(or The Toxic Fallout from Ayn & Uncle Miltie) Posted in observance of April [etc.] Fool’s Day Here are a few quotes from Boomerang by Michael Lewis—a déjà vu of “what you sow is what you reap [eventually**]”: “They created fake capital by trading assets amongst themselves at inflated values, … This was how the banks […]
A Series of Massive Delusions* Read More »
Isocrates ~ 436-338 BC: “Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.” WikiCommons ~ Public Domain I am almost finished Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
Déjà vu: Back & So-Forth Read More »
(or A View from the Pit We Have Dug for Ourselves) No so long ago: ▪ Owners managed their own small businesses (some of which grew very large);▪ Then in pursuit of more capital (translating to more power, influence, prestige, capacity, market share, etc.) some owners came to share ownership with total strangers via corporate
(*Adam Smith, that is) “LABOUR, it must always be remembered, and NOT any particular commodity or set of commodities, IS the real measure of the value both of silver and of all other commodities” [The Wealth of Nations, Bk 1, Ch. XI, Part III, p. 214; capital and bold emphasis added]. So why do we:
~In George Orwell’s 1949 satire Nineteen Eighty-Four, he describes an imposed language reform (Newspeak) meant to control both thought and expression in the citizenry. The big question in 2012 is: How long is it going to take Newt Gingrich supporters to reject the authoritarian, right-wing, hubristic “Ministry of Truth” version they so thoughtlessly leap to
~▪ That the sun never sets on American bases and SOFA’s1 in near déjà vu of a recent fallen/defeated Empire;▪ That so many pretend that money ≠ power ≠ undue influence ≠ inevitable corruption ≠ inevitable death of freedom;▪ That we manufacture/manipulate citizen consent thru deception and propaganda and call it freedom of speech;▪ That
So, it has come to this! Again! Read More »
In the High Middle Ages (1000-1300 AD/CE), in order to combat religious instability (including but not limited to alleged heretics,[1]) the powers-that-were resorted to: 1) denunciations (openly and secretly);2) concealing the nature of charges and evidence against the accused;3) “invitations” to confess (something? anything?);4) torture to extract confessions;5) torture to extract the names of “guilty”
MORE THAN once upon a time! Read More »