The Disloyal

There have been three important men in my life. The dreams of all of them have been betrayed.

My grandfather was and in many ways still is everything I admire. He began working down the pit when he was 14 years old. He retired at 65 and a few fleeting years later was dead of cancer. But in his life he fought for the dignity of the ordinary working man and woman. He believed that if we wished for a better world, a world where ordinary people had a chance in life, a chance to earn a living wage, to educate themselves and see their children educated, then we all had an obligation to fight for that dream. And he did. When WWII began he was too old to be called and as a miner was exempt, but volunteered and at Dunkirk saved the life of a young man who became his life-long friend – my godfather. After the war it was his generation, his vote, his willingly paid taxes, which made sure his children would have what he had not, a National Health Service and a chance to go to university. These were his dreams and he fought for them every day when he went to work.

Once, to see for himself what his father did, my uncle went with my Grandfather, down the pit. In those days narrow seams would be worked by men lying on their sides cutting the coal out with a pickaxe. My grandfather was one of those men. At the end of the day my uncle asked my grandfather how he could stand to do such work day after day after year after decade. He replied, “So that you’ll never have to”. That was my grandfather.

Later in my life one of the closest friends I have ever had was an incredibly tough man called Henri Goujat. Given away as a child, he too began life working in a pit, as boy in occupied France. After the war he, like my grandfather, had believed his county’s leaders when they assured him, that he and all those like him, were fighting to build a better country. He spent a hard, physical, working life digging and laying water and sewer lines all across rural France. He believed any hardship was just his part in the struggle to realize what my grandfather’s generation had fought for – a better world. It might sound naive now but Henri remained loyal to that ideal and it sustained him.

I spent all the summers of my late 20’s and early 30’s with Henri, travelling with him, listening to the stories of his life and the stories of a generation of ordinary French men and women that I came, through him, to know, listening to their hopes of a better France, their profound belief in the struggles of their lives. But not long before Henri died he told me, that he had come to see that they had all been lied to. That all they had built had been for others to sell from under them.

Now my father, is nearing the end of his life and he too has tasted the ashes of his dreams. His was the generation that inherited the things my grandfather and Henri built. And in his own way he too believed he had fought the good fight. He did things in his life that I never knew about till decades later. Things still covered by official secrets. Things he really believed were for the good. Good people, he believed, with good intent had asked him to do things which he had willingly done. But now he looks at what it has all amounted to and is angry. Angry at the stupidity, greed and arrogance.

Who betrayed their dreams and hopes? Of course in the final analysis the answer is us. But who helped us, helped us understand that our parents’ dreams would be more ‘valuable’, their old age more ‘affordable’, in fact their entire society more ‘efficient’ if it was all sold off, privatised? Who presided over the efficiencies whose benefits we are now enjoying?

By what name could we being to know them?

And let’s make no mistake names can give you power over things. The names we give, or more importantly those we accept, influence how we think. Think of all the names for us, that we have accepted in to our parlance, our thoughts: The Consumer, the Clients, The Workforce (if we’re lucky) or if we’re not then, The Unemployed, the Welfare Recipients, the Punters, the Proles, the Mob, the Common People.

But who are they who rule over us? It’s all very well calling them Neo-cons, or Thatcherite/Reaganite Free-Market Deregulating Zealots, or even The 1% or The Global Overclass, but these names tell us nothing about the nature of these people. They tell us how much they own or the brand of Fundamentalism they worship. 

When I look at people like Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs CEO) or the billionaire vulture fund boss Paul Singer making sure he gets his pound of profit from the Argentinian people regardless of their need, I am quite sure I do not want any future imagined and presided over by any of the verminous little Ceasars of Wall Street.

For me these people are The Disloyal, because for all that they have, they have none of the loyalty which made my grandfather , my friend and my father the admirable men they were. Whatever they may claim about their vastly superior understanding, their wealth creating genius, their technocratic brilliance, none of it will be put at the service of anyone or anything beyond their own greed. These people will not hesitate to betray any and all in the pursuit of their own advantage. This we have already seen in action. Nothing that has been done to bail out the banks, or protect the bond holders, has been for any purpose beyond helping those who owned those bonds or were invested in the shares or bonds of those banks, or whose wealth and power was held in the paper IOU’s issued by those banks. We have ‘saved’ a system not because a new or better system was impossible, or because the system we had was the only or best system, but solely because saving the financial system saved the wealth and power of those who sat at its apex.  This is not what my grandfather fought for.

What has been achieved? Are the banks safer? No. Have risky financial products been banned? No. Have those who laundered billions, or who knowingly created and sold fraudulent securities been gaoled? No. But the wealthiest have become far wealthier and the gap between them and the poor has widened. That has been achieved. Is this the better world my friend Henri struggled for?

The people who rule over us dislike democracy. It hinders their plans and threatens to curb their desires or subject them to the rules and laws that, they feel, only little-people should be bound by. Those who sit at the apex of power and wealth today are no longer interested in democratic debate or civilized disagreement. They are interested only in being above the laws which bind you and me and in wielding power over the democracy we think we still have, not being subject to it. We are coming to the point where what their system needs to sustain itself will brook no disagreement, no debate. In the name of ‘protecting’ the system which maintains their wealth and power, they are already systematically closing off one door to democratic debate, control and change after another. Trade Agreements and Bilateral Investment Treaties already bind nations in ways that future governments will be told they cannot undo. This is not what my father thought he was protecting.

We must see these people for who and what they are. They have no loyalty to democracy, to you or your children or to any future in which you might hope for better. “Better” is to be reserved entirely for them. They have no loyalty to any nation, any people, any ideal save that which guarantees that they will become richer and richer while others get poorer and poorer. Their only loyalty is to amassing more and more wealth and the power over others that it confers. They will betray you at every opportunity. Have we not already seen how willing they are t0 sell out any project, to bend, break or game any law or rule and think themselves so superior for doing so? Have they not already lied to you, assuring you that lessons have been learned and behaviours changed while crowing in private over how they duped you? Have they not already shed poisoned tears of fake contrition over wrong-doing while finding new ways of doing the same? Their only concern is profit. Their only currency is betrayal.

They have no loyalty to us. The only thing they feel for us is fear. If it comes to it, and it will, they  will not hesitate to call out their private police forces to spy on you, arrest you and intern you if needs be.

If we do nothing now, while we still can, we will soon find that our ability to ‘reform’ the system , or tinker with it or change it from within will be closed off. To change will soon require the repudiation of so much, that future governments will be afraid to even try. In many ways this is already the case. And those in power would like it to be much more the case.

Our present leaders would like it if future governments could be kept in line, prevented from even attempting to reassert sovereign, democratic power, by threats of what chaos such an attempt would unleash. Paranoid fantasy? Think of Henry “Hank” Poulson in 2008 threatening the US Congress with anarchy and tanks on the streets if the TARP was not passed right there, right then.

The agreements which will shackle us are already being negotiated in secret. The TTIP and TPP  and soon the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), unless stopped, will roll back democratic control of finance in ways that will make a mockery of all the sweaty wheezing of our congressional and parliamentarian blow-hards, that have done nothing whatsoever to reform or reign in the banks and financial elite.

