundaries he pushed, and the quality of his work. On the other hand, when he does well within the demands of the boss men/women (and the boundaries they create) he is criticized for having done things like a ‘well-oiled machine’ and not having messed up enough in his performance which would have shown that he was taking ‘risks’ and going beyond the comfort zone of his basic work load: you’re damned whichever way you look at it.

The point of this Kafkaesque situation is that you are right and doing well when the boss men tell you so. Not only is this a corollary of deciding arbitrarily what is an infraction, but also that the range of what is acceptable for you can never be determined other than what the boss men decide on a whim. This is, sometimes unbeknownst to the perpetrators, an attempt to exercise absolute power.

In case it’s still unclear, absolute power is essentially to try and have the ability to control you body, mind and soul…and destroy you one way or another if controllers so desire.

In fact, the bizarre world of Kafka’s The Trial and The Castle is far from strange considering that it is a reflection of our everyday world. It is recorded that when Kafka read drafts, or parts of the works mentioned, to his friends/co-workers (if I recall rightly) they burst out laughing knowing full well that it was also a satirical take on the bureaucratic world they existed in (as can be applied to almost any workplace).

A ridiculous bureaucracy with silly, contradictory and outright outrageous ‘rules’ and ‘decrees’ in many workplaces is but part of a system meant to exercise control over people. It is an attempt to reduce entropy through the misguided notion of many dictators and wannabes that they are in charge of the universe. That they can stop change and evolution of a person or a group of people as that change would render them, the controllers, obsolete. Then what would happen? Meaning, what would happen to them. If they can't have livelihoods as controllers, they would then have to starve as most exploiters rely on someone else’s efforts and lifeblood to survive on. They suck up the energies of others.

They are the vampires of our world and a stake needs to be driven through their ideas of edging towards absolute power before they turn more of us into the zombified living dead that they want so as to enhance their control.

This type of blood-sucking bureaucratic system is a parallel to that which pervaded the CC as Sofsky clearly points out.

It becomes clearer what Sofsky is trying to say: that not only was the whole CC idea carefully planned and executed as best as possible with bureaucratic ‘efficiency’, but that in order to systematically control, put fear into and organize mass torture and extermination, you need some form of bureaucratic control. The OT demands that there is a systematic structure of control, surveillance, monitoring and fear mongering and anxiety spreading everywhere that can be instituted and codified such that not only can you boss people around as atrociously as possible, but you dehumanize them and destroy whatever authenticity, decency or resistance they can possibly offer. This is the kind of Terror that becomes even more difficult to spot because you are indoctrinated and socialized into it from birth (some people call it being ‘normal’ or ‘the-way-things-are’).

It also becomes even harder to shake off this indoctrinated worldview of fear and need to appease controllers when the other nutcake (higher order synthesis of nut cases and fruit cakes) terrorists are busy blowing us and themselves up as part of their dramatic-statement pyrotechnics: the hyping of which allows many mainstream journalists to make a ‘living’ (through our dying).

If all this is still called ‘normal’, granted that it can be called ‘the-way-things are’, then we need to know what is the difference between this and being the living dead. George Romero’s Living Dead, day or night, is a tame reference to the world we call ‘normal’. We have been socialized into being workplace zombies, social Muselmanner, and decidedly non-vegan type consumers of our fellow beings to ‘survive’ in the world. In fact, that is what the so-called vision of a capitalistic driven world strives for: consumerism of the worst order. We consume everything, including the planet, ourselves and one another apparently to create ‘growth’; but all the while we are enacting acts of violence through our ‘productive’ activities that ensure a tragedy without the catharsis.

More importantly, we have been programmed and propagandized by most social strictures and structures with the abetment from much of the world’s mainstream media that engenders the undiscerning conformist mentality of ‘be-like-us’ through manufactured consent: where no one can defy being a zombie or show signs of being contrary to the Living Dead lifestyle (cell phone, obsession with TV, excessive social networking site usage, following the corporate diktats of advertising/marketing, etc).

This is Not Democracy

There are no genuine democratic countries in the world today. ‘America’ has been hijacked by the cabalists and ‘democracy’ there is like a deadly virus they hope to spread everywhere. It is hard to determine when, in a long time, in human history there existed any genuine Democracy. The ‘democracy’ of today is but a sham in which people are enslaved to serving the diktats of OT. The cabalists have come close to winning their game, but they will not as many of us have started to awaken to their activities.

The cabal’s 9-11 attacks on America was a replay of creating similar conditions that allowed the Nazi’s an excuse to push for fascist control of Germany. The cabal ambitiously combined the 1933 burning of the Reichstag (German parliament) and the 1938 Kristallnacht in an attempt to assert control over the world’s sole superpower to initiate their agenda of an old world order of domination (typically these bozos call it a ‘new’ world order -- it’s the virus hiding itself in doublespeak).

Do some research on America’s so-called Patriot Act instigated conveniently by the 9- 11 ‘terror’/Terrror attacks, and what the Nazi’s initiated in those fateful years of the 1930s. The papers of the day in Germany described the attack on the Reichstag as a “most monstrous act of terrorism”. The fire was blamed on Communists whom the Nazi’s wanted to counter so as to gain a parliamentary majority and thereby start their plans for fascist domination of Germany. So the official account of the Reichstag burning played along the terrorist lines to stoke up fear among Germans and send them into the arms of the Nazis (italics mine):

“The burning of the Reichstag was intended to be the signal for a bloody uprising and civil war. Large-scale pillaging in Berlin was planned.... It has been determined that ... throughout Germany acts of terrorism were to begin against prominent individuals, against private property, against the lives and safety of the peaceful population, and general civil war was to be unleashed....” (this and the German newspaper quote above are from the Wikipedia)

Hitler, who was just made chancellor weeks before the fire, managed to coerce through the Reichstag Fire Decree which effectively curbed most civil liberties of the Weimar constitution, and the preamble of the act stated that (bold and italics mine):

“On the basis of Article 48 paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the German Reich, the following is ordered in defense against Communist state-endangering acts of violence:

Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom [habeas corpus], freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications. Warrants for House searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.” (taken from Wikipedia)

Does this have a familiar ring in post- 9-11 ‘America’?

