“Pirates of the Caribbean” or the Pattern of a Parasite
Politics / Financial Markets 2011 Apr 25, 2011 - 02:55 AM GMTBy: Submissions
Forrest Lane writes: Has anybody ever wondered why yet another mediocre Hollywood production “Pirates of the Caribbean” made such a tremendous box-office? Its sequels contain some visual gimmicks at least, which might seem entertaining to eight year old kids or people who zealously maintain their consciousness at the same level. But the first movie was not only senseless, but utterly tedious as well. Taking into account that hitherto the latest big budget endeavour on this subject - Renny Harlin’s “Cutthroat Island” - was undertaken as early as in 1995, became a commercial disaster and ruined Carolco Pictures, this success (the movie has made more than $300 million domestically and about the same amount worldwide) strikes as a bit enigmatic.
The answer to this minor conundrum possibly lies neither in the movie’s dubiously compelling visuals nor in its containing no substance plot. The key thing may be the characters, or rather the way in which they correspond and supplement each other. First of all, we have Orlando Bloom’s one. He is honest, idealistic, brave, impeccable in every way - plainly, nearly a saint. Then Keira Knightley’s character goes - approximately the same, but with a pair of heavy fists. And finally - Captain Jack Sparrow. This one is actually a grasper, depraved lying traitor who has no basic moral principles to follow, nor does he feel any particular urge to develop ones. He is not without some style, but short-term as well as prospective personal gain seems to be the only beacon on his moral horizon.
And it’s this aping clown who - through a thousand of little plot and character tricks - is deliberately made the most appealing - at any rate, most lively and inevitably inducing the greatest sympathy - character of all (we will not discuss here the artistic quality of Mr. Depp’s attempt at performing in a grotesquely theatrical manner). Which itself wouldn’t be a strange thing - after all, the “charming bustard” is a very common cliché in fiction. But the screenwriters go much further than that. They create a ‘Holy Trinity’ construction of sorts that makes all these characters merge into one virtually inseparable entity - in which the ‘minor’ shortcomings of one of them are entirely consumed and expiated by the indubitably eminent virtues of the others. The message that looms behind such a construction is quite clear. You may lie, cheat, change your side and your ’beliefs’ twenty times a day, betray your yesterday friends today and seek their help again tomorrow, but still remain an integral part of something genuinely pure and essentially good.
It’s not surprising that this message was very welcome in the country which is responsible for hundreds of thousands of innocent people, including women and children, killed around the world in the course of wars waged in pursuit of oil and special interests, was a vanguard of destructive forces that brought world economy and finance on the brink of collapse, and would easily be able to beat a broken clock in a contest of liars - having a long time ago given up a practice of telling the truth even two times a day. Let’s take this current global ‘financial crisis and world recession’ situation - though it would be more accurate to term it an inevitable systemic collapse of the inherently corrupt arrangement - for instance. I believe there is no one left for whom the nature of it would still be a secret. If we put it in two words - the world financial system has been turned into a gigantic Ponzi scheme of fiat currencies, debt, and various complex financial ‘instruments’, supposedly invented to reduce risks, but, in fact, just used to make money out of thin air with profound disregard towards possible consequences. As any financial pyramid this one was bound, sooner or later, to reach the point when it technically couldn’t be stretched any more. And when it happened it has brought our civilization on the verge of an overall catastrophe - that is where it is at this very moment .
Don’t get me wrong - I am not trying to redeem neither us, Europeans, nor anybody else around the world for what has happened. There is no doubt that we - both governments and people - are equally responsible for participating in this frenzy of greediness which produced the current situation of imminent disaster. But it’s also evident what country had become a locomotive of this crazy train to an abyss. And now, when the current state of affairs is crystal clear, when its causes have been properly and repeatedly analysed and described, when “the cat”, as Al Pacino’s character said under the similar circumstances in another, somewhat more substantial, Hollywood production, “is totally out of the bag” - what the main world ‘democracy’ is doing? Accepting its systemic responsibility? its part of it? No, their demagogic officials are “still standing there - debating”. And denying. And wriggling like eels in their permanent search for scapegoats. And keep lying about what’s going on in this very minute.