Think how quickly we were fed the new concept of Too Big To Fail, which actually means outside of both democratic and judicial control. A new vocabulary for a new era. At home TBTF, ‘technocratic’ governments,  Austerity cuts, wage restraint for the many but not for they few, and abroad regime change, rendition, secret flights to secret prisons for the new disappeared without trial, appeal or hope. No judge, no jury just the assumption of guilt. Today it is others they will come for. When will it be people you know, or you or your children? When will voicing or organizing opposition become domestic extremism?

If we do not fight the peace then we will one day soon find we are forced to fight a war. Fighting the peace is hard. It requires standing up and saying things that others might ridicule. But is that so very hard?

Our future is in the hands of The Disloyal. Is their future the one you want? Do you want to live in a country rotted by systemic and protected dishonesty where the law is a whore, democracy a pantomime, integrity and honour sneered at and loyalty to others forgotten? I do not.

109 thoughts on “The Disloyal”

  1. I liked the line ” he tasted the ashes of his dreams” but it is a metaphor of having dreams or goals as those minors did, having dreams is naïve and turn to ash. Our dreams are ashes and their dreams are material things and more wealth. We dream for the benefit of all they dream for the benefit of 1. Is there a time in history where its never been the survival of the fittest or the best tactically or technologically in war times. WW3 is here and the circle gets drawn again.
    Well done David never stop no matter how much they intimidate you as I know they have.

    1. Tomas,

      Just wanted to say thanks for your comment and welcome – I haven’t seen you around here before. You are most welcome here.

      We do have to dream better more generous dreams or we will all inherit a nightmare.

  2. This is a powerfully stated and well reasoned post, Mr. Malone. Perhaps one of your best but, admittedly, I have not been reading here for more than a year. Alas, from my perspective as a natural born citizen of the USA and having done a modicum of traveling outside my country’s borders, I will undoubtedly reinforce your [presumed] ‘fears’ by saying that your prose will fall predominantly on ‘deaf ears’/’blind eyes,’ i.e. those who ‘need’ them most will not see them or understand them. The ‘majority’ in the USA and, I doubt not, in most any country, do not give a rat’s ass. Their ‘world’ is complete with their next beer/shot/joint/pill/injection and anticipation of the next abjectly atrocious act by their most beloved celebrity. I think your most accurate statement was “They have no loyalty to any nation, any people, any ideal save that which guarantees that they will become richer and richer while others get poorer and poorer.” It is, in effect, as if those who possess more wealth and power than they could possibly spend or wield in 1,000 years are of a drastically different genetic lineage than the bulk of the bipedal population on this rock. Alas and alack, that ‘bulk’ does not care and betwixt and between the two, hell comes for us all and much, much sooner than even the ‘brightest’ of any species suspects or are willing to admit. Regardless, I do enjoy reading your posts, please, continue as you are able.

  3. Well said David…

    colinc – I take issue with your view of ‘ordinary people’. It is a view manufactured by the media who are themselves in the pay of the very people David is talking about. You seem to be unaware that you are yourself being manipulated. There have always been people such as you describe but most people are still the same as they ever were.

    People like David’s grandfather and indeed mine who was also a miner, people who are caring, hard working and decent, people who want the best for their children and not just for them but for everyone, people who care about each other.

    These people still exist despite all the efforts of those in power to turn all of us to selfishness, drug addiction and celebrity worship.

    People who, through the internet where there are thousands of sites like this one and even more importantly by simply talking to each other are beginning to realise what is happening and who repeat once again the words of Shelly which echo down the centuries

    ‘Rise like Lions after slumber
    In unvanquishable number –
    Shake your chains to earth like dew
    Which in sleep had fallen on you –
    Ye are many – they are few.’

    Masque of Anarchy

  4. and my thank you David for some decent words and Anne for a good bit of Shelly. Of course our overlords are all quislings and when has it been any different?. The purity we crave and the good world we long for has to manifest itself first in our own hearts and lives. The demons are destined for hell but we don’t need to be with them. To avoid that fate we need to embrace the light within ourselves…

  5. There is also another quote that sums up what you said in last paragraphs:
    “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Socialist.
    Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Jew.
    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
    (Martin Niemöller)

    1. Sums it all up very nicely, Very fitting for todays current circumstances..People rarely care untill a problem is on their own doorstep and now its knocking on every bodys.

  6. You speak eloquently on behalf of my parents and grandparents as well. My mother at 95 has seen the ‘before’ and cannot believe that she is seeing the ‘after’ for the NHS. She is also acutely aware of parallels with the 30s.

    A general principle of parasitology is that there is a selection pressure for the parasite to become less pathogenic over time – a combination of susceptible hosts dying and the host mounting an immune response. However, in those instances where the host resistance is completely overwhelmed (as seems to be on the cards now with TTIP TISA and TPP) both host and parasite species are driven to extinction.

    However, the ‘disloyal’ don’t seem to have even a care for the world that their children will inherit. The faster we mount a powerful immune response the better.

  7. I was at Portcullis House yesterday, guest of MP John McDonnell, with representatives of about 17 other organisations, discussing the problems caused by the recent erosion of democracy and the possible of organising an Assembly For Democracy sometime in the near future.

    I’ll post a report when I get the official notes from Liz Davies (Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers)

    Democracy is all the have to keep us from total exploitation and domination by those with the power to do so. We have to fight for it.

    1. Great work, Joe.

      I was also at Parliament last week though I don’t have such positive news to report.

      Do keep us posted with about that assembly.

  8. Beautifully written article – and you are certainly not alone in thinking such thoughts. I lecture to around a hundred thousand people each year and I always make some scathing reference to the vile disloyals who are currently degrading our humanity. And ALWAYS, the audience responds with cheers. They do not always know exactly who our enemies are, but they know that they exist, and they loathe them.

    Shelley (and Anne) were and are right but unfortunately we are easily distracted, and the old divide and rule strategies – amply fortified with false flags, from Syria to Ukraine – still work. But thanks to the MSM losing out to the internet, they do not work nearly as well as they used to.

    I see a Schumpeterian wave looming.

  9. Beautifully written. The men of my family and many of their friends and acquaintances came to mind while reading this piece. To a man, they would say that they were lied to. To me, the masses appear broken and defeated.

  10. The final part ruins it for me – using ‘whore’ to indicate dishonest dealings says more about men who are fools to think women have sex with with them ‘cos they like them. They do it for money. Using ‘whore’ in a pejorative way like this sums up a perspective where the economic pressures on women which underpin prostitution are not understood, recognised or dismissed. It’s men that use ‘whores’ – it’s men who create the demand and the market. Why link ‘whores’ to dishonesty – they are ripped off more often than not on so many levels. Please think before writing or speaking

    1. Come on, Jill! Do you really not understand how the word was used? How else would you describe the politicians who are paid to go along? Freedom of speech and expression is also something we are losing.

    2. Hello Jill,

      I am sorry that my chioice of word upset you. It was not my intention. When I use the word I do not think of it as a gender issue at all. Men can be and are such. So I never had it in mind to make any association with women.

      The word does, you’re right, play on a view of those who sell themselves, as being discreditable. In that you are right and I should apologise. I didn’t think of the offence it might give to those who do sell themselves in that way.

      All I can say is that for me the word has long ceased to have a gender specificity, and does not really, not for me at least, refer any longer specifically to those who sell sex. For me it has become a phrase on its own meaning those who sell their conscience, their honour, their souls – not their bodies – for money. Our leaders in other words.

