Congratulations Uncle Sam...

It's official, it has been counted and it is on the news world wide: 49 million Americans live below the poverty line. This means a slight adjustment to a chart I saw earlier:

In itself this graph tells two stories:

The percentages ("Hey it's not as bad as the late fifties!")

The Numbers ("Nope it's worse, especially now that we also calculate medical expenses etc")

If we measure from the 1950s, never have there been so many people in the US living in poverty. Mind you, I have based my two poorly rendered graphs on data from the National Poverty Center.

There is no shame in being poor. However, it is terribly impractical both for living a good life and for being competitive as a nation. Have a look and see what poverty does for health. Now look at what it does for education.
Boy, am I making a big fuss about this?
Well, yes. Health and Education are key pillars for a nation to maintain its competitiveness in the Global Economy.
Other pillars are well-functioning Private and Public Institutions, Infrastructure, Market Size (Domestic/International) and others. I am not doing a lecture here, but I would like to make the point that for a country to be competitive, it must have its basics in order.

And these seem out of whack currently, more so for the US than for Europe though Europe is learning quickly how to destroy its health and education infrastructure.

Let's look at this from another angle: the middle class is disappearing.
Having a middle class is important. Some may think it is so bourgeois, but that's just it! Having a middle class is 'increasingly looked upon as a precondition of stability in the social structures, as a means of softening social inequalities, as a way of retaining the status quo, as an instrument of achieving confidence in the future'.

I didn't have to think here but this is what you get: social stability, less aggravation over wealth inequality since middle class is a means to upwards mobility, a more relaxed way of being meaning that you can hang loose, and confidence in the future.

All this seems to have been taken away. Not given away, taken away.

So we now see the reason that the Occupy movement is not very defined as it points out an incredibly complex set of parameters that have brought us to where we are now.

Now the question is: how to move to a better place? I guess that one thing to do is to move away from hack-block austerity. And listen to Einstein:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

This has been tried again and again: trickle down economics, and it hasn't worked for a variety of reasons. In my view mostly because it was ideological in nature and did not take into account factors like companies not investing nationally but off-shoring internationally, increasing government corruption, the negative impact of social and income inequality on national competitiveness, and so on and so on.

This doesn't mean that government can do all the work like FDR once proposed. Right now, the government just does not have the money. But things will need to be fixed, and fast.

The trouble with social unrest is that even when people try to be non-violent, the message they bring may cause other people to feel threatened and respond with violence. This may trigger real revolt or cause the nation to strike. Worst case: the country becomes a dictatorship.

People need to get started at disentangling the web that has been woven over years. All the strands need to be taken apart, government needs to do what it was designed to do, banks and corporations need to start working at recreating the country, which means that shareholder value for the coming ten years does not need to soar (I believe this is an important one), and economies need to realize that there is a time for growth and a time for relaxation: as I pointed out, there is a fine line between too much and too little regulation and valid representatives of the people must set the boundaries for businesses and banks to operate to help restore this world. This also means that everybody does what needs to happen at this moment to make sure we don't end up like this.

And this means that all sides need to give up a sacred little thing: that pointing finger.
Sure, Marx was right and Das Kapital as shown us the root of all evil. Have we read it?
Sure, Adams was right and his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the sexiest thing next to Pamela Anderson. Is it as up to date?

Occupy protesters are hippies! They use drugs! They do...

Police brutality! Bankers are nazis! They do...

The finger (pointing and occasionally middle) needs to go if we want to find a way out of this. We have the challenge of a lifetime:

• To save our sanity
• To save our selves
• To save our planet
• To save our children
• To save our souls

Time to get to work dudes and dudettes

Scylla and Charybdis

The deregulation of the market in the past 30 years has enabled corporations and banks to grow to a size which has started to destabilize the fabric of not only society but of capitalism itself. This shows itself in a number of ways.

Mass Extinction through Gravity

Because of their size, certain banks and corporations have started to destroy the competition ecosystem in the sense that their gravity makes it virtually impossible for competitors to even get a footing in the market: Competition is vital for the health of any ecosystem as it creates incentives for out of the box innovation. This innovation is driven by consumer demand. If consumer demand is controlled via mainstream mass media, and any alternative messages are drowned out by massive marketing campaigns, smaller companies and/or start-ups will quickly default. Compare this to putting earth close to Jupiter: though earth has technologically reasonably advanced civilizations compared to Jupiter (according to current knowledge), it will be ripped apart by the sheer gravity of Jupiter.

If the market is to stay healthy, it is necessary to create a more level playing field in the market where smaller companies can compete with the big boys.

Government Influencing through Gravity

Corporations are now in a position to severely influence and destabilize governments through the fact that they pay well for certain services. This former lobbyist describes in detail how just mentioning ‘that his company could be interested to offer a job to a government official when he stops’ was usually enough to own this person. Some people will object that this official should ‘just say no’, and in general I would agree that if somebody wants to serve the people, he should do exactly that: serve the people. However, should it be legal (or unregulated) for the company to just waltz in and try to bribe a government official? Many people refer to such regulation as ‘big government’, I rather see it as civilized government. If the United States want to evolve to a real democracy, such interfacing with the public should be regulated to battle the 3^rd world-type corruption that is witnessed nowadays.

Corporate Welfare through Corruption

Though corporations and banks maintain that they operate on the basis of ‘real capitalism’, I have some doubts: if real capitalism had been applied, most of Wall Street, the US automotive industry and many others would have folded. Instead, these companies have been bailed out with public money without even the constraint of transparency in how this money was spent.

