Overturning Myths and Expectations

If nothing else, this election has kicked the complacent in the butt. The complacent have had a number of these kicks lately, but it's not entirely clear the lesson has been learned. This is quite a different country, it seems to me, than conventional wisdom would have us believe, and as all the hue and cry and schadenfreude and what have you over the outcome continue unabated -- no, no, they're redoubling! -- it doesn't appear that many observers or opinion leaders have the least clue to what is really going on. It's all about confirming bias and believing falsehood, in other words being willingly conned. And that goes for pretty much all "sides" in the "national conversation" about what happened and where we go from here. I'm as guilty of that as anyone, though of course I see myself as a font of wisdom and objective reasoning. Of course. Don't we all?

I've been through these kinds of elections many times -- going back to Ronald Reagan's California gubernatorial victory over Pat Brown in 1966. The shock then couldn't have been any greater than the shock is now,  I didn't notice at the time, but I've heard that there was a similar shock nationally when JFK defeated Richard Nixon in 1960. The whole Nixon impeachment/resignation drama was certainly shocking at the time, but previously the shocks of the assassination of President Kennedy, and the undermining of LBJ's administration by anti-war fury among other things, followed by the multiple assassinations of 1968 acted as one shock after another. Nothing has been the same since.

Perhaps the most appalling shock of a presidential (s)elecction was the elevation of G W B thanks to the lawless intervention of the Supreme Court in 2000. Nothing like that had ever happened before. A naked power grab, quite simply, with the open connivance and participation of a faction of the sitting government. It was a coup, right before our eyes, and nothing was done about it.

The popular rebellion that tried to get going several times from the beginning of the Bush2 Regime fizzled out, partly because the media ignored it, being as it was fully in the tank with the usurpers. And the media was in the tank until the whole appalling mess unraveled when the economy collapsed.

The Obama elections and administration haven't been particularly shocking -- except to the white supremacists who never accommodated the notion of Negroes in the White House as anything but doormen and butlers and such -- it's been mostly a pause, a breathing space, before the next set of outrages and shocks, and here they come!

Oh yeah baby. Reversion time it will be. Reversion to America's Greatness, with White Men in charge the way they're supposed to be. You betcha. Hillary wouldn't have been a White Man (damn her all to hell!) and she wouldn't have undone the diversity progress that's been made in the government for a generation, but I have to agree with some observers that her administration, the permanent US government, and US society as a whole would still be dominated by White Men, and that white supremacy, while more or less subdued, would still be the dominant belief of many, perhaps most Americans.

Trump merely makes it explicit. Oh boy, does he.

Assuming he takes office -- and there is still some marginal doubt that will happen -- he will govern as a White Supremacist without a doubt in my mind. However, so would Hillary. And to a great extent, so has Obama.

They pretty much have to because it's baked into America's "Greatness." The US wouldn't be what it is and what it wants to be without White Supremacy.

A reversion to White Supremacy as it was as recently as the 1950s looks to be in the cards, and that's not a good thing in my mind. To many white people, the way White Supremacy operated outside the South in the 1950s was very benign and benevolent, and even in the South, as long as the colored didn't get uppity, it was tol'able.

As long as the colored and other inferiors didn't cause trouble, so the story went, they didn't get trouble.

Of course it wasn't true, but that's the myth of the era.

That's the era that Trump came up in. He's a little older than me, so he got a headstart. Of course he was born into wealth and raised in privilege (white privilege supplemented by the privilege of wealth) and was educated in private boarding schools at a time when the people who went to them were considered the offspring of the cream of the crop. He got in trouble, though, for misbehaving at one school and was then placed in a military boarding school connected with West Point to learn discipline and correct behavior. As far as anyone knows, the lessons didn't take, in part because the New York Military Academy saw his misbehavior -- particularly his bullying and "persuasion" -- as an asset rather than something to be trained out of him, and he was pretty much allowed his head.

