This level of community angst (there were a lot of people marching and a lot of occupied cities) is not so much about capitalism as a form of economic viability as it is about how criminality infiltrates capitalistic tendencies. There is probably “no” country more corrupt that our current empire here in the United States. That is the main issue. Not just corporate greed but its caustic effects in bribing Congress, the news media, the Executive branch of government, and the alienation of the majority of other countries against our lies, deceit, our government corrupting other peoples, the wars, and the torture, etc.
Occupy Reality: It’s The Corruption Stupid
By Greg Green
A spontaneous fire ignited here in the United States with a relatively small group starting Occupy Wall Street. It turned out to be more of a conflagration than what much of placid America expected. Even the Mainstream Media (MSM) had to pay attention when the Brooklyn Bridge was closed down. We had become a nation of doldrums or idiots seemingly too self-absorbed to think serious thoughts about how screwed up this nation has become and continues to become.
But now that the splash has landed how will the movement and the frustrated regroup? How can this movement build into something more penetrating and long-term and not dither into sound bite oblivion? Obviously a good portion of the corporate media elite has painted some pictures of the “meaning” of this movement and used their typical “snide” labels to suggest the discontent are really rather naïve—that is in comparison to their “infallible wisdom”. The typical Marxist “commie” comes easily to the scene (and no doubt socialists want to “capitalize” on such political alienation—understandably so).
We are told most business people are honest and good-intentioned. We are told that socialism fails. We are told that the rich deserve to be rich and so naturally the poor deserve to be poor. The argument is made that people think corporate executives are paid too much. In another words the Occupy Movement may be well intentioned but ultimately it is misguided and run by malcontents and unsophisticated peoples.
But this level of community angst (there were a lot of people marching and a lot of occupied cities) is not so much about capitalism as a form of economic viability as it is about how criminality infiltrates capitalistic tendencies. There is probably “no” country more corrupt that our current empire here in the United States. That is the main issue. Not just corporate greed but its caustic effects in bribing Congress, the news media, the Executive branch of government, and the alienation of the majority of other countries against our lies, deceit, our government corrupting other peoples, the wars, and the torture, etc.
So let us get “real” about what we are dealing with rather than articulating all the damn rights we think we are entitled as Homo sapiens. Point blank—we are dealing with the some of the riches people who have ever existed. We are dealing with some of the most corrupt people that have ever existed. And we are dealing with some of the most dominated and manipulated media infrastructures that have ever existed (including deceit our own tax dollars pay people to devise and feed us). Some of these people do not give one iota of a damn about anybody’s rights and if you think the battle is simply about saving some Union or non-profit hefty pension plans or expectation of free this and that you are crazy. This is about survival, security, and sanity in a world that has little of these realities.
Wake up young people and smell the blood brooding. Today wars are really fought for profit. America has never exported democracy. We doubt even have it here in the United States. Elections are stolen and manipulated. The MSM “marginalized” Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul last election because the power behind the power didn’t feel either was manipulable enough and both might have actually fought for real change. Instead we landed a joke while the banksters laugh all the way to the bank.
Where is the movement about more investigation of those private companies that count the ballots with their electronic devises while donating money to partisan causes? Why did the Democratic Party ignore this issue? Because the Democratic Party is AS corrupt as the Republican Party. Ralph Nader tried to tell people and few wanted to take heed—including so called leftist pundits and publications like The Nation.
Now we have socialists trying to dominate the Occupy Movement when this movement is firstly about recognizing the criminality of the elite in this country and how it affects people at home and abroad.
Still even our attitudes as common people is corrupted. We have come to expect too much. We have exported the idea of being “spoiled” consumers with all the anticipation of greed that goes with wealth. The rest of the world now hankers for the life style we have assumed as some God-given right. But in reality land we must recognize we live in a world of “limited” resources—and still more and more peoples in more countries are in want of our presumption of lifestyle. Yet here we are lecturing everyone else on how to be and how to live up to ideals.
Some people are not so much interested in changing the crime—rather they are mostly interested in getting their presumed share of the pie. It’s like arguing that if black slavery initially created wealth in America well damn it then I want my part of such wealth—even if I didn’t do anything to earn it.
[Note that I am “not” a political ideologue. I don’t belong to any political party—and frankly the minute you claim to adhere to such you “forfeit” your right to be independent. Whereas each social and political topic deserves its own evaluation irrespective of what some corrupt and dogmatic “party” or ideology has come to decide by those controlling the strings of that ideology and party.]
