“If
you know
your enemies
and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.” –Sun
Tzu
“The first lesson a
revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.”
― Huey P. Newton
“Remember, remember always,
that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and
revolutionists.”
― Franklin D.
Roosevelt
_______________
A Special Note to the Bigot
Club:
Perry, Cruz, Limbaugh,
Coulter, McConnell, Boehner, Graham, Gohmert, Bachmann, Bolling, Hannity, Beck,
Trump, Rove, and your Merry Band of Wannabe, Shameless Shucksters :
Not to rain on your parade-
but as much as we love loathing every molecule of your being… In the grand
scheme of things, you are just not that important. Yea, get a clue, jerks:
Cowardly blowhards like you are an easily replaceable, dime a dozen- a quickly
forgotten blight on the searing scorched tyranny-terrain. History will not
remember you, and the few of us that think of you now despise you to the
core... when we’re not laughing.
And as well as you might
play your magic flutes to keep the brainwashed, idiot class distracted; your
entire pathetic lot will forever be defined as nickel-back whores for the
ultra-wealth class… And trust me: You losers will never be invited to the real
party-
The elites loathe and mock
you sad suckers even more than we do.
So surprise: This writing
is NOT about you. Frankly, not much of anything is about you.
__________________
The
time is like no other…
A
time that defies everything that we think we know today- and tomorrow. We have
traversed past the Orwellian onto a Hyper-Inverted-Totalitarian-scape; a
shadowy, unknown place where we have been successfully hoodwinked by
distraction, misinformation, spectacle, and blatant lies.
And
if you caste aside any conviction of the common good, any responsibility of
moral mandate- if you caste aside any sense of social obligation- if you throw
all of that useless stuff in the dumpster… and focus on money, and only on money, and the speculation
thereof: Then and only then can you begin to understand the dooming direction
that the collective ‘us’ are all being led. And saddest of all: Most of us are
ambling along quite willingly.
In
previous writings, we have covered everything from demography to Big Pharma.
And in review, an image of the future ‘us’ and ‘them’ comes more clearly into
focus:
_________________
“Freedom in capitalist
society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics:
Freedom for slave owners.”
― Vladimir Lenin
Debt
The
disparity of income and wealth has reached such a level that the only way the
masses might acquire all that their connected, virtual selves are instructed to
acquire… is by borrowing. And debt is exactly the ‘brand’ of servitude being
dished out globally, in numbers heretofore unimaginable in human history. And
it is upon the speculation of this debt, collectively, some $370 Trillion+
(Libor and more), that unfathomable, hidden empires have been built. It is also
upon the successful redistribution of these monies that a worldwide debtor
class has rapidly emerged. We are now witness to the end of the Middle Class-
for this is the true Globalisation in all of its sick, damning glory. From
Cyprus to Spain: The specter of countries and peoples caste into poverty is as
quick as it takes for someone to press ‘send’ on their keyboard.
While
writing this story, I noted a headline regarding the EU from the ZeroHedge
site:
“Euro Area
Savings Rate Drops To Record Low, Disposable Income Has Biggest Drop Ever.”
Yea… “ever.” With graphs even…. for the faint-hearted.
In
our own country, 50% of households COMBINED now account for only 1.1% of the
nation’s wealth. In the so-called recovery of 2009-2010, the top 1% of income
earners captured 93% of all income growth. In a recent article on Huffington Post:
“The ratio of CEO-to-worker
pay has increased 1,000
percent since 1950, according to
data from Bloomberg. Today Fortune 500 CEOs make 204 times regular workers on
average, Bloomberg found. The ratio is up from 120-to-1 in 2000, 42-to-1 in
1980 and 20-to-1 in 1950.”
And
it’s not difficult to see how warped all of this is when you realize that if we
captured the 280 Billion in lost revenues offshore, cut the 100 Billion in
corporate welfare and subsidies (this is a gross underestimate), and
streamlined our military spending to 2 ½ times that of China (instead of more
than the next 12 countries combined): It would represent more than $5,600 per
U.S. household per year.
But
come on, we know the drill. We don’t need stats to be aware of what has
happened with employment, income disparity, or wealth distribution.
And
yet, many seem to think it is better to stay in status-quo denial, as we
approach the day of credit card purchases for the breadlines- all the while on
our Smartphones- bedazzled, bamboozled, blind… and hungry.
Yep.
The banks and corporate giants have the plan, and we are a big part of it.
And if I was the ‘executive’ charged
with profitability and growth?
I
would do precisely what they are doing.
__________________
Data
Ugh…
quite simply: We are the data. And data is very big business. The information
that is now available to ‘others:’ Your legal records, credit card purchases,
texts, emails, online games, tweets, Facebook and Social Media profiles, … and
the newest Smartphone technologies- a dynamic field-day for those that wheel
and deal in data.
And
then there’s the newest software marketed by industry leaders that tout
cutting-edge algorithms- claiming to successfully predict where you will be,
when you will be there, and what you will do (or buy) there.
Walk
down the lumber aisle in Home Depot with your Smartphone on? Expect to get
lumber ads and apps very shortly thereafter. Applying for a new job? Don’t be
surprised when they (legally) request/require your Facebook and other Social
Media passwords as part of the application process. Strolling through Tribeca?
You might be under enhanced scrutiny by Manhattan’s Surveillance Data Center.
Oh, and who might be watching you? Goldman Sachs and Pfizer have seats in the
Center along with other large corporate entities.
