How Will Things Change Going Forward?

The virus continues to wreak its havoc in the US and all over the world, and as it does the governing paradigms stress and shift. We're entering a new era, a "brave new world" of sorts, and the outlines of it are beginning to be revealed.

The US imperial juggernaut is shuddering to a halt. "The World" cannot rely on the US for leadership or guidance but only for whining, complaints and chaos. "The World" has to go it alone without the US. This is a monumental strategic collapse, something eagerly longed for by the widespread nihilist contingent online, but like so much that passes for erudite opinion these days, the consequences are not thought through. Instead, the collapse of the Empire -- however you describe it -- is a Good Thing in and of itself, bugger the consequences.

This collapse, such as it is, may ultimately be attributed to the internal chaos of the Trump regime, but most observers and participants probably recognize the seeds were planted long before the advent of the Orange Shitgibbon, and symptoms of systems instability leading to eventual collapse were inbuilt long prior to Trump's election and installation.

I've maintained that our rulers have prepared for just this set of circumstances, and they're not too frightened of it. They knew it was coming. Some not only anticipated, they actively helped precipitate it. Crisis is opportunity after all.

The virus arose and spread, and here we are.

About half The World seems to have a handle on dealing with the virus positively; the other half does not. The US is in the latter category, but our rulers seem to think everything is going well enough. They, after all, are protected (for the most part) and do not witness nor do they suffer the losses of everyone else. They see a partial sketch of what's happening and think it's pretty good, all in all.

1) The stock market is doing OK thanks to enormous injections of "free money" for the rich and well-connected to play with.

2) Illness and death due to the virus is largely being confined to the Lower Orders where it belongs, reducing the population of useless eaters -- the old, the disabled, those with pre-existing conditions, the homeless, the mentally defective, the poor, the brown... yadda, yadda... with almost surgical precision. What's not to like if you're rich and well connected?

3) Government is now overtly authoritarian almost everywhere, and look, The People by and large are OK with it. There are periodic staged "revolts" -- the yowling moblets at state capitols, for example -- but it's mostly kayfabe, show business. The rightist mobs are helping to keep the Vox Populi from being heard at all. We can see that the efforts at mitigating the effects of the virus are limited, very limited, and to the extent they are working, they are merely slowing the impact of the virus and the chaos, not stopping or diverting it.

4) Illness and death rates are flattening or slowing in some places, rising and accelerating in others, and overall, the US is on course to witness a hundred million or more infections, a million or more deaths by the end of the year. And modeling predictions now suggest this rate of infection and death could continue for two or three years, even with a vaccine. Details of the virus aren't well known yet, but it doesn't matter. It's been established that the virus is "vicious" and "virulent" and does much damage among about 20% of the population. It hardly affects the other 80%. Even if 20% of the population dies (they won't) would it be a bad thing? Especially if the illness and death can be concentrated among the classes of useless eaters already identified? Sure enough, it looks like it can be, so what, exactly, is there to worry about? This is how our rulers are thinking about this thing. It's time we came to grips with it.

5) Main Street is being wiped clean yet again. As if the collapse of 2008 didn't do a good enough job. It took more than ten years to partially recover from that collapse. It appears that there won't be a recovery from this one. The Economy as we knew it isn't coming back. What will take its place is barely recognized as yet, but we have some clues.

• The death of Main Street (again) tells us that a handful of giant ("essential") corporations will dominate The Economy going forward. Independent enterpreneurship will all but vanish.
• A handful of banking giants will determine the economic status of everyone, and once determined that's where you'll stay for the rest of your (shortened) life. 
• New Deal social programs will go away. 
• Great Society social programs will go away.
• Public education will probably go away.
• Charity will take the place of some programs for some people. Otherwise, too bad so sad.
• Religion will become the universal opiate of the people, along with plenty of opiates.
• Typical lifespan will decline further.
• Typical income will decline further.
• Status will determine reward. Those who can't make it on their own won't make it at all unless they are of high enough status -- thus constantly winnowing the herd.
• Work will be transformed into something akin to "patriotic slavery." Once assigned to a status and function, that's where you'll stay until... well, the end.
• Accustomed accouterments of "civilization" such as electricity, running water, transportation, internet access, etc. will be gradually restricted only to those of high enough status to "deserve" them. As for the rest, oh well!
• A sham democracy may endure, but ultimately the uselessness of the practice will be clear. 
• Borders will be strictly controlled as the ruling interest is to reduce population, not increase it. 
• What used to be isn't coming back. There will be no 'better future' for most Americans. 

The End.

It didn't have to be this way.

The Grenfell Thing Devolves

Like every other crisis in the NeoLibCon Era, the Grenfell Tower Fire crisis is devolving before our eyes into an "opportunity" for neoLibCons to consolidate their power and profit at the expense of the victims.