I didn't have anything like that background. No. Not much. I was raised by a single working mother in California (who at one point said she wanted to send me to military school to train the rebellion out of me), and until I was ten years old, we always lived in lower or working class mixed race neighborhoods. When I was ten, I encountered middle class and upper middle class and then upper class "all white" society for the first time, and I recoiled -- still do, really.

It was crazy, and the beliefs that insulated white people had of their inferiors (and make no mistake, in all white society, the colored are most definitely considered inferior) were ridiculous and wrong. But since they only knew them as servants and field hands, how were insulated white folks to know that? They couldn't, right? And they didn't. And they had no better beliefs about lower and working class white folks, either. This was in the late 1950s, so I experienced it at its apogee before its fall. Or rather, its retreat. It never fell.

This is not to say that some of the white supremacists I encountered and knew weren't in many ways "good people." They were. some of them. They had no open animosity toward their inferiors -- but they didn't mix with them, either. Some employed Asians, Blacks, or Hispanics as servants, without any sort of conscious prejudice toward them, but many who had servants at the time only employed white people. Again, there was likely no conscious prejudice involved, it was just the way things were. They were following the precedent set by their parents and grandparents and the expectations of their class. That's all.

For the most part, these white-rightist-supremacists were ideological Progressives. I've tried to clarify the nature of Progressivism in other posts, but I don't think I've quite hit the spot. California was, until Reagan's terms as governor, as fully a Progressive state as there has ever been in the United States, and it still echoes some of that past, despite Reagan's successful efforts to dismantle Progressivism as California's governmental operating system.

Progressivism was a Republican innovation to counter the spreading threat of Populism that the Democratic Party was utilizing for political purposes. The basic Progressive theory was "rule by managerial elites" with the "consent" of the ruled. Experts in many fields would be called in, they would study problems and make expert recommendations regarding solutions, the public or their representatives would be given a chance to say yay or nay -- always under the assumption that they would say yay, which is what they usually did when allowed to opine -- and the expert cadres would be set to work. Previously intractable problems were indeed addressed and many were solved to the benefit of all. On the other hand, democratic principles were subverted, the "consent of the governed" part was often skipped in practice, and in operation, Progressivism was deeply intertwined with white supremacism. It was taken for granted without question. "Everyone knew" whites, particularly Anglo-Saxons and so called Nordics, were superior. Not only were they superior to the colored races, they were inherently superior to other whites, and they were meant to rule.

The reason for the withdrawal of consent for the continuation of Progressive Rule in California was simple enough to understand. By 1966, there had been numerous student rebellions in public colleges and universities (there was even a walk out in my high school) and there had been spectacular uprisings of the disincluded in urban environments, just then becoming known as "ghettos." And of course, the hated Hippies were arising.

Pat Brown, who had been a very successful Democratic and Progressive governor for two terms, was unable -- and perhaps unwilling -- to bring various rebellions under control. He was seen as feckless and ineffective against the urban blacks and rebellious white students. Both groups were seen by many Californians as "undeserving" of the privileges and benefits they had been granted by their Progressive overlords.

So the voters rebelled and installed a nonentity in the Corner Office, a nonentity who proceeded to crack down on the rebels as harshly as he and his cohorts felt necessary, to the cheers of many. Meanwhile he was instituting policies and programs to cripple public education, starting at the top and moving downwards, and insofar as possible eliminating the state hospital system for the mentally ill and insane. In the process his administration began the dismantlement of the Progressive operating system of government, substituting an advance on a prior form of government which was typical before the Progressive Revolution (essentially re-opening government to rule by corporate interests for their pecuniary benefit.)

Democrats, to their undying shame, largely went along with it. It was all based on a theory that government existed primarily to punish the lower orders and to reward the rich and powerful.

That set the pattern for what was to come nationally under Reagan when he became president, but under Democrats, too.  And here we are.

Trump in some ways is the natural culmination of that theory of governance.