As
for direct government applications, very active indeed:
In
a recent article on The Atlantic, writer Bruce Schneier:
Our government collects a
lot of information about us. Tax records, legal records, license records,
records of government services received-- it's all in databases that are
increasingly linked and correlated. Still, there's a lot of personal
information the government can't collect. Either they're prohibited by law from
asking without probable cause and a judicial order, or they simply have no cost-effective
way to collect it. But the government has figured out how to get around the
laws, and collect personal data that has been historically denied to them: ask
corporate America for it…
… One Atlantic editor found
105 companies tracking him during one 36-hour period. Add data from your cell phone (who you talk
to, your location), your credit cards (what you buy, from whom you buy it), and
the dozens of other times you interact with a computer daily, we live in a surveillance state beyond the dreams of Orwell.
Interestingly,
there is one aspect of the gun control issue that no one seems to be talking
about. And it has very little to do with guns:
If
the government has access to tremendous amounts of data on an individual; and
if that government sets the standard in defining whether one is ‘stable’ or
‘safe’ for the acquisition of a weapon…
exactly what precedent are we setting?
Perhaps
a knee-jerk liberal might say, “You’re being conspiratorial, President Obama
would never allow the expansion of such powers.”
But
what about the next Nixon, or a Romney? What happens when your vote or
healthcare or Social Security or education is determined/modified by standards
that the government chooses to set as to your stability or ‘worthiness?’ Just
look at the massive amount of information now available to them from your
Internet activity. What happens when one unpatriotic tweet or one angry email
is utilized to… to…
And
after all, once the precedent is set, once the power is taken, it’s a done
deal.
…
Besides, corporations are already actively evaluating your credit worthiness,
employability, even healthcare by your online profile and communications. One
health insurance company recently purchased the Internet search histories of 3
Million people from one of the larger data-mining companies. Why? We all know
why.
Yep.
Big Data has the plan, and we are an integral part of it.
And if I was the ‘executive’ charged
with profitability and growth?
I
would do precisely what they are doing.
___________________
Dope
We could talk about Big Pharma’s
control of the FDA, or the power plays constructed in the dark corridors of the
Capitol and the White House. We could talk about Reid’s traitorous filibuster
of the Dorgan amendment, and its cost to millions of seniors and to Medicare.
We could even talk about the patent extension to Amgen that was hidden in the
Fiscal Cliff bill, costing Medicare $500,000,000.00.
We could rack-up all of these
latest examples as part of some diabolical conspiracy. But it’s not: It is only
about the money- an ungodly amount of money.
To see the big picture- we
only have to look at Pharma as just another toss-out-the-common-good,
for-profit industry. And like any business, they want a growing, captive
market, dependent upon their exclusive, profitable products.
The population is aging. Prohibitive costs in hospitalization
and primary care has made at-home, drug maintenance programs a viable
alternative for much of the nation. Obamacare has created a virtual windfall for
Pharma through an expansion of coverages, and by increasing the numbers of
drug-insured. In the bio-medicinal field, Obamacare has strengthened and
lengthened patent protection.
Use
of Antidepressants has jumped nearly 400% since 1988:
11%
of Americans, 12 years+ take Antidepressants (2005-08 study).
23%
of women in their 40s and 50s take Antidepressants
And
then there are the Opioids:
“A 2011 update to the
Workers’ Compensation Prescription Drug Study, reported by the National Council
on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), says that drugs were 2 percent of total
medical costs in 1990, and there was minimal use of opioids. By 2000,
however, pharmacy increased to 10 percent of medical costs, with growing use of
opioids… By 2011, the pharmacy spend has increased to 19 percent of total
medical costs—and we are seeing exploding use of opioids within workers’ comp.”
(Sherri
Hickey/ Property Casualty 360)
And Antidepressants and Opioids are just the tip of the iceberg when
one looks at the vast array of medications available for every imaginable
malady from insomnia to restless leg syndrome.
We are aging, we are stressed, we are worried, we are isolated, we are
self-absorbed, we are ill… we are customers. And if the there’s an ailment,
there’s a treatment. The good news is that they don’t want their customer base
dead; then we don’t buy. The bad news is that they don’t want us ‘cured’
either; then we don’t buy. They want to help us ‘manage’ our perceived or real
illness, i.e. ongoing drug maintenance programs.
Yep. Big Pharma has the plan,
and we are a very big part of it.
And if I was the ‘executive’ charged with profitability and
growth?
I would do precisely what
they are doing.
Knowing the Enemy
The Ultimate Diversion: To
keep us distracted, covetous, misinformed, medicated, and numb- to disable us from
perceiving our growing indebtedness and impoverishment, and the surveillance
platforms and data necessary to manipulate or force our compliance.
So spun by the master
profiteers, this is the core challenge we face: We are witness to the rise of a
controlled, surveilled, drugged, debtor class. And this is certainly no
conspiracy, yet the convergence of powerful corporate and government entities
that seek the expansion of profit and power, with total disregard to the common
good… globally.
Gay rights? Or guns? Or weed,
or perhaps another stupid comment
by some bigoted fool? Such understandably important things are certainly more
entertaining than thinking about your unemployment, homelessness, or mounting
debt; or the inconceivable amount of information that some unknown corporate or
government entity has on you. But not to worry, if such issues are not enough
to take you from your deteriorating situation, there is a vast array of
medications that might make it all just a little bit better.
And sadly, all, ALL of the
other issues will be moot if we don’t recognize these elusive, damning forces…
and the powerful weapons that they wield against us, globally: Debt, Data, and
Dope.
So it is time. It is way past
time.
“We are rising and we are
pissed.” -Juan Dillinger