Now this is a situation that 99% of us would like to be in…

This is not capitalism, it is not even socialism, it is a scam. Naomi Klein has described the principle of this scam in ‘The ShockDoctrine’: move public money to private entities' accounts.

Translation: taxpayer’s (public) money, meant for e.g. infrastructure, healthcare, environment etc, is taken and given to private companies where these companies have no result obligation.

Some people would get hanged for doing so in earlier centuries. We would call them highway robbers.

These are strong statements, but so is a foreclosure notice from Bank A to someone who did not make payment to Bank A because he was fired from his job at Bank A which he bailed out. 

If anybody wants to play in a capitalist market, they should be able to deal with adverse times by themselves. As companies in general do not want to make the investment to get to this state, the government should regulate and monitor this and be empowered to sanction non-compliancy if only to protect citizens against wild west style shoot outs.

Foreclosures by Companies on Welfare

This is adding insult to injury. What we see happening is that Bank A is bailed out by the government after losing at gambling with ‘products’ consisting of doomed mortgages (mortgages sold under false pretenses, i.e. we know the people that received the mortgage had a high likelihood of defaulting). Note: I am simplifying here and make no pretense that I understand such scams. The professionals don’t even really understand the Frankenstein monster they created.

So, Bank A is saved, and CEOs, sales managers and so on at the bank continue to receive their millions in bonuses, stock options and what have you. They now have time to look at the mortgages. Because of the crisis which Bank A partly caused, people start defaulting on their mortgages, and Bank A does not hesitate: foreclosure, get those people out. Let the state take care of them…

Again, public money to cover for private mis-management.

If banks can be saved from ‘toxic assets’ and be allowed to make a profit despite just having basically defaulted to the state, shouldn't citizens be saved from those same toxins?

Or should we just kick them out and see where it ends?

This is back to Corporate Welfare through Corruption. If the public bails out banks, this should mean that the banks have no claim on such mortgages.

Quick Conclusion

Am I saying that government should regulate everything? Am I pushing for ‘big government’?

Nope, I am just saying that it is time to find that thin line between a state-controlled market (does not work, the Soviet Union collapsed because of that) and a completely free market (as per above: does not work and is collapsing). Basically, the challenge is to navigate in between Scylla and Charybdis.

And that is something that some Greek dude was good at some time ago...

[To be continued...] 

The Occupier's Dictionary - part 1

"I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant"

- Someone smart

The above in a (rather complex, warped and twisted) nutshell describes what we're up against in these thunderous Times in Turmoil: things, people and words are not always what they seem, smell like or feel like. 

To add to the confusion, we are interpreting each other from both sides of the barricades, listening to the megaphones from a helicopter or quietly suffering through a shareholder meeting.

This is why we are happy and quite proud to present a preconfigured answer to this complex set of problems: 

The Occupier's Dictionary! 

As places get occupied, we are sure that the list of words with their explanations will grow, and we expect you to add to this compendium (to do so, just leave your comment)! Now you too can engage in intelligible conversation with riot police in the middle of an eviction!

List of up till now misunderstood words

IMF - [F; aai-eehm-`èff] Ambush predator, worshipped by the Rich Countries for its smooth and velvety skin, its Oodles of Money and its low key effectiveness. Feared by the Poor Countries for exactly the same qualities. 

Though the IMF used to roam freely, it has over time developed a symbiotic relationship with the Rich Countries. The Rich Countries use the IMF to gain a stranglehold control over the Poor Countries and in turn allow the IMF to perform Austerity on its victim. 

The Poor Country is then let go after a suitable period (generally 5 to 10 years), much poorer and a hell of a lot wiser so everybody gains.

The IMF is unique in that it has developed symbiotic relations with even the parasites of the Rich Countries like the dreaded Wall Street, Corporations and Armani Mites.

Rich Countries (Country) – [Pl M; `hritshh `kown-treez] Disillusioned congregation, containing both the 99% and the 1% but never really feeling 100%, let alone 200%. 

Rich Countries have Oodles of Money and the problem that this can never be enough. As a result, Rich Countries in general do not have a lot of Fun and usually will insist on strict regulation of Fun. 

To enforce Fun regulation, Rich Countries deploy the IMF with terrible results. In general one time is all that is need to take the Fun out of Fun, but then, Poor Countries will avoid a second encounter with the IMF.

Fun – [F; `fønn] Gracious irresponsibility, but well-dressed. Fun will include (but by its very own definition refuses to be limited to) having a stroll on a sunny day, wild raucous sex in strange places, a good glass of wine/beer/wodka/whisky/[enter your preference], Brahms on a rainy day, smoking a cigarette, smoking something else, not caring, living in a great climate, etc etc etcetera. 

Fun is unlimited, and extremely annoying if you do not have it.

Poor Countries (Country) – [Pl M; `poo-ah `kown-treez] Fun bunch, also containing both the 99% and the 1%. To the annoyance of Rich Countries, Poor Countries usually feel 200% all the time. 

Poor Countries also have Oodles of Money but they have a different way of going about it: as they know there is an inverse exponential logic between Money and Fun they have selected a small group of citizens to become the hyper 1% and let them deal with having no Fun at all. 

The fact that everyone else now has Oodles of Fun greatly enhances the overall Fun, sometimes leading to Fun stuff like real riots, revolution, orgies and romantic sunsets at the beach. 

