A little history: when Lenin and his Bolsheviks created a new revolutionary state, Stalin was always helpful, willing to please, until he fully controlled the secret police. Once he controlled it, he was able to control everyone's lives in a way no ruler ever had before, partly because of the huge amount of information he amassed about everyone who mattered. The secret police mission: know what everyone is thinking. Stalin's monopoly of power was unparalleled.
Seeing "Citizen Four" on Snowden's revelations, I was reminded of how Stalin had amassed such power. But here, at least for now, the power is organized at a seemingly lower level: the management. The CIA, the FBI and now the NSA, and of course the militarized police and the DOD are each contributing to the creation of a police state even more effective than Stalin's. It hasn't quite gotten there, yet. More properly, they have not. On the other hand, no President is going to go against them: witness Obama's almost fearful expression as he says Ed Snowden should just turn himself in…he should have followed procedures…he'd get a fair trial….
Wow! I seem to remember a different Obama.
Of course we could only have the same SuperStalin for eight years, and the people would decide who would best represent them--every four, but really eight years: a new form of democracy, or the most oppressive totalitarianism ever yet devised? Technology makes it all so much easier, ultimately, for the few who amass all the wealth. They will 'brainwash' everyone to love them.
They'll control, equally, by what they know about each of you, and what they persuade you to think. That will be through the schools and the media, of course, but carefully modulated to fit all 'tendencies' in the population. So, of course there will be jobs for teachers, journalists, image-makers and attractive faces and voices, as long as they are careful. Yet, technology might make more of you redundant, anyway.
And the intelligence community would know, if even a keystroke--an eye-flick--implied DANGER.
Guantanamo and the gulags' successors will be called supermax correctionals, and life there might even be more hideous than in their predecessors'. Water boarding, pfft!
So, what can we do? On the one side are the terrorists and on the other side are the Government--and all its corporate allies, and the money behind all of them.
And we are between them.
But think about this: terrorism is used to scare most of us enough that we're willing to give up our rights, in order to be protected from them. But Snowden has revealed that the intelligence agencies, government departments and corporations gain tremendous streams of information about all of us. They say they'll only keep the records for five years, but any time your name, number, email, Facebook, etc. comes up relating to anything--a crime, a stirring of dissent, even if the connection is tenuous, then all your communications over the last five years could be mined for the crime, of dissent, at very least.
Stalin made such a spectacle of his show trials!
There are dangers, of course: the new barbarism of the Taliban, Boko Haram and now Islamic State do have appeal to those left out of, or oppressed by, global capitalism and civilization. More on that next time.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Friday, January 9, 2015
Paris Jihadi Shootings and?
Events like the Jihadi shootings in Paris, the anti-Muslim demos and movements in Europe (and corresponding prejudice here among white reactionaries), are one sign of the instability that's becoming endemic in global civilization.
Another is the fall in oil prices, created by the fracking boom here and the intentional continuation of production as usual in Saudi Arabia. Bankruptcies in Venezuela, Russia and Iran, could visit us, through bank failures caused by collapse of the trillions of dollars in fracking derivatives held by US banks. We could revisit 2008, but with oil derivatives instead of mortgage derivatives as the cause. And the new Republican Congress has just made it possible for the big banks to seize depositors' money if they're in danger of collapse!
Obvious, who funded their campaigns, isn't it?
There is no such thing as class war, except as waged by the terrorists--and that's not class; it's culture, religion, race hatred, anything but what generated it: the exploitation of the whole world by a tiny, rapacious elite.
It isn't the usual suspects of rightwing conspiracy theorists; it's the corporate class, worldwide, that has captured democracy and autocracy alike: from the US to China. Some of the elite are US bank leaders, some are CEO's of huge corporations; some are speculators riding the tide of triumphant capitalism. With few exceptions, they appear to be in 'the game' to carry off as much wealth as they can, by almost any means. Think how powerful you feel, when you make as much in an hour as an ordinary worker makes in a decade. It doesn't seem to occur to them that they are killing the goose who lays golden eggs. What will sustain an economy when there are only the wealthy and the desperate?
But, hey, there's no Marie Antoinette around here!
Are the lives of the rich and famous an open book? Celeb followers are entertained by the show biz stars: rich enough, but hardly the billionaires behind their private mansion walls: celebs are mere servants of the Rich, but intentionally not so Famous.
I've often asked the question: what will the billionaires do, when everyone else is driven to give up, or cannot survive traumatic climate change? Will they retreat to underground bunkers?
Apparently, someone is building a bunker world in Kansas; it will include everything, including a pet park, and you only need about $3 million to buy into it, not that you'd want to live in it, unless the apocalypse is imminent. After all, who would want to live in Kansas, if you can live in San Francisco, or New York, or…?
In the dark ages, when I was in graduate school, I read a piece about the possible lifestyle of the world's managers: they would live in any "beautiful place in the world," from which they could manage multi-billion dollar corporations--to exploit people all over the world. That future seems more likely daily, unless some among the politically aware can persuade the unaware and Fox-crazed to resist being ripped off by the filthy rich.
Another is the fall in oil prices, created by the fracking boom here and the intentional continuation of production as usual in Saudi Arabia. Bankruptcies in Venezuela, Russia and Iran, could visit us, through bank failures caused by collapse of the trillions of dollars in fracking derivatives held by US banks. We could revisit 2008, but with oil derivatives instead of mortgage derivatives as the cause. And the new Republican Congress has just made it possible for the big banks to seize depositors' money if they're in danger of collapse!
Obvious, who funded their campaigns, isn't it?
There is no such thing as class war, except as waged by the terrorists--and that's not class; it's culture, religion, race hatred, anything but what generated it: the exploitation of the whole world by a tiny, rapacious elite.
It isn't the usual suspects of rightwing conspiracy theorists; it's the corporate class, worldwide, that has captured democracy and autocracy alike: from the US to China. Some of the elite are US bank leaders, some are CEO's of huge corporations; some are speculators riding the tide of triumphant capitalism. With few exceptions, they appear to be in 'the game' to carry off as much wealth as they can, by almost any means. Think how powerful you feel, when you make as much in an hour as an ordinary worker makes in a decade. It doesn't seem to occur to them that they are killing the goose who lays golden eggs. What will sustain an economy when there are only the wealthy and the desperate?
But, hey, there's no Marie Antoinette around here!
Are the lives of the rich and famous an open book? Celeb followers are entertained by the show biz stars: rich enough, but hardly the billionaires behind their private mansion walls: celebs are mere servants of the Rich, but intentionally not so Famous.
I've often asked the question: what will the billionaires do, when everyone else is driven to give up, or cannot survive traumatic climate change? Will they retreat to underground bunkers?
Apparently, someone is building a bunker world in Kansas; it will include everything, including a pet park, and you only need about $3 million to buy into it, not that you'd want to live in it, unless the apocalypse is imminent. After all, who would want to live in Kansas, if you can live in San Francisco, or New York, or…?
In the dark ages, when I was in graduate school, I read a piece about the possible lifestyle of the world's managers: they would live in any "beautiful place in the world," from which they could manage multi-billion dollar corporations--to exploit people all over the world. That future seems more likely daily, unless some among the politically aware can persuade the unaware and Fox-crazed to resist being ripped off by the filthy rich.
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