fake élite vs. genuine plebs ...

  .. power corrupts, absolutely ...

    .. unjust might can never be right

-=*=-

Prologue:

Ern asks (and I do too), after JSM; Q: "Why is it so?"

A: All the better to rip us off.

  (There's a subsequent Q: "How do they get away with it?"

   A1: Firstly, by dumbing-down the people into sheople, then A2: By telling them lies.)

-=*=-

Intro:

What we can *NOW* easily see - after the scales having been Oh, so rudely ripped from our eyes[2] by the utterly ghastly B, B & H and their even more ghastly crimes, is that we are being lied to - and not 'just' little whites, either. Lies are deployed to deceive[3], and then we have to ask, Q: Why are we being deceived? See A: above.

Here, a 'little' warning; a friend very wisely said: "It is not simple." Whereas that is certainly true, if we pull even the most horrendously complicated things apart into ever smaller pieces, we *must* eventually arrive at the 'atoms,' the indivisible components. One such atom, as far as this discussion goes, is greed. Another is power, as accumulated, exercised or directed by - ta ra! - the greedy, or their sycophant/proxies. We can throw in arrogance, selfishness ("Me, me, me!" assumed). Now, there's more than one sort of greed, and here I'm thinking of immature vs. mature, and the latter further separated by 'normal' vs. extreme. Before we leave immaturity, recall that "All [we] really need to know [we] learned in kindergarten" - but Q: Did we all? A: No, quite obviously not.

-=*=-

Quick notes:

If I were to try to make this article rigorous, I'd be here all day - simply not possible. Worse perhaps, the article might get too long and so diffuse its impact. Sooo, to my 'raw' notes:

Many different approaches: sheople asserted to be no good. Plato, religion, 2*Bernays(Freud); the so-called 'noble' lie (the concept of which is itself a filthy & self-serving lie.) Again post-WW2, liberals *allegedly* failed to deliver(!!?) BS; all special (vested) interests. D *can* work; one set of rules for all; honesty etc, no more rip-offs! US, Zs deliberately fooling the sheople, cheating, murdering to steal etc.

Even Obama has to deny 'wealth envy' - bizarre. Lakoff framing, 'fat-cat think tanks.' Via for-profit everything, the rich have 'hollowed' the sheople out; Marx' long-ago prediction has arrived.

Body (also quick):

This article is my 1st try at a response to two BBC documentaries, 'The Century of the Self' and 'The Power of Nightmares' by Adam Curtis. Together seven hours of video, and no transcript in sight. 'High'-points to be considered are:

 · Bernays' book "Propaganda," morphed into PR = Public Relations.

 · The crash of '29. (Sheople encouraged to buy shares, market (over!) leveraged; WHAM! Yes, all those years ago, and happening all over again. Hmmm?)

 · The 'New Deal.' Hated (irrationally!) by the rich.

 · WW2; spurred a 'real' recovery, laid industrial foundations for 50s & 60s.

 · The dual worst war crimes, the double A-bombing of overwhelmingly innocents in Japan. (This added in by me. The 'excuses' given were all lies. But not unusual, for that 'mob.')

 · The 60s 'breakdowns,' were not at all, the incidents were *proper* responses by citizens to injustices; black inequality, Vietnam etc.

 · The development of marketing techniques; focus groups.

 · Nixon's perceived 'failures.' (Yes, he was a crook. But not unusual, for that 'mob.')

 · Reagan & Thatcher elections: clever marketing.

 · Reagan & Thatcher 'prosperity:' more clever marketing; perhaps *totally* divorced from Reagan & Thatcher - rather, parallel developments.

 · Separately, neo-liberal policies; the dismantling of unionism, the privatisation of public utilities, off-shoring & out-sourcing - the whole sad story.

 · The neo-liberal policies (plus associated others) have lead to a *massive* transfer of wealth to the already (obscenely!) filthy-rich fat-cats. Note: it's no joke to say that the rich get ever-richer - because the inescapable corollary is that the poor get poorer- and how low can that process go? (Tip: We are now seeing exactly how low.)

