While I have railed plenty against Trump and the gang of thieves and mountebanks who moved into the White House with him, that does not mean I am unaware of or uninterested in the continuing failure of the fucked up Democrats to offer anything other than the bitter pill of the Status Quo to the long-suffering masses.
The Democrats are no better than the Bourbons prior to the Revolution -- or maybe no better than the Bourbon Restoration après Napoleon. They neither learn nor do they forget.
It's nuts-making.
We're dealing with a Ruling Class incapable of comprehending any misery, inconvenience or discomfort apart from their own.
Even the slaughter of the innocents overseas is incomprehensible to them, despite their constant escalation of the process of murder by every means necessary.
It's insane.
The Ruling Class includes, of course, the likes of Trump. He being an avatar of the worst of the category. Though he's largely been disempowered by the Permanent Government, he hasn't been defenestrated, and that, I think, is partly due to the fact that the constraints on his power effectively produce what the neoLibCon Ruling Class would be doing anyway but at a somewhat accelerated pace. And, bonus!, the masses are endlessly entertained in the bargain. Genius!
Democrats, of course, are eager participants in this little goon show. Of course they are. They see plenty of advantages to their own sweet selves from going along with it, even pushing the narrative this way or that. Nothing really changes all that much, you see, and so long as that is the case, Dems are sitting pretty no matter what.
The Bourbon Democrats are sticking with a simple narrative: "Trump evil, Russian interference, Putin the Devil, never-you-mind about anything else. Who is Sanders again?"
It boils down to Baroness Thatcher's rubric: "There is no alternative." TINA. There ya go.
I have never doubted that the election was manipulated to produce the result it did. Trump in response to a question about Russian interference said something I think was true. Yes, there was Russian interference, but it probably wasn't just Russian interference. There was likely other interference from other countries and (importantly) from individuals.
He didn't say, but the upshot is that the outcome in the three states that gave him the electoral college is the key to understanding what happened. But as Jill Stein's recount effort showed, in those three states, it is impossible to verify the vote. So yes, manipulation could well have taken place and there is no way to prove or disprove it.
How convenient. And note, the Bourbon Democrats are just as happy it is so. They have never questioned the outcome in those three states. Why? Isn't it obvious? They know what happened, they have been eager participants in election manipulation -- boy howdy have they ever been! -- and they see only benefits from continuing the unverifiable electoral system we have now. They will not interfere, no way, no how, even if they lose again and again.
In other words, so long as both teams can play, they don't care.
They figure the Rabble are too stupid to understand these esoteric matters, so why should they care anyway? Right?
Another part of the narrative has to do with some mythical "whiteruralworkingclass" whatever that is.
Of course I know what this is, it's a false construct -- apparently developed by Republican consultants but eagerly adopted by Democratic ones -- to "explain" the otherwise inexplicable victory of Trump over Mrs Clinton.
How could this have happened? Welllll, it was obviously because the rural white working class voted in overwhelming numbers for Trump. Don'tchasee? The out of work coal miners and the factory workers whose jobs have been shipped to Mexico and China and yadda and yadda and yadda, all these dispossessed and dishonored rural white male voters who have been ignored all these years (by that Nigrah in the WHITE House) finally got their revenge. You see?
Except that isn't what happened at all, and the consultant class and the Ruling Class they serve know that full well. It's a false narrative pushed onto the Rabble to keep them divided and squabbling among themselves so that the looting and oppression by those at the top can continue without interruption.
It works, too.
And the Bourbon Democrats are going along with it.
Why not? They benefit from it, too. Win or lose.
I must reiterate something I've said before: the Internet has had an objective of destroying the "Democrat" Party since it was the Intranet. The dweebs online have always had a very crabbed and often ignorant notion of how politics works in this country and what needs to be done about it. The focus has almost always been on the inadequacy, fecklessness, corruption and betrayal by the Democrats, thus: Democratic Party delenda est.
Even a hint that bad as the Democrats are (and they're terrible in their Bourbon arrogance and stupidity) the Republicans are and long have been the problem is met with derision, contempt and fear.
If any party needs to be destroyed, it's the Republicans. I suggested they be RICOed out of existence long ago.