It's quite something to observe from afar, but we saw something similar happen with Fukushima and Acheh, and just about every other recent calamity, with the standard of inaction/action set by the Katrina Catastrophe, though the BP Horizon explosion and oil release comes in a close second.

(I'm putting 9/11 to the side for the purposes of this discussion, but it was a masterful example in its own right, though based on a somewhat different set of circumstances.)

The first principle, of course, in handling crises of this sort is to make the victims believe they are helpless and powerless; demonstrate to them that the government will say lots of "helpful" words but will do the least possible --or less -- to ameliorate their condition; and show them that the helping professionals (such as police) will kill them if they get out of line.

Works like a charm. Every time.

The second principle -- once the Rabble are in their place -- is to ensure abundant profits flow to the top of the heap where they belong. Nothing is to be done at all on behalf of the survivors unless and until those profits are guaranteed to the top, and even then, the best procedure is to do nothing AND profit anyway. Genius.

Third is to ensure that any action or lack of action consolidates power in the Ruling Class, and specifically among those approved neoLibCons who take charge of matters. There can be no serious action -- in many cases, no action at all -- which does not directly enhance neoLibCon power.

Of course, lies and deception are fundamental to the process. Delay, obfuscate, claim not to understand the problem, announce studies, inquiries, and various forms of doing nothing, endlessly examine the Big Picture, make offers of money -- always less than needed -- rather than provide adequate relief, and whenever and however possible, get resistant Rabble and designated Others out of the subject area, in a form of cleansing, never to return.

And so it goes.

I've been watching it happen in the case of the Grenfell thing (courtesy of BBC and the Guardian) but we've seen the process again and again. It is the neoLibCon standard of handling crises.

Jeremy Corbyn is bucking the trend. ("Oh Jeremy Corbyn!")  and he can snipe from the sidelines or from the opposition bench in Parliament, but the key is he has no power. Even the hundreds of thousands chanting his name at Glastonbury have no power. He can rage all he wants, they can chant all they want, but they will get nowhere. Without power, they can do nothing. Or so they are meant to believe.

Grenfell Tower will be torn down and disposed of (along with the ashes of those consumed in the fire) but it will be several years on. The torch-tower will be left standing until then as a reminder to the Rabble of what can so very easily happen to them if they get out of line, or even if they don't. Just because.

Thousands of residents of council tower blocks have been displaced so far, and many more will be. Safety comes first, doesn't it?

What a world, what a world.

The Aleppo Thing vs the Mosul Thing vs the Fallujah Things vs All The Other Things...

I'm no Syria expert, far from it, but the propaganda out of Syria especially over Aleppo, is grating to say the least.

We are constantly informed ("") that Russia (read Putin) and Syria (read Assad) are "destroying" Aleppo and that the city might "fall" to these Evil Ones as they kill and maim innocent women and children (the children seen on heartrending video practically every day) and repeatedly blow up the "last remaining hospital" in Aleppo... etc. The horror show just never ends, and obviously Putin-Assad-Satan are guilty of War Crimes worse than those that led to the Nuremberg Trials. Oh, much worse.

Except b over at Moon of Alabama has been explaining in exhaustive detail that this narrative is false from top to bottom. It's not just propaganda, it is the definition of The Big Lie.

"Aleppo" is a very large city in northern Syria, and most of its population has always been under official Syrian government control. The eastern part of the city is under the control of a hodgepodge of "rebel" groups (b insists they're fraudulent and mostly jihadist/terrorist groups -- al Qaida, ISIS and the like -- paid by the USA/CIA to oppose Assad). The eastern part of the city is far less residential than the western part, and not surprisingly most of Aleppo's population lives in the western city, not the eastern.

We never hear this in our "news" about what's going on in Syria. "Aleppo" is always presented as one city united and valiantly fighting for its life against the cruel aggression of Assad and Putin, never is it even hinted that there has always been a large population -- a majority -- living more or less normal lives (as much as anyone can be said to be living "normally" under the circumstances) in West Aleppo. That part of the city and its  residents don't exist in the propaganda narrative. They've been erased.

There is a struggle going on for control of East Aleppo, and that struggle is ugly and violent. The Syrian army and Russian air power are involved in that struggle as they jointly attempt to retake East Aleppo and drive out the jihadists/terrorists. They are making some progress. But it is not without cost. There is much destruction to be sure, but it's nothing like the claims of the "rebels." False reports out of East Aleppo are routine, and everything we hear, see and read about it must be taken skeptically, because most of it is a lie.

One part of the Big Lie is that "Aleppo" -- that is to say East Aleppo -- has a civilian population of several hundred thousand under siege and bombardment by the Evil Ones. b assures us that's false.
He insists there are no more than about 20-30,000 civilians in that part of the city -- and there may be far fewer. There were never as many in East Aleppo -- which is mostly an industrial and quasi-rural part of the city -- as there were in the Western city, which is mostly residential and commercial.