But this was the tip of the iceberg: what Hitler and his hooligans were aiming for was to get their Enabling Act through which would allow him and his chief thugs to make dictatorial laws without the approval of the Reichstag, thereby establishing a fascist state.

With the Enabling Act passed, Hitler would be given the control that developed into his dictatorial powers as he could do what he wanted through decrees that bypassed the Reichstag nor his having to discuss anything with other political players.

The 9-11 attacks were not a terror attack but a Terror attack by OT. It was hoped that this act of high treason would start the effective move of America away from civil liberties and the total undermining of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights (whatever is already left of it). This would place the cabalists in control of the world’s sole superpower and to do as they pleased anywhere. The FEMA CCs which thrive on the term ‘emergency’ -- which was what the Nazis also used to justify their tyrannical takeover of Germany -- is the logical extension of the cabal’s attempt to control things thereby giving them the leeway to target those they would prefer to get rid off/contain (including masses of people who could protest the eradication of their civil liberties).

Then there was the Kristallnacht of 1938. With the murder of a German diplomat in Paris that year by a Jewish youth (as reprisal to the over night expulsion by Hitler of thousands of Polish born Jews from Germany), the Nazis instigated a nation wide anti-Jewish pogrom. Jewish homes and businesses were ransacked and destroyed in the thousands which not only resulted in deaths but the start of mass deportation of Jews and other ‘undesirables’ to CCs. The ‘Night of Broken Glass’ was the staged vendetta of the Nazis against their opponents. It was also the first steps towards all the horrors associated with the Nazis and terrors of the CCs.

The transfer of people to CCs and the systematic mass destruction of human beings was all part of an organized wave of terror that merged with “forcible coordination’ as part of the overall concept of Terror.

This ideology of Terror is precisely what the cabalists of today also want to enhance throughout the world. Create the materiel you need for the material world and force a planned obsolescence of culling people so that the ‘wealth’ of plunder that comes from war and from the formulation of so-called lebensraum (Nazi thought is very much alive today) ensuring economic/political incursions into the sovereignty of other states for one group which results in the death/slavery of another. Zero-sum all the way.

So the current cabalists in a fit of ambition and, what to them must appear as use of the imagination, decided to combine the Reichstag burning and Kristallnacht through pulling off the 9-11 Terror attack. They launched perhaps the mother of all false flag operations in recent times to blame the destruction of the twin towers in New York on terror groups (who would form the kernel of the ‘enemy’s’ identity, that is anyone who is Muslim); this was the Reichstage fire aspect of things except that the cabal’s work that September day was far more violent.

The cabal ambitiously used 9-11 as a Kristallnacht too and (since Americans were also killed in the attacks) as a platform for reprisal against not just certain targets in the Muslim world (the nutcake Saddam being a prime example), but to initiate instability world wide through the move into Afghanistan and raising the general ire of Christians and Muslims around the world who saw this more as an extension of the old drawn out drama from the Crusades of yesteryear.

All this was dissonant music to cabal’s ear as spreading instability and creating a scenario of divide and conquer kept all of us even closer to the ground with faces shoved into the troughs of not only daily survival, but now fear, anxiety, loathing and anger against one another. Yet the cabalists wanted to go the whole hog this time, so they ‘imaginatively’ tried to go for the CC idea of their revived Nazi ideology by raising ethnic/religious issues within America.

Not long after 9-11 the Bush appointed Peter Kirsanow head of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights nicely stated that “if there’s another terrorist attack and if it’s from a certain ethnic community or certain ethnicities that the terrorists are from, you can forget about civil rights in this country.”

Kirsanow eloquently added that if there was yet another attack, there could possibly be internment camps (CCs) such as those built to hold Japanese Americans in World War II. But the man was on a roll, so he had to continue with, “Not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops, more profiling…There will be a groundswell of public opinion to banish civil rights.” Hell, yeah. (Quote taken from: here)

I ask you, not so bloody minded gentle reader, would a democracy (forget Democracy) have created CCs for its Japanese American citizens many of whom were just decent patriotic folk anyway?

Then just in case you thought this was all just a…coincidence with 1930s Germany, please bear in mind that there were deportations of Muslims, seizures and interrogations of American Muslims by the FBI, as well as thousands of American Muslims being told that their jobs in the US, particularly within the civil service couldn’t be guaranteed now that we know conclusively (it would appear) that it was a bunch of Muslims who did 9-11.

All this frenzied activity sounds a trifle, uhm,…terroristic upon ordinary people, won’t you say?

To think that some outstanding universities and institutes of learning exist in America – but wait, Germany had even more to offer like Beethoven, Goethe, Kant, Marx (ah, the fella was Jewish) – yet, all decent and rational thought was suspended in subservience to “forcible coordination”.

But let us not underestimate the cabalists; if you’re visionary you go all the way, so the cads came up with plans for a subsidiary of Halliburton KBR to be given a US$385 million contract by the (Right Honourable) Department of Homeland Security to build detention centres in America. These centres might be used for illegal immigrants, to house victims of disasters like Hurricane Katrina, or perhaps those who start protesting against the cabal if ever their plans were seen through (part of this could stem from riots breaking out due to the collapse of the cabalist capitalist economy).

So the whole idea of the CCs apart from taking care of ‘undesirables’ was to also boost the gDp by increasing expenditure on camps which would go to companies run by the cabal (yup, them Halliburton guys are it). This attitude of cannibalization and going into any part of the world using force or threats and getting whatever materiel needed to expand gDp, and to exercise control and spread ‘American democracy’ or “forcible coordination” is truly the bedrock of much ‘American’ foreign and trade policy today.

This is the zero-sum winner take all and death-and-damnation-to-all-else attitude that is also the skull and bones foundation on which all feudal and capitalist systems are based. The whole idea of such an approach is to ensure that humans see their existence as nothing more that an animated pile of dust that returns to the ashes that issues forth from crematoriums.