But that's like heresy deserving of burning at the stake as far as Internet political gamers are concerned. No, only the Democrats deserve destruction and salting of the earth behind them.
My observation is that if we want to preserve the political system more or less intact, then the Radical Republicans and their reactionaries must go, and the Bourbon Democrats must become -- or re-become -- the aristocratic and conservative party they so dearly want to be. A new People's Party must then arise, as it's been trying to do for generations but has always been suppressed by co-optation and other means not pleasant.
If you don't want to preserve the system, then both parties must be consigned to the ash-heap and we start anew.That's Revolution, and we aren't ready for that. Not yet, anyway.
We need have no love for the Bourbon Democrats; they are foul and stupid and arrogant (among other things) but that should never mean taking the side of the reactionary-fascists as so many have done in defending and supporting Trump and his "disruptors."
Politics is a tough and often nasty game, no doubt. On the other hand, we must be clearheaded enough to fight for what's right, not just for what's expedient and serves the Ruling Class.
Showing posts with label Bourbons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bourbons. Show all posts
Saturday, July 8, 2017
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Bourboons!
Back when I was a student -- don't ask how long ago -- the French Revolution was one of my chief interests, perhaps in part because my mother claimed some kind of relationship with Napoleon and with Marie Antoinette. I haven't found any French connection at all, so I can only believe that she came up with this silly notion for reasons of her own, reasons I never knew.
My interest in the French Revolution derived from the simple question, "Why?" I asked the same question about the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and so on. Why? Why go to all that bother, why deliberately induce chaos, when alternatives exist? What's so important that makes a Revolution necessary?
What it often seems to boil down to is the bovine indifference to the plaints of the Rabble by an out of touch ruling class; the Bourbons, if you will. Hanovers in the case of Britain. Romanovs in Russia.
It happens over and over again. The reigning monarchs and their families and the aristocrats who serve them have so little in common with the rough and dirty Lesser People, they barely consider them human. On the other hand -- and this is what generally triggers revolution in the end -- it's not the Rabble rising up that brings down the Old Order and sends the Bourbons to the guillotine. No, it's the excluded faction of the bourgeoisie, the lesser aristos, who actually do the deed.
In other words, piss off the wrong people at or close enough to the top of the heap, and you're done, especially if the Rabble have unaddressed grievances too.
Yes, well. It doesn't happen often in the grand scheme, but it happens often enough that one has to wonder just how bone stupid Our Rulers must be to let these sorts of things happen over and over again. How greedy. How indifferent to the plight of others. How desperately unaware.
And too, Revolutions tend to be anti- rather than pro- "progress" (whatever that may mean at any given time). In other words, they tend to be conservative at the outset. The targeted Bourbons are too progressive in some ways, and they think of their authority and power in terms of what God tells them is good for their people. So they do things that they think are positive and productive for their subjects -- or that they think will be in the long term, no matter the suffering in the interim -- and they can't understand why anyone would object to these forward movements toward the Future.
In the 18th and 19th centuries that might have meant power plays of surpassing stupidity, but for the most part, the rulers were able to get away with them because no one seemed to know what to do about it. The example of Britain's overthrow and execution of King Charles I somehow didn't sink in.
Charles was a "progressive" in his own time and the context of Britain. As was Louis XVI, George III, and to a lesser degree (well, maybe not at all) Nicolas I.
They tried to jigger things enough to enable a better future for themselves and (some of) their subjects, but not everyone in their inner and outer circles saw it that way. They didn't because it meant changed power relationships among the upper crust; some of the aristos would lose power and influence, others would gain. If all of this wasn't worked out well in advance and agreed to by the right people, chaos would most certainly ensue.
And so it did.
The proximate cause of the overthrow of the Bourbons in France was the Crown's inability to further finance the operations of the government without adjusting the relationship between the taxed and the tax collectors, ie: the Rabble and the rulers. The Crown needed more money, and the only way to get it was to squeeze more out of the lower orders, and the only 'legal' way to do that was with their agreement. The Rabble would ultimately be forced to pay, but they weren't asked. Only their Betters were called to assemble at the Estates General to give their assent to changing the ineffective taxation system then in place.
