Making It Impossible to Govern

I'm not clued in to the various -- and contending -- protest movements under way to "stop Trump". The initial street protests seemed to fizzle out, partly because of the holiday season I'm sure (priorities and all that), partly because people have to work to get by, and partly because they were being overwhelmed/co-opted by Democrats who basically didn't want any uprisings in the streets.

No, they were going to go about the business of de-Trumping by clever political strategy. Except they didn't have one. They still don't. Some of the most ludicrous examples of the failure of political strategies are on view daily at Daily Kos. I will say no more about that.

What the Dems have had all along, though, is an intense and overriding interest in knee-capping the Left -- or what they believe to be the Left. No genuine popular movement can get going under their wing. Any independent "left" movement must be crushed or co-opted. They must control the process. Otherwise, who knows what might happen? Someone like Trump could get elected.... ooops.

Speaking of, we just can't know whether vote casting and counting was done accurately this time around. It's a mystery that will never actually be solved because in too many cases, there's no way to verify the vote. It can't be done. What is becoming known, however, is that efforts to suppress the vote, to disqualify millions of voters, and to make it impossible for significant numbers of voters to vote, or for their votes to be counted were very successful, and these efforts were directed at and largely affected Democratic voters. It also appears that many Democratic voters declined to vote for president, whereas others voted third party.

So for the sake of argument, I'm going to accept the results as a relatively accurate reflection of what those who were able to vote and were so inclined voted for. I'm not taking it on faith. The announced outcome is one of many possibilities. For the sake of argument, the result is instructive.

We get to this outcome in large part through the failure of institutions and politics to protect and defend the People from the depredations of the Overclass, an Overclass which has had almost unfettered free rein to pillage and plunder for decades.

Politics hasn't changed it; politics has enabled it. No matter what the People say they want, no matter what or who they vote for, the political class does what it wants. Institutions have been more interested in preserving, protecting, and defending themselves rather than anything or anyone else, and they have almost all failed their constituencies. NGOs have long been a bad joke. Churches forgot their mission. Institutions of higher learning exploit their students and their parents. Police go rogue and murder without consequence. Financial institutions loot their customers. Media parades bizarre falsehoods.

On and on. It's a goon show, and most Americans know it.

Since its all a con anyway, why not put a master con-man on the throne? What do we think Obama has been? Or Big Dog? Or Bush the Lesser? All of them con-artists. And that's big reason why they were put on the throne to begin with. Their job is to con the public and keep them tame in the face of all the horrors and exploitation they're subjected to. Hillary couldn't do it.

The biggest institutional failure in the political realm is that of the Democrats who have failed in every way -- especially since 2009 -- to protect and defend the People against the forces arrayed against them. I maintain that failure is cynical and deliberate. They knew what they were doing: betraying their constituency. That's been the way of nearly all leftish political parties in the west for many years.

And that is a primary rationale for the "rise of the right." Given that the so-called Left has entirely abandoned the People, there is no political party that serves them. The "rise of the right" is not due to popular will, it's due to abandonment by the pseudo-left, the Democrats and Social Democrats and in some regions by Socialists. They obviously don't care any more -- if they ever really did -- about what happens to the Little People. No doubt it has something to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China into the capitalist workshop of the world, but that happened so long ago now, hardly anyone remembers any more.

The right rises when the People, abandoned, have no political anchor on the left or center. A political vacuum thus created is filled one way or another.

What is necessary, then, is for the People to take matters into their own hands, outside the political process, and make it impossible for the Ruling Clique to govern.

That's both easier and more difficult than it sounds. Most people, by nature, are going to go along with the powers that be. Most think they have no other choice. On the other hand, it doesn't take a lot of resistance or rebellion to throw a spanner in the works and bring the Juggernaut to a halt -- at least temporarily.

A weak government can be stalled or overcome rather easily.

I will not recommend ways to do it at this point, but understand that many of the "resistance manuals" out there are little more than support manuals for the failed political institutions and systems that don't work.

Robert Reich has one that's gotten some currency. It's not really about resistance at all. It's about supporting failed institutions, the political process and the Democrats. To that I say, No. He blew his premise in any case on Democracy Now! yesterday. It bordered on self-parody. Sorry that Amy didn't call him on his bullshit.

Another is the Indivisible Guide produced by congressional staff and political consultants which again focuses on working within the failed political process that's brought us to this point.  It doesn't work. But it keeps people busy doing things -- which won't work -- so there is that. Keep hope alive and all that!

If the Trumpian agenda is to be stopped or thwarted, what's needed is to make it impossible.

The political system is designed and intended to enable it. It's just that simple.