      1. Definition of WHORE

        1
        : a woman who engages in sexual acts for money : prostitute; also : a promiscuous or immoral woman
        2
        : a male who engages in sexual acts for money
        3
        : a venal or unscrupulous person

        http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whore

        On arriving in Ireland a young lad greeted me with ” How are yer, yer hoor yer”, still not sure which category he fit me into.

  11. I would very much like to reprint this in its entirety with a link back to your site.

    If not entirety then a good sized introductory chunk with a link.

    This captures much of my recent thought, and more articulately than I might otherwise merely aspire.

    Let me know. I have misplaced your email.

    Jesse

    1. I’ve sent you an email but in case it does not reach you – I would be delighted if you wished to repost the article. Please make whatever use of it you wish.

      I hope you and yours are well.

      David

  12. This has moved me to tears as my mother and father both gave much to improve the lot of many and to see it destroyed and stolen to gratify those who already have too much is devastating. I fear that when the backlash comes we will end up with everything destroyed except the real enemy, Greed.
    Thank you for your very eloquent words.

  13. The mega rich, like the Koch brothers, fund the libertarians groups in the USA. They fool young people into believing it is hip to be libertarian where drugs should freely available and where you can do what you like, and no grown up can tell you what to do. They put the anti-war bit in, too, because that appeals to the intelligent young people who may be interested in libertarianism. Some of the old school libertarians were against war because they thought it distorted free markets, but they weren’t interested in lowering suffering or saving lives.

    The rich are hoping to trick young people into creating a billionaire’s paradise where they will have no constraints from the rest of us as they maximise their profits at any cost or harm to the environment. And guess what, the young trendy libertarians may be against GM crops, but they say that global warming is a liberal hoax to raise taxes. The Koch brothers make most of their money out of dirty fossil fuel

    Mark Ames has done a lot of research on Libertarians:

    The True History of Libertarianism in America: A Phony Ideology to Promote a Corporate Agenda, by Mark Ames

    Before Milton Friedman was earning plaudits as an economic genius, he was a shill for the real estate industry and an early pioneer for big business propaganda known as libertarianism.

    http://www.alternet.org/visions/true-history-libertarianism-america-phony-ideology-promote-corporate-agenda?page=0%2C0

    1. Hardly surprising about Friedman. Remember, he first won plaudits in the 1960s for arguing that the banking-system should have been bailed out at the expense of the jobless and destitute after the Wall Street Crash. At the time, no-one stopped to realise that this policy would almost certainly hasten a full-blown international conflict, like it seems to be doing at the moment.

      Also, may I say what a great article David. You bring my late mother and father to mind. My mam was one of those whose compassion for the less-well off has influenced me through my life. Born into accute poverty in the North East of the 1920s, she was left by my grandmother to raise her six brothers and sisters at 13 while grandad worked away for long periods at sea. One younger sister died of pheumonia at two years old in her arms, while another was locked away at 11 for two years in a boy’s correctional home for placing a foreign coin in a choclate machine.

      After having to forego grammar school selection because of family committments, war broke out and she had to divide her time between voluntary work in a hospital – where she met my father – and working in a cinema to make ends meet. During their courtship he was ‘lost’ in the North Atlantic convoy, but was found to be alive in a German POW camp, leading to their reunion in 1945 after the Red Army liberated the camp.

      The ‘moment’ of 1945 and the post war ‘Jerusalem’ was the culmination of everything they had sacrificed and fought for all of their lives. My dad, an Egyptian, was a committed Arab Nationalist, and was also active in the trades union movement all of his working life, working unpaid (as was usually the case then) to mediate the greviances of Arabs working in the Merchant Navy to the union leaders. The process of forging links with Arab communities was instrumental in underpinning the 1966 seaman’s strike.

      TAFTA and the TTIP stands for everything my father and mother opposed in their fight for a better future. The difference is that the terms of social solidarity and local democracy that were open to our forebearers have been massively undermined by 30 years of neoliberalism. The question is really how do we organise ourselves against this threat of wholesale corporate take-over.

      1. “The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present. And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the street believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever.” – Federico Garcia Lorca – Spanish Poet and Playwright – 1898-1936

        Adam Smith:
        “They [the rich] should contribute to the public expense not only in proportion to their revenue but something more than in that proportion.”
        http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-And-Adam-Smith-by-Michael-Roberts-120721-368.html

  14. feministbageleater

    “There have been three important men in my life. The dreams of all of them have been betrayed.”

    That’s all very well, but are you going to write an equivalent article about the three important women in your life? Just challenging sexist assumptions here;)

  15. This is perhaps your masterpiece David, and possibly the most succinct article i have ever read. I lost all hope some years ago,but you have today, re-lit my fire. Thank you so much,
    the world is a better place with people like you in it.

    1. feministbageleater

      That’s all very well: but some of us are left wondering when’s the *mistress*piece?;)

  16. A truly eloquent and moving piece. The best denunciation of the lascivious feeders I’ve read so far this year.

  17. The Dork of Cork

    The concept of the west died when Project Apollo was wrapped up.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Applications_Program
    We have simply wasted our post 1960s lives following infinte parameters under a much too heavy gravity well.

    We therefore need to redefine our cultural bedrock.
    Will it once again become the Greek concept of defined space within a square villa or village /city setting………….

  18. The Dork of Cork

    The simple coalminer seeks the grail.
    He is greater then the pit yet must also remain humble.
    The concept of inner sacrifice is strong in the old culture.
    Yet the culture changes ……it becomes alien over time.
    His sacrifice is not recognized in the current culture.
    This act of self sacrifice now seems to display a pointless futiltiy in the current culture (even amongest his peers)
    He becomes a dupe.

  19. The Dork of Cork

    Talmudic culture has degraded the wests vision over time.
    The Gothic Spire or Saturn V becomes a penis rather then a quest for infinite space.

    We laugh at ourselves.
    We discard our dreams.
    We become ordinary dupes once again.

  20. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

    The “crisis” has always been about values, and that lens magnifies for us just how incredibly wanting our civilization is. Whether they are corporate CEOs strip mining their balance sheets for share repurchases or “black” politicians mouthing cliched platitudes while doing the bidding of the corporo-fascist state, our leaders are not exactly covering themselves in glory. The crisis is also about memory and accountability. If we no longer remember anything (who sent us to Iraq, for example), and if no one is ever accountable for being serially 100% indisputably and factually wrong, then we are truly sunk. One observer said “we can all have an opinion, but we have to share the same facts”. If that is somehow no longer true then we should just sadly prepare for one of the many flavors of dystopia.

  21. The issue which has rolled down the centuries and must be resolved eventually, is the People verses the Power of the Banking cabal.
    quote; Lord Acton

    1. Spot on Salford Lad.

      Google or Youtube : Bill Still Money Masters

      A masterly History of Banking.

      3.5 hrs. A real eye opener.

      1. Bill Still Money Masters is good, but he is a libertarian. It can be confusing because he wants the government to create the money supply instead, which isn’t very libertarian. Bill Still warns against a World Government, which he say’s the bankers will run and use to wreck the world to maximise their profits .

        I recently read the book by James Robertson, who is into the Green Party, called, Future Money: Breakdown or breakthrough, where he advocates a sort of small scale world government to raise money to help sort out many of the problems in the world. He believes in public banking and stopping private sector from creating our money out of thin air (which they use to enrich themselves and to control us). It’s a really nice book written by a very gentle person. You can download it for free from his site.