 · Massive 'printing' of US dollars; interest rates held artificially low. (Recall Costello. 'All' he did was copy - and so stuffed-up the great Aussie own-your-own-home dream for so many - and perhaps for all time.)

 · The 'wild-cards,' the ones that apparently *no-one* saw coming, the ones the so-called 'financial geniuses' actually invented were the derivatives. The derivatives mess - at a guess - may not have happened, had they not so wildly de-regulated, dismantling as many bits of the 'New Deal' that they could, all because of that stored-up hate - from the already (obscenely!) filthy-rich fat-cats. Circles within circles - and now they've *really* stuffed-up. (BUT: think that's bad? Well, recall these keywords: excess CO2-caused climate change.)

 · I'm running out of time; transition.

-=*=-

Quick summary:

We can see what's happened. The sheople have had their wages 'compressed;' same expression: held artificially low. To (only partially) compensate, import prices have also been held low - but not as low as they could be; far from it. It's the old story of buy low, sell high. (No fair prices, only what the market will bear.) But Marx (not at all fully studied by me) foresaw this; and the US fat-cat capitalists also understood: another ta-ra! - insufficient demand.

For a long time, they've been manufacturing demand - for really stupid things, typified by the ghastly over-gross, über-gas-guzzling Hummer (also on sale - and some sold, in Aus. Boo!) After the wages had begun seriously to decline, they 'goosed' demand by encouraging people to borrow. With low interest rates they could - and caused asset-bubbles on the way (stock-market, housing.) All bubbles now popping/popped.

See for yourself, that is exactly what's happened: wallets empty, demand exhausted. Looks like it's been widely recognised too; and *no-one* seems to know the way out. All this 'pump-priming' they say they are doing is just throwing ever-more money at the already (obscenely!) filthy-rich; as far as I can see, *none* of the dough is reaching the plebs; they've simply given up buying - for lack of money. Checked Qantas fares lately? (Haw! - then, sob.)

There's a not-so-side issue not yet addressed (here), and that is the failure, deliberately caused, of our so-called democracies; I've mentioned this before and it's integrated into this story (telling us lies, no-real-choice Lib/Lab pug-ugly twins, reps not representing we the sheople, corrupt & venal MSM plus public broadcasters like AusBC, SBS - all the ghastly etc.s). As proof of the so-called 'élite' contempt for the sheople, see the US 'health' system (widely being copied, also in Aus by the continuous Liberal attempts at enabling private heath (actually sickness) insurance at the expense of nobbling Medicare.) As for privatised utilities; shift public services into a for-profit mode, hand it over to our 'genius' capitalist management, then basically you get only the expected: profits. Who cares if the bills cannot be paid (pay up or die!) - as long as there's some profit for the share-holders.

Epilogue: I'm out of time (for now) and out of here (also for now.)

-=*end*=-

Ref(s):

[1] pleb n. colloq. usu. derog. = *plebeian 2.  plebby adj. [abbreviation of *plebeian] [POD]

plebeian —n. 1 commoner, esp. in ancient Rome. 2 working-class person, esp. an uncultured one. —adj. 1 of the common people. 2 uncultured, coarse. [Latin plebs plebis common people] [ibid.]

[2] follow my ref to Enlightenment, a quote:

  «-fostered the belief in natural law and universal order and the confidence in human reason that spread to influence all of 18th-century society. Currents of thought were many and varied, but certain ideas may be characterized as pervading and dominant. A rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues promoted a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility.»
[thefreedictionary/Enlightenment]

My comment: Under the current world 'order' (actually, more like disorder), the Enlightenment has all but been trodden into the ground. Again, Why, Oh why? See A: above.

[3] lie2 —n. 1 intentionally false statement (tell a lie). 2 something that deceives. —v. (lies, lied, lying) 1 tell a lie or lies. 2 (of a thing) be deceptive.  give the lie to show the falsity of (a supposition etc.). [Old English] [POD]