But Hillary, had she been able to capture the prize, wouldn't have been so much different. She wouldn't have the trappings and the glitter that Trump brings with him, but essentially their politics and policies are very similar, they just have different targets for their "wrath" as it were.

The key difference between them, I think, is that he was always sheltered and showered with the privileges of his wealth and whiteness, and she was not. He started out on third base, as they say, and succeed as a conman and gangster to reach the top of his field -- and then (apparently) become president. She worked her way up from next to nothing -- she wasn't poor, but she was brought up in a very abusive household -- and she made many indelicate compromises along the way.

What I've said about the two of them is that he is a crude and rude representative of his class, and she is the model of those who work for them.

Sigh.

I don't expect him to be any less destructive of the public good than his predecessors, but I wouldn't have expected much good to come from Hillary's reign had she succeeded. As I say, they had different targets, but in the end they both favor the already rich and powerful.

It's a complete myth that she would start WWIII; just as it's a myth that he will prevent it. It's one of the more pernicious myths of the election season, and it's unshakable among believers.

But there are many others. There's been a great deal of projection onto both candidates, most of which has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the unmet needs of the hoi-polloi. Neither candidate would actually meet those needs, however. Both would try to bamboozle their way along.

I believe the plug was pulled on Hillary primarily because she showed she was not much of a bamboozler when it came to the end when she might have turned Comey thing around. She didn't, she blew it.

Trump, on the other hand, showed himself to be 1) a master entertainer; 2) a master conman. Those are two absolute necessities in the Post-modern Presidency. Hillary just didn't come up to snuff.

Well, enough of that. We'll get through this one way or another.

About That Bailout for Ukraine?

We've been hearing rumblings since before the overthrow of Yanukovych last February that the IMF/EU would be delighted to refinance Ukraine's debts on favorable terms -- provided Ukraine adopts severe austerity measures like those of Greece -- or even twice as harsh as the terms imposed on Greece.

Yanukovych was overthrown in large measure because he refused to accommodate those terms -- once he fully understood what those terms meant. The problem with negotiating EU/IMF bailout terms is that the actual terms are not disclosed until the moment comes for signing the documents. And then, oh my goodness. The terms are much harsher, the consequences for not abiding with them are much more severe, and the determination of the EU/IMF negotiators to have their way, no matter what, is shocking.

Yanukovych was expected to sign away Ukraine's patrimony and sovereignty at the Vilnius conference last November, but he balked, said "No!" and turned to Russia for aid. Russia offered a much better deal on terms that did not unduly interfere with either Ukraine's sovereignty or the welfare of its people. Compared to IMF/EU demands for harsh and immediate austerity measures on the people of Ukraine in exchange for a "bailout" that required extremely harmful and unpopular economic "reforms," (reforms that potentially included some "good" measures along with the bad) the Russian deal allowed a much more moderate economic transition and the integration of Ukraine's economy with those of the Russian led Eurasian Economic Union -- apparently as well as that of the EU, but on terms that would protect Ukraine's people from the abuses so customary from the EU toward the Periphery.

The anti-Yanukovych demonstrations in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine began immediately when Yanukovych refused to sign in Vilnius, as if they had been organized prior to the conference. What struck me about the research I did into New Citizen and Center UA, the NGOs Pierre Omidyar funded in Ukraine, was the fact that the dozens of orgs under them, some of which, in turn, were umbrellas for dozens or even hundreds of other NGOs and individuals, like Russian matryoshka dolls, was their obsessive focus on EU integration and 'education' (propaganda) on behalf of Europe. This was a long term project. Some of the orgs and NGOs had been promoting the EU cause in Ukraine for decades, since independence from the Soviet Union. Many of the orgs were focused on youth, which meant that over the decades, Ukrainians grew up knowing little or nothing besides pro-EU propaganda.