Our entire economic edifice is built on such a system at the moment that fits in with the cabal’s way of thinking. Just go through all the quotes from Sofsky mentioned here and you will see that the Terror promoted in the camps, and the sense of constant surveillance and control, fear and anxiety that such a system promotes is the extension of what the Nazis did in the 1930s to establish their OT.

Right till today, through political, economic and social control with the triumph of the will of materialism the cabal hoped to destroy anything of a spiritual nature in humans by creating their ultimate goal: the world as a concentration camp writ large. But they are not going to be able to do it as we have started to finally wise up.

It is almost a scenario out of H.P. Lovecraft where the cabal are like beings from another planet unleashing everything that we know is inhuman and inhumane, as they turn our world upside down. And it is no surprise that the Nazi idea of a ‘master race’, and many other practices and symbols used by them, have occult roots. Do some research to see how they used dark forces that seem to be the underlying template of Nazi ideology.

And in case there are still those who are recalcitrant in their beliefs that ‘America’ is a democracy and that there is Democracy on planet earth, please remind yourself about what took place at the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo camps, and ponder if that is reflective of democracy. Whatever the excuses or rationalizations, the horrors of CCs worldwide throughout history may project many things, but they are not representations of Democracy. If you say that such instances cannot be helped because of the way things are, the response is: precisely, there is no democracy or Democracy today, and we have not in living memory have had any actual experience of it.

Delusional Democracy

What we call ‘democracy’ today is nothing close to any idea, much less an ideal, of Democracy that a decent person would like to see in the world. How can there be Democracy in a world that is at war with itself, under the constant threat of ‘terror’, real and imagined, and the sway of Terror (real, not imagined). We are stuck in a world where people are burdened by debt and meaningless work cycles of ‘productivity’ that seem to get us nowhere (for the vast majority) within an economic system of greed, exploitation and total non-sustainability. How can a world scenario like this ever give rise to Democracy?

What of the current system in so-called western ‘democracies’? By and large that system is represented by the image above this section. We have less developed countries (yes, they are responsible for their own problems too) which have been consistently exploited and kept in debt by inequality and coercion as represented by most world bodies of which the WTO and World Bank are prime examples. The commodities from poorer states are made through cheap and mercilessly exploited labour to support a silly and self indulgent lifestyle of people too busy to consider the morality of their actions, usually spending their leisure welded to their TVs and engaged in other mind and soul numbing activities like shopping for what you don’t need (but told is necessary by advertising and marketing), and voting in people who are beholden to big business and banking cartels.

Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell speech at the White House had the iconic reference to the military-industrial complex that is behind ‘America’. But some research will show that Eisenhower had wanted to mention Congress too, which would have been the devastatingly accurate statement that ‘democratic America’ was beholden to a military-industrial-congressional complex, and so it is (the US Federal Reserve was the missing link in the chain).

Kennedy famously talked about the secret government and the reprehensible idea of government by secrecy. He had plans to stop the US involvement in the burgeoning conflict in Vietnam as well as introduce a hard currency backed by precious metals (contra the useless fiat money of the US Fed) which were to be called US Treasury notes. These hard currency notes were conveniently recalled from circulation soon after JFK’s murder. It is no surprise, in retrospect, that he was eliminated before he could do further harm to the ‘democratic’ interests controlling ‘America’.

It is also no secret that Kennedy said after the CIA's Bay of Pigs fiasco that he would "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds". There was no love lost between him and the cabal.

The entire structure of the state in so many ‘democracies’ is designed to protect those who run the corporate, financial, and war mongering apparatuses to keep the so-called voters mind-numbed through fear/anxiety saturation using unending world wide conflicts, the daily grind of work and constant debt/mortgage through an economic flow that promotes crazed credit expansion through borrowing beyond what you can pay. This entire rotten and crumbling ‘golden calf’ is supported gleefully by the media so that it can also sustain itself and the fluff work of not reporting the actual state of affairs of the world.

Sure, this is part of the actual state of affairs of the world: ‘a bomb has gone off in…”, “China has recalled its envoy from…”, “the newest strain of the H1N1 virus has led to the WHO asking…”. The second half of the news may include: “Tiger Woods says he’s sorry…again…”, “Stephen Hawking has decided that God doesn’t exist…”, “Is the hair of XYZ celebrity for real…?”

What you don’t hear, because it would throw the present disgraceful and immoral morass of a world economic system into its widely deserved grave, is “Steps to reconfigure the entire world banking systems are being unveiled, experts finally get off their a**e* to discuss how…”, “More and more Americans and people all over the world are demanding a reinvestigation as to whether the September 11^th attacks were a false flag operation – coming up after the break…other examples of possible false flag operations by major governments of the world…”, and how a couple strive to survive in these times through forming a cooperative with their close friends.

There can be more human interest stories that show how people overcome adversity or how the human spirit shines through normal daily activities, but the main items always play into the cabal’s hands to keep the world hostage to a self created drama of violence and mayhem. Of course, disasters must be covered and people given advisories etc about trouble spots, but the entire mainstream media is mostly aping and competing with one another to see who can be the most bloody minded in its reporting: and this poppycock reporting is given the misnomer journalism (this offers serious competition as to who are the real bozos).

More people, including those who are asserting their discernment again in the US, have come to realize that most of the characters they vote into political office are serving interests other than that of the people. So many politicians in the sole superpower on earth tend to openly support the cabalists monstrous structure of deceit, greed, exploitation and violence.

How much longer is it going to be before people across the globe take back their power and the planet? We are indeed like the prisoners in Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’ from his great work, The Republic. In his famous analogy, Plato explains how people are chained into a certain direction facing the wall of a cave and made to believe the shadows cast on it from objects and light behind them are real. From time to time, someone from the outside of the cave comes in and breaks a prisoner free, and drags him out kicking and screaming (he’s unwilling as he prefers his comfort zone of indoctrinated ‘truth’) to see the world outside.