He insists that most of the civilian population of East Aleppo left long ago and those that remain are mostly the families of the jihadists and terrorists -- paid by the USA to fight Assad.

So if I'm understanding this story correctly -- and I can't say I do understand it fully -- most of the population of Aleppo has always been under Syrian government authority. A jihadist/terrorist faction supported and paid by the USA took control of the eastern part of the city some years ago, and now the Syrian government and their Russian allies have launched a campaign to take it back.

This almost exactly parallels the just launched effort of Iraqi armed forces together with their American allies to "retake" Mosul from jihadist/terrorist ISIS control, just as previously similar campaigns were launched against Fallujah (for what, the fourth time?) and Tikrit, among other cities in Iraq.

And during these campaigns, the cities are essentially flattened, and the civilian population that can't escape are exterminated. That's the pattern set years ago during the American occupation. It's happened over and over again. And that's the pattern being followed by the Syrian government in East Aleppo and other cities under jihadist/terrorist control in Syria.

Everything that our propagandists claim Putin/Assad are doing in Aleppo is being done or has been done in Mosul, Fallujah and other cities in Iraq by combined American/Iraqi armed forces, and for essentially the same reasons, with approximately the same result. Ruined cities and dead civilians -- and escaped jihadi/terrorists.

It beggars belief.

Accusations of War Crimes are flying thick and fast, and calls for a No Fly Zone over northern Syria -- to protect "Aleppo" -- are intensifying. Of course such an action would mean War With Russia. Which must be approached gingerly, as Russia is a heavily armed nuclear power, and one doesn't want to mess with  that unnecessarily. Does one?

You would think not, but according to many observers, our NeoCon rulers are actually spoiling for a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union -- er, Putin's Russia -- and would welcome the chance to go nuclear on Putin's ass.

How much of this is brinksmanship and posturing I have no idea, but the thought is understandably troubling to more than a few Americans. Are Our Rulers crazy?

Well, I think we've long understood that they are. They are out of their freaking minds.

On the other hand, the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin in particular, appear to be among the sanest of international rulers. They are not going to start a nuclear war with the United States.

There's a widespread assumption among Hag-Haters that Hillary is bound and determined to engage the US with Russia in a nuclear exchange. I think that's ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as the notion that Trump won't start a nuclear war.

We're in realms of pure fantasy and projection when we believe that one or the other will or won't start a war with Russia. There is no way for us to know one way or the other. There is always a risk of nuclear annihilation no matter who sits in the Big Chair, simply because there are so many nuclear weapons on both sides (and others, it's not just two nuclear powers after all) and we can't predict how our rulers or other rulers will behave. We can hope, but we can't know.

Brinkmanship is a long known and practiced form of international "diplomacy," and I think that's what's going on with the current round of nuclear threats. Those of us who lived through the Cold War ought to be thoroughly familiar with  the tactic. It's frightening and potentially deadly, though the point of it is intimidate the other side sufficiently to gain one's objectives without resort to the Ultimate Weapons. A side advantage of Brinkmanship is that it so frightens the domestic population that they are kept in line. Patriotism and all that.

Meanwhile the meatgrinders continue without let up.

Proxy wars without end.

That would be true no matter who sat in the Big Chair, and unless we're willing and able to rise up as one, we the Rabble have no control over it.

I wish it weren't so, but it is.

Governing Contrary

This is the post-modern fashion in Government these days -- has been for a way long time now, actually -- "governing contrary" to the people's will and the public interest. The governing class has learned that they can do this and get away with it pretty much any time and any way they want because the People will not rise to any level the governing class must pay attention to, and if they do, they are easy enough to put down with relatively light force.

Governing contrary has led us into this morass of corporatism, imperialism and war mongering that we can't seem to get out of, that only gets worse, that no happy face can mask any more. Governing contrary presumes that the People are stupid and apathetic by nature, can be exploited and disposed of at will, and they will do nothing substantive to oppose the Powers That Be.

Governing contrary has pushed millions upon millions of Americans into permanent poverty, with ever more millions following in train. An entire generation reduced to permanent poverty by the enormous burden of student debt, for example, is no legacy to be proud of, but it is an example of where contrary governance leads. As long as someone gets rich off of it, what's to worry?

Governing contrary was what Al From and the New Democrats were all about back in the day, and governing contrary is now the standard for governance, regardless of political party or ideology, not solely in the United States but throughout much of the world. Governing contrary is the operating system for global governance. Whatever the People want or need, the governing class seeks and does the opposite.

The resulting disease, destruction and despair is looked on with the kind of glee one hasn't seen among the ruling class and their servants since the Gilded Age.

They want the People to live in fear and suffering. And they proceed with policies that will ensure that outcome. Because someone -- important -- gets rich off the fear and suffering of others.

Whatever the People want or need, ruling class do the opposite.