So, allow me to come up with a thesis and use for its expression another reference to the area of movies. I don’t know whether that subtle metaphor from “The Matrix” describing human kind as a sort of virus can be fully applied to it (when I look at Scandinavian countries, for instance - at least from certain angles, I think that it might still be not quite true), but it’s obvious that it is entirely applicable to America - since its basic pattern of behaviour definitely resembles that of a parasite. To provide an argumentation for it I will have to start from afar. Since the world’s order of today - to a very considerable extent - is a direct consequence of the Second World War, in order to get a grip of the present situation one should have a clear notion of what had actually happened during that war, right after it, and has been going on since that time. So let me start there and provide the reader with a brief description of those processes that, in my opinion, have led to the current catastrophic political and economic situation in the world while touching - for the sake of brevity - upon their critical points only:
- 1913 - American financial elite promotes the establishment of the Federal Reserve. Behind the declarations of it being “an independent entity within the government” conceived in order to address banking panics and thus maintain the stability of the financial system, it’s in reality created as a private institution which single purpose is to serve this elite’s interests. The notorious dream of Rothschild: “Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws” comes true;
- the Federal Reserve policies give an immediate effect: in less than twenty years after its establishment - as the gap between the rich and the poor is of obscene proportions - the sudden and total collapse of US stock market signifies the beginning of The Great Depression which quickly spreads to many other countries in the world. It’s accompanied by savage economic competition of the 30s - with its heavy usage of protectionist policies - between the main world centres of power. This situation makes them willing to promote a short war to get out of the Depression which leads to irresponsible condoning of Hitler’s insane actions in pursuit of their interests and sometimes to direct collaboration with Nazis;
- WW2 (which instead of a short one turns into a global disaster and ultimately decimates the planet’s population), the cynical position of the United States (as formulated by H. Truman: “We ought to let them kill as many as possible”) - parasitizing upon the tragedy (getting the US economy out of the Great Depression and using the war to enfeeble other centres of power). America’s real entering the war as late as in 1944 (after three years of unjustified - and unjustifiable - postponements and delays) with a sole objective to take part in sharing of a ‘pie’ the post-war world is to become. The heinous crime of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings committed by the US in order to convince the world of its right to do that;
- the world after WW2 - spheres of influence emerge, the Cold War starts. The US seeks ways to convert benefits extracted from the calamity of WW2 into political and economic advantage - the Bretton Wood Agreements (the dollar becomes the world reserve currency through the pressure imposed by the US upon other participants of the Agreements and turning down by it all alternate propositions which are more economically correct);
- the US is made a centre of world trade by the Bretton Wood Agreements - factual legitimization of a concentration of power in one state, which uses an opportunity of the situation when all other centres of power, devastated by the war, not to mention the Third World countries, have little choice but to accept its will. America benefits from the biased economic settlements through trading at a tremendous profit with developing countries and uses it to encourage an outflow of dollars to Europe and Japan to recover their economies to secure future markets for itself, as well as spends massive amounts to sustain foreign deployments and marionette regimes - thus exploiting its economically advantageous position as a centre of the international market to increase its political and military influence (“the New British Empire“);
- devastating consequences of this expansionistic policy for the US economy
(America’s gold reserves plummet to app. 15% of an international total only - compared to over 60% after WW2, the country starts to accumulate immense amounts of debt), which cause a gradual decline, crisis and ultimate collapse of the Bretton Wood Agreements in 1971 as a result of a decision unilaterally made by the US to terminate convertibility of the dollar to gold (more precisely - as a result of an actual default on the Agreements by the US, after which the dollar and its status of the world reserve currency cease to be backed by gold and thus economically justified);