Apologetics, Normalization, and Jill

Jill Stein has now raised over $4.5 million to pursue recounts of the vote in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the three "battleground" states where the vote for president was closest. She says she doesn't necessarily expect the recounts to change the outcome, but there have been so many reported anomalies and oddities -- including counts totaling more than votes -- that for the sake of "Election Integrity" it is better to check again than to simply accept the outcome unquestioningly.

Seems simple and straightforward enough, doesn't it? Huh. The meltdown among the Trump apologists and normalizers is extraordinary. If they've done nothing wrong, they've got nothing to hide, right? Well...

As Lambert over at NC loved to say during the campaign, "This is a wonderfully clarifying election."

Indeed it is, for there has been a wonderful sorting of internet and media sites between Trump lovers and Others. NC, for one, is fully in the Trump camp as it has been since the campaign began. So too, Ian's Place, where the inappropriate Trump fluffing became something of a joke. The entire political class has pledged qualified fealty to the New Boss, and for all intents and purposes, so has almost all the Legacy and New Media.

As far as they're concerned, the (s)election is a done deal, and those malcontents and other losers can just get over it.

So here comes Jill Stein, who barely got 1.5-2.0% of the vote to say, "Hold on just a darned minute."

The reaction was and is fast and furious. So fast and so furious that it is all but certain that something is wrong with the counts, and not just in the "battleground" states, either.

Our elections have long been international jokes -- or perhaps nightmares depending on your point of view. The 2000 (s)election is still capable of raising the ire of millions of Americans and its results continue to affect the lives and survival of tens of millions around the world.

Now this? No. More and more Americans are saying "No," and some are taking action. They see a clear and present danger to the survival of the Republic -- which seems to have dawned on them rather late in the game, but oh well -- and their own survival as well.

They see through Mr. Trump's con. I've pondered that somewhat these last few months since I started paying more attention to the campaign. I've tried to understand why some people see through his con easily while others are seemingly transfixed by his persuasion and blandishments. How does that work exactly?

Well, it's obvious that some are in on the con and hope that by pledging loyalty early they'll get a reward. Tough luck, suckers when it comes to anyone else, they're gonna cash in on Trump's victory, come what may. The reward doesn't have to be money. For some it's just the shared glory of being on the winning side, no matter the struggle.

It's a game, in other words, not real life. Many of these game-players lack any empathy for their fellows; it's just not in their nature to give a good gott-damb over what happens to anyone else, and at least in part because of that, these non-empathetic players respond to Trump as one of their own. Well, sure, except that he and his ilk are more than happy to skewer their own supporters if there's power or profit to be obtained in doing so. Jeebus, do these people not know that?

Some apparently don't. It's "sad" but not sad to see it.

It's not true that we've never had a rich con man at the head of our government. In fact, there have been quite a few in the nation's history, though none that I can recall were as rude and crude a representative of his class as Mr. Trump. None I can recall lacked any social conscience at all. The closest historic example I can think of is Andrew Jackson, and at least from Ms. Ché's perspective as an Elder Cherokee Woman, he wasn't really as bad as he's been made out to be. Or rather, she says, there were reasons for his badness that have gone overlooked and need to be understood to understand why he did what he did, and why he turned the country in the direction he did -- better for some, much worse for others (such as her own people.)  It's not helpful, she says, to think of it as a binary, good vs evil. It was far more complicated than that, and much of it had to do with the inner dynamics of Jackson's own family and how that affected his... mind.

[Note: Ms Ché has done a lot of study about Andrew Jackson. She's been to his plantation outside of Nashville, studied the place and the man carefully, read extensively about the times and the people who backed and fought Jackson, has looked into her own family history -- a history that includes both rebels and accommodationists -- and she's worked with other Cherokees who are attempting to comprehend what was going on in those days (1820s to 1840s) that led to Jackson's rise and the removal of the Indians from not just the Southeast but throughout the settler territory east of the Mississippi. I'm not a whole lot of help in that study. My own ancestral history has shown me that any success my ancestors had in this country depended initially on the removal of the Indians from Ohio and Iowa.

On the other hand, Cherokees, though subjected to some terrible conditions thanks to Jackson and those who served him, have not only survived, in many ways they've flourished, something that Ms Ché discovered was part of Jackson's argument for their removal from their lands in the Southeast. He justified it as a means to prevent their genocide. Jackson was no friend of the Indians, to be sure. But he was apparently not the ogre he's been made out to be, either. I won't defend him, but Ms Ché sometimes does, not to "normalize" what he did, but to expand the story to include more than most histories do.]

Trump apologists went ballistic when Jill announced her intention to raise enough money to pursue recounts of the vote in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and their anger only increased when she was able to raise her initial funding request almost overnight.

"A Clintooon plot!" they screamed. "Soros!! Soros!! Soros!!" "Hillary is masterminding this!!!!" Etc.

They say essentially the same things about the street demonstrations that broke out on the announcement of Trump's "victory." They claimed and claim that it is all a "Soros Plot to precipitate a Color Revolution!!!!!"