There is pain of adjustment to the eyes as the newly freed prisoner turns his focus to the world outside of the cave and sees an incredible vista filled with the light of the sun and the objects as they are rather than their shadows. He rushes back to tell his fellow prisoners about this, and they of course think he is bonkers, and start to regard his claims as a threat to their comfort zone engendered by the slavery to the puppet masters casting shadows on the wall. Sometimes the prisoners are so incensed by the ‘nonsense’ of the guy who came back to help free them that they would rather kill him than face the truth about the false world they live in.

It is not that difficult to think of some spiritual and other leaders who have been murdered because they tried to do the same. The cabalists are the shadow masters who operate away from light and transparency; they thrive with cloaks and daggers. So many of us are still prisoners in the cave. But we can still make the journey out together with courage and effort and with the help of those who have slipped out of the cave – thinking through their ideas like those of Plato and Kant; heeding the examples like that of Gandhi, Mandela and Mother Theresa of Calcutta; and observing the leadership of some like the Brothers Kennedy.

We have to leave the shadow play behind on the wall of illusion and take on the difficult task and challenge of breaking free from what is considered ‘normalcy’. Our very survival and that of the planet rests on our forcing ourselves away from the delusional images we are coerced to watch on the wall of the cave (think mainstream media) glorifying fears, anxiety, violence and excessive self indulgence.

We have been force fed a homogenized genetically modified murderous diet to convince us that the world we live in is one of despair and that we are mainly material and negative beings who need control and who only can end up as a handful of dust. But this is where the cabal has seriously miscalculated. Because when the human species starts to wake up, it cannot be stopped, and we can all -- if we work collectively on this -- make it up the slope from the innards of the cave: back into the light from which all life originates.

What Needs to be Done

We have to throw away preconceptions and what we’ve been indoctrinated with from birth through most of our adulthood – that we are not spiritual beings and that material needs can never be met if we prioritize our lives by giving equal weight to our material and spiritual needs. Let each person decide for themselves who reads this what being a spiritual being means for them, and see if by extension some of the points raised below includes what is needed to provide for our material well being and spiritual growth thereby creating a balanced and sustainable world in which war, poverty and the slave-type labour of our working world imbued with “forcible coordination” can be finally eradicated.

We would be looking to achieve:

1. Move away from the largely capitalist driven mind set that growth = gDp which means mainly a monetary measurement for what is economic growth. With the premise that we are spiritual beings first who happen to have physical bodies that need support, we then need a measurement of growth that reflects this as part of our well being. We take the quality of life into serious consideration, not just the quantitative aspect of things. Some of these ideas have been explored in earlier posts at this site

2. That all living things should be respected including the Earth which is clearly a living entity. The Earth is alive because no life can be supported, nor would evolution occur, if the planet is but a large pile of dust. Life comes from life, not death-like inert matter despite the bizarre ideas of those who claim to be scientists (who are in fact promoters of occult beliefs that there are mysterious forces floating out there like ‘gravity’ that just happen to conveniently arrange themselves into ‘natural laws’). If the Earth is a living entity, then we must have a measurement of growth that respects this and includes this notion of protecting and enhancing its eco-systems thereby ensuring the survival of our own economic and social eco-systems, through ethical, responsible and sustainable living and production

3. This means channeling resources away from war and destruction (contra the aim of the cabalists) into positive ideas and green technology to forge a new way of energy creation, productive activities, and commodity exchange throughout the planet among different communities/societies/states. Some resources will be kept for security needs but if war can be lessened and the cabalists taken to task, peace can takeover the planet

4. End the idea of separation through language, religion and race and see the Oneness of all life. Whatever we do bear in mind the golden rule of doing unto others what we want others to do unto us: this implies a system of shared responsibility, tolerance, understanding, mutual support, help and respect – in a word, reciprocity

5. Reciprocity would entail a just and fair economic and political system which will lead us closer to the citizen empowerment that can help form the base and driving force that will help us not only recreate what Democracy means, but help us to try and finally realize a democratic system of citizen involvement, responsibility and consultation in local and national governance

6. Not to be sidetracked by the confusion that rights mean rabid individualism at all cost. All rights imply the duties of respecting the rights of everyone, that is, rights operate within the context of our duties to one another. For unless we have a duty towards others, or reciprocity, how on earth do we have a right to anything since nobody has a duty to respect the rights we claim for ourselves

7. Recognize the fact that we are co-creators of our world and reality. That every invention and commodity we bring out should reflect this for the betterment and highest good of all

8. A system of smaller and manageable businesses and economic enterprises that reflect a community base form (which can cross borders and will not be multi-nationals but multi-communals). No shareholders except those who are of the businesses and these entities, as far as possible, should be owned by all who are of the enterprise and have a transparent system of profit sharing that ensures growth (in a manageable way) and sustainability of the enterprise and all who work for it. Profit will be a term that will belong to the past where a win-lose scenario is envisaged. We are going here for a win-win situation at all times as far as is possible and one of sustainability

9. The complete reinvention and rejuvenation of the world financial and banking scene with community banks taking a leading role. This would work in tandem with the return to hard currency backed by gold and precious metals for all countries thereby giving real value for money

10. That money is seen as a resource that can be re-cycled back as donations and trusts after the death of mega wealthy individuals (e.g., Warren Buffet, Bill Gates who have decided so) to help the underprivileged and raise environmental consciousness

11. Have healthy competition that involves cooperation and collaboration among all towards support for all life as far as possible as the underlying principle of growth, not the destructive kind of competition that hinges on mindless profitability and unbridled exploitation, or zero-sum situations

12. The realization that the world is abundant in what it has to offer us if we channel our learning, science, technology and natural intelligence, not to mention common sense, to come up with ways to produce what we need to support us best we can while giving back to the Earth and maintaining the natural balance of its diverse and miraculous ecosystems

13. That we see ourselves mainly as caretakers of the Earth and caregivers to one another so that our education system starts with these premises and builds societal, regional, international and global responsibility towards one another. So we start with the initial conditions of education with the children outside of ‘the cave’ and get them used to the light soonest – they don’t need to be taught the shadow play we were stuck with but the way of light which is working with one another so that we all gain and benefit