- the US uses ‘’bought and robbed’’ in the course of the previous two and a half decades political and military influence to promote the situation in which all critical commodities, most notably - oil, an indispensable thing for every economy, are denominated in dollars. Thus through US state action a totally corrupt regime of “dollar hegemony” is introduced - that is from now on the US produces fiat paper dollars (by printing them at will) and the rest of the world produces real things that these paper dollars can buy. As a result the US starts to issue an incessant torrent of paper money without any intrinsic value (not backed neither by gold, nor by the country’s fiscal and monetary discipline), and actual producing and exporting nations now have to create real wealth, ship it to US markets and then invest their dollar earnings and reserves in US assets. Thus the United States manages to impose the questionable privilege of financing US debt - the country is already heavily indebted by the moment but the major portion of it is still to come - on other countries, while sucking all real wealth out of them, and simultaneously preventing their domestic economic development***;
- political changes of the early 90s: the USSR collapses, the Cold War ends,
the United States proclaims itself the sole remaining super-power. As a result America cannot use the “evil empire” of Soviet Union as a perfect “image of enemy” to justify many of its dubious foreign policies, as well as domestic problems any more - with no formidable substitute in sight. The US is in a desperate search for a new enemy;
- destructive consequences of the inherently corrupt world finance
architecture based on “dollar hegemony” and the fact that by this moment America is effectively governed by the fascist conglomerate comprised of the state and biggest corporations start to seriously impair the US economy itself - all real production is outsourced abroad, the economy starts to turn itself into an enormous speculative balloon of inflated assets, thriving on dodgy accounting, which is sooner or later bound to implode;
- the self-proclaimed super-power on a brink of collapse: the completion of
a process of turning of the US economy into a series of unsustainable "bubbles". Since America acts as an ultimate consumer for the whole world - while real wages in the country decline because all well-paid production jobs are outsourced - it is pushed into an enormous debt “bubble” as well. By this time the dollar and its central place in world finance cease to be backed by any economic fundamentals. The only thing which is now behind the greenback and its status of the world reserve currency - a pivotal arrangement for America's economic and military empire - is the US military power. The situation is also characterized by the absence of any legitimate causes for its employment;
- the early 2000s recession: the unsustainable "bubble" of American economy and finance starts to implode. The 9/11 events seen through the prism of this context suggest obvious conclusions: America consciously and deliberately uses these events to create a mythical effigy of world terrorism, declare the global War on Terror, and untie one's hands to employ the country's military capacities unilaterally - "legitimizing'' its resorting to war as the last means to sustain the crumbling empire;
- the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Blaming the early 2000s recession on bursting of the dotcom "bubble" - while, in fact, it's the beginning of a systemic collapse; the completion of total deregulation of financial markets (and the market of mortgage-backed securities specifically) and initiating the new housing market "bubble” in order to postpone this collapse;
- the US housing market crash, the current world financial crisis and global
recession as inevitable returning of a systemic crisis which began to unfold in
the early 2000s and its entering an end-stage - despite all the hypocritical and insane foreign policies that cost hundreds of thousands people around the world their lives and completely irresponsible economic policies aimed at total deregulation of financial markets in order to artificially maintain the unsustainable speculative "bubble" of US economy to which America held in the previous years;
- bailing out “too big to fail” financial institutions, QE initiatives, systematic distortion of truth of Orwellian proportions in the “bought and paid for” mainstream and financial media which role is reduced to mere propaganda, doctored governmental statistics and using all these lethal practices to create the mirage of a recovery. While the truth is simple and obvious: a planetary scale Ponzi scheme of paper dollars and other fiat currencies is about to crash - US Treasuries “bubble” being the lingering mainstay. This crash is inevitable; when it happens its consequences will be global and catastrophic.
So it seems that in a certain sense we encounter the same parasitic pattern that hurled America into the Great Depression in the 30s - it’s just that when it’s applied on a worldwide scale - as it has been the case now - it takes a somewhat longer period of time to bring the situation on the verge of an overall catastrophe than it does in the case of one single country. And it’s precisely where we are poising at the moment.