        I felt a lot of affinity with James Robertson, whose heart is in the right place.

        http://www.jamesrobertson.com/newsletter.htm

  22. I have two reactions, one technical, the other visceral.

    Technically, the post is well written and powerful. It encapsulates my own feelings as a member of your generation who fought in the pursuit of a dream betrayed.

    Viscerally, you have helped fuel the fire of my anger against the powers that be.

    I don’t know if either of these reactions helps me or you, but I can say that the source of the Disloyal is obvious: mainstream political economy. Mainstream political economy (aka neoclassical economics) is nothing more than applied utilitarian theory that serves to obscure the agency of so-called capitalists in creating inequality and what you label “disloyalty” (the elites of warring societies have always had more in common with each other than with those they ruled, ask the Thirty Tyrants of Athens). Your focus on the integrity of your nation state can succeed, but only if you are able to ensure that it is opposed to the obsfucations of the Disloyal (e.g., class war, immigrants, etc.).

    You have my email address. Happy to discuss. Keep fighting for what is right. I will be doing so, too.

    Best regards,

    -TJ

    1. The professor of economics, John F. weeks, has written a good book called, Economics Of The 1%: How Mainstream Economics Serves the Rich, Obscures Reality, and Distorts Policy.

      The mathematical neo-classical economists spent years number crunching trying to prove that their theories worked, but when increasing the minimum wage was shown to improve economies and create more jobs – by giving the low paid more spending power – they went ballistic, say’s John Weeks, because it exposed all their theories as the complete hogwash that they were.

      1. But they still went ahead of course despite the fact that they could not disguise their real intentions under a so called scientific legitimacy, which kind of gives the game away really – Jerkoff’s & whatever her names theory discredited through an excell error ? but the squire’s still persist on forcing pittance wages on the estate workers.

        It shows them up as simply bad greedy people, if they had lined the estimated 20,000 people who it is estimated have died through austerity measures up against a wall & had them shot or gassed them in a camp there would be no doubts as to the reality of their total lack of empathy for their fellow human beings. They get around this of course by considering themselves as superior to the inferiors who fail to survive due to their lack of quality in this dog eat dog world they are busily creating – It’s tyranny plain & simple no matter how they dress it up, along with their shining self portraits flatteringly painted that they present to the world, from a position of mainly inherited privilege.

        They seem to be able with the help of their lackey media to hide their true colours & unfortunately most people appear to fall for this. Most people I think know that Robin Hood was a good guy & King John & the Sherrif of Nottingham were bad guys but if the equivalents existed today most people would probably believe that the opposite is true. Robin & his merry men would be written off as anarchists or possibly terrorists & King John would be a be-suited respectable face of politics austerian politician with the Sherrif as essential muscle being seen as basically decent & just doing his job.

        I suppose if they can convince people that greed is good & perhaps many are open to this idea, it’s easy to get away with. Maybe what is needed is a change in the assumption that materialism makes people happy, those at the top are good guys & not sleazy 2nd hand car salesmen selling for the highest bidder, that despite all evidence to the contrary things are not getting better in spite of the promises from whichever bunch of similar flavour clowns are running things & that growth is infinite on a finite planet. Perhaps we need to an education system that helps people to think ?, one that teaches that those who are creatures of power are invariably totally corrupted by it & should be eyed with suspicion & well regulated. That these so called alphas are in reality nothing more than the pack bullies who hog the trough at the expense of all the others.

        Wonderful stuff anyway David.

  23. Hi David,
    First of all my sympathies for your father, ill health betrays us all one day, but the memories and values do not die and they are still worth fighting for. The ultimate distraction is, of course, hounding the poor as described very eloquently by Francis Coppola http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/categorising_the_poor It is the disloyal that you describe that have the values we should, and do, distain but far too many fingers are pointing in the wrong direction and we ignore the three fingers pointing back at ourselves.

    The Disloyal are often fond of saying things like government spending is financed by your children and your childrens children (pass the sick bag) but what do they care about the future. Warren Buffett said recently “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

    I agree we must fight now because if we don’t it will soon become impossible to change anything without extreme violence. That is a legacy I have no wish to hand down to future generations.

  24. You do sound rather like a Bevanite social welfare state advocate, circa 1949.

    Don’t tar all us “capitalists” with the same brush you use for the Lloyd Blankfeins of the world. We’re not all wealthy. We’re not all avaricious or uncaring – but we do value the means ~ individual liberty ~ perhaps more than we value the goal of “enough for all at any cost”.

    It IS quite possible to have “safer banks”, an absence of fraud, a caring mentality and opportunity for all who work hard.

    But to do that you’ll have to give up the lust for “equality”, for bigger and more powerful government and for higher taxation…because, when the field is flat and even, all players have a chance.

    1. I do indeed in so far as I think critical aspects of that notion of a welfare. of a shared obligation to care, was correct. But that doesn’t mean that I or many others who feel the same, are also somehow implacably against any form of free enterprise.

      People should be free to be enterprising and reap the rewards of their efforts. But, in my opinion that doesn’t mean being free of rules that protect the commons, it does not mean some idiot faith the ‘the marketplace’ will regulate itself or that any part of the market should be above the law or able to sidestep it.

      I do not, for example, think that coporations should have people-like rights. I am aware of what such a change does to the security of investors but am happy with those changes.

      I am not in favour of a small group of powerful people deciding what is best for them and passing it off as what is good for us. I am as opposed to that small group if they sit in board rooms or Cabinet offices. No matter where they sit they must not be above the law nor able to willy-nilly re-write those laws to suit themselves. There must be an end to the culture of ‘confidentiality’ and secrecy both corporate and state.

      Big ‘behind-closed-doors’ government is no answer to big ‘behind closed doors’ corporations.

      1. hi Golem you put your finger on it by pointing out here that non human entities should NOT be entitled to be treated as human beings. The human being is second to none..

        1. And leads one down a moral dead end; If you accept, however grudgingly, that it’s right to treat things (corporations and other organisations) like people, then it becomes several orders of magnitude more difficult to not equate people with things.

          If A=B, then B must, logically, equal A.

          And that’s the beauty of what we’ve been sold, over the past 50 years or so. By creating a paradigm where a corporate entity (an owned property of it’s shareholders) is granted equal rights to, and sometimes in excess of, those of a person – we’ve been normalised to accept that, at times, a person may also be treated as property.

    2. Cocoabean ,

      ” but we do value the means ~ individual liberty ~ perhaps more than we value the goal of “enough for all at any cost”.”

      And the policies of Reagan/Thatcher, both followers of Hayek, have been a straighter “Road to Serfdom” than just about everything they opposed in the lying name of “Individual Liberty”.

      Look around, and see the chains that the Reagans/Thatchers have imposed upon Western peoples, in the form of individual and national debt bondage. By suppressing wages for thirty years by waging war on unions and the Welfare State, and by making the expansion of credit the sole means of increasing living standards because suppressing wages has been policy, and by cutting taxes incessantly, both Western peoples and governments are now subjected to debt bondage.

      Look around and observed that while the Russian people were being ruled by the “FreeMarketDemocraticReformers, the Russian government was hopelessly indebted to Western banks, “Saint Mikhail of the Gulag” Khodorkovsky had wired Russian politics so that he and his fellow “job creators” could offshore their billion$ practically tax-free, and deaths in Russia were exceeding births by a million a year.