This is not the time to scream about every Utopian “right” imaginable. Sure it would be nice if everyone born was guaranteed a “right” to a living wage (whatever that means) and a right to decent housing, and medical care, etc. But if you think that this is what this current battle is about you are living in Disneyland (if you can’t even discern that your goal is simply to stop the “high” levels of corporate and governmental corruption).
[Note: Equally I understand a lot of people in this movement are homeless or jobless or lost their homes due to bad mortgages, etc. People down on their luck deserve consideration and help but I also know people on average tend to be vulnerable to dogma and like to listen to those who tell them what they want to hear. Once upon a time people of the rainbow coalition could talk about the “angry white male” as feeling disenfranchised to some kind of expected presumption but now we have “angry white women” and “angry Jewish men (who were always white but could claim minority status), etc. These people too and others are feeling downsized. Truths to various degrees can be an ugly thing.]
Why do you think we are involved in so many wars? It is called profit, resources and politics. Why do you think so many jobs have gone overseas? It is called profit. Why do you think the U.S. Government has supported so many dictators over the last decades? It is called profit. Why do you think the Obama Administration was usurped by the Clinton Wall Street crowd—it is called profit.
Still one sixth of the world lives in slums and some here are whining about a right to retirement at a decent age? Occupy Reality! Reality today is the recognition that you are not guaranteed anything when your culture is so corrupt. Rights are notions people struggle for and the value of each specific rights fluctuates based on The Peoples’ vigilance and keenness of mind. Here in America our best energies go to analyzing sports teams and wining and dining (bread and circus).
There is no such thing as human rights in a culture that has given you the Patriot Act. This is about catch up—not idealism. If you want a “guaranteed” education then start supporting your public library and starting listening to all the great audio books out there that are professionally read to you (and Teaching Company courses).
Don’t let corporate media manipulate your sentiments and naiveté as just a passing whim—as if there is no real issues here in the United States save some ideological struggle between Roosevelt and Reagan. This is not about democrats and republicans. This is about recognizing the incontrovertible truth—the system is that broke and that broken. Arguing your rights in today’s reality is just another form of “marginalization”.
Rule 1: Know Thy Enemy—and too often the enemy is our own naiveté. In this case it is called presumption.
One of the biggest fears for many people including some in power is the unmitigated birth rate. But who or what is addressing that? We can’t even get past the abortion issue—and if there was ever a “right” that deserved merit—it is the right to recognize that smart kids don’t want “your” human world. They want to be born into this human insanity. And furthermore they don’t deserve too. (If you already have Utopia fine—but if you are just thinking it might be out there somewhere—well save them the hell of trying to find it.)
The world cannot handle more and more babies. We already have too many mouths to feed. (Yeah there are those starry-eyed optimists who think if we could just stop human nature as is that we could feed plenty of people—well guess what—this is NOT Utopia and the world is not going to just going to fork over peace to peace lovers and meet everyone’s’ needs like we might hope.)
You have the haves and have-nots. The haves are going to do everything in their power to maintain their power—they are not going to get your enlightenment like you wish they would. They typically disdain and or fear those they feel are beneath them—even if they themselves are lower on some spiritual dimension. Even some of the founders of this nation understood that! There is no perfection of humanity—irrespective of religious aspiration.
So how is it that people think they should now demand Utopia when it is really a matter of patching together survival? This is playing into the hands of the media/ pundit elite—showing the ineptitude of those whiners wanting more when this country is going into an “inevitable” downsize. After all what are these financial crisis all about if not over spending on credit—and the corrupted financial elite that capitalized on feeding credit cards and other loans?
If I were a 20 year old I would be worried about being recruited into a war of not my making. I would be worried about not being profiled by a KGB. I would be worried about not being sent to a concentrations camp or a torture chamber. I would not being demanding that I should be able to comfortably retire thirty years from now—not in a world in which 20,000 nuclear warheads still exist (not to mention all the other weapons and secrets related).
I would be worried about the ”extensive” propaganda machine that spews out phony terrorist plots. I would be worried about police and FBI agents that don’t even have the intelligence to realize that airplane highjackers trained to fly small planes can’t reasonably highjack big jumbo planes. I would be worried about how naïve my fellow citizens are. I would not be demanding that any government “owes” me a job or unlimited health care. Don’t you see the police state evolving?