In his latest article “Stocks Stealth Bull Market Trend Forecast 2011” Nadeem Walayat writes: ”Key points to consider are that the US economy is strengthening, the world economy is improving … the bankrupt banks still remaining bankrupt, but less so than where they were a year ago”. Nadeem, I think that you are doing a great and very important job with your site but I didn’t quite get this one. What exactly are you considering indications of this strengthening? Is it 8 to 9 % negative real interest rates? Or 20+% real unemployment (with some recent fall in its rate that was mostly due to the manipulation of data or entirely dependant on immense government spending which contributes to ever increasing deficits and the already unsustainable national debt)? Or the fact that the “last man standing” among purchasers of this debt is the US Federal Reserve itself? Or another one - if we take real, not heavily doctored by Washington crooks and their minions from the area of statistics, numbers we will discover that there has been no real economic growth in the US since 2000 (which goes in a strict accordance with our earlier observation that it’s then when a systemic collapse of American “bubbleomics” began and it never stopped - just has been systematically covered up and postponed through blatant lies and irresponsible policies which produced new “bubbles”)?
The banks are “less bankrupt“? Well, it’s like being a little less pregnant. They ARE insolvent. And the only reason why they are still wandering the landscape in a dawdling manner of Michael Jackson’s back dancers from “Thriller” is the Machiavellian plan that has been implemented in order to save them - or rather provide such an impression - which included all sorts of political and financial trickery in existence. After that they have simply embarked upon a risk-free trade of borrowing free money from the left hand, the Federal Reserve, and buying short-term papers from the right, the Treasury, but even this activity is waning now. To do what they are actually supposed to do and credit real businesses? What an archaic folly! As Goldman Sacks’ Blankfein has properly explained some time ago banks were out there not to do their job, just to make money - and then left the building (neither down its scaffold nor in custody).
What if we look at a bigger picture? It’s pretty much the same all around the world. What we are witnessing at the moment is a carefully orchestrated debasement of all fiat currencies - and all countries (their elites to be more precise) are effectively complicit in this process, as well as in all previous ones which ultimately have led to it. It’s not surprising that since the beginning of the current crisis (though I still maintain that the term “crisis” - as a downturn phase of a cycle pertinent to an operational system which is to be followed by an upturn stage - is incorrect; there will be no real recovery or full revival - the system will fall) those elites have clearly manifested their inability/unwillingness to admit the true state of things, give an accurate description of the present situation and come up with an adequate plan of action.
Instead of it they are pouring the gasoline of liquidity on the fire of systemic failure, that is printing money which is used not to revive the real economy but to bail out insolvent major financial institutions, and inflating all major currencies to dilute the “pyramid” of debt and responsibility for its creation - with inevitable in the future dramatic increase in inflation rates and possible global hyperinflation. It suffices to have a look at any gold chart and follow the metal’s 460% (in US dollars) rise through the last decade. However gold is not in a bubble. Rather it stands still - and all world currencies are free-falling against it. Is this race to the bottom indeed carefully orchestrated? It appears so. Consider how in the course of the last two years sovereign debt issues in Europe have repeatedly occurred in the foreground and hot “news” at those points precisely when the dollar’s dynamics in relation to the Euro started to get plainly obscene. Do not forget that we are talking about the world reserve currency (though after Nixon’s actual default in 1971 the dollar has effectively lost any legitimate right to pose as such) and its two-digit percent fall in just a couple of months against the other major one is not a good sign at all - people might start asking questions.
Whether it was due to an “overt” collusion of the parties involved or a result of their unilateral actions - it’s enough to initiate a speculative attack on any “piggy‘s” bonds (not to mention all that scheming with rating agencies involved) and thus offer it to the media for emphasized coverage to sow a short-term panic in the markets and introduce an exchange-rate correction - is debatable. But in either case the final destination remains the same. What about both the currencies’ tale-telling performance relative to gold? Well, at the end of 2010 gold represented about 0.7% of global financial assets - people still just do not look at it, for now.
