The Egypt Thing: Massacres Now

It was all but foregone.

When the Masters of The Universe set out to retrieve their property, such as nations and peoples, they will stop at nothing to have their way.

The recent uprising in Egypt struck me from the outset as something being manipulated in pursuit of a specific objective: return of the nation to its Owners, ie: the Neo-Liberal Masters who have apparently been cheerfully using popular discontent with sclerotic despots around the world to set up their own systems of pillage and plunder against the interests of the People.

When the Muslim Brotherhood was victorious in the Egyptian elections, despite every effort to undermine them, I doubted things would end well. For any number of reasons, it seemed unlikely they would be permitted to succeed, even if they were politically astute enough to maneuver through the shitstorm they would encounter.

Well, here we are.

While there were reports of killings previously, the massacre of peaceful demonstrators outside the Republican Guard headquarters in Cairo is taking the Egyptian people into new territory -- one that will lead to the deaths of many more Egyptians. Let's not fool ourselves. This is what they do. A civil war is fine with them as long as it means the lower orders -- which means everyone who isn't on top -- are fighting among themselves.

We've seen it in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, and now apparently we'll see it in Egypt, and we'll see it because the opposition to the forces that wish to retrieve the property they believe is rightfully theirs are determined to prevent it and have said they will not allow it. And they have a lot of popular support.

Now it's not simply a matter of suppressing them. Now they must be crushed. Eliminated. Exterminated.

The Nile will run with blood as the Tigris did before.

The rabble will learn their lesson or else.

Prole Crushing -- or: What's Wrong With Corporate Rule, Anyway?

The recent Palace spats over raising the Debt Limit have dramatized for all to see just how powerful the Corporate Interests are in DC, and how little power The People have in the face of the Onslaught of the Titans.

According to the polls, The People do not want the Debt Limit raised (and in this, Public Opinion may be well ahead of the "Opinion Leaders"), but of course Our Rulers, particularly Wall Street and its dependencies insist the DL MUST BE RAISED forthwith or they'll Blow Up the Economy. This is the actual bloodcurdling threat being issued by the Financial High and the Mighty to the Governmental High and the Mighty if they continue to fuck around like they've been doing for political advantage.

The whole thing goes in the crapper if they don't do what they are told. (Not that this hasn't already happened for millions upon millions of Americans, more every year; the current threats are being issued from one faction of the Ruling Class to another. We, the Proles, factor not at all in the rumblings except as pawns.)

This has the salutary effect of focusing the minds of the Powerful, one would suppose, but it also exposes what's really going on: "Prole Crushing" (h/t David Sirota) in a word.

(One is somehow reminded of the Firesign Theatre -- Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, yes?)

And that's what's wrong with corporate rule.

What is really startling about what has been going on -- for years now -- is just how mean and mean spirited The Powers That Be are in pursuit of their predatory and vicious goals. There is no "Nice" about it; it's cruelty all the way, from every side of Power.

They revel in their power to inflict "pain" on others. It has become a hallmark, almost a reason for being among the High and the Mighty and their media courtiers. The media in fact is, if anything, much worse than their sponsors in loving the sight and the thought of Other People Suffering.

This is what Corporate Rule means on the everyday level: plunder and pain and suffering for the Masses, further accumulation of wealth and power by the Overlords.

There is no mercy, there is no recognition of the human wreckage left in the wake of the predatory Ruling Class, any more than predators in nature "recognize" the wreckage they leave behind, nor even that their prey is capable of sensing what is going on.

It reminds me of the incredible and mindless cruelty of plunging live lobsters into boiling water. As if there were no other way. And as if lobsters could not be sensible to any pain or suffering -- because they are lobsters, meant for the cooking pot.

It's just the same with the Corporate Ruling Class and their minions vis a vis the masses. We are nothing to them, not even capable of "feeling" or even sensing what is being done to us for the profit and pleasure of the Overlords.

Neither mercy nor forbearance enters the picture.

Much the same was typical of the heyday of Empire and its resurgence today masquerading as the Global War on Terror. The Natives had no human qualities their Conquerors were bound to recognize or accept; their suffering and their slaughter was pre-ordained on high. Wiping them from the face of the Earth, enslaving remnant survivors was God's Work. Civilization!

It was even worse during the initial phase of Western Empire building when entire continents were essentially de-populated in the race for riches and the exploitation of regions. The corpses of the exterminated Natives meant as little to those who were killing them as the piles of buffalo bones meant to the herd exterminators of the 19th Century.



And note, the victims are always to blame.

This is the world we have entered; this is the real view "behind the curtain."

But, as Our Rulers always say, "There is nothing to be done about it. Nothing."