Many of the NGOs under New Citizen and Center UA's wing (New Citizen is a "project" of Center UA, which appears to be the master org) were also funded by NED (National Endowment for Democracy) and USAID (US Agency for International Development), both of which are considered CIA fronts, though NED has so far been able to abjure the label and claim independence from CIA control.

My point has never been that the US precipitated the revolt in Ukraine against Yanukovych. If it had, I don't think the rightists in this country would be parading around screaming about "weakness." Instead, it looks like there was a coalition of pro-EU interests in Ukraine who were prepared to go to the streets should the Yanukovych regime balk at EU/IMF demands for austerity and other "reform" measures. Up to the point of the Vilnius conference, the Yanukovych government had been working closely with the EU and IMF toward the goal of European integration. There was very little indication prior to Vilnius that Yanukovych would balk and take the Russian offer.

For its part, the US seems to have been most concerned with the US corporate sector and its interests in exploiting the resources of Ukraine. I haven't written much about that, but there were and are major US corporate interests involved in the Ukrainian issue, some of which are highlighted in the triumphal Vicky Nuland-Kagan video posted previously. But there are many more. A number of people have looked into the corporate interests involved in Ukraine's current unpleasantness, and they read like a who's who of American corporate greed. While their corporate interests are being protected and fostered by the US government, they do not appear to be the ones who precipitated the revolt. The revolt seems to have arisen locally if not spontaneously, driven by the many EU integration currents fostered by the multiplicity of NGOs -- hundreds and hundreds of them -- which had been promoting EU interests in Ukraine for many years.

Now that the interim "government" of Yatsenyuk has signed onto the IMF/EU "reform" demands, some of the details of just what is being provided and required are coming out, and it is becoming clear what a duplicitous two-step has been underway all along.

According to the UK Telegraph, what the deal amounts to is paying off Russian banks and Western hedge fund creditors at 100% while forcing increasingly dire levels of austerity on the Ukrainian people, austerity measures that will lead to misery and despair, death and depopulation, much as happened in Latvia, and much more severe than the measures imposed on Greece. The fact that Russian banks and US and European hedge funds are being paid off at the expense of Ukraine's people is interesting and gives a clue to the thinking behind the various maneuvers that have taken place.

The claim is made that Yanukovych absconded with tens of billions (up to $70 billion) in his flight from Kiev, and that's why such severe measures are "necessary" to prevent Ukraine's economic collapse. Yet prior to the overthrow of Yanukovych -- and his alleged theft of funds -- the same measures were being demanded.

In other words, the issue of how much has been "stolen" by the Ukrainian oligarchs and the Yanukovych government is beside the point. The money which is being offered by IMF and EU (which includes a little bit from the US) has nothing to do with that issue. It's propaganda to say it does, propaganda that is supposed to make Ukrainians more compliant with their suffering now by blaming Yanukovych for it.

It seems to me that Yatsenyuk's belligerence during this period is also part of a propaganda campaign to ensure popular submission to these highly destructive measures being imposed by the IMF and EU, and to ensure that the resource exploitation by American and EU companies is not interfered with. 

And if I'm reading the beads right, Russia has no problem with any of this as long as their interests and oligarchs get paid. Jesus, what a cockup.

Quite a show when you think about it.

A Way of Looking At Recent Economic History and Policy

Spanner in the Works

Numerian over at Economic Populist goes into great detail about how we got into this miserable economic condition and what it means for the future of the United States and its Globalist followers. It isn't pretty.

Framing what's happening as the development of a Permanent Dependency Class is something I haven't seen before, but it strikes me as an intriguing and reasonable way of looking at it. Except for one thing: once people become part of a dependent class, no matter what it is, the props are then routinely and almost ritualistically knocked out from under them, leaving them to fend for themselves if they can. It is a Social Darwinist game which Our Betters seem to love to stir up and watch.

Perhaps this sort of thing is a natural result of overpopulation and the impending climate catastrophe.