Well, all hell shortly broke loose.
This was partly driven by long held and unaddressed resentments of Paris, the non-capital of France. The poor people of Paris were on starvation rations, if that, because they didn't have enough money -- and couldn't get enough money -- to buy bread, if bread was even available. The economy of France, never all that robust, had broken down, and scarcity had become the rule. This was blamed on the King and his adventurism abroad, ironically including heavy support for the American Revolution to stick it to the British out of revenge. I won't go into that, but yes, the pettiness of the ruling classes is often a matter of well-deserved mockery.
The Estates General was called to begin dealing with some of these delicate matters, and wound up blowing the whole Ancien Regime to bits.
The Bourbons played dumb -- they were dumb -- through the whole episode, much as the Romanovs would do and be a century or so later.
They couldn't imagine that they weren't beloved by their own people, especially not by members of their own aristocracy. It just didn't occur to them.
Heh.
Well here we are once again. Our own Bourbons are once again facing an uprising-revolt of the Common People -- including parts of their own selected worthies -- but it doesn't/can't occur to them that they've done anything wrong or that they can't still persuade the masses to return to the fold.
They see that a charlatan named Trump is leading them directly over the cliff, and they're torn about whether to try to stop it or just let it happen. After all, from a strategic perspective, letting Trump fail, as he must and will, is perfectly fine. The Bourbons can then pick up the shattered pieces and reign on as the rightful chosen rulers of La Belle France, aussi L'Amerique Perdue. Cf. Louis XVIII, Charles X, etc.
Well, no.
What happens is that once Chaos is injected into the System, there's no going back, no restoration is possible. Nothing will ever be as it was again.
Chaos is our fate at the moment. The Trumpists are flailing wildly and many of their initial efforts at rule are turning against them. Resistance and opposition is growing, not shrinking, and elements of the government they are trying to subdue are openly defiant.
Those defiant elements appear to have broad-based support among the public, including a significant faction of the upper classes.
The Trumpists are pretend Revolutionaries. They are in fact a dissatisfied coalition of the gentry who are determined to rule directly rather than through their bought and paid for agents who stood between them and the ravening Rabble.
Their personal wealth and the power it confers shall be the simplified Ruling Paradigm in place of the ever more complicated neoLibCon structure of power and rule that was the operating system of the previous generation of autocrats, technocrats, bureaucrats, and kleptocrats.
It doesn't actually do away with the tenets of the neoLibCon paradigm -- tenets that have vastly enhanced the wealth and power of the very people and interests that now (sort of) denounce them. What it does is simplify it. Instead of obscure and complex and justified by ever-more ridiculous arguments about lifting all boats, and responsibility and other sorts of bullshit, just make it plain: play along and you'll get along. There ain't no free lunch.
And most of all: There is no alternative.
This is not -- at all -- Revolutionary. It's merely a change in the language and in who among the ruling clique wields the whip against whom.
Trump's personal popularity, never high, is cratering. The congress, itself a loathed institution, with the controlling Republicans even more loathed, is paralyzed with fear of the consequences of achieving their long - sought objectives.
The consequences are stark and are staring them in the face. "You do this, and it's to the tumbrels with you!" The Revolution is Nigh.
Meanwhile, Trump issues a flurry of diktats and ukases from The Oval, then retreats to his Winter Palace or wherever, and his #2, Mr. Pence, steps in to perform the rituals of rule... while elements of the government are in open revolt, and the streets are filling with masses of people appalled at the spectacle.
No, this can't go on. The situation is unstable, chaotic.
The more the Trumpists try to bully their way and abuse their power, the more open and widespread the defiance. The People appear to understand the weakness of the current ruling clique, ironically given their constant threat displays.
On the other hand, the Bourbons, the former ruling clique, are essentially sitting back and watching events unfold. They are convinced they will be restored.
Well, no. I don't think so.
As I've said, once Chaos is injected into the system, there's no going back. That's where we are now.
What comes next? A real revolution? Perhaps. Or something else?
We'll see.