      Your “Individual Liberty” ideology has been nothing but a cover for advancing “All for Ourselves and nothing for Other People…”

  25. Understand where you’re coming from, but ultimately my view is sadly: the worse, the better.

    Even the latifundia eventually collapsed. It will take years and uncounted bloodshed and suffering, but only species replacement can stop the inevitable backlash.

    1848, anyone?

  26. Hi David

    I wanted to write and thank you for the above piece, initially read this on Jesse’s website and initially thought it was one of his… you’re as eloquent and passionately anti the existing hegemony of the parasitical elite as he is.

    Our betrayal of those who sacrificed so much in the expectation of better conditions is too awful (ironic give all the commemorations of both world wars). Reignited the fire in my belly as well as making me sad at the state of things my children will inherit. When you draw together all the information out there, it’s not difficult to see the bigger picture. When I say this to people they think I’m just sad or mad. Too cynical for this deludedly optimistic age of the consumer and hyper individualism.

    I already fear it’s too late for us. There won’t be the necessary critical mass of people who will see the bigger picture quick enough to effect change, even if they could agree what that needs to be! Having been involved in a previous life in left politics, the source of the disease is just about agreed upon and the given cures impossibly at odds with each other. We need as a starting point and foundation secular morality based on nothing more than understanding, sympathy and kindness. Something incontrovertibly simple. That and an economy based on the needs of raising future generations to direct long term planning of reduced consumption and infrastructure. I like Jesse’s quote ‘need little, want less and love more’, pretty much sums it up. Service and sacrifice.

    Take care

  27. Another brilliantly eloquent piece Golem, but I would point out one inaccuracy…

    “If we do nothing now, while we still can, we will soon find that our ability to ‘reform’ the system , or tinker with it or change it from within will be closed off.”

    Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but his has already happened.

    It is now time for mass civil disobedience. Non participation. Starting with boycotting the polling booths that now do nothing but perpetuate and encourage the nonsense that ‘democracy’ still exists (anywhere).

    I also suggest a mass ‘stay at home’ strike day(s). Protests of the traditional kind are ineffectual, often not reported and/or met with brutality. More powerful and safer now to stay home. Imagine a country of 60 million people without a soul to be seen on the streets… (Except vtal emegency services.)

    First demand. The right to sack anyone and everyone in permanent or elected public office by referenduum – including mass sacking of entire senior manager teams & leaders – and demand replacements with new ideas and vision.

    Second demand. The creation of a ‘democratised media commons’. Every adult gets an e-voucher annually to distribute public funds to the media providers of their choice. (Break the corporate media monopoly. Sure, many will send it to Murdochlies or the Daily Bigot, but a lot now won’t – enough to break the Orwellian/Bernaysian veil of propaganda.)

    Third demand. Mass public education on the true nature of ‘fiat’ money ala MMT/Post Keynesians who have been telling the truth for decades.

    Fourth demand. The wealth accumulation of all public officials capped for life to a low multiple of the poorest decile. (Stop corruption at source.) Nor are they allowed to belong to any formal or mutually obliging affiliations of any kind. (So cannot be members of any ‘parties’, clubs, groups, unions or even fecking knitting circles. They are to represent all equally, so cannot be sponsored or feel obligation in any other way beyond their personal/family circle.)

    We can have a mixed economy of public welfare and free enterprise, but we must have absolute clarity and integrity as to which area people are working within, and strict ‘border controls’.

    Above all, we need to fecking well get on with it (the revolution) 🙂

    Even a small number of the obscenely rich (for no good reason) are beginning to ‘get it’…..

    Nick Hanauer, billionaire and first non-family investor in Amazon (buddy of Bezos)….. video and transcript…

    http://mythfighter.com/2014/06/28/who-are-the-job-creators-the-best-6-minute-explanation-ever/

    well worth a watch/read 🙂

  28. backwardsevolution

    Very well said. Such a good article! Thank you, David. The only thing I might disagree with (and it’s probably more the “words” than anything else) is the “free market”. I agree with having regulations. I mean, we only have to look at who the elite are and what they’ve done to see that they need regulating. They have no loyalty, could care less about country, are sorely lacking in empathy and conscience.

    The “free market” would never have allowed interest rates to be held down, as Greenspan did. Lending with no money down and a ton of risk would not have happened, not at the low rates that were offered. The crisis would not have happened because the debt would not have piled up like it did

    The free market would have let the Too Big to Fail banks twist in the wind. It wasn’t the free market that allowed accounting rules to be changed (so banks could pretend they were solvent), or the buying of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities by the Fed.

    It’s all engineered, all of it. The government and the Fed step in, lower rates, start the herd moving (out of fear of being left behind, greed, whatever). Of course, the elite are already in at this point. Once the herd piles in (cheered on by the media and realtors) and they run out of suckers at the top, it all falls apart (but not before the elite have gotten out). They move back in, buy up assets for ten cents on the dollar, and it starts all over again. Of course, this last time didn’t work out too well for the elite, so they threatened and yelled until they were bailed out. I happen to believe a bailout was always assured.

    None of this is the “free market”. It’s an intentional slaughter for us and a windfall for them. They need to be severely constrained as far as monopolies, competition, shadow banking, tax havens, etc. I just happen to believe that the market would have stopped the fun long before it became a crisis. The Fed needs to be ended. It is in league with the bankers, along with the politicians and the bought-and-paid-for media.

    Thanks for the great article. I am glad you had some good men in your life (I had one good one too). It makes all the difference to a person’s character.

  29. backwardsevolution

    The Automatic Earth would agree with this article:

    “The global financial system owns our societies, banks, politicians, the whole lot. It therefore owns us too, which includes you, and it’s very counterproductive to deny that. It can do what it wants and what it pleases with impunity. It took the finance wizards surprisingly long to figure that out, but they have. This has enabled them to buy everything and everyone they wanted to buy. […]

    It’ll be very hard to pry back control over our lives from the cold hands of the rich and ruling class, not in the least because they have incorporated the military-industrial complex into their power sphere while we are stuffing our homes with trinkets and gadgets. […]

    You can either continue to sit in front of your TV, and work your job, and drive to the supermarket, and check your stocks 10 times a day. Or you can put your energy into ensuring that either the system ends, or that you and yours stop depending on it.

    Door number 1, you eat your kids’ futures.

    Door number 2, you fight for their futures.

    That’s all the doors there are. And there’s precious little time left to make your choice.”

    http://www.theautomaticearth.com/debt-rattle-4th-of-july-2014-if-all-else-fails-you-eat-your-kids/

  30. Hi David

    Well said, many of us feel the same. I’d certainly be interested to hear how political opposition could be better organised, it seems to be something that has proved impossible in the UK. Maybe if another country leads the way (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/06/pablo-iglesias-indignado-podemos-spain) we will start to see something better is possible. Not only organisation but a great education effort also seems to be required. The media and Universities seem to be good for very little from a critical and real and imaginative alternatives point of view. There are msny alternative voices in UK but they don’t seem to be able to communicate with each other or work together. But keep thinking and writing please.

    David Morey

  31. The words reform and democracy have different meanings and uses now…overused keywords in political, financial and other arenas, particularly liked by The Disloyal. Thanks again David for saying what many of us have been thinking. I am more than ready to mobilise against this awful spreading disease. I wish I could cut through the learned helplessness, the apathy and the “screentardation” I come across daily.