Poor Countries usually have had bad experiences with the IMF so don’t tout your affiliation with the IMF if you have one…

Oodles – [Pl M; `eeeewdlezz] Really a lot, mega, “kazooooing that’s a lot”-like

Money – [F; m`ah-nay] Fictitious aberration, derivative of a derivative of the idea of effort spent. Rumored to make the world go round, yet completely useless when timed in the wrong circumstance. 

Money is gobbled up by Wall Street, Corporations and other such parasites in ever greater quantities for reasons known only to these parasites. Money is therefore also known as ‘free lunch’. 

Since Money is a fictitious aberration and does not really exist, there is also no such thing as a free lunch. Because of its Quantum-like nature, Money is the subject of many myths, the most enduring of which is that Money does not smell. We feel that a warning is appropriate: Money stinks.

Wall Street – [N; `uahl zreed] Vacuous, perverted, toffee-nosed, faintly hung fairy shade of a man’s interrupted morning stool. Conflagration of finance, bad breath and greedy ass kissing. 

Wall Street likes to charge extra fees for basic services not rendered and is prone to preening. Wrapped in a shawl with millions of stinging angles it infects otherwise healthy state structures and perverts them into rotten corrupted corpses. 

Though Fun-averse, it likes to sip champagne on a terrace while watching beggars die. 

Wall Street gobbles Money, as it cannot do otherwise. Having infected all state institutions, it will embark on great adventures, gambling Taxpayer’s saved Money until broke. 

Then it will force infected state institutions to recharge it with new greater amounts of Taxpayer’s Money. The first thing it does when fed is to foreclose any houses of bereft taxpayers to ensure nobody will think about what just happened.

Corporation – [N; `kahr-puh-r`ay-zion] mimicry of Wall Street

Taxpayer – [Undecided; T`eks-paih-`ahh] The wildebeest of the financial world, means well but easily manipulated. 

Taxpayers are still coming to grips that at some point they decided to outsource stuff they did not want to bother with to hired guns that said they would fix it. For that the Taxpayers would pay taxes. 

Now the hired guns are running the show and bossing the Taxpayers around, making them pay tax for basic services not rendered, telling Taxpayers who (not) to marry, and generally annoying the hell out of most Taxpayers. 

Still, like the wildebeest, Taxpayers have the urge to migrate at set times in the year, and they migrate in such a way that predators and parasites can eat their fill, from saving to investing to saving to investing, in nature’s endless cycle. 

Too bad for the Taxpayer that the ecosystem follows an inverse cycle…

1% - [?; xxxxxxxxxxx] Definitely not the 99%

99% - [?; xxxxxxxxxxx] Definitely not the 1%

100% - [?; xxxxxxxxxxx] What Taxpayers aim for in poetry

Austerity - [F; ows-t`air-i-tee] Nastiest way of dumping a pretty girl, rotten to the core and overall bad idea.

Austerity is based on the ideology of 'shrinking to greatness' but is nastier than this idiocy. There are various approached but the favourite strategy from the dreaded IMF is probably best known: corner your victim, the force him to give up everything he has to your friends (sell his assets), while forcing him to also take everything he has from his friends. This way four goals are reached:

1. You (or IMF) get all his belongings

2. You (or IMF) get all his friends belongings

3. His former friends will never look at him again, and his pretty wife will divorce him

4. There will be no Fun left for anyone

All she had on was the radio, and all he wore was a smile

A picture does say more than a thousand words. People are expressing the thought, and because of that will get hurt. It happened in Oakland, Denver, countless places where just a simple eviction was carried out using tear gas (chemical agent with possible long term effects aka CS), flash-bang explosives, massive man power (5 to 1 ratios for police to protesters have been reported) and use of attack dogs. Not the kind of like for like response to a peaceful protest one would expect.

By the way, it should be noted that Use of CS in war is prohibited under the terms of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, signed by most nations in 1993 with all but five other nations signing between the years of 1994 through 1997. The reasoning behind the prohibition is pragmatic: use of CS by one combatant could easily trigger retaliation with much more toxic chemical weapons such as nerve agents. Only five nations have not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention and are therefore unhindered by restrictions on the use of CS gas: Angola, Egypt, North Korea, Somalia, andSyria.^[18]

I'm not making this up, Wiki is.

This violence the is usually perpetrated claiming 'health risks' (people will stink after camping out for a couple of days without a shower), 'local law' (I know you have a right under the 1st amendment but I have a park to run here) and more good stuff.

I believe it is illegal to hit your kids in the USA, at home or at school (where home can be disputed). This then would lead me to believe that parents and other authority figures like mayors tend to bide their time until the kids have left school, are starting to get an opinion and are nicely in debt.

It also raises the question why the response is so violent.

Earlier, I talked about what the Occupy movement stands for: a thought. And a thought is impossible to catch or to destroy, especially in this day and age where people have real time access to events.

This thought is exposing a world wide class warfare (mind warfare: USA agreed not to use tear gas in such situations and are now breaking also that promise), a world wide web of corruption, deceit and greed. The thought just exposes all this and asks the question: what are you gonna do guys?

So the thought is threatening a class of people and businesses. Business interests, based on manipulation of people's jobs, lives, health, are at risk. So the thought must be destroyed.

Then, the thought also exposes the threat the current web poses to our survival as a species, the survival of the full 100%. This is an even bigger threat as the '1%' like to think that they can still squeeze out a final profit before retreating to their safe places to watch 99% die while they have a fine wine, maybe even a whisky...