Nonsense.

Even the Water Protectors are considered to be a "Soros/Clintooon far left plot." It's crazy. CT and paranoia is rampant among Trump Protectors, Defenders, and Apologists.

But there you are, that's where we are in this unstable political situation.

Jill's act of defiance has given them the willies, because she's not Hillary, she doesn't support Hillary, and if anything, she has more contempt for Hillary and the Democratic higher ups than Trumpians do. She's more interested in replacing the corrupt and dangerous system of rule we have today than any Trumpian you'd care to name.

And she sees Trump and his minions as dangerous in office as another Clinton regime might could be. They're all warmongers, thieves, and mountebanks. All of them.

This is all taking place in the context of a furious effort to "normalize" Trump's increasingly erratic and nonsensical talk and behavior. To make light of it, in fact, as if he's only being himself, and himself is what the country voted for.

No they didn't.

The notion that "America elected Trump" is... false. Period. Hillary's popular vote lead is approaching 3 million and may surpass it once all the votes are counted assuming they will all be counted and counted accurately. If America had its say in this election, it was not to elect Trump. It was not to elect Hillary either. The actual "say" of voters this time around was "Neither one, please." A majority voted against Hillary, and against Trump.

Sigh. But that doesn't matter according to the way our presidents are (supposed to be) chosen. Of course those of us who are old enough recall how what's "supposed to be" doesn't matter either when a partisan Supreme Court sees an opening for its own lawless interference in the electoral process. Once that was done and accepted by the political class and its media handmaidens in 2000, the integrity of elections -- to the extent there had ever been any -- was forever compromised.

We the Rabble were shown in no uncertain terms that the (s)election outcome could and would be "adjusted" on behalf of TPTB's preferred candidate at will, and there was nothing the Rabble could do about it.

I think Jill is smart enough to realize that will be the case this time, too, no matter what the recounts show. I don't doubt she's aware that if the results were jiggered in those states on behalf of Trump -- which I tend to think happened -- the recounts are likely to be jiggered as well, "confirming" Trump's "victory" with the same jiggered set of numbers.

That is to say it will be if Trump is TPTB's preferred candidate, and that is not altogether certain at this point. Jill has raised an enormous amount of money for these recounts, more than she was able to raise for her campaign, and she's done it essentially overnight. She raised so much so fast that I can only imagine there are powerful interests who want this challenge to happen. As much as I'd like to think that millions of Little People contributed the remaining pennies in their piggy banks, I doubt that's the case. No, this looks much more like an effort by the High and Mighty to fuck Trump up.

Oh nasty. Well, yeah. That's how these people think. It's how they act. Trump and his followers would be doing it if the shoe were on the other foot, and they'd be rattling their sabres and threatening bloody mayhem the while. 

Jill's approach is much.... calmer.

The question of Clintooooon!!!! backing is one of the more ludicrous accusations floating among the Normalizers, as if somehow that would invalidate the effort. Nonsense. Whether she has anything to do with it is not germane to the question of whether the count is accurate or not. Hello?

It's much like the accusation of Soros funding of the demonstrations against the elevation of Trump to the White House. Even if he were funding the demonstrations, so what? No one is being forced to march and carry signs, no one is coercing anyone else to be part of the protests. Those who are part of them are doing so for their own interests and purposes, not on behalf of someone else's agenda.

I'm reminded of the huge antiIraqWar protests back in the day. They were organized by the ANSWER coalition of largely old line Communist organzations. So? The participants for the most part weren't old line Communists and few were even aware of the organizations which formed the ANSWER coalition. It really didn't matter. The point was to physically express dissent from the coming invasion of Iraq.

Millions around the world did. They were unable to stop the invasion and its monstrous consequences.

That failure was educational. People have learned that massive demonstrations for or against pretty much anything can be and will be ignored if the demonstrators dissent from the neoLibCon consensus. Nevertheless, even if they are ignored, mass protest serves a useful purpose in making manifest the Rabble's disagreement with their Rulers, and in bringing together like minded individuals from broadly different political and social positions and perspectives. It's a cumulative thing.

The mass demonstration tactic must be combined with other, less easily ignored tactics to form an effective counter to the ruling consensus. It'll work on occasion. It'll fail too. But it's no good to say that because this or that effort was a failure that "nothing can be done."

What Jill is doing has the potential to undo the (s)election, though she doesn't expect it to. Regardless of the outcome of the recounts, her action throws a spanner in the works and makes the media's (new and legacy) efforts to normalize Trump's elevation to the presidency all that much harder. It isn't "normal" no matter what, nor is it acceptable to a significant portion of the electorate. It's a con....

So we'll see.

As always, we'll see.

And no, this is not about Hillary. Get over 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?