  32. “I have thought quite a bit about it. Those really interested should contact me”
    -just assume that a number of people who do, will have been planted on you.

    Now is not the time. The time is when the ordinary man is in fear, fear for his job, his savings, his PENSION, his home, and his food.
    Even though the media lies, distorts the unemployment statistics, the inflation, the debt, the great unwashed British public refuse to think it out for themselves.
    When Mme Lagarde gets her way and they raid your pension pot and charge a levy on your savings, there will be some murmerings of discontent.
    Heavens above, the folks in Scotland, who have the opportunity to change their system (well I know they don’t really think they do) still haven’t a clue how to use it.
    There will be a time, not far off, when people will just wake up and take back the power.

    Nothing will stop us, but can we hold onto what we have recovered?

    The problem will be that we have had a hundred years of middle class under-managers who run the show and gum up the works. We will have to get rid of ourselves as well.

    If this is to work, looks like we have to have a Year zero.

  33. Yakima may be right, seems likely the fools in charge will destroy their own system, then we may get a chance to rebuild. Iceland hints at what is possible. A world without money and debt perhaps.

  34. “This begged a larger question: How many of those 70,000 American plants offshored in recent decades, those millions of American jobs lost, had been the result not of a ruthless commitment to the bottom line, but of a colossal failure of due diligence?”

    Great article featured on NC reporting on the effects of multinationals that show no loyalty to the communities which for those who make the decisions are nothing more than a map reference. It clarifies something that I have long suspected that the much cited reason given namely increased labour profitability as a justification for outsourcing is not the be all & end all of the equation. An equation that in perhaps many cases if the effort was made would show that it would be better to stay put. This is without the calculation that if everybody outsources & those thrown out of work become poverty stricken, who is going to buy the stuff they import ?

    The piece gives a picture of the decimation within what used to be a community in one small town in the US but judging by the huge numbers of plant closures throughout the US, it appears to me that the true beating heart of America must be in a very bad way.

    http://www.vqronline.org/reporting-articles/2014/06/losing-sparta

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/07/corporate-illogic-outsourcing-offshoring.html#comment-2265992

  35. The Dork of Cork

    We must accept that “the west ” is based on a lie and was always based on a series of lies.
    How do we deal with this bombshell of Mephistopheles ?
    A Conspiracy theoirist (Kevin Barrett) takes a naval conservative (Lawrence Korb) to the woodshed in a apparently very balanced debate.
    Lawrences body language is one of acceptance and is merely going through whatever motions that is in ones training.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eFYlfY-0Vs

    Despite my gradual acceptance of this apparent unreality – it remains shocking.

  36. A nice and touching post.

    It pains me to say this but it should be obvious that all the three men got betrayed by the State.
    Not “by us” as you say (whatever happened to the individualization of guilt?)
    If you can’t see that, it’s pointless to argue about anything else.

    The Disloyal: disloyal to whom exactly? To the so called Society, represented by the people who betrayed the three men, I presume?
    Well, in that case must say I’d rather be disloyal than betrayed… although unfortunately I’ll probably end up more betrayed than disloyal because I stopped being a collectivist when it was almost too late…

  37. The Dork of Cork

    I guess the English find it hard to grasp sometimes.
    They looked out at the Tudor conquest and their masters called us heathens.
    Being almost Germanic in outlook the Anglos never asked themselves basic questions.

    There has been a police state operating on these Isles for over 400 years !!!
    It twists logic into various knots which is sometimes dfficult to untangle
    For example Rome was never really strong in Ireland until the Penal laws.
    Rome filled the vaccum that the Tudor conquest created and then they called us dirty little catholics when in fact we were a people of mixed Pagan and Christian heritage that was utterly destroyed by the money power.

    Now that the money power has turned inward and destroyed England – its then and only then do they wake up !!!!!
    http://arrow.dit.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=workerpmat

    This was shown on TNa g last night.
    A lament for the loss of freedom under a oppressive police state.

  38. The Dork of Cork

    Watched one of the greatest sporting films of all time the other night on BBC 4 land.

    The Hell of the North
    Paris Roubaix 1976.

    Whats striking is how bloody real sport was back then.
    The french pubs were all full of course as people even then (as the euro system was getting up to its demonic destruction of society via the transfer of further purchasing power to build the present global supply chain (which cannnot service basic demand) had enough money in their pockets for beer.
    Whats generally not known is that the French were bigger drinkers then the Irish back then.
    A few beers between work , a bottle of wine at dinner and a few pastis to finish off the nght,.

    Underneath it all was however the growing corporate culture as the banks slowly but surely destroyed all village life.
    A must see
    The people were REAL back then.,
    Nothing in Europe is real today.
    The whole fucking thing is a hologram.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYe5vdRV8S8

  39. Hi David,

    In my opinion, it is much too late to organise hoping to bring about sensible change. The best we can hope for at present is for individuals to take on their own responsibilities and to distance themselves from our socio/economic construct. The best we can do at present is to wait it out and do not feed leviathan.

    The past century has brought about a subtle but deliberate and gradual subversion of those fundamental principles that underpin enlightened and productive society. Basic concepts such as what constitutes the political spectrum or what capital is have been so thoroughly altered thus facilitating the rise of a class of untouchables whom rose to power by making arithmetically false but intellectually alluring promises.

    I wholeheartedly agree with you that we, collectively, are the ones that have brought this upon ourselves. We collectively have allowed politics to become a profession and politicians to become a privileged class immune from accountability and prosecution. But the perversion is so far advanced and institutionalised that “organising” anything will be, at best, thoroughly phagocytised by the system or, at worst, violently torn asunder. The continued existence of the organisation therefore would inherently be predicated on compromise and, eventually, assimilation.

    In the recent past I have had some heated discussions with a former high ranking Austrian (of nationality not of persuasion) civil servant. A died in the wool, true statist. To the question as to why politicians should enjoy exorbitant privileges, his answer is that privileges are necessary so they should not be susceptible to corruption. To the follow up question asking how that has worked out in the West for the past century (a West that rides the tall horse called moral high ground) he simply answers that a few bad apples are inevitable.

    A few bad apples?????!!!

      1. Indeed.

        The point being that privilege has empirically not worked to keep these people in check.

        Be that as it may, extirpation is not an advisable course of action. Rather, the orchard should no longer be tended till it withers and dies for lack of nourishment.

        Step aside, withdraw, tend to your family and those dear to you. Build resilience in your family and your activity. Be mobile.

        Hope for the best.

  40. The Dork of Cork

    The incredible story of Ingunn Sigursdatter – her efforts to reject Norwegian citizenship through the expression of her own individual sovereignty hits home when the corporate nature of European states has now become obvious.
    Not a easy thing to do.

    Norway – the best kept animal farm in Europe.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgLZq-5djsI

    Ingunn Sigursdatter ” the state will take care of our children”
    Selma James using the void in society to tax mothers work while using progressive language.
    The state is not about distribution of wealth – its goal is the concentration of power – the will to power in action.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlx3UvECDmY

  41. The Dork of Cork

    Ever wonder why Simon Coveney is being groomed for leadership of FG ?? and is the current golden boy of the cabinet…
    Also in the local papers the spin is he is one of our own as he engages in a “dynamic” exporting drive ………….see exporting our wealth to pay for a debt.