We haven't heard much about "overpopulation" in many years thanks to the advent of the Green Revolution and the determination of governments and social engineers -- in China and India especially -- that their people will not starve ever again.

I've written before that famine and starvation were used as social control weapons by colonial powers back in the day, and they were used because they were very effective. People who are barely surviving -- or dying in droves all around -- are not likely to rise up against their exploiters and oppressors. Even if they try, they are not likely to be successful. They become dependent on the good will and largesse of their masters -- whoever they may be; during the colonial era, the masters were the European colonialists.

We haven't quite returned to that model of social and political control, but we're getting there, as the experiments in neo-colonialism going on in Europe today (affecting primarily Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, most of Eastern Europe and to a limited extent Italy) amply show. People are starving in Greece already, and the situation is nearly as catastrophic in Spain and Portugal for far too many. If the Eurocrats out of Berlin and Brussels are successful in essentially destroying Greece as a viable nation and society and in setting up some sort of beggar state ruled from the rapacious financial hubs, then it will become a model for EuroEcon for some time to come. They've already successfully destroyed the Greek economy, and they're working hard on doing the same to the rest of the "peripheral" nations.

A major paradigm shift is underway, one that is as fundamental as any we've seen in centuries.

A tiny minority of Global Wealthy -- individually and through the corporations they own and control -- are vying to Rule the World to their exclusive advantage, bugger everyone else.

Numerian sees the process clearly enough, but seems to believe it is related closely to the practices of third world plutocrats who have long ruled their roosts with iron rods, keeping tens of millions -- billions -- of people in debt, penury and poverty while the rich benefit from the resources of the land and the labor of the impoverished masses. In order to keep the masses in their place and prevent more than modest and occasional uprisings, the third world plutocrats maintain the masses as a dependent class of peons -- providing them with enough to get by and survive, but no more than that.

In other words, in the third world, plutocrats have behaved with something close to responsibility toward their dependent charges, though never generously.

Numerian sees something similar happening in this country, but I would say that Our Betters have no sense of social responsibility at all, and they seek to avoid and undercut any responsibility for the well-being of the Lesser People that has been imposed on them by law and tradition for generations.

There is no substantive economic or institutional pressure being put on them to behave responsibly toward anyone, certainly not toward anyone of a lesser status than they themselves. Governments by and large have abandoned their own responsibility for the "general welfare" -- in an effort to serve and please the Global Plutocracy against the interests of the People.

The absence of any sort of moral suasion from institutions and individuals aligned with or part of the Plutocrat Class has been one of the most striking aspects of this paradigm shift (into neo-Colonialism, neo-Imperialism, and neo-Fascism) compared to those of the past. There is no apparent counterbalance from among the High and the Mighty to the course of events underway -- events which are destroying the natural world, the economies of nations, and the lives and futures of millions upon millions of people around the world.

This absence was made manifest -- and very striking -- in the lead up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The People took to the streets in their millions to protest; the People's voice was ignored. It could be ignored in part because there was no established institutional voice, and no respected members  of the ruling class aligned with the People.

The situation is much the same with the current deficit hysteria. The way nearly the entire media -- including much of the "new media" -- is aligned with those who are pushing austerity and deficit hysteria rather than with the People is striking and highly evocative of the way so much of the media (including "new media") was breathlessly anticipating the looming invasion of Iraq.

It's all Plutocrat Play Time.

What to do about it is among the most vexing if not the most pressing problems of the Modern Era. A spanner must be thrown in the works somehow, but so far, nothing that has been tried has worked more than momentarily -- if that.

What to do?

One thing that's being done and may be successful over the long term -- and for some, the short term as well -- is withdrawal from whatever world it is the Plutocracy seems to be engineering for the rest of us.

Unfortunately, withdrawal can only be a temporary solution while other options are explored. Eventually, the relentlessness of the exploiters and predators is inescapable. And then?

We'll see, won't we?