So it doesn’t really look like “the world economy is improving“. It rather appears that the only thing that separates us from an overall catastrophe is exactly this “ignorance is bliss” attitude manifested by the masses. But the problem is that the elites are running out of their little tricks like excluding food and energy from “core” inflation, machinating with product packing etc. When price inflation becomes evident to our gloriously acute general public - which may happen in the second half of this year with a vengeance - it can provoke bank runs and stampede out of all paper currencies into whatever (gold and silver being the most obvious choices). Even if initially people’s reaction occurs to be somewhat milder and reduced to just demanding higher wages the final outcome will be the same. As soon as it happens we’ll have arrived. So on what prayers exactly this crumbling edifice of world finance is supposed to linger for years or even decades - which would be Nadeem’s prognosis - is not quite clear.
So what options do we have? The first one - the elites provide an adequate description of the actual situation at last and undertake all obvious steps which are necessary under the current circumstances: “too big too fail“ ones are allowed to do so, honest defaults are declared on sovereign debts, real reforms are initiated which imply systemic changes of the world’s economic, financial and political structures. That would amount to loosing their power, admitting their responsibility for creating this situation and indicate their preparedness to face a due chastisement. So it will never happen. The second one - the elites continue to kick the can down the road for a while - and the range of strategies they can employ in order to do that is staggering: they can print or they can print - but sooner or later (the former seems to be much more probable) print the world into a global hyperinflation event. That would be their obvious choice.
Now, what should we expect in terms of social consequences when this event arrives as the result of such a choice? They will obviously be catastrophic. It’s enough to remember what was going on in Europe during the “first wave” of the “crisis” and have a look at what is going on in the Middle East and North Africa now - though the already toppled regimes (and probably those that might still go) are rather a result engineered by representatives of those states’ elites, sponsored and indoctrinated by their Western partners, these top officials, in order to reach their goals, have used an unprompted social upheaval that they managed to channel in their interests and that was caused mostly by a spike in food prices, which in turn was due to the fact that the developed world is printing money and exporting inflation - to imagine the scale of a catastrophe which is inevitably to break out when people worldwide suddenly realise that they have just lost everything, including hope, and they plainly do not have food to eat and feed their children - literally, not metaphorically. It might mean anything - turmoil, unrest, insurgency, rebellion, revolution.
And here we go with a million dollar question: are the elites falling blindly for a disaster or is it a pre-conceived design? Well, I’m afraid that it simply does not make any sense to assume that the ruling elites (I mean real players, not clowns we see on TV), who control - or, at least, exert a serious influence on - governments of all the developed countries, despite the fact that they have managed to turn the world economy into a gigantic financial pyramid and thus get in their possession tremendous resources, having left the vast majority of the planet’s population with piles of useless papers in their hands, are, in fact, a bunch of sorry jerks who tremble apprehensively now, waiting for their inevitable crash. It’s highly unlikely that what we are witnessing at the moment and should prepare ourselves in the future is the result of their being a group of utterly impotent professionals and plainly clinical imbeciles.
Shouldn’t we - with, at least, the same probability - presume that those elites might have a very precise plan of action? Implementing of which with a help of the governments would let both get through this catastrophe virtually intact and having dodged any responsibility for its creation. Moreover - preserve their total control over the situation as it unfolds, as well as at the end game. It might be that impending hyperinflation and a collapse of fiat currencies are not a stochastically approaching disaster but planned events, which are to be used to enhance the same elite’s power, or even get it an absolute one. Not to mention the fact that on top of all the problems mentioned we also have an overproduction crisis of sorts in the West and, at the same time, several billions of people on the planet who do not have enough food to eat on the one hand, and whose consciousness - on the other - won’t be in deep slumber for ever in the age of information and technology. The elites do not want either. War (or permanent war) is a solution to both. It can help to “legitimately” destroy things that should be destroyed since the elites do not want to re-distribute wealth in a more just way because it would eventually pose a threat to their being in control (see Orwell), and it can help to destroy people. Having created a global Ponzi scheme of fiat currencies the elites managed to accumulate in their hands all real wealth of the planet. Now they can be directly interested in its crash and subsequent social unrest which they could channel and turn into stealth or overtly global WW3 - not just to stimulate the masses to accept the New Order, but to use it first to get rid of “extra” population.