    Coveney comes from the Catholic merchant class of Cork.
    A group that have a reputation as terrible employers.

    They are very much under the soft deadly hands of Jesuit mind control.
    Schools such as the North Presentation in Cork comes to mind.
    The Jesuits inflate their egos and send them out into the big bad world to do their bidding.
    They think they are the bees knees yet are also very insecure in their own little head.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO5K_bxxNQc

  42. David

    What would you say to someone like Robert Reich who argues in his Supercapitalism that it is structures, the system, our historical moment that is to blame and not the oligarchies?

    1. I agree that the structures are the machinery which perpetuates and animates the problem, but I can’t help feeling that to talk only of the structures is like talking of ‘the aristocracy’ while claiming it has nothing to do with the aristocrats.

      Surely it is both. The system is what runs our lives but the system is man-made and therefore people could chose to change it is they wished. They don’t. Those at the bottom don’t because they are too demoralised, up-against it, drunk, ignorant or distracted. Those in the middle because they are too afraid that any change, any deviation on their part wil serve only to drop them personally and as a group from the just-about-making -it middle into the mass below them, and those at the top because they prefer to wring their hands about it, shed a few tears, attend a few charity dinners and then go home to the security patrolled enclave or private island.

      It will be up to us. Those who care.

      1. Although it is both, there is a chronological sequence as to how things happen. There are arithmetical realities that bring about structures and systems. So there are beginnings. Power structures don’t just come into existence without reason.

        Individuals are weary to rock the boat today simply because as this economic construct evolves, it gradually makes society ever more dependent on the state.

        The reality of our monetary system is that despite physical freedom, individuals are gradually co-opted till they become fully dependent. Like in all good pyramid schemes, by the time you realise what it is, you have too much to lose to just walk away.

        You can chose your profession, you are allowed to own property and you can cross state lines. You can even travel the world if you wish. But in order to do so, you are forced under penalty of violence, to make use of an arbitrary medium of exchange.

        The medium of exchange however, is under the exclusive control of the central bank.

        As the medium of exchange is gradually debased, the cost of living rises forcing the individual to, at first, work more and then, progressively, deploy savings till, in the end, the individual must make use of credit in order to maintain the same standard of living.

        This is the arithmetical reality of a monetary system predicated on debt.

        The state and the political process are useful tools in foisting this construct upon society. By declaring that the state can guarantee the health, wealth and security of the individual, society is mollified in participating in a political process that puts forward unsound but intellectually alluring policies that inevitably result in progressively more intrusive and restrictive constructs.

        In the meantime, the asymmetrical purchasing power advantage guaranteed by this monetary system, allows the central bank to front run the profit generated by the economy thus guaranteeing the concentration of profit in the hands of the finance industry, leading ineluctably to the concentration of ownership.

        Despite not understanding what they have stumbled upon, the research of these three Swiss systems analysts is empirical evidence of this reality:

        http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed–the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html

        Picketty and Gilens too highlight aspects of wealth that are related to this arithmetical reality.

        Few however, understand or, if they do, want to implicate the fundamental iniquity built into this monetary system.

  43. Hi David

    I think there are two important things to consider here. Yes many people do see the problems and care but in fragmented groups it looks like nothing can be done. Significant change only seems to be possible if numbers can be built up, if people believe the jump into something new might work, people who think the same way need to be organised so that making the jump looks worthwhile, i.e. making the jump is worthwhile only if we can see that many of us will jump together. Secondly, what are the weaknesses or contradictions in the system? Can individual changes in behaviour exploit these, open up new possibilities that work, that others can witness, appreciate and follow? Can alternatives be demonstrated, opened up, and be shown to be attractive and desirable?

    David M

  44. The Dork of Cork

    Found something very strange on the SEAI (which is a Irish neo liberal energy outfit)
    It forecasts a massive rise in Irish agricultural energy inputs.
    This can only be acheived via the destruction of the Irish farm and the introduction of massive indoor American ranch style production
    (Irish farming remains chiefly a outdoor grass grazing system)
    Y2011 Irish energy farm inputs : 251 ktoe
    Y2020 Irish farm emergy inputs : 2,001Ktoe

    This is off the friggin scale
    All other areas of the irish economy is forecast to contract or remain static in its energy consumption

    Is this their new scheme for cathastrophic overproduction ??????? which is the hallmark of the eurozone since day one be it in houses , cars , butter wine etc etc etc.

    Just to add _ Simon Coveny is the minister for agriculture and stuff – is that why he was in Switzerland with the boys. ????
    http://forecasts.seai.ie/chart.php?ref=FED14

  45. Hi David

    Seems that everyone is clinging to the system for different reasons. Sounds like one half of our brains is dominating the other (Iain Mcgilchrist), new possibilities, change, openness seem to frighten or confuse us. We seem determined to try and convince ourselves that there are no alternatives, although there always are, reality is incredibly open, which unnerves us, so much so we create endless false gods to follow, shame Abraxas did not catch on more. Oligarchs strike me as being much more ignorant (about what really matters) than cunning, which is perhaps even more dangerous. what do we need, what can help? We seem to lack a space for real discussion of our global problems (Nicholas Maxwell’s books critical of academia are of interest here), looking at things long term and big picture, in such a way as to be able to engage the democratic public. The media, for example, is just hopeless.

    1. Yes the media is certainly hopeless which I think is a nice way to describe the presstitutes. Despite having told myself to stay away as it annoys the hell out of me I just had a look at the Guardian’s coverage of the latest tragedy in the Ukraine

      I certainly don’t know the truth of it, but despite what seems to me to be no real evidence, the hanging judge has passed his verdict. The comments are dominated by armchair warriors all seemingly of the opinion that some force should be sent in to protect evidence etc & the so called paid Kremlin trolls like myself are nowhere to be seen & the moderators appear to be very busy.

      Nobody has considered any other possibilities or asked the question WHY would Putin want to shoot down an airliner full of civilians ? & why indeed would the rebels ( Unless of course some of them are looking for an escalation from the West in order to bring in the Russians ). Obama is using the incident to declare to Europeans that this is a wake up call, as they were presumably all asleep thinking that Putin was a nice guy.

      It’s not the Mail’s headline of ‘ Kremlin Killers ‘, but it may as well be considering that like the BBC the Guardian is considered left wing by the right – It’s hardly any wonder that people have no idea of what’s really going on & are therefore in no position to act to try & improve things.

      Putin is definitely the latest all powerful bogeyman who should be blamed for any actions that might have been taken by armed lunatics, maybe I’m crazy but if this is the logic, shouldn’t Obama & the US be blamed directly for the actions of American psychopaths shooting unarmed civilians in Afghanistan etc, forces that we know for certain are under their command ?

      It’s the so called progressives who are most to blame for the mess we are now in, as they are the ones who have totally sold us out to those who like crocodiles are just behaving as greedy predators do.

  46. .
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed–the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html#.U8o31VZ-HZY
    .
    Excerpts:

    […] “From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company’s operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.” […]

    […] “When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions.”[…]

    The above cannot merely be the result of greed. The above can only be driven by an arithmetical reality built into the system.

  47. Just read Robert Reich’s Supercapitalism and David Rothkopf’s Superclass. Makes me wonder if the question we should ask is How can we sack the superclass? -about 6k individuals with more power than sense. We need to know who they are, what their positions are, and what do they own/run. We can sack them by how we vote, work, invest and spend. What we need is knowledge about who and how to sack them, and encourage others to join us with this task and changing our behaviour to action this sacking.

