Month: October 2017

The jury is long ago in. There is absolutely no way to meaningfully control, rein in, oversee, or reform a behemoth centralized power to which all must render their fortunes, to whatever (arbitrary) degree. It is demonstrably clear that any pool of treasure derived and accumulated from such a coercive association will absolutely be pilfered, skimmed, redirected, misdirected, squandered, wasted and finally brazenly stolen outright by exactly the people that the author of the article linked below would prefer (and rightly so) be deprived of its largesse.

It is further demonstrably true that any such pool will always necessarily be captured by such people and the organizations they create for the very purpose of becoming the directors and appropriators of it, and can’t help but be. Once captured and in order to capture and consolidate their hold on it, they will always then write and have laws passed, by the institution (the state) that enforces their interests, to greatly favor those particular interests and make the road extremely rough or entirely impassable for anyone working in opposition to them. Finally, in the end, no matter how gross an infraction or violation by a member of this class, whether legal or ethical, they are so powerful that they can simply either ignore the system of justice which applies to all non-directors, or modify it on the fly if they want to make a show of being subjected to it (note that the most major and notorious events in the U.S. over the last 60 years: JFK’s assassination, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, 9/11, and the financial catastrophe of ’07-’08, got processed for public consumption via Congressional actions, whether by special “Commissions” or by regular hearings, and not via the jural system, whether Grand or petit). There are never any indictments issued or sentences passed, and no one ever goes to jail or even loses their job or gets demoted. All these things, because they directly involve the behemoth, become extra-judicial. They are processed for show outside the justice system applicable to all non-directors.

This is plain to see if see one cares to. A fact that must be reckoned with, and at long last. The problem needs no further defining. The solution needs now to be laid out. Except, now the circularity begins.

Collectivism of any kind requires, mandates participation (tax payments), and sometimes physical service (military), and that’s practically every single political system of any size and note in the modern and ancient worlds, and that compelled participation begets a pool of treasure which calls relentlessly to the pathologically corrupt hearts and minds that will always and surely come to direct it, and to the more petty tyrants among us who want to control others via proximity to and minor control over some small corner of that pool, and to all the busybodies that are sure they know what’s best for others and are willing to use or condone force if and as necessary to see their benevolent will for others and the common good done. The pool WILL be captured and administered by this group. Always, and no discovered infraction will ever cause even the slightest loss of grip for the first part of that triumvirate, the directors.

The only thing that could ever affect the directors, I have come to believe, would be the advent of viable voluntary society as a counterweight. I’m not even sure that would do it, but I think it’s the the only thing that might (and I think it’s morally correct, anyway), and it has not been tried. Marching in the street does nothing but blow off steam for the marchers and those that root for them. Voting only gives the non-directors a vague sense that they have a say and are theoretically in charge of their own destinies, at least nominally. But marching and voting largely only waste the time of the participants and divert their energies from examining the actual juggernaut dynamic which is the actual root or primary engine of all the grossest societal ills, and into hollow ceremonial actions. Even when civil demonstration seems to have worked, as perhaps with Gandhi, or with King and the civil rights marches, the effort expended and costs were gargantuan. It’s not a realistic level of effort and time to have to routinely put forth to obtain or maintain one’s liberty and other “rights”. The behemoth can just change its mind later, anyway, even when it appears to have conceded.

Having examined these issues and the questions of morality involved at great length, I have no regard for socialism, because we don’t own each other. It’s also a proven failure, for the reasons I have stated herein. That said, I understand the author’s frustration and how he’d like things to go. I wish he had a patch of land somewhere to try to realize his goals, so long as I wasn’t required to contribute to or be governed by them. But as to controlling the existing behemoth, I would ask, just how exactly would he propose it might be checked? What precedent exists to show that it ever could be? Who exactly among us is morally fit AND intellectually capable (both) of overseeing it, and of undoing its capture and of preventing its future re-capture?

I suggest that nothing can check it while it’s mandatory, and that no one is fit to oversee it, nor ever could be. The reading of history would seem to make this statement nearly irrefutable (I include “early” only in case there is an example of which I am unaware). If it’s not, though, or doesn’t need to be true with future attempts, it’s time someone in the collectivist world laid out the viable path to their goal that precludes capture by the directors.

The problem has been defined, ad infinitum – the linked article contributes more evidence to that definition – so enough of that part, maybe, for awhile. Time to describe exactly how a system does not get hijacked. The U.S. Constitution has a very clear clause in it about the right of the people to redress grievances (against their government). Great idea, but that clause has no teeth because the road to redress has been made hyper-arduous and time consuming at best, and with state employed gatekeepers along the path, whether in front of the Grand Jury or the Court systems, who can simply turn any petition away,  so it’s meaningless.

