The Americans continue to perplex me, and I think that I’ve narrowed down the reason to manufactured helplessness. Understanding who’s responsible for creating this current state of affairs is complicated, but perhaps the secret to determining that responsibility would be to discern just who or what the system serves.
Firearms is a good exercise to begin this process of determination. Another shooting has likely occurred somewhere in America today, and as usual the pervading impression I’m left with is a sense of helplessness. Granted, I’m not an American but it’s fairly obvious that thoughts and prayers from the right and outrage from the left aren’t going to change a damn thing, and so the result is helplessness.
And the helplessness is manufactured.
Americans possess all the tools to curb or stop most mass shootings, but have decided for for a number of reasons not to use those tools. Most of those reasons are smokescreen bullshit designed to prevent an unblurred look at the reality. The second amendment is a smokescreen. Fear the colored people is a smokescreen. Protect yourself from the evil government is a smokescreen. The reality is much less complicated. The people who manufacture firearms pay primarily Republicans all over the country to either ease, or outright ban, any legislation that prevents them from making money.
And they make money from manufacturing and selling guns.
Meanwhile, at least one mass shooting continues to happen every day in America, and I’ve got to say that its no wonder a sense of helplessness is the order of the day.
The saying goes that money is the root of all evil. The actual Timothy quote however says For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that a schoolroom AR-15 massacre has a tinge of evil to it, and that the love of money aided and abetted in providing unfettered access to the weapons that delivered the carnage.
In some ways the whole American helplessness is Newt Gingrich’s fault. Newt was the speaker of the house when it occurred to him that winning elections wasn’t so much about substance as it was about saturation. With that concept in mind the Newt fashioned a strategy where Republicans all over the country began to campaign perpetually. This kept them at barbecue’s in Laredo instead of legislating in Washington which seems kind of ineffective for governing, but turned out to be perfect for electing.
Basically what Newter decided was that the American people had minimal interest in political substance. They would however respond to constant flash and pomp and rally’s with balloons and free hats.
As a result, all elected officials in the United States are now forced to campaign continuously, and that opens the door for the entrance of the root of all evil. Because that campaigning shit is expensive, and unless a candidate is already a millionaire then they need donors.
Donors who manufacture things like petrol and Glocks, and donors who are already very very wealthy.
As a result, the donors are owed and the politicians are owned. Which means that America is really ruled by hedge fund managers and other assorted billionaires. People whose interests are far removed from those of your average American.
The Republicans at the top of the heap understand the dynamics of the donor situation. In fact, in order to qualify for the upcoming Republican debates, the candidates have to demonstrate an acceptably large list of registered donors. A candidate can’t even talk without proving that people with money want them to speak.
And that to me is amazing. But it appears that Americans in general approve of the terms and conditions. Strange people the Americans. Canadians shrugged at weed legalization as a non-issue and Americans shrug at pre-owned politicians as a non-issue.
The Republicans. They are an interesting group.
Each and every time they or their right wing mouthpieces attack George Soros with their socialist, immigrant importing Jew cabalist bullshit, I automatically assume its intent is to prevent him from funding the Democrats.
Because George donated 128 million to his own democracy pact and apparently the Republicans, Fox and Brietbart don’t agree with George’s concept of democracy. However the Republicans have no problem with Richard Uihlein, Kenneth Griffin, Jeff Yass, Timothy Mellon or Peter Thiel donating 300 million because they donate properly.
Quietly, to Republicans.
So it would seem to me that the sense of political helplessness in the United States is justified. The notion that they’re all the same has a solid ring of truth to it, because no matter who is elected, the reality is the candidates were all evaluated and selected by roughly five million millionaires and seven hundred and fifty billionaires.
Or about two percent of the population.
So, to understand why American governance functions in a particular manner, its crucial to understand the desires of the two percent because that’s who the legislators really work for. Actually, their desires are easy to understand. The two percenters want to maintain the ninety eight to two ratio.