The thought threatens that heavenly sight, sick as it is, and therefore must be fully destroyed, annihilated.

So police turn out in droves, in riot gear, with dogs. Try to bully the protests, scare the protesters, make them shut up. However, the 99% movement has shut up too long, so keeps coming back, non-violent but insistent, reclaiming their rights, their vote, their voice.

And the 99% will win using their weapons:
For tear gas - Non-violence
For arrests- Patience in the knowledge that there are legal experts ready to help
For biased mainstream media - Social media like Twitter, and live feeds
For hatred - Love, the nastiest weapon of all to those who don't know it
For top down commands - Strike, the bottom up NO

But most of all, remain non-violent. It's easy and sounds a bit like this:

All she had on was the radio, and all he wore was a smile.

Anything else just ends up creepy.

Destroying the rain

"When one drop of water falls into the Ocean,
when one mote of dust falls upon the Earth,
Then the drop of water is no longer a drop of water,
it becomes the Ocean;
And the mote of dust is no longer a mote of dust,
it becomes the whole Earth."
~ Zen related ~


Following the Occupy movement, I have thought about these words a lot. Like rain, it started as an undefined feeling, like a vapour of 'something is not right'. And over time little tiny droplets form. People meet, discuss and find agreement. People start to Coalesce. Let's go to our friend Wikipedia:


Coalescence occurs when water droplets fuse to create larger water droplets, or when water droplets freeze onto an ice crystal, which is known as the Bergeron process. Air resistance typically causes the water droplets in a cloud to remain stationary. When air turbulence occurs, water droplets collide, producing larger droplets. As these larger water droplets descend, coalescence continues, so that drops become heavy enough to overcome air resistance and fall as rain.


All part of a bigger cycle, a feedback loop.

So far, so good. The thing that we see happening now is resistance to change. Another completely natural phenomenon.

Yes, scary phenomenon. and people tend to get hurt.
Also, it is at this point where the people that feel they have things to lose tend to take away rights of other people. Often, this has already happened as part of building a power base.


So, here we are, feet firmly on the ground. People get hurt, beaten for exercising their right to express their concerns. In the end, that's all they do: they coalesce around a powerful thought. And it is this thought that the 'other' people (for the sake of argument) want to beat.


Completely understandable: it is a very scary thought. It tells us about change. It calmly states the facts that we or anybody don't like to see.


Problem is: the thought won't go away. You can take it apart, you can try to beat it, gas it... it will still be there. Like rain.


Have you ever tried to catch a rain drop?


Have you ever tried to chase away the sea?


Then why try to destroy the rain?


Yes, people will hurt. But at this point in time they will not let go of the thought. They may even pass it on. No quarantine will stop it. It's out and it's about to go viral.


It has to. The alternative is too creepy.


Let's keep the beauty

the quirky

this silly human race

Epilogue

The man is dressed inappropriately in his torn and dusty Armani suit. His feet, swollen and bleeding from many lacerations tread gingerly on the razor sharp ridged rock. A naked sun mercilessly lashes his searing skin, his boiling skull, his angry face, he hates that sun. The unbearable pain makes him cringe, his hate and anger keep him going. He is collecting wood, must find more wood or anything that will burn. Night will come soon and there must be a fire.

He stops for a moment to get his bearings, squints and looks out over what’s left. That little heap to the right, two kilometers away, that’s G&S. Bastards. He doesn’t even remember if G or S made it there when the final wave washed away the fortresses. Frankly, he could care less. But keep them in mind. There’s wood over there, a whole pile.

To his left, GE at three kilometers. Smaller pile but still enough for weeks. He signed them two days ago, maybe do a trade? The fucker had called him a freeloader.

“If you’re short on wood, that’s your responsibility”

Hater… his face is now a sour grimace as his mind goes where it shouldn’t.

The band marches by playing the ‘Star - Spangled Banner’ and Linda smiles seductively at him over her glass of champagne. He’s just been sworn in as president of the goddamn US of A, it’s 2012 and he’s gonna get some tonight. Something stirs in his pants as she smiles and licks her lips and he forgets the past months of hard work, endless debate rehearsals, repeating repeating repeating his lines, drilling them, ready to fire.

“Poverty is a choice!”

“Don’t ask me to bail out losers, ask me to bail out winners!”

“If you’re short on money, that’s your responsibility!”

Back. The lines still ring in his cramped mind and he is back in this burning hell of rock, pain and…

He shudders. Must get more wood. Or anything that will burn. Night’s coming soon. There must be a fire. There’s just not enough wood anymore. Again he looks around, squinting in the sun. So hot. So fucking hot. “Still, I survived”, he thinks and cackles a dry empty laugh. Big fucking deal.

He’s just returned from a couple of key meetings with some people that, well, funded his presidency. Time to fulfill the most important campaign promises. The kind of promises that are usually not discussed in a public debate. Internet Access Act has just made it past congress, and he has just sent McKyle to make sure any still existing Occupy resistance is taken care of appropriately. Best to leave it with McKyle. The guy’s a weasel, everybody hates him but he is highly effective. Highly effective, yes that’s what Goldman said. No need to know details, just make sure nobody else knows either.

“Good to be home”, he thinks as he walks into his bedroom and finds Linda and some hippie naked.