My interest in the French Revolution derived from the simple question, "Why?" I asked the same question about the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and so on. Why? Why go to all that bother, why deliberately induce chaos, when alternatives exist? What's so important that makes a Revolution necessary?
What it often seems to boil down to is the bovine indifference to the plaints of the Rabble by an out of touch ruling class; the Bourbons, if you will. Hanovers in the case of Britain. Romanovs in Russia.
It happens over and over again. The reigning monarchs and their families and the aristocrats who serve them have so little in common with the rough and dirty Lesser People, they barely consider them human. On the other hand -- and this is what generally triggers revolution in the end -- it's not the Rabble rising up that brings down the Old Order and sends the Bourbons to the guillotine. No, it's the excluded faction of the bourgeoisie, the lesser aristos, who actually do the deed.
In other words, piss off the wrong people at or close enough to the top of the heap, and you're done, especially if the Rabble have unaddressed grievances too.
Yes, well. It doesn't happen often in the grand scheme, but it happens often enough that one has to wonder just how bone stupid Our Rulers must be to let these sorts of things happen over and over again. How greedy. How indifferent to the plight of others. How desperately unaware.
And too, Revolutions tend to be anti- rather than pro- "progress" (whatever that may mean at any given time). In other words, they tend to be conservative at the outset. The targeted Bourbons are too progressive in some ways, and they think of their authority and power in terms of what God tells them is good for their people. So they do things that they think are positive and productive for their subjects -- or that they think will be in the long term, no matter the suffering in the interim -- and they can't understand why anyone would object to these forward movements toward the Future.
In the 18th and 19th centuries that might have meant power plays of surpassing stupidity, but for the most part, the rulers were able to get away with them because no one seemed to know what to do about it. The example of Britain's overthrow and execution of King Charles I somehow didn't sink in.
Charles was a "progressive" in his own time and the context of Britain. As was Louis XVI, George III, and to a lesser degree (well, maybe not at all) Nicolas I.
They tried to jigger things enough to enable a better future for themselves and (some of) their subjects, but not everyone in their inner and outer circles saw it that way. They didn't because it meant changed power relationships among the upper crust; some of the aristos would lose power and influence, others would gain. If all of this wasn't worked out well in advance and agreed to by the right people, chaos would most certainly ensue.
And so it did.
The proximate cause of the overthrow of the Bourbons in France was the Crown's inability to further finance the operations of the government without adjusting the relationship between the taxed and the tax collectors, ie: the Rabble and the rulers. The Crown needed more money, and the only way to get it was to squeeze more out of the lower orders, and the only 'legal' way to do that was with their agreement. The Rabble would ultimately be forced to pay, but they weren't asked. Only their Betters were called to assemble at the Estates General to give their assent to changing the ineffective taxation system then in place.
Well, all hell shortly broke loose.
This was partly driven by long held and unaddressed resentments of Paris, the non-capital of France. The poor people of Paris were on starvation rations, if that, because they didn't have enough money -- and couldn't get enough money -- to buy bread, if bread was even available. The economy of France, never all that robust, had broken down, and scarcity had become the rule. This was blamed on the King and his adventurism abroad, ironically including heavy support for the American Revolution to stick it to the British out of revenge. I won't go into that, but yes, the pettiness of the ruling classes is often a matter of well-deserved mockery.
The Estates General was called to begin dealing with some of these delicate matters, and wound up blowing the whole Ancien Regime to bits.
The Bourbons played dumb -- they were dumb -- through the whole episode, much as the Romanovs would do and be a century or so later.
They couldn't imagine that they weren't beloved by their own people, especially not by members of their own aristocracy. It just didn't occur to them.
Heh.
Well here we are once again. Our own Bourbons are once again facing an uprising-revolt of the Common People -- including parts of their own selected worthies -- but it doesn't/can't occur to them that they've done anything wrong or that they can't still persuade the masses to return to the fold.
They see that a charlatan named Trump is leading them directly over the cliff, and they're torn about whether to try to stop it or just let it happen. After all, from a strategic perspective, letting Trump fail, as he must and will, is perfectly fine. The Bourbons can then pick up the shattered pieces and reign on as the rightful chosen rulers of La Belle France, aussi L'Amerique Perdue. Cf. Louis XVIII, Charles X, etc.