14. A new and responsible media that highlights what is positive, what works for the well being of all and what brings us forward boldly into the new paradigm of getting things right. The so-called bad news will still be there, but balance it for what it is…the aberration in a world that is growing up and maturing into civility. This takes the sting away from those who remain from the cabal who may want to re-assert the old destructive ways

15. That the practice of calming and breathing exercises, meditation and connection to nature be a common aspect of life in schools and the work places. This would be the start of increasing trust, goodwill and even high work output among people. With fair and decent remuneration all round (as opposed to furthering excess and indecently high salaries), the daily work world can be transformed into one that a person can look forward and contribute to willingly and purposively

16. A work/economic paradigm that is successful as it is even joyful because what is being provided and created is for the benefit and highest good of all involved and the world at large

17. Understand and respect the sanctity of all life

Naturally, the nay-sayers will claim that this is not possible in many instances because of the ‘way things are’ (a motto of the cabal) and ‘human nature’ (the cynical view of which the cabal hopes will continue). If that is the case, then these people who claim this are supporters of a dismal determinism where there is clearly no free will; in which case they are already and always will be slaves even if they pretend they are not.

If there is free will, then we can choose. But the fact that we can indeed choose and have ideas of what is good and what isn’t, and that many of us see spiritual dimensions to things, is sign enough of a greater power at work than the limited and childish human ego. We need to start to learn to let go of our limitations and blinkers of controls that have been placed upon us, to create the new paradigm and history of the Earth.

The question then arises so what else can we do now to hasten the positive changes and get rid of the ungodly yoke of the cabal? Perhaps three basic things may be useful here: first, see the economic collapse that is upon us as a good sign and actively find ways to enhance new economic models that are green and people friendly, as mentioned above.

Next, do all we can (this applies to those of us who are not US citizens but affected by the cabal’s ‘American’ policies) to encourage Barack Obama to get going with the arrest of the cabalists behind 9-11 (email the guy, he needs to know that people everywhere are behind him: link). This is the thin end of the wedge that will bring about either simultaneously, or consecutively, the eradication of the US Federal Reserve which is the stronghold of the cabal and its worthless fiat money, as well as the bringing to justice of the key cabalists for Terror against humanity. This will get the ball rolling and the cabal’s operations will start to shut down and operatives throughout the world will be rounded up by various other governments and forces within them (not all are under control by the cabalists) who are waiting for the signal from ole Barry.

If it still isn’t clear, let me for the hell of it just say: we are all in this together, big time.

Finally, we all need to just commit acts of gratuitous kindness, decency, compassion and just plain civility in all situations at all times as is humanly possible. This above all is the start of the People of the world uniting and coming together as a gathering of light that will dispel the cabal’s Terror forever. There can be, if we create it, governments of the People, by the People, and for the People and the Planet that can never perish.

Also, the obvious should still be stated that this post is not the answer to all our problems; we are also creating solutions as we go along and react to events; rather, it is an energetic transfer to the ether and collective consciousness in support of other co-creators who want to see a new and blessed world for us and the next generation to live in.

To those who see how real and how much within our grasp most of the ideas here are that will allow us to create our own destiny, to those who have the courage to turn away from despair and see that there is Divine grace in all life and within ourselves to get rid of the cabal’s influence and create cities of light in a world of light, and for those who have decided that being human is a compliment to what is good in the universe, I can only say with the utmost gratitude:

Thank you for taking back your power.

And peace be with you.

 

[Many thanks for the creative work to all the artists whose pictures, graphics and videos are presented here and on this site]

End of Poverty interview

Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’

Folks

With the dramatic rise in global awareness of what large corporations and the people behind them are doing to the world and its life forms, more people are asking for drastic measures to be taken against them.

Some of these can be identified in the post and the clip at the end of it, entitled “Nationalize BP”.

Yet it is difficult to deny that in wanting some form of justice, it is easy to get swayed with emotion and ask for extreme measures as well. For instance, asking for capital punishment (no matter how appealing this may appear to some) for those who have wreaked havoc across the globe due to greed and mismanagement may not be the best approach to solve problems.

Recently, a letter of mine to the mainstream media looked at this aspect of things in reaction to the bandying about of the ultimate sanction for reckless driving on roads.

This is an excerpt from it:

“But this does not mean that extending the reach of the hangman's rope for every tragic occasion when there is loss of life, even when negligence is involved, is the way to go.

Would it then be necessary to have capital punishment for when things go awry during medical procedures, sports or military activities, group outings, or in situations where someone offers help only to have things end tragically?

And what about situations involving businesses whose products cause death through negligence: why should they not be subject to capital punishment? Should we also call for the death penalty for the many disastrous and irresponsible things done by large corporations, as in the case of [the] BP Gulf spill? Should the chief executive officer, board of directors or shareholders be held accountable with such severity?

Surely, the statistics gathered for death due to negligence arising from greed and incompetence would register in the thousands.

We need to be judicious in punishments and exercise greater emotional control in difficult situations than merely calling for state-sanctioned executions.”

Which brings us to another question -- what do you do when confronted at long last with undeniable evidence that harm has been deliberately inflicted on people over and above the assumed cause of 'greed and incompetence'.

Putting aside the tendency of some to disregard ‘conspiracy' theories and those who see everything as a ‘conspiracy’, it is not unusual to see many groups all over the planet working together often behind the scenes.

Just think of the international banking cartel for starters.

This could help explain what happens beneath the surface of what is perceived in society and represented (or misrepresented) by the mainstream media (much of which is under corporate control anyway) as 'news'.

I recall a friend and former colleague in the media who said: "But you can't always tell the truth". And the contradistinction of that with the delicate irony of the CIA's "the truth shall set you free" under the guise of cloak and dagger, of course.

Meanwhile, what happens on the surface of society has all sorts of ‘sociological’ or other kinds of explanation for it. Bear in mind all these 'explanations' are just another form of theory to explain away something.