“Lindaaaaaa!!!!!”, he screams. His hands claw at the air trying to find that hippie’s throat to strangle him. Bitch! Stupid bitch!!! What was she thinking getting involved with… with hippies?

He stumbles on in the searing heat, and in his mind he sees Linda’s beautiful defiant face. A drop of blood runs from her mouth where he hit her. She mocks him, hates him now, screams at him. “Your son has joined Occupy and you have them beaten up, tear gassed, violated! Guess what! I’m fucking Occupy too but I’m at least having some fun doing it!!!”

Well, he showed her fun, her and her lover hippie. Him and McKyle. He cackles.

Wait. There’s something. Yes, yes a piece of wood. Here in the barren desolate rocky heat he’s found a wooden chair! If he weren’t emaciated he would laugh and dance. Now there’s only the same dry cackle, a cold sound in the blistering heat.

Shit, he’s thirsty now. His claw-like hand brings out his silver flask. ‘From your friends at Goldman Sachs’ the inscription reads. He grimaces, yeah big stinking fucking deal. He drinks to them, there to the right on their little heap. No water, Four Roses. Water doesn’t exist anymore. Here’s to you fuckers!

“Mr. President, let’s look at this realistically. Even if the report is true, the effects are not described in detail, there are no clearly defined timelines, and all in all we are talking about possible scenarios that may not even come to pass. Here, on the other hand, I have some very realistic numbers on what this law will do to commerce and general stakeholder value…”

Goldman smiles and for once almost succeeds in sounding genuine.

“Now you have done a great job in enabling us to take care of any Occupy resistance…”, he continues, “…and you know that Congress will vote as we need it to vote. But we need you to be aligned in order to convince the people. You know we only let you protest at other occasions in preparation for this moment, and we have made sure the media have painted you as a nice rebel. So if you vote our way now…”

Goldman’s hand tips ash from the cigar and he smiles

May you rot in hell!!! One more sip and a hateful cackle. Time to go home.

Home… This is where home used to be. White House. He’s bringing home wood, there will be a fire tonight. So hot, so fucking hot… no longer walking, plodding. Each careful step hurts, hot razor-sharp rock cutting his feet. Sun burning, roasting, searing. Hell… well here we are. His cackle this time has no joy but death. Again he takes a quick swig from his silver flask. Rot in hell, well here we are. Fuckers.

What have we done? We had a chance, not much but a fighting chance. The opportunity was there and we blew it. We all blew it.

It’s just him, Goldman and Lakey from GE in the bunker. Goldman is crying and Lakey is drunk as always. He feels numb and tries not to think of that wave that swallowed DC whole. The terrified screams cut short suddenly, the white face of the private as he sank into the deep. Somewhere in that wet grave he knows his son and Linda have drowned. Or so he hopes. The last moments of DC were violent, his guards had to shoot many people to get him out and then of course were torn limb from limb by the crazed masses. Fortunately he was in the chopper by that time, he, Goldman and Lakey. The final hopes for a new human race. In a chopper with five whores.

He stops in the middle of a cackle. What moved there? He’s been out too long.

Nothing. It was nothing. But they are there. He knows. Oh yes, he knows. He’s seen them, he’s seen what they did…

“Fire, that’s the only thing that will keep them away”, he says. They are standing near the mutilated body of Molly. She was good fun but stupid. Stupid enough to leave the bunker after dark. They got her and effectively gutted her. Goldman is again crying. Her screams were horrible and lasted for most of the night. And they were forced to listen to it. “Poor girl, poor girl” Goldman keeps repeating. Lakey belches and laughs raucously. “C’mon, she was a whore and a damn bad one at that…”

He resumes his torturous last part of his journey back home. Things did go downhill from there. And now there’s three kingdoms. He cackles. Three corporations, ready to do a hostile takeover at any time. For wood! Haters! Dumb fucks! Jesus!

Back. Back at the pile. His pile of wood. King of the Hill. Big F-ing deal…

His shoulders sag. This was my day, a day in the life. What life?

What have I done? What have we done?

“Dad…?”

He turns around sharply tearing his feet on sharp rock, screams and drops to his knees. The skin of his knee rips open and blood gushes out, but now he is silent and watches

His son. His son is here. His son’s  blue eyes look at him, his carcass-like body, burned, scarred, bloody, dirty. His son’s nose smells him, his decay, his sweat, urine, feces…

His son can’t be here, he knows, his son is dead. Drowned in the final convulsions of the catastrophe that killed earth. But not them. They’re still here. Must make fire soon.

His son smiles but keeps his distance. He seems to know.

Oh yeah? You think you know? You know nothing my boy. No-thing.

You may know what you know. But you don’t know the simple truth. My simple truth. We fucked you up because we wanted to. We raped this planet because there would be enough time. Well, we thought there would be enough time. And we had a clear business case. It was good for business. We finally got the markets back under control, and we made trillions. Trillions I tell you! And with all that money we would restore earth, remake it as it should be. You know I had the right, I had the power, they had the power to do it! Science just had no arguments, they did not have a business case, and I had to lead the people. Hey, I was their chose pre-si-dent man! I was the man, I could do it! I only did it for the good of the country, you know. I had the mandate…

His son smiles again. “Look around you, I don’t think this is what people ordered...”

C’mon man. Don’t do this. I am your father, and you should have listened to me. You and your whore mother. You should have stayed with me, supported me…

Tears now running down his lined face. Fuck you, you hippie. His hands are again groping air looking for some neck to strangle.