Well, no.
What happens is that once Chaos is injected into the System, there's no going back, no restoration is possible. Nothing will ever be as it was again.
Chaos is our fate at the moment. The Trumpists are flailing wildly and many of their initial efforts at rule are turning against them. Resistance and opposition is growing, not shrinking, and elements of the government they are trying to subdue are openly defiant.
Those defiant elements appear to have broad-based support among the public, including a significant faction of the upper classes.
The Trumpists are pretend Revolutionaries. They are in fact a dissatisfied coalition of the gentry who are determined to rule directly rather than through their bought and paid for agents who stood between them and the ravening Rabble.
Their personal wealth and the power it confers shall be the simplified Ruling Paradigm in place of the ever more complicated neoLibCon structure of power and rule that was the operating system of the previous generation of autocrats, technocrats, bureaucrats, and kleptocrats.
It doesn't actually do away with the tenets of the neoLibCon paradigm -- tenets that have vastly enhanced the wealth and power of the very people and interests that now (sort of) denounce them. What it does is simplify it. Instead of obscure and complex and justified by ever-more ridiculous arguments about lifting all boats, and responsibility and other sorts of bullshit, just make it plain: play along and you'll get along. There ain't no free lunch.
And most of all: There is no alternative.
This is not -- at all -- Revolutionary. It's merely a change in the language and in who among the ruling clique wields the whip against whom.
Trump's personal popularity, never high, is cratering. The congress, itself a loathed institution, with the controlling Republicans even more loathed, is paralyzed with fear of the consequences of achieving their long - sought objectives.
The consequences are stark and are staring them in the face. "You do this, and it's to the tumbrels with you!" The Revolution is Nigh.
Meanwhile, Trump issues a flurry of diktats and ukases from The Oval, then retreats to his Winter Palace or wherever, and his #2, Mr. Pence, steps in to perform the rituals of rule... while elements of the government are in open revolt, and the streets are filling with masses of people appalled at the spectacle.
No, this can't go on. The situation is unstable, chaotic.
The more the Trumpists try to bully their way and abuse their power, the more open and widespread the defiance. The People appear to understand the weakness of the current ruling clique, ironically given their constant threat displays.
On the other hand, the Bourbons, the former ruling clique, are essentially sitting back and watching events unfold. They are convinced they will be restored.
Well, no. I don't think so.
As I've said, once Chaos is injected into the system, there's no going back. That's where we are now.
What comes next? A real revolution? Perhaps. Or something else?
We'll see.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Bourbons
Ils n'ont rien appris, ni rien oublié.
------------------------------------
Since everybody's been getting the lyrics wrong...
"For What It's Worth" -- Buffalo Springfield, Monterey Pop Festival, June 1967. (Yes, I was there. Yes, I remember [some of] it. So stop saying that!)
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Profoundly Cruel and Wicked
I watched a few segments of the very gentle grilling given former British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday. His insouciance was matched by his bravado and ego, but what came across, even more than it did when he was Prime Minister, was his utter cruelty and wickedness enhanced by the complete lack of a conscience.
And he recently became a Catholic. Does the Church know what an Incubus they've got here? (Now wait. That was snark. Everyone's supposed to understand these things.)
The panel was calm, measured, informed and skeptical; their questions, though gently -- and genteelly -- put, were to the point and comprehensive. Blair did not perform as extravagantly as he used to do before Parliament, but he was certainly "on."
Everyone assumes there will be no criminal liability for the High and the Mighty who allowed, enabled, and conducted the Iraq invasion, but at least some of the Truth seems to have leaked out, and those of us who have been consistently opposed to this misadventure in restoring the fragmented British Empire continue to be right, not that it will do us any good.
Iran must be next.
The Guardian presents an 8½ minute highlight reel for your inspection:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2010/jan/29/tony-blair-iraq-inquiry-afternoon
Their story on the Blair Testimony is dry but useful.
Also read Chris Floyd on the Blair appearance, and because you should anyway.
"Less jibber jabber, more guillotines." -- something (really) stinks.
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