The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote an interesting piece late in life called On the old saw: that may be right in theory but it won’t work in practice. Kant’s focus was on moral theory and naturally, those who criticize it inevitably use some theory of their own. Of course, Kant’s work is much more than what appears on the surface as he brilliantly defends his view of moral philosophy which most of his critics were not always able to effectively bring down as much as they wanted to.

So, there are those who will give random or so-called ‘historical’ and ‘economic’ reasons for what happens in the world such as the causes of war and various economic crises etc. This is not to say that there are no valid historical perspectives nor economic forces that underly what happens in the world.

But it doesn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to see that wars have a way of occurring and ending in manners that sometimes belie whatever reasons we cook up for them. The convenience of the Great Depression and the rise of fascism and totalitarianism and their coincidental situation between World Wars I and II can be given as many interpretations as what many others may give as to what exactly is the ‘law of gravity’. These are unfinished scenarios and explanations that are to date anything but conclusive.

For one to say, together with thousands of others, that the truth about the inside job for the September 11, 2001 attacks will be out sooner than later, is not to say anything new at all. There is no credible explanation, except for those who indulge in wishful thinking, as to how three towers collapsed when supposedly two were struck by aircraft.

Nor would those who pretend that we are all alone in the universe and that there has been no contact with extraterrestrial civilizations because, well, 'I haven’t exactly seen one and anyone can imagine stuff'.

Yet curiously, the words "but we can't always tell the truth" and the ironic take on "the truth shall set you free" may almost be transposed from A Midsummer Night's Dream if only it caused as much delight in our subconscious as a Shakespearean comedy.

As for extraterrestrial life, Kant too believed in such a possibility ("I should not hesitate to stake all on the truth of the proposition ... that, at least, some one of the planets, which we see, is inhabited."). Instead of setting it far out in the galaxy he thought it possible closer to home.

The explanation for being alone in the universe is yet another theory that sometimes goes 'if were not alone, why haven’t they landed yet?'

But interestingly enough, a lot of us have even more radical beliefs than what has been written above, in the sense of going to the root cause of things: some of us actually believe in God.

Think about what that really implies.

For those who say what’s surprising about belief in God, one would venture to say that they haven’t had a genuine spiritual experience. But again, for those who claim they have had a spiritual experience, ask them why they then think others have not had other experiences that may prove to them conclusively what some others would prefer to be in denial of.

Many of us show daily just how alive Orwell’s dictum is, that all of us are entitled to our pet explanations but some theories are more equal than others (well, a variation of Orwell). Usually, we mean our own explanations are the accurate ones.

But it will be interesting to see the faces of those who have been vociferously denying many things when the truth of so much finally comes to light and hits the fan. And the question is: to what extent will it be possible to hold back a populace that may be screaming for blood in the name of ‘justice’ real or imagined.

Let me explain: the Nuremberg trials in Germany were a world wide catharsis if you like. The great Mandela’s truth and reconciliation approach kept South Africa together during its post-apartheid phase.

Can people learn to bring in punishment that’s judicious and, shocking as it may seem, even learn forgiveness on a mass scale big time, when the truth about many things corporation-political wise come out for what they are at long last.

Or after all our sophisticated theories, can we only see the enactment of 'an eye for an eye' as the sum total of human wisdom?

That part of our human experience has yet to be written and we will each be actively creating that reality even as we observe it purportedly on the sidelines. Each of our thoughts is a vote for a certain outcome,

And somehow we will have to make it such that the truth does set us free.

Below are two clips from the Zapruder film on the tragic assassination of JFK.

Watch carefully the driver of the car (secret service man), pull out a modified gun and shoot JFK in the head with an exploding bullet, put it back in his coat and hit the accelerator. Don't look at Kennedy, watch the driver.

This is the slow motion clip, and watch at the 49-56 second frames:

We will soon learn the truth of Hamlet's words to his closest friend:

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Krugman

Ben Bernanke

Friends

YET again it has become apparent, through the words of Professor Paul Krugman, that the so-called Nobel prize for economics is tantamount to a crime against humanity.

In his latest hallucinogenic reverie entitled “Debunking the Austerity Myths”, Mr Krugman provides a stilted but psychedelic explanation as to why throwing money at things is the way forward in resolving the world economic debacle. The essence of the ideas being put forward are that attempts at fiscal discipline are fanciful and that pumping in as much financial liquidity into an economy is the way to jump start things.

These ideas are part of the jaded and proven-to-be-catastrophic neo-classical economic ideas that have led us to the mess we are all in. No amount of juggling and unholy incantations from current economic theory with its sleazy manipulating of interest rates, taxes and government expenditure is going to give us any form of genuine recovery.

The point is that in a system that is stacked against the good of the planet, welfare of all forms of life and well being of any decent human being, whatever money that is strewn around -- even with best of intentions -- inevitably ends up in the hands of those who have been controlling the economic and behind-the-scenes levers in the first place.

The rest of us are always at the short end of a very sharp stick that is now finally being redirected to chasing out the money changers from our societies: or at least, one prays.

It is really quite clear that we have to sit some of these professors down, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange, and force them to watch a clip of Lady Gaga repeatedly explaining:

“Dear Bozos,

If you play a game of Monopoly* and expect to win and survive that game as it is played by its rules, then inevitably no matter what technique you use the only way to win the game is by bankrupting everyone else and being the sole monopolist on the game board. The entire purpose of the game is to wipe out the 'competition' and beggar your fellow human beings. It is designed to finally end once you own everything and have impoverished everyone else, so that there's no one left to play the game.

Similarly, when you extend this to society at large what happens is you tend to outsource your work for pittance -- and/or pay other workers you bring in much lower wages -- to sell your products at higher profit margins to....ah, we forget, you consumers are out of money so we need to increase credit/loans and get money siphoned into the system again otherwise we will not be able to repeat the whole cycle of crushing you back into poverty. Rock on.”

In the end, what Mr Krugman wants is what President Franklin Roosevelt succumbed to after introducing his New Deal measures to fight the Great Depression. It seems that getting involved in World War II was a good way to churn money about as massive spending is required when a country gears up for global military involvement.