His son fades. “Getting dark dude, time to get a fire going…”

The man wipes his face and moves painfully to the pile of wood. Almost there his knees give way and he drops. Pain, heat, fear. Fear…

No fire, wood just out of reach. He tries to draw himself to the pile, and cries as his fingers are sliced by sharp rock. He can hear them getting closer and frantically claws in the glass-like rock…

Gears of History Turning…

Last Saturday night, the peacock came striding out from the theatre, disturbed by our ‘this is not the message’ review of the theatre’s program for the coming month. As we walked on, he huffed and puffed himself bigger and higher and looked at the same pamphlet we had reviewed, not seeing what we had seen: today’s gospel is no longer the message.

I felt sorry for the peacock.

He has built his perfect life, found the perfect wife, and now feels the cold and hears history’s gears turning.

It was he who used to do the reviewing, he used to be in sync with what’s happening, and now he’s no longer sure he’s on the right side…

Moreover, like all of us the peacock is an endangered species.

It must feel uncomfortable when society moves on and leaves you and your comfort zone in the dust because you’ve been out of touch. Marie-Antoinette knew that feeling (and lost her head in the process; different times but same principle) and her primary reaction is still used by many.

It must be scary and disheartening to know (and we all know!) that what is now happening means we’ll go extinct as a species. The primary response is to protect business until that happens by making sure any representatives in the Congress of the world’s most powerful nation will deny these findings. And when it finally happens, there will be no witnesses, no legal proceedings, nothing…

Just an empty planet, devoid of life in a bi-partisan way.

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt…

Change is in the air, as it is the one constant in life. It is the driving force that keeps us alive, sharp and innovative. As a species, we have survived all changes in history by sticking together, by reaching out, communication and supporting each other. And this is where the Occupy movement tries to help the so-called 1%

It shows that no matter what the circumstances, no matter how the weather behaves, no matter what attacks are mounted, people can and will reach out, help you, feed you, understand you.

In the end, this is in my view the simple message from Occupy. Come have a look, let’s meet, let’s see where we can make things better. 

This is no longer about profit, it is about survival.

And let’s do it soon, there’s not much time left to save our bi-partisan multi-lingual racially converged asses.

In that sense, Occupy Wall Street could be mankind’s last stand.

Oakland Blues and the MSM Exposure

To start off: apologies for not blogging yesterday. I was with my wife celebrating our 6^th wedding anniversary. It was a day of mixed emotions: happiness as I am married to the most fascinating, lovable, quirky, sweet, wonderful woman and sadness as Oakland became the #OWS Kent State University moment. An American veteran was critically injured and is now in surgery. We wish him all the best and a speedy recovery!

At the same time, yesterday made a number of things crystal clear:

Mainstream Media (MSM) are increasingly exposed as badly informed, slow or even biased towards ‘ruling class’. I use the term ‘ruling class’ explicitly as I have already pointed at a high level at the conflicts of interest which seem to exist between corporate banking interests, government, education and media.

Yes, Media.

In the old days, HMV (His Master’s Voice had this great logo on old 78 rpm recordings.

It showed a dog listening to a recording of his master’s voice. If that voice would have said ‘jump’, the dog would have barked ‘how high?’

Woof.

Which is the construction that has been put in place to control MSM. It starts with advertising which is of course innocent and logical because business needs to put the message out to their public (‘buy X’) and MSM Y (news paper, glossy, TV channel needs the money). Then more ads appear, and money starts flowing, MSM is very happy, but also a dependency builds: MSM starts tailoring content to please the advertiser. Or the advertiser threatens to withdraw ads because of reporting unfavorable to ‘X’.

Over time, it may have grown to the point where a news channel will confirm with ‘X’ and gain approval before reporting on, for example Occupy  Oakland protests. Or it may take the safe course and rewrite the police statement (because the police are there to protect the people). After all, the Occupy Oakland protests were not happy with ‘X’.

Of course there still is the possible conflict of interest where the police receives its orders from the (local/federal) government, which received (sizable) campaign donations from ‘X’. It was pretty well known but again, MSM Y chose to not report about it. Better this way. Mum’s the word.

People have gone on record that during the police actions MSM crews chose to not record certain scenes…

Do not bite the hand that feeds you! Woof!

We make exciting movies about reporters uncovering such conflicts of interest (how does Watergate compare to having your finance department run by Goldman and Sachs linked people?) yet in real life we close our eyes to the scam that’s going on.

This has of course been happening for quite a while but there is now a difference: 


Internet Live Feeds and Mobile Devices with Camera, and platforms like Twitter.

As I said, Oakland was a night of mixed emotions: love and pride for my wife, admiration for these ‘freaky hippie’ kids out there taking it, making a stand and mostly keeping peaceful in the storm, sadness for what was going down…

And incredulous maniacal laughter when I saw CNN and various other news stations read the police report. I had to think immediately to these old records I used to play, HMV!


Woof!

It still baffles me that police, city government and national media have not taken into account that people are their own reporters, that Twitter is a real time medium where people will post their comments, pictures and videos immediately and that for each protester site live video feeds are in existence. 


Next morning was the morning of (hidden) retractions, spin and other BS though possibly Fox News may have maintained (to my shame, I usually don’t watch it) that throwing paint warrants a response of rubber bullets.

Though David Letterman will not yet disappear, I can see MSM taking serious credibility hits as a result of flawed reporting. If credibility sinks, in the end so will advertising revenues.