That’s true for all of us, in every system. Anyone aware of a crime or injustice, needing a wrong righted, needs to beg the state to hear the case and petition. When it won’t, or when it makes the road so rough that it cannot be traveled, because it would run counter to the directors’ interests to do so, then what?

The Left should address that question now. It’s really well established and agreed at this point that oligarchy, plutocracy is the problem. It’s also well established that the deep-pocketed among us can hijack any and every system ever so far devised, so that problem would seem to be perpetual in nature, at least in the current paradigm where all are required to contribute to it. It would be good if bright minds would turn their attention to that dilemma now.

I have occasion to regularly enter someone else’s house to carry out a task for them. A TV is always on in this house during waking hours, even when vacant, and so is always on when I enter, and I enter at varying times, so I’m not hearing the exact same show or announcers every time in. It is always tuned to CNN or MSNBC. I am never in the house for more than 30 seconds before I hear the word “Trump” and never more than a minute before I hear the word “Russia”.

That’s every single time I enter the house for more than a year, no matter what time I enter, so I have to assume that’s about all that gets discussed on those stations (I never watch corporate TV news, and haven’t in many years, so that’s a guess based on my daily sampling), even though I’m led to believe there is still no proof of criminal activity by Trump or his campaign with respect to Russia (that linked conversation, by the way, being non-spazzatura – see below – of the highest order), many though the allegations and suggestions are. I’m not so far aware of even an instance of the appearance of impropriety involving Trump and/or his campaign as substantial as that outlined in the story linked below about the Clintons and their foundation.

I’m not a Trump admirer or supporter, he’s rightly thought a buffoon, and worse. This isn’t written in support of him, Republicans, Fox News, or anything else thought to be on the ‘right’. I’m amazed Trump gained the presidency or even had the chance to, and I thought the major party presidential options offered to Americans in the last election were probably a gag, bordering on a psy-op, perhaps to see how low we might stoop in accepting our options (Hillary Clinton being to me equally as repellent a candidate and person as Trump).

That said, the Clinton Foundation instance is tangible and verifiable, damning and significant – it’s amazing no indictments have been issued (or would be if that sort of thing ever happened), and it’s never mentioned, that I know of, not on those two stations. Almost never, anyway, unless maybe to discount the story briefly before getting back to Trump. I never hear the words “Clinton” and then “Russia”, in any case, except as an accusation by Hillary Clinton about Donald Trump.

Anyway, that’s a landslide of coverage of an unproven story line, and unproven after a very long period. Relentless, one might call it. One might also call it propaganda, rather than news reporting. Relentless, bludgeoning propaganda. Propaganda with an obvious agenda that all useful propaganda must have, and that agenda not being impartial investigative reporting. CNN’s even been caught admitting they make stuff up for ratings. Recently. You’d think they’d be out of business or have their license revoked.

It’s garbage, and obviously so. In Italy they have an expression for such broadcasts: spazzatura (spahts-uh-tooruh). Spazzatura means ‘trash’. Trash TV. I stayed in Florence for awhile during college, living with an Italian family. When I would enter their house the TV was always on in the living room, always way too loud, usually tuned to some spazzatura (usually a modified talk show format with a middle-aged man in a suit looking ‘legitimate’, but with a super-busty, scantily clad young woman at his side, who would both get joined at random moments by, say, a grotesquely made-up clown riding a giant tricycle in circles around their couch a few times while shrieking some nonsense while everyone guffawed before riding off again).

Since I didn’t speak the language fluently enough to comprehend the words spoken at a normal conversational rate, I was left to just take in the overall impressions, both auditory and visual, that the broadcast created in me. The auditory one was very significant. It was horrible to listen to. I didn’t need to see the screen or understand the words spoken to know that the show was poison, numbing poison, and intentionally so. Terrible energy, very low wavelengths some would probably say. I felt my own energy dim in its presence. That’s all I needed to know. The sound, energy and feeling of spazzatura is unmistakable to me now. Very easy to identify, especially when not looking at the screen.

Though I do speak English, and even though there is no clown on a tricycle, and it’s more toned down, American corporate news (CNN, Fox, the NBCs) is all absolutely spazzatura, both in content and in style. Entirely partisan and contentious propaganda meant to distract the viewer from all wholesome, relevant and honest trains of thought, and with an energy meant to numb those exposed to it. It’s so obvious. It’s amazing to me that anyone wants to watch and listen to it.

But, they do, everywhere, all over the world, in the ‘West’, anyway, and it’s a crucial point about human nature and susceptibility. Certainly not an argument for humanity’s innate love of beauty, truth or critical thinking.

Empire and its injustices and atrocities being one of the grossest examples and expressions of collectivism, the article shared below isn’t shared because we anymore need to describe the particular problem – all descriptions of the phenomenon’s outcomes are redundant now, and are predictable, to be expected – but to draw attention specifically to the engine that makes this possible.

For those who only care about consequences, then for the argument in favor of collectivism to work and be consistent, it must be factored in that when one favors and votes for, say, food stamps, or maybe some domestic health care program nominally aimed at children below the poverty line, then one must also note that the agent of those programs is the same one that will carry out unaccountable and extrajudicial drone bombings of “persons of interest” overseas (and thus of any collateral persons that should happen to be too close to them at the time), and enact economic measures against foreign countries that will absolutely wind up killing or harming innocents of the exact same type and social strata targeted domestically for the beneficent social programs – perhaps by design, and undertake aggressive overt invasion and occupation of foreign countries via the American military, and covert destabilisation and overthrow of foreign countries by way of the American and allied western intelligence services and agencies, and so on.

To endorse one is to necessarily authorize the other, as the agent is the same, and the endorsement does not happen at any ballot box, but in the prior act of approving in spirit the ideas behind the authority; i.e., collectivism, the greater good, the general welfare, democracy, et al, or more to the point, the idea of forcing others to do your will, and pay for it, via the intermediary of the state, the provably uncontrollable state.

Then, after accounting for that side of the coin, it must then be determined if the existence of collective central authority as a governing force in human society and relations, whether expressed by Stalin or Mao, or by an American President or the British Crown, is a net gain to that society (human society as a whole). There are many plausible and seemingly credible claims about the number of people that died as a direct result of the collectivist regimes of the 20th Century, and now also about the number of people dead as a result of American foreign policy (including military and intelligence activities), and just since 2001, never mind all that happened between 1946 and then, or the preceding harm caused by the subject of the article, the British Empire, or any other imperial power (Dutch, Spanish, Roman, etc.). In both cases the numbers are in the many tens of millions, at least, and the combined numbers are said to be in the hundreds of millions.

That’s a LOT of harm. So much that I imagine it absolutely dwarfs any potentially offsetting benefits which might be said to be the result of collectivism.

And, that’s just deaths. It doesn’t include the creation of poverty, disease, injury, or the general ruination of life, property and the environment that accompanies the death. So, it seems to me that the balance sheet is wildly not in favor of collectivism even purely from a consequentialist perspective. And, that perspective is not even the strongest argument against collectivism.

“Connect and be outraged. This is the path to true patriotism, a love of one’s home country and the world that is our home.”  Thus the author concludes his shareworthy piece linked below.

I agree with him in part, and entirely in spirit, but not anymore in suggestion for solution or the reason for correction. Patriotism isn’t helpful or even reasonable. It’s just an expression of collectivism, which is immoral and leads to horrendous practical results for those not living inside ‘Rome’ in the earlier stages, and finally for all ‘Romans,’ eventually. He also, though, says this in the same paragraph: “We are not lost children without a way out of the forest of deception and fear. Follow the knotted string to freedom. Add to it.”, and that I have no argument with (I also applaud the timeline, in general).

The question isn’t whether collectivism works (maybe it does, I suppose, in some ways, like roads and bridges building and maintenance), but whether it’s moral, above all, and what its total consequences are. Most importantly, and the most relevant thing to consider when looking at the timeline in the linked article, I think, is whether any of that which is outlined could have been avoided within the prevailing paradigm human society currently operates under, including the U.S. I think not. Not at all.

I’m persuaded that there isn’t anything at all in the way of non-trivial reform or oversight that can be applied to the existing structure of societal control. Whereas if your local laudromat’s coin changer machine started returning 3 quarters on the dollar every 5 times a dollar was inserted, the situation would either get fixed or the place would very quickly get abandoned, there is no like mechanism available to “citizens”, of whatever entity. No matter how much intention, corruption and incompetence the timeline suggests or is provable, no one of us can turn his back on the institution which is common to all of it, withdraw his support from it via a lack of participation, without facing the threat, if not the fact, of force.

So, none of the timeline could have been prevented, because the entity which is common to all of it cannot be controlled or reformed. The paradigm, and the moral and practical arguments put forward to support it can, however, be reconsidered. And then abandoned, as they should be.