The Freaks Who Rule Us

It's not just the constant pounding on the War Drums and the persistent low-level clashes around the world, it's the constant victim-blaming and the reversal of responsibility, the ridiculous levels of evidence-free accusations, the myriad lies, the falseness of the overall narrative of rule.

The protection of force means that any lie or action is acceptable as long as those in power are protected from the wrath of the People -- or from attacks by enemies. More and more, of course, the People themselves are perceived as the Enemy.

The corollary here is that when a powerful interest crosses another greater power,  all holy hell can -- and will -- be unleashed on the lesser power, no matter the consequences. This is the rule of warlords. This is the rule of chaos and misery.

There seems to be no way to prevent this descent into madness, no way to avoid the calamity that is sure to ensue. We are witness to the disintegration of sane governance and its replacement by ruin and rapine.

And somehow, we -- the victims -- are to blame ourselves for not doing something we should have when we might have, and for doing -- affirmatively -- that which we shouldn't have and wouldn't have if we had known what our actions then would lead to now.

Only thing is, I think that's wrong. The victims are not culpable for what the perpetrators do. Often enough, the victims have no idea what the perpetrators are doing until it is too late, and even then, the knowledge necessary for an intervention is often lacking clarity, and what to do in an intervention is ever a mystery.

For the past few weeks, we've been watching events unfold in Ferguson, Missouri, for example, that seem to make no sense, though they are all too familiar.

A young black man is shot down in the streets by police so often it's routine, and yet this incident was different. The callousness of the killing and its aftermath, the immediate sequestration of the killer (no one knows or is saying where he is), the barking dogs and assault rifles brought out within minutes to "control the crowds," the weeks of protest, the strange events surrounding the looting and burning of several businesses in Ferguson, the violent, uncoordinated reaction of the armored police, the media frenzy, the Celebrity Negroes hustled in to calm the situation, though Jesse Jackson was booed lustily when he tried to raise money off the crowd, all of that and more was more and more bizarre as it unfolded.

Something very odd was happening. It's still happening, though the events in Ferguson are dying down, the embers banked for the next time.

But we still don't know quite what it is, what is really going on.

We need to figure it out somehow.

What happened to get us to this point. What can we do to change things?

Or is it too late? Will the freaks who rule us simply run wild?

Often throughout the summer it's looked like there could and would be no end to the bloodshed, and then something happens to pull back from the brink.

This seems to happen over and over again in connection with the Ukraine. Episodes of mass death and destruction seem to be leading directly the nuclear apocalypse we've dreaded for decades, and then it doesn't happen. The bloody conquest of the Donbass falters and halts for a moment, and the freaks who rule us yell at Russia, then scratch their heads and try to find another way to achieve their objectives of surrounding, destabilizing, and eventually picking apart the remnants of Mother Russia. The death tolls continue to mount in the cities and countryside of eastern and southern Ukraine, but despite all the horrors unleashed, the toll is modest compared to what it could be. A few thousand dead, it would seem, out of the many millions who could have been exterminated. 

"It would seem," I say, because reports out of the region are sketchy at best. And they are often wrong or deliberate fabrications. We don't really know what's going on, except for the fact that it must be nasty, brutal, and cruel.

You would think the freaks who rule us have an accurate assessment, but given history, more likely they don't. They have their driven points of view, their creation of enemies, their fears and loathings, and that's about it. They see what they want to see. Nothing more or less.

We may have a better view than they do.

Meanwhile, in the other abattoirs mostly of their own making, they seem to think there is nothing to be done but ratchet up the bloodletting. That always calms the situation, no?

Monstrous.

This summer has been a grotesque gore-fest, and the future looks grimmer than ever. Without a positive sign of any kind, the freaks who rule us seem intent on precipitating catastrophe.

Oh don't ask why...