We have social media to thank for this and therefore have the challenge to keep social media corporate free and keep interest regulation out.

In the end the big story is about the web, how it was cleverly woven with strands of well balanced fear, hatred and greed. 


The spokes are Business (Corporate and Banking), Government, Education and MSM. 


Yes of course we were greedy and happy to live a dream of endless credit, afraid to lose our dream, our house, our employment. 


For this we were willing to keep others down with MSM fueled hatred (ever seen ‘Cops’ ?), betray our peers (the infamous rat race) and work three jobs to have a chance at the American dream. 


This way of live was carefully manipulated by Business through MSM and Education as carrot and Government as stick.

In a way the occupy movement is not so much about the inequality that is inherent at this model as discussed in this article. People used to ask me why Americans put up with a society that provides such few safety nets for its residents and I used to answer what I always heard from my US friends: “this society also provides chances for enormous upwards mobility”

However, it has always been a long shot. And in the past decade, Business has eaten the donkey’s carrot, and started hitting it with a much bigger stick more often. Government, Education and MSM have provided the means. And as we have seen in other places, when the carrot has gone there is a line where fear will no longer hold people back, especially when the game is clear and the bad guys walk free. In the end, the Occupy movement has one very clear message:

Enough

Beleaguered Bill of Rights

When I lived in the USA, the one thing that I loved about the country was that, no matter how much you disagreed with an opinion, it could be discussed. People accepted the fact that this also brought some pretty tasteless opinions into play but in general Voltaire ruled:

“I may completely disagree with your opinion but I will defend to the death your right to express it.”

Brave words from a brave man in a time when the wrong opinion could get you beheaded (a practice still honored in some societies).

Also, words that in general have ruled the social fabric of the United States, if only because the enable commerce. I remember getting a hearty ‘F***k you’ in New York but after that we could still do business and I got my coffee as ordered.

The Occupy movement has made clear that these times may need rekindling. We have seen earlier that important parts of the 1^st amendment are under pressure.

With the increased fear that has been brought into national security since 9/11 we also see other items on the Bill of Rights being negated (for the common good”):

·         1st Amendment: we already looked at the right of assembly. Now we see further plans to negate freedom of speech/press (I consider platforms like Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, etc as such), aka New Internet Blacklist Bill.

·         4^th Amendment: Protection from unreasonable search and seizure. As a traveler I am confronted with procedures that vary wildly from airport to airport, are extremely effective at removing toothpaste from my luggage and are demeaning to say the least. On top of that, these measures are ineffective with respect to airport safety. They do however infringe upon my personal freedom while trying to intimidate travelers.

Remark: I tip my hat to the woman reciting the fourth amendment while being intimidated. I am not sure if I would have had the same guts in similar circumstances. And it goes to show that the real heroes tend to be ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Question: if such rights are removed without approval from the people, then what difference is there between the United States and Iran?

Would Iran then not be a better vacation destination as it tends to have less crime, and religious freedom is comparable to the USA plus they have less hurricanes?

Mind you (if you have not read properly): I am not advocating Iran (though it is a sovereign state) or what happens there at this moment. They go through their own growth process. But I do question that USA claim to leadership of the free world when such basic (namely also Universal Human Rights underwritten by USA) rights are infringed upon.

It’s easy for me, I am looking from the outside in. But it’s your home.

This is why I do see light as people from both sides are now working to find common ground. And this is where I hope people will keep the faith!

Nationalization Blues

The one point that all Bail out discussions seem to be skipping is that of what is actually happening: by accepting a bail out funded by the people's moneys, banks (or any corporation) ask to be nationalized, in part or wholly.
The one thing that then needs to be decided is who will run the company.

Suggestion: why don't we take a look at the amount of money that has been given so far to corporations (need a real inguiry here: we know about the amount of 700 billion USD which was not supported by the American people but I have seen amounts of trillions through other channels like the Fed).
Then decide, per company, which percentage of the company is now effectively owned by the government.

Then start writing your congressman/woman.

Oh, and make sure that the banks don't pull a Ghadaffi on you: he set away billions of USD before being captured. Libya will have to see if they can get that money back.

Occupy Wall Street: it's not new

Only a couple of links today to show you the #OWS is not new.

And neither is the view of affected people camping out near the place where they see the issue (when the weather permis). I am stressing this as at #OWS protests we see the directly affected who can at this point weather the cold representing the other directly affected who in this weather or at this time cannot attend.

What we also see is the similarity in response (I quote): "in 1932, the parties were alarmed by this motley assemblage and its political rallies; the Secret Service infiltrated its ranks to root out radicals. But a good Communist was hard to find. The men were mostly middle-class, patriotic Americans. They kept their improvised hovels clean and maintained small gardens. Even so, good behavior by the Bonus Army did not prevent the U.S. Army’s hotheaded chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur, from summoning an overwhelming force to evict it from Pennsylvania Avenue late that July. After assaulting the veterans and thousands of onlookers with tear gas, ­MacArthur’s troops crossed the bridge and burned down the encampment"

Sounds familiar? It should, and there are other more gruesome instances where the 1st amendment has been violated: think of Kent State University.

How come the United States of America has engraved the freedom to assemble into it's founding documents and has always be so willing to break that one part of the contract?

This is probably the one thing that has become under real scrutiny with the Occupy Wall Street protests.