In which case a social catastrophe and military conflicts as its ultimate consequences would be not calamities which the elites are clumsily trying to avoid now through their insane money printing but rather essential parts of the plan. And even if this plot is not sinister to the extent to overtly plan upon decimating the planet’s population once more in the course of another global massacre (though I wouldn’t bet any money on that), this New Global World Order thing is clearly on TPTB’s drawing board - Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s
recent babbling about the ripe necessity to make our planet a more just place (obviously through the establishment of the Global Federal Reserve to watch petty banksters) was obviously to this end. Well, it might work. Al Capone does have some chance to line up a cluster of pickpockets.
So what should be realised is that there is a possibility that not only an economic collapse and subsequent inevitable social unrest but war - whether as an end in itself or just means which is supposed to be used to make people accept the elites’ Final Globalization Plan - is a scenario that they consciously and deliberately pursue. The toppled regimes in Egypt and Tunisia - what is coming instead of them is hardly new democracy and stability, Libyan “rebels” composed of the Moslem Brotherhood, essentially the same terrorist fighters that form Al-Qaeda groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, the profoundly destructive effect that this policy of permanent attacks on sovereign states “justified” by all sorts of fake covers will have on Iran (there can be no doubt that this country’s regime will do everything now to get nuclear weapon in its possession as soon as possible - and with a full support of the Iranian people who will see it as the only thing in existence that can protect them from being “liberated” in an Iraqi way or “protected” in a Libyan one) are just a few indications that this paradigmatic shift in the global elite‘s policies becomes operative.
Their intensions appear to be quite clear. They want to plant seeds of chaos (what do several fundamentalist states encircling the glorious state of Israel give us if not a pool of gasoline - all you need is just to strike a match) to start the process of an overall destabilization of the situation and to be able to totally disrupt it at will. Who is going to care about US Treasuries yield, the US dollar dynamics in relation to whatever and so on when people start to dye in droves under bombings or simply from hunger? Who is going to dig out the true reasons underlying this disaster? Unfortunately people are not too bright in general - not because they are born idiots but because they are inclined to choose the path of least resistance - to which their being rather lazy and weak contributes mightily. So when the elites emerge in their shining armour to save the world from chaos, the masses - which will be desperate at that point - can prove to be idiotic enough to accept it. To be quite frank, it does not sound as a conspiracy theory to me at all. Judging by those processes that we are witnessing at the moment it rather appears to be the only truly realistic scenario of what is coming in the future. I might be wrong. I wish I was. But do we want to take any chances on this one?
However, before formulating a plan of action let’s have a closer look at us - the masses. The main mistake of M. Moore’s movies - I do not know whether he’s genuinely lost or deliberately turns to quite irresponsible populism - is that he presents the case like this: here is a guilty party - banksters, corporations, politicians; and here is a victim - the supposedly innocent masses. The latter’s crime, at worst, is being gullible. As a result they have been viciously tricked and robbed by the former. Well, nobody argues that the elites and all their men: hypocritical puppet politicians, corporate crooks, corrupt bankers, shill economists promoted by the mainstream media are the guiltiest party. But are the masses that innocent? The truth is that none of what has happened and ultimately brought our civilization where we are at the moment wouldn’t have without the masses’ active participation.
