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.