The Web, the Whole Web and nothing but the Web

Earlier, I took a short look at bankers and the (known) dependency that politicians have in the current elector process: the best funded politician wins. This then creates a situation where for instance the treasury department becomes the lair of those that should have been investigated by the treasury department.

Such constructions then pave the way for legislation that enables CEOs to handpick the board that will decide their annual bonus, and even whether they have earned it.

I do urge you to read the excellent piece by Chomsky on the history, the mechanisms, the unfettered nepotism, collateral damage (systemic errors) and even brilliant miscalculations by Adams (Mr. Capitalism: yes, he saw that what is happening now as a remote possibility but assumed that executives would make the right choice). It is a bit longer than I intend to write today, and Chomsky is a much better writer than I am so very much worth your time.

But there you have it: Recessions have become the instutionalized way of transferring public tax moneys to private corporate accounts.

It is a way of working. Corporations nowadays have the (uncapitalist) freedom of taking risk-free risks. If things go ‘TiTs up’ as they say in Britain, bought governments will bail them out. All the 1% have to do is to stay on the good side of the 0.1%.

It’s systematic. We, the people (not the US people, all people) have a vampire at our throat and it is bleeding as dry. It starts at birth, in the hospital. Pay your bills, better have health care insurance. And if you don’t, you can go into bankruptcy (where public money is used to satisfy the thirst of the claimant) or you can die (at your desk if needed). A friend of mine in Baltimore came down with appendicitis, and had no health insurance (as she could not afford it). She was 19 at the time and had to file for bankruptcy to save her life. She was lucky as she did find a hospital willing to save her first and bicker over payment later…

Then you go to school. Now the Bill of Rights proclaims that people have the right to get a good education, as does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (and I quote, please have a think on the bold parts):

Article 26.

• (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
• (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
• (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Now, I do not believe that education is free in the United States, it has become an elite – or let’s say high priced – privilege. This has the disadvantage for the economy as a whole that the needed layer of well-educated people to produce the extraordinary talents has become much smaller which impacts America’s competitive edge.

At the same time we see that students are more and more trained to comply to behavioral standards, cut-and-paste type exercises and less and less in critical observation, empirical research and so on. In fact, we see schools starting to deliver minds that can do research-based research only. The moment hat one can then control access to the research material, one can control the outcome.

1984? Brave New World? Believe me, we’re in it and it is now being implemented. Those ‘freaky hippies’ (not my words) out there in the cold have seen it and have the balls to make a stand. If only because they are in the trap too:

So you finish your studies that you had to dearly pay for: say you have an MBA and a $60,000 loan debt? Why have you been so stupid? Well, you were told that the world is a playground once you have your MBA.

But that great job isn’t there (see earlier), and the bank who agreed to the loan probably knew it. And so does the company that will hire you to administrative work (other stuff has been outsourced but the company gets tax incentives to provide you work, though no KPIs are given). As your debt information can be obtained by the company you go into your salary negotiations at a bit of a disadvantage and in the end will work for the minimum amount that the company will pay.

You may have fallen in love with somebody who also is thus employed and the two of you may produce a wonderful child. In that case go back to hospital but make sure to include the fact that by this time your debt has tripled from your original situation. Quintupled if you have bought a house.

Which by the way is worthless now. You can’t maintain it (as you are paying off debts to the bank, you cannot sell it (as you will go bankrupt and homeless; the houses in your street are all empty shells by now anyway)…

I could go on but everybody knows the stories.

“Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave driver.”
Ambrose Bierce

Of course some debt can be avoided, credit card debt is not necessary. Only, it is so difficult to pay without them if the system has been geared towards paying with plastic. And the debts described above are very hard to avoid. They have been made mandatory, systematic.

Meanwhile, just to make sure, we now see that Wall street and NYPD will share the same observation unit built with public money. The signal given here is ‘we don’t have to hide it any more, deal with it’.

It is all there. Right in front of you.

And for the past 30 years the Web has ensnared not just government but also schools, hospitals, and media: why do you think you think the way you think?

Little self check: how many hours per day do you watch television? How many hours are you exposed to television? Have you ever tried to go without television for a week?

TV has isolated us from one another, and it has dulled our natural inquisitiveness, our ability to ask critical questions. Ever since corporate companies have added TV to their repertoire, they have been brainwashing the public, i.e. you…

If there is one danger posed by the Occupy movements it is that these people will start thinking really critically because of TV deprivation. That’s a risk I can live with.

These (often young) people see what we see, and they question it with a passion (darn, they must have been skipping TV for a while now, or maybe grown resistant?).Eliot Spitzer has written a must read tribute to them.

Let’s make a couple of observations on how we could tear the web:

1.       Know where the dependencies are: politicians will serve campaign contributors, not you. Money (or corporate; we really need to start defining this in detail if we want to know what we’re up against) has now reached even the most mundane type of elections.
2        Stop watching TV. Follow the news, read up, get informed.

3.       Know that all the trillions that everybody is speaking about are even more undefined than ‘Money’. A lot of it is Excel type calculations on how to make money in a system where real profit based on production has left the building. How much poorer are we when Monopoly money burns? And what would stop you from getting your money from the bank (as this is the real money (= your life’s effort) that you put in)?

4.       Don’t fear. Look at the kids out there, protesting. They have every reason to be afraid, yet they go on. Fear is what ‘Money’ has given us for years, it has gotten us into wars that nobody wanted, it has brought us here: once proud nations run by servants, begging their masters for a job…

Don’t fear, shout.