The New Normal Ain't What We Thought It Would Be

The local PBS station has been running a BBC series on NASA and the early days of the Space Program called "The Space Age: NASA's Story." (Yes, we're very deluxe here now. We have some broadcast TeeVee, meaning lots of PBS and Religion stations. Amazing.) It's a remarkable series in part because it is so fascinatingly able to evoke the spirit of an Era of Endless Possibility that is now long gone. An era so distant in the past now, it's like it never existed. It's all a myth, isn't it?

As if there never was a Space Program and Mankind never went into space. Or if it happened, it was just a Big Mistake. Never mind.

Isn't that something?

What with millions of Americans being forced into poverty every year of this Endless Recession, and millions of Europeans being forced into poverty every year, and millions of Arabs and other Muslims not only being forced into poverty but being subject to random Death From Above thanks to an extensive American drone program, and millions of Russians long since forced into poverty and on and on, all to pay off the gambling debts of a number of high flying private sector financial interests, the Future Americans and Europeans and Russians once thought would be theirs is now barely even a memory.

Space? Who cares? How about a little more interest in what goes on down here on Earth?

Paying off the gambling debts of financiers at 100% is more important to our governments than anything else in the whole wide world, and they choose to pay those debts on behalf of the financiers at the expense of the People, and without the consent of the People.

Naturally enough, this is a somewhat volatile situation, which apparently Our Rulers are aware of, but for which they seem to have no effective answer apart from outright repression.



What's going on in Greece is very dramatic to be sure, but it is merely a heightened version of what has been going on in much of Europe for months, even years. The public is up in arms -- well, unarmed, but that's another issue -- over the draconian impositions and cutbacks required by the EuroBanksters. The People are up in arms because they know full well that the Banksters are demanding full payment (with interest) from them for losses the Banksters incurred through their own gambling obsessions and addictions. The People are up in arms because their Future is being stolen from them right before their eyes with the full complicity of their nominally "Socialist" governments.

It seems to be dawning on the truly frightfully stupid and greedy Powers That Be that squeezing the People endlessly in order to fill the coffers of the Banksters in perpetuity may have a Downside that ought to be considered. Austerity for the People may not be the answer to the Banksters' dilemma, though they still call for it in unison, not only in Europe but everywhere in the West.

In the East, particularly in India and China, not so much. Not yet, anyway.

The People are seeing all of their governments in total thrall to a handful of financial interests, without the slightest concern for the interests of the People. Governments all over the West simply ignore the People and their OUTRAGE!!!!™ at being constantly pillaged and plundered and impoverished to serve the Banksters and their pecuniary demands.

This is quite a different situation than any of us -- that is, the Common Folk -- could have anticipated even as recently as two years ago. It's certainly not the Future any of us believed would come about through our hard work and dedication.

One of the things I think many of the Common Folk realize is that our hard work and dedication has already paid for the Better Future we... thought... would be ours, and that Future has been... stolen... by a handful of incredibly stupid and incredibly greedy individuals (think Enron on a global scale) who are convinced they are Smart and Generous to a Fault, and that all wealth and the fruits of other people's labors are theirs by right.

The problem, as always, is that the People do not know what to do about it, and they are very reluctant to take on the additional risk of doing anything about it when they are being pillaged.

The people (and dogs!) in the streets of Greece -- and elsewhere in Europe and the Middle East -- are taking those risks in part because they have little or nothing left to lose. Not only is their Future gone, their present is being squandered and shuttered, and their history is being sold off for pennies. All to pay off the gambling debts of a handful of Banksters.

Meanwhile, Mother Nature seems to be knocking on the door. Fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and droughts should be reminders of just how puny our little lives really are in the face of the Omnipotence of Nature.

Then there are the nuclear meltdowns and what have you.

The question is, who will understand what's happening better and sooner?

How Hoover Did It

[Click to enlarge]

There was no state/national Unemployment Insurance in 1932 when this ad ran in Good Housekeeping Magazine. And of course, Hoover, et al, were not about to originate any kind of program to assist the masses of unemployed -- without the permission of the corporatists and plutocrats of the time. What they would allow then is pretty much what the Republicans and many Libertarians seek to institute now: a more or less leaky and rickety system of private charity provided through churches, community fund drives, and large charitable institutions, to the "deserving unemployed/poor" only.

Everyone else to fend for themselves.

That's the way it was back in the Hoover era; that's the way it had always been in this country, and that's the way the Hooverites and their corporatist/plutocratic sponsors believed it should always be. After all, only a few had ever starved or died of exposure or untreated disease during previous economic "readjustments." So it would be this time.

But by 1932, the nation was in the grip of a worsening Depression that had begun 3 years before. The situation for the masses was untenable, and there was a real whiff of Revolution in the air. The Hooverite approach to the economic catastrophe was to shower benefits and government pump-priming efforts at the top (hardly Keynesian, but it is not at all true that the Hoover government did nothing) and wait for things to get