Professorio Krugman doesn’t ask how exactly did America and so much of the world today get into the current economic rut in the first place. Perhaps excessive use of military involvement as an economic strategy to boost expenditure, and the use of fiat currencies that can be printed freely by governments have a lot to answer for.

It is no surprise that both Britain and the US want to exit from trouble spots their militaries are embroiled in, and that President Obama has cannily remarked that the world cannot depend on America buying everything up from their economies because it is time for fiscal discipline.

Be assured, sooner than later we will all return to a new gold standard which not only gives genuine value to a state’s currency but automatically results in fiscal discipline and, unsurprisingly, less military adventurism all round.

A close examination of ordinary people’s comments on how they survived the Depression in the US points to Roosevelt’s social security policies, the social resilience of the people, and to the fact that some people had enough savings for rainy days that turned into floods.

What most countries should do is not to take a populist approach of having a lax social security savings scheme while encouraging governmental spending binges. Nor should there be a regimen of zero interest rates to the point you just give away money and hope all will be well. This is precisely the kind of thing that will have disastrous consequences with significant devaluation of the currency, or inflation, that would leave many of us with a shredded safety net and money that is so utterly worthless since you cannot even recycle it as paper to write notes on.

Fiscal discipline and a new way of doing things among ourselves as in helping one another through difficult times, is the way forward. Some of these ideas for a new paradigm are explored in many of the earlier posts on this site.

Following the advice of Mr Krugman, who does not admit to the World War II spending scenario that is the underlying narrative of his rhetoric against so-called austerity measures, is like asking those on trial at Nuremberg to explain their point of view.

But World War II was their point of view. And some of us have had enough of that.

* Wikipedia states that “Monopoly is a redesign of an earlier game "The Landlord's Game" first published by political activist Elizabeth Magie. The purpose of that game was to teach people how monopolies end up bankrupting the many whilst giving extraordinary wealth to one or few individuals.”

The following is an extract from Robert Tressel’s extraordinary, hilarious and prescient book The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists [picture above is from the Penguin edition of the novel] set in England. The book was begun in 1906 and first published in 1914. These sections are taken first, from a chapter called “The Undeserving Persons” and second, from “The Reign of Terror. The Great Money Trick”.

“ ‘Whether it can be altered or not, whether it’s right or wrong landlordism is one of the causes of poverty…Poverty is not caused by men or women getting married, it’s caused by machinery; it’s not caused by “over-production”; it’s not caused by drink or laziness; and it’s not caused by “over population”. It’s caused by Private Monopoly. That is the present system. They have monopolised everything that it is possible to monopolise; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolised the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air – or of the money to buy it – even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless they had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think so and say so. Even as you think at present that it’s right for a few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you say: “It is Their Land,” “It’s Their Water,” “It’s Their Coal,” “It’s Their Iron,” so you would say “It’s Their Air,” “These are Their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?” [And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on “Christian Duty” in the Sunday] magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when your are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggest smashing a hole in the side of one of the gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you’ll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to “justice” in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.’ ”

“ ‘Money is the cause of poverty because it is the device by which those who are too lazy to work are enabled to rob the workers of the fruits of their labour…’

Owen opened his dinner basket and took from it two slices of bread, but as these were not sufficient, he requested that anyone who had some…give it to him.

‘These pieces of bread represent the raw materials which exist naturally in and on the earth for the use of mankind; they were not made by any human being, but were created by the Great Spirit for the benefit and sustenance of all, the same as were the air and the light of the sun.’…

‘Now…I am a capitalist; or…I represent the landlord and capitalist class…all these raw materials belong to me…the only thing that matters now is the admitted fact that all the raw materials which are necessary for the production of the necessaries of life are now the property of the Landlord and Capitalist class. I am that class…’

…‘Now you three represent the Working Class: you have nothing – and for my part, although I have all these raw materials, they are of no use to me – what I need is – the things that can be made out of these raw materials by Work: but as I am too lazy to work myself, I have invented the Money Trick to make you work for me. But first…These three knives represent – all the machinery of production; the factories, tools, railways, and so forth, without which the necessaries of life cannot be produced in abundance. And these three coins…represent my Money Capital.’

…Owen proceeded to cut up one of the slices of bread into a number of little square blocks.

‘These represent the things which are produced by labour, aided by machinery, from the raw materials. We will suppose that three of these blocks represent – a week’s work. We will suppose that a week’s work is worth – one pound: and we will suppose that each of these ha’pennies is a sovereign.

…‘You say you are all in need of employment, and as I am the kind-hearted capitalist class I am going to invest all my money in various industries, so as to give you Plenty of Work. I shall pay each of you one pound per week, and a week’s work is – you must each produce three of these square blocks. For doing this work you will each receive your wages; the money will be your own, to do as you like with, and the things you produce will of course be mine, to do as I like with. You will each take one of these machines and as soon as you have done a week’s work, you shall have your money.’

The Working Class accordingly set to work, and the capitalist class sat down and watched them. As soon as they had finished, they passed nine little blocks to Owen, who placed them on a piece of paper by his side and paid the workers their wages.

‘These blocks represent the necessaries of life. You can’t live without some of these things, but as they belong to me, you will have to buy them from me: my price for these blocks is – one pound each.’

As the working class were in need of the necessaries of life and as they could not eat, drink, or wear the useless money, they were compelled to agree to the kind Capitalist’s terms. They each bought back and at once consumed one-third of the produce of their labour. The capitalist class also devoured two of the square blocks, and so the net result of the week’s work was that the kind capitalist had consumed two pounds worth of the things produced by the labour of the others, and reckoning of the squares at their market valued of one pound each, he had more than doubled his capital, for he still possessed the three pounds in money and in addition four pounds worth of goods. As for the working classes…having each consumed the pound’s worth of necessaries they had bought with their wages, they were again in precisely the same condition when they started work – they had nothing.

After a while…the kind-hearted capitalist, just having sold a pound’s worth of necessaries to each of his workers, suddenly took their tools – the Machinery of Production – the knives – away from them, and informed them that as owing to Over Production all his store-houses were glutted with the necessaries of life, he had decided to close down the works.