And we are not talking about abstaining from something that should be done on their part and condoning something that shouldn’t - we are talking about an actual active participation. When US corporations heavily embarked upon outsourcing of all real production abroad in the 90s in pursuit of their short-term financial interests the masses were easily silenced through offering them cheap credit on which they could buy all those “needful things” which were now made in China for a cup of rice. When the banksters, corporate thieves and politicians occurred to be in need for another “bubble” to cover up a series of previous - at that moment already unsustainable - ones and, having completely deregulated the financial markets, started an American housing market national Ponzi scheme - they did it with a help of the masses. When Mr. Moore was talking to all those people who had been evicted from their houses he failed to ask them: “Why did you agree to gamble with your home?“ Though it would be a rhetorical question.
And unfortunately it goes much further than that. Because he should also have asked them: “ Who were you voting for during the last decade?” It’s not that I have any illusions as to the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats - as systemic entities both rather constitute one and the same party and if it has anything to do with democracy Hitler was a pacifist - but still. Were not they by any chance the same people who voted for Bush? Who voted for Cheney? Who elected them twice? And if so can they be considered innocent? Now when they have lost their homes they start to wake up from their slumber. But they felt quite cosy being in that state a short while ago - staring at CNN reports and “believing” that they were protecting
world democracy while letting those criminals mentioned kill hundreds
of thousands innocent women and kids in Iraq in pursuit of oil and special
interests. The majority of Americans are against the Iraq war now, when it
has caused the massive loss in life and money without any constructive
outcome whatsoever. But it was not like that when it was expected to easily
and quickly get out of it victorious and with benefits. The same refers to
the undertaken deregulation of financial markets.
If both these things had “worked out” all would have been quiet on the Western front at the moment. And all those women and children, I’m afraid, would have been considered an acceptable collateral damage not only by Washington murderous demagogues, but by the masses as well. Just like they didn’t seem to object to stretching their domestic economy’s “bubbles” further at the expense of a 15-year old Chinese kid having 15-hour working day for a portion of that proverbial edible grains or a 15-year old African kid dying from starvation in the 21st century due to the generosity of WTO proceedings. So we can hardly say that those people were tricked and manipulated into something while being totally unconscious of what they were doing. The masses may be not that brilliant but they are not comprised of clinical idiots. And if you choose to see only what you want to see or think two things - even if opposite ones - simultaneously (see Orwell again) just because it suits - or you believe that it suits - your interests or not to think at all (like a majority of people in the “first” Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit“) because it seems to you to be a more convenient mode of existence, it’s your own choice and completely another story. In this case you ain’t no victim.
Of course, it’s not the Americans only we are talking about here. Unfortunately, the same goes to the rest of the world - to all of us. When protestors shout ”Thieves, thieves” in the streets of Europe feeling that they are being robbed through implementing their governments’ austerity measures what exactly do they want to get back - an opportunity to live beyond their means? at the expense of the Third World countries? constantly borrowing from their own future generations? Naturally, they wouldn’t go anywhere with those IMF imposed plans and programmes but the point is that nobody wants to admit any responsibility. Not only plutocrats but our whole civilization seems to have lost its mind completely in this frenzy of consumerism paid for with money we do not have. What is the principal difference between some lying corporate scum distributing among themselves nine figure bonuses for having lost money of millions of people and so many of those people going out regularly to buy another pile of glossy crap with their 20 credit cards, the actual source of credit on which are artificially inflated prises of the houses that they do not actually own; or enjoying a five Euro cup of coffee while living on dole? It’s the same mentality. Do not forget that “Pirates of the Caribbean” has made worldwide the same amount as in the US. It seems that just way too many of us subconsciously have guilty conscience.