    1. At this juncture, solutions are few and very well defined.

      The political process can no longer be the answer obviously. The arithmetical reality of our situation coupled with the required degree of compromise needed, will inevitably result in the eventual assimilation of whatever political movement one may cobble together.

      The only remaining options are inherently violent in nature.

      The first option is direct action. The second option is indirect action.

      Direct action is inevitably “unlawful”.

      Indirect action is, as yet, legal.

      Both direct and indirect action will result in bloodshed and pain.

      Direct action is of course revolution.

      Indirect action is the voluntary withdrawal of society from the fiscal and banking system.

      The bloodshed inherent in direct action is obvious.

      The pain and bloodshed of indirect action less so. Indirect action is actually quite easy. It will however result in social and economic dislocations that will cause pain and bloodshed.

      Indirect action consists in a combination of actions that result in your withdrawal from the banking and fiscal constructs. Withdraw your funds from banks. Close your credit lines. Quit your job and/or migrate to a life style that allows you to exchange labor and services without exchange of money.

      The effectiveness of withdrawing from the banking and fiscal constructs is predicated on leverage. Our governments are controlled by the finance industry. Both our governments and the banks are highly leveraged.

      By starving the system of its fractional base and fiscal contribution, the leverage inherent in the system will bring about the implosion of financial value across the board.

      As financial value is deflated, governments and financial institutions will blow up of course. The other side of the coin however is that all social constructs will blow up too even if only on a temporary basis. Things like road maintenance and repair. Refuse collection and disposal. Social health care. Traffic management. Schools, hospitals, the police, electricity production and distribution…

      Empirically however, the historical record shows that similar junctures have always resulted in revolution simply because people are weary to voluntarily take bitter medicine today. People always hope they can hold on to things just long enough for the situation to turn around at some point. The gradual loss of liberty and property is preferable to the voluntary and immediate loss of material comfort in exchange for total and immediate liberty.

      The fundamental limiting factor in opting for indirect action is that by and large our societies are wholly unprepared for total and immediate liberty because the cost of living has been driven to such levels that people think they could not afford “independence”.

      What is unseen in the above argument of course is that indirect action would bring about an almost immediate repricing of the cost of living to far lower levels.

      But voting to “sack” the superclass? It is far too late for that.

    1. Arithmetically speaking, yes. The implosion is inevitable.

      Ours is a monetary system predicated on debt. Since we seem hell bent on tweaking and modifying everything under the sun except the monetary system, we must assume that this is the construct we are going to labor under till further notice… (to be kept in mind for the purposes of this discussion).

      Under this monetary system, there are only three things you can do with debt:

      a) you can increase the debt provided that each new unit of debt gives you at least one unit of GDP

      b) you pay the debt off

      c) you have the debt written off

      The moment that each new unit of debt gives you less than one unit of GDP, you are then left with options b & c

      Regardless of how you calculate GDP, option “a” is off the table today. In fact, TARP and the various iterations of QE along with Draghi’s Outright Purchases or Abe’s Three Arrows were stratagems aimed at presumably addressing this very issue. These stratagems have clearly failed in that particular regard.

      What we are left with therefore are options b & c.

      Options b & c both require coercion however.

      At this point it is useful to keep in mind that most people think that the West’s largest creditors are countries like China & Japan. That is false of course.

      The largest holders of Western sovereign debt are Western citizens through their pension and insurance funds.

      Thus today the choice is to either have the debt paid off or written off.

      Clearly, even by confiscating the wealth and property of the entirety of society, Western sovereigns would still be short a few Trillion to repay all creditors. And even assuming they could confiscate the wealth and property of Western citizens along with that of Japan and China and other holders of Western debt, they would still be a few bob short.

      We can safely assume that the debt will not be paid off therefore. There are neither plans nor are there suggestions emanating from anywhere or anyone in this galaxy that suggest Western society should have their pensions and insurance funds refunded. Certainly, no Western government is mulling the idea of repaying a foreign sovereign either.

      So option “a” is a non starter not least because, other than the above, it would call for a drastic reduction in government too. Can you see politicians and civil servants willingly relinquishing their positions…???

      I did not think so.

      As a by-the-by, at this point, the latest suggestions emanating from the IMF that advocate the confiscation of pension funds to make good on the debt come into focus. Incidentally, this is not the first time the IMF has put forward similar ideas in the past three years.

      You are now left with option “b” therefore.

      The trouble with option “b” is that when you work through the numbers, the ramifications are rather dark and violent….

      Getting the debt written off is going to be ugly, violent and bloody.

      We have already started incidentally.

      To make a long story short however, here is where we are going (skipping a few connecting dots).

      By inducing macro instability at the monetary level, all those countries that accept US Dollars as reserves are correspondingly destabilised. Destabilisation will manifest in the break-down of all those equilibria that existed at the social, political, ethnic, territorial and religious levels. Socio/economic/religious/political instability brings about strife and destruction.

      In light of where global industrial capacity is located, my speculation is that in the next fifteen years we are going to induce the complete destruction of the infrastructure and industrial capacity of South and South-East Asia. Schools, bridges, roads, hospitals, factories, water depuration stations. The entire gamut of infrastructure will be obliterated.

      This will take care of a chunk of the “writing off the debt” side of the equation.

      That done, we are going to be left with handling the issue of our own creditors at home. All those people that have paid their taxes and have contributed to their pension and insurance funds and that today fully intend on claiming their services from the sovereign.

      Yet, the funds are not there. The funds never were there in the first place and they are not there today.

      So, what do you do?

      What do you do when the unemployed, homeless and soon hungry throngs will be roaming the streets???

      1. Very scary Guido & I am not qualified to argue against your thesis. Do you think that there is a possibility that a major war could be used in an effort to sort out some of the mess ? The hysterical response to the latest tragedy in Ukraine before the jury has even been assembled, the BRICS moves to replace the dollar, China’s alignment with Russia, the Israeli’s perhaps taking full advantage of a bad situation to hoover up what little is left of Palestinian territory & the fact that Putin is obviously being set up as Dr. Evil not because he actually might be, but simply because the West needs a new bogeyman, all seems to me that putting it all together that something is afoot & as usual I am hoping that I am badly wrong on it.

        1. A war is certainly a possibility.

          I don’t know at the micro level how we get to obliterate the infrastructure of South, South East and East Asia. I can only speculate. Empirically the destruction has already began.

          What can be said is that this monetary system has reached its logical arithmetical conclusion.

          Short of a thorough, complete and radical overhaul of the monetary system and a concomitant writing off of the extant debt, then the numbers say that the only way we can restart the credit cycle (i.e. refresh this monetary system) is by creating a void on the creditor side of the balance sheet.

          The arithmetic says that we must force the writing off of the debt.

          The debt is held by the newly industrial countries concentrated particularly in South, South East and East Asia and in the hands of Western financial institutions on behalf of citizens…

          Numbers are a bitch…

  48. Adam Smith:
    “They [the rich] should contribute to the public expense not only in proportion to their revenue but something more than in that proportion.”
    http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-And-Adam-Smith-by-Michael-Roberts-120721-368.html

    “The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present. And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the street believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever.” – Federico Garcia Lorca – Spanish Poet and Playwright – 1898-1936

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published.