…‘I’ve paid you your wages, and provided you with Plenty of Work for a long time past. I have no more work for you at present…[and the necessaries of life?]

…‘I shall be very pleased to sell you some.’

…‘Well, you can’t expect me to give you my goods for nothing! You didn’t work for me for nothing, you know. I paid you for your work and you should have saved something: you should have been thrifty like me. Look how I have got on by being thrifty!”

…and then the three unemployed started to abuse the kind-hearted Capitalist, demanding that he should give them some of the necessaries of life that he had piled up in his warehouses, or to be allowed to work and produce some more for their own needs; and even threatened to take some of the things by force if he did not comply with their demands. But the kind-hearted Capitalist told them not to be insolent, and spoke to them about honesty, and said if they were not careful he would have their faces battered in for them by the police, or if necessary he would call out the military and have them shot down like dogs…

‘Of course…if it were not for foreign competition I should be able to sell these things that you have made, and then I should be able to give you Plenty of Work again: but until I have sold them to somebody or other, or until I have used them myself, you will have to remain idle.’ ”

[At the end of all this the listeners all sing “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” and ask the kind hearted Capitalist if they can elect him to Parliament – or Congress, etc]

 

 

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a gigantic disaster which is facing such an ineffective response to resolve it that the whole thing seems surreal. This is already the largest oil spill in American history with well over 200 000 gallons of oil spurting out each day. 

Apart from the entire planet's ecosystem who else pays for this corporate incompetence? The taxpayers, of course. In fact, the environmental damage will have clocked up to trillions of dollars before long. While BP may claim it will handle the costs of the cleanup, there is no guarantee this will ever happen.

It is well known that many of the victimes of the infamous Exxon Valdez spill that happened years ago have yet to be compensated. All that will happen is BP will bring in its lawyers to minimise any accountability of its actions for the current spill. Which is why the term corporate social responsibility is a contradiction in terms. The big firms always try to gain maximum benefit for themselves irrespective of whatever damage they do to everyone else.

As James Thompson writes in People's World:

"If the refineries and oil rigs were owned by our government, adequate safety standards could be maintained so that worker's lives could be saved. Instead of the profits being neatly stowed away in some large banks, they could be used to clean up the mess, compensate workers and their families and provide funds for research into green energy sources. The money could also be used to build state of the art levees such as they have in Europe to protect New Orleans from the next major Hurricane. Texas City is unbelievably polluted and money could be spent to clean up the environment there and make the area more livable for the many residents.

The U.S. military is assisting this foreign company in cleaning up the mess they have made in our backyard. The question facing our nation is, "Who is going to pay the bill?" Will it be the working people of this country? Will it be the villains responsible for this catastrophe? People of the Gulf Coast need answers to these questions now."

What is also needed are new measurement indicators of what constitues growth in a country like the ones already in use. These would include the GPI as a new way to measure progress. This will give an accurate account of what a nation's GDP growth really entails: disasters to the planet do not add to 'growth' as a decent human being would have it.

Moreover, some countries like Norway and Venezuela have privatized big oil. There is nothing new in this. Some recent reports on this matter have highlighted other examples like the 1953 one in which Guatemala's President Jacobo Arbenz took over some of the land owned by the United Fruit Company which was then subsequently given to farmers.

And in the early 1950s, President Mohammad Mosaddeq of Iran nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

But guess what, both these men were conveniently overthrown by US backed interests which  installed in their place puppets that would 'kow tow' to big businesses and banks.

It was specifically the the ousting of Arbenz by corporate interests that helped instigate a young man named Ernesto "Che" Guevara to finally hook up with another guy called Fidel Castro; and they also had some issues with the United Fruit Company in Cuba, to put it mildly.

They are far from perfect men, but we know what a pain the two of them could be for certain big interests.

One wonders if men like "Che" would have ever turned out to be who they were if it were not for the unbridled greed of big business. Perhaps he would have ended up strictly as a medical doctor and would never have written these words: "Man truly reaches his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by physical necessity to sell himself as a commodity."

 

Folks

below a letter of mine published earlier in the year in a local news paper.

Reports say that unemployment in the US is now almost 10 per cent, but rather than just rely on others to do things for us all the time it is time for people to organize and get their acts and ideas together.

But new ideas and initiatives are needed which have to go beyond the old collapsing paradigms. We are not alone in this and we have to act together.

"NOW and again, there are calls to set a minimum wage, which will not solve anything.

Businesses will likely transfer any increase in wages to the consumer via higher prices of products. This in turn will lead to another round of higher minimum wages. Forced higher wages all round will lead to increased liquidity and inflationary pressure on prices.

One of the ideas behind the minimum wage is to ensure that the minimum income is higher than welfare benefits, or other assistance, so as to wean people off welfare dependency. But large private sector industries must answer to shareholders with hefty profits and pay bonuses to top executives.

How will a minimum wage system work around this? It will be manipulated to hire fewer people so a company's wage costs do not rise. And it will mean inflated prices for everyone.

Perhaps we should consider the idea of a fair wage. That would mean looking at new ways to start businesses with government support as well. This can help ensure that people earn enough and the earnings are distributed in a fair manner.

This would involve paradigm-changing approaches such as:

• Collective ownership of a business where all who work in it are shareholders; the Government could have a stake too.
• Apart from regular wages, a system of profit sharing is set up for all who work in the business. 
• There should be no astronomical wages for anyone, and reasonable wages should depend on the nature of the job performed. Perhaps a higher ratio of profits can be given to those whose functions ensure high-end aspects of the profitability and sustainability of the business.
• Apart from regular Central Provident Fund [national savings schemes in some countries] contributions and the like, a certain amount should be retained to be reinvested in the firm and set aside for additional health care, education and welfare benefits. This also prevents excess liquidity from flooding the economy.

This is just a set  of general ideas that need to be extrapolated, improved and tweaked where necessary. But the old thinking that economic issues can be solved with the same system of stock market swings, inequitable incomes for a handful, and sudden unemployment due to so-called 'market forces' will not get us anywhere."

(Please see http://www.inafj.org)