So it would be factually inaccurate and hypocritical to put all the blame on the elites. In a certain sense they and the masses are two sides to the same coin. And, unfortunately, it wouldn’t be wrong to state that it does not appear that people are like that because TPTB are out there. It rather appears that TPTB are out there because the people are like that - wilfully ignorant and thus susceptible to manipulation. However, I do not think that most people are a hopeless case:
- I do not think that most people would choose to make a meaningless pursuit of money and comfort their primary priority - only if they are constantly encouraged to do so;
- I do not think that most people are ready to sacrifice their freedom for security and stability or even for a mere illusion of it. The brainwashed docile herds of today - maybe, but most people are not inherently flawed at their birth, they are simply get brainwashed and can be brainwashed back. All they need to do is to switch off their plasma screens and switch on their brains;
- I do not think that most people would choose to live in this parody of world which we have today, where some duplicitous asshole gets for two weeks of dubious grimacing in front of the camera an annual budget of some small African country or amount which a family of mineworkers can make in the course of three generations doing a real job, rather than in a just and sound one;
- Most people are susceptible to bad influence, yes. But to good influence as well.
The elites are a different story. They are those who exert their - always destructive - influence solely in their own interests. The only thing they care about is maintaining the status quo in which they are in control of the situation. In pursuit of this goal they permanently deny reality ant its objective laws. By doing so they pose a lethal threat to any sentient being and our civilization as a whole. That’s why they are what they are - the enemy. And as such should be exterminated.
So the main conclusion would be that knowledge is of the essence. What we need is a systemic endeavour of fierce education designed not in order to initiate an impetuous rebellion under the dubious slogan: “Rob the Robbers” (to which end M. Moore’s movies seem to be working), but aimed at reaching the point when a critical number of people start to actually understand what is going on. Some believe that an upcoming disaster will provide this educational effect. It hardly makes sense. If people get plunged into it being mentally unprepared it won’t be a lesson, but rather a catastrophe. The understanding should also be systemic. It doesn’t make sense to prompt the masses to blindly buy silver, for instance. JP Morgan won’t be crashed - they will simply print more money and bail it out. And even if it starts a chain reaction it will simply bring the mentioned catastrophe nearer to the still unprepared public (it’s also worth noting that if we buy a sufficient amount of silver it might pose a certain obstacle for the elites in terms of their ability to wage a high-tech war, but it won’t prevent them from waging any other one).
So what should really be attempted instead is reaching a comprehensive understanding of the current state of affairs with not only economic, political and social, but also existential and even spiritual aspects involved - it might sound scary and unworkable, but, in fact, it’s not so (it’s hard to win Wimbledon but it’s pretty easy to learn the rules of tennis). This understanding is to become the first step to everyone’s preparedness to admit one’s own responsibility for creating the current mess. Having done that we will be able to start to walk our path from consumers back to citizens, from parasites to human beings - and thus out of this mess. After all, Mr. Moore was right on one thing - we still have 99% of votes. All the politicians must be the first against the wall? Well, not exactly - there is Ron Paul out there, for instance. But one man cannot change the system. It can change as a whole only if it becomes an embodiment of different individual wills consciously and independently working towards this end.
I’m sure that it can be done. The elites are winning not because they are any good, but because they have manipulated the masses so that they did not face any resistance at all. None of them will survive a real battle. Their mercenaries will be fighting for money, their adversaries - we (if properly educated) - for life. So if we withdraw our heads from our asses at last and actually start this fight, that is not another slaughter engineered by the same elite with a predestined outcome - the rich get richer, the poor die in droves - but the one in which everyone knows exactly who his real enemy is and why, they simply do not have a chance. They know that. And they are afraid - what was all this “Wikileaks” scheme if not a warning? Are you going to take it and give up? I do not think that it’s a right choice. Are you hoping to avoid the fight? I do not think that it’s a reasonable hope.
We are living “451 Fahrenheit” now.
We are two steps away from “1984”.
Reread it. Read it for the first time. And now imagine that Winston Smith is you.
Wake up, people!
Do something!
*** See Henry CK Liu’s works on this subject.
By Forrest Lane
Forrest Lane is a former tennis analyst and private financial consultant and currently a screenwriter. He can be reached at: citizen.lane@lycos.com.
Copyright © 2011 Forrest Lane - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.
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