They don’t want a populous woman of the people candidate who rose from humble beginnings. The Lincoln story is nice to tell as an example of the American dream but the two percenters don’t want an honest Abbie. They want a president, house and senate occupied by people that need their money, or that are already a member of their plunderbund. They want legislation or lack of legislation that will benefit them, and they almost always get what they paid for because the lawmakers know that if they don’t deliver, then their donors disappear.
It’s a system of cheques and bank balances.
There are of course some subtleties to the strategies of the two percenters. They realize that they can’t brazenly demand subservience from the politicians. That may cause the great hordes of the unwashed to rise up in armed objection. They need to make the people think that the dream is intact and that if they work hard enough then an American peasant can join their illustrious ranks.
The strategy is easier to implement if you own the media companies, but I’m still amazed that somehow the American public has bought into the idea that policies that benefit the 98 percent are somehow socialism. It’s baffling that any constraints on the two percenters is accepted as an attack on American democracy.
The inculcation that universal health care, environmental regulations, banking regulations, and quality public education are somehow unamerican might possibly be a mindfuck on par with anything the communists or fascists’ have managed to impose. And the two percenters have managed it without extermination camps or cultural purges.
It seems to me though that lately the two percenters are relying more on distraction as the primary weapon to maintain their preferred status quo. The middle class is diminishing and there are more and more brownish to blackish voters that aren’t club members, and so the group of aspirational two percenters is becoming less in both numbers and influence.
That’s not good for maintaining the illusion of equality and so they need American bread and circuses.
MacDonald’s supplies the bread and the Republicans have supplied the bulk of the circus troupe. Led by a reality T.V. ringmaster the circus features acts of jaw-dropping ignorance and malice sure to amuse and amaze.
What seems to be missing though is the realization that the circus is entirely owned and operated by the two percenters, and those fuckers are always up to something.
I hate to say this, but I think that Trump was actually on to something with draining the swamp and the deep state. But It was challenging for him because he lived in the shallow end of that swamp, and for some reason he believed that a cabal of civil servants were the deep state.
Or maybe the bureaucracy as deep state was just a Doncon that he deployed to hide his desire to be granted entrance to the real deep state. The exclusive billionaire club that gets to distribute oxy, sell massive amounts of weapons, crash housing markets, charge for health care and not pay taxes.
And somehow it’s not illegal when they do it. Well maybe their actions are illegal but they’re viewed as kind of a capitalist’s speeding ticket and they pay a fine for addicting a few million people, or for not wanting to pay for brakes on their trains. Or for lying about nicotine or oil and gas emissions.
These people are the deep state and they’re not hiding away in a dark office in the state department. They’re busting unions at Amazon and relocating to Texas so they don’t have to pay Tesla tax. They’re manipulating the market and slowing green energy and all around being self serving pricks.
I’m not against people getting rich. However there need to be rules for the wealthy as well as the poor. There are some rules that from time to time apply equally to both groups, but the notion that the rule of law applies equally is ridiculous.
Richard Sakler is currently living in his two million dollar mansion in Boca Raton and Oxy has killed thousands of people. William Dick of Costa Mesa sold fentanyl laced cocaine that killed three people. He’s looking at twenty years and currently resides in a concrete box.
Examples abound where the privileged are accorded favor from the courts and the government. Donald Trump is another great example. If he were a regular person he’s already be sharing a cell with a proud boy. But he’s special. Besides being the ex-president he also has enough money to argue about his indictments for years. William Dick will not be afforded the same argumentative privilege.
I’m betting that at this moment William is feeling a sense of hopelessness. I’m not saying that William Dick isn’t a dick. His actions caused death and that’s a crime, but in keeping with the idea of cellmates, a person would think that Mr.Sakler would be a good choice.
So if the helplessness is going to end then the two percenters need to be reigned in. That’s not going to happen unless the governing representatives start representing the people.
And the politicians aren’t going to change until the system finds a way to free those lawmakers from the two percent.
A new brand of American emancipation is in order. Free the legislators, and direct and empower them to regulate the two percent and serve the 98 percent.
That should help end the helplessness.