Hi el_gaviero.
((All of your bad guys --- Rockefeller, Khun/Loeb, Cecil Rhodes,etc --- and the places you mentioned where they were “bad together” (e.g. Jekyll Island) were of a hundred years ago.
... Like the persona of Alan Greenspan. These are just people playing the cards they were dealt. In this case "these" people acted "bad together". However, I believe this is simply the nature of how power works in our world ... so much of its dynamics unseen through the filters of our mainstream media and socialization process. When Winston Churchill wrote "I intend for history to be kind to me for I intend to write it" ... one could ask "but what history did you NOT intend to write?" "What history do you intend to remain unwritten". The superstructure is hardly confined to "these people" (e.g. Rockefeller, Kuhn/Loeb, Cecil Rhodes, etc.) at "this place" (e.g. Jekyll Island), at "this time" (e.g. 100 years ago). Pick your time, place, and people, in the twentieth century, and this "invisible hand" that Adam Smith didn't write about (and perhaps didn't even know about, but Sir Francis Drake certainly would have) can be detected. The 1950's were also an extraordinary period ... as U.S. post-cold war policy was being established, America was assuming the primary Imperial role of the major European powers, and the Dulles brothers - Alan and John Foster - were heading up respectively Intel (OSS/CIA) and State (Dep't). Of course, don't need to mention that Alan Dulles came from a major investment banking house ... and the 1953 saw the CIA and State combine to initiate upheaval in Guatemala (overthrew the democratically-elected Arbenz gov't), Iran (overthrew the democratically-elected Mossadegh government), and Indonesia (backed the Suharto government's murder of 300,000 Javanese).
However, I'm glad that "no capitalist you know of ... is [anything] more than an aggrevation." The developing world should all be so lucky.
[BTW, the point emphasis here isn't "capitalist" or "capitalism" per se ... but rather people with excessive power. You know the saying "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Because Capitalism is such a powerful mechanism for concentrating wealth, it seems to have an extraordinary ability to corrupt. Much like its ideological brethren Communism and Fascism, only history has proven Capitalism to be far more functional. I heard the Russians were telling a joke in the 1990's "Everything Marx told us about Communism was a lie ... but everything he told us about Capitalism was true." (smile - Remember, this is from the Russian perspective of the 1990's. The 1990's were a very rough decade to be an ordinary Russian.)
((Besides, Bill Gates nothing more than an aggrevation?!))Have you ever used his operating system! LOL!)
((Not so the Beltway Mafiosi. ... They impinge upon me in an endless number of ways. Every four months I send off monstrous checks to them --- more than to my son’s private college, more than to my wife for household expenses, more than to any single other thing. If I don’t send the money, I lose my property. If I resist, they kill me. I call that impinging.))
... Fair enough. Power is exercised in many ways. The power you speak of is at least visible however ... many people are "aware" of its presence at least. The power I refer to my sense is the vast majority of the developed world hasn't the foggiest clue exists ... except maybe in some unconscious, visceral way. However, I wouldn't want to minimize your sense of injustice or abuse by the Government. If you experience oppression and an absence of individual freedom, then you suffer. I hope you are able to change your circumstances ... right the wrong, so to speak.
Your capitalist does not. He is helpless, defenseless, a contemptible slinking cur. The top five percent pay 50 or 60 percent of the taxes. Some elite.
I hear your anger el. And I understand that you do not experience the mechanisms of power of which I speak as negatively impacting you on any way. Perhaps, you have a different battle to fight. :)
(("Relatively speaking, Washington will be a loser. If we are right, and if we make the right moves, and if we are lucky, maybe in time we will only be 20 percent a slave. That 20 percent is worth fighting for and is why I am in the game, and is also why I appreciate many on this board who are smarter than I am, and who are generous with their knowledge."))
I suppose this situation can be approached from different perspectives, seen through different lens. Certainly, like yourself, I have no wish to either suffer or be a slave. But my primary concern is not for my financial well-being, but for the well-being of the entire human community. It doesn't interest me a single bit for me to be "20 percent a slave" at the expense of Nigerians who are 70% slaves, and Iraqi's who are 130% slaves, and my neighbor who just lost his job who is a 70% slave. This does lend one, IMO, to consider a deeply structural solution, and search for deeply structure root causes.
Re: Washington BTW, the geopolitical elite of which I speak uses Washington politicians like throw-away pieces in a board game. They server their purpose, then they are replaced. That's why they corrupt them, but themselves remain at arms-length. If things go badly, they allow the incumbent politicians to be voted out like a snake sheds its skin. Then the next layer of politico assumes office and has to deal with this crowd ... typically suffering the same fate ... as the new faces aspire and assume the mantle of the "in crowd" ... of "persons of significance" ... "movers and sharers", ... "someone special".
((... pay attention to the power game behind the money game. Out of the power game will emerge the most dangerous problems that we are going to have to face.))
... Interesting, you significantly see a power game behind a money game ... where I more see a money game behind a power game. It kind of has a neat symmetry. Perhaps we are both correct in a way.
((Glenn, I liked your attempt to depersonalize the money game, and see behind it a power game. It is just that by no stretch of the imagination can I buy your story that capitalists are the ultimate movers. Quite the opposite. They are biggest sycophants and toadies around --- cash cows for the sovereign, and damn docile cows at that.))
El, what if I submitted to you that "captialists" not be viewed as a single entity. That they exist along a continuum of power, from the "toadies" you mention above, to the geopolitical merchant banking elite of which I speak. Could you buy this? Could you find a place for the Washington power elite somewhere in the middle, and still make sense of your experiences? I'd be interested to know.
Thanks for the dialogue. Sounds like we don't see things completely eye-to-eye. Perhaps we both sense something is deeply wrong, but we just have different experiences of who is causing the major grief.
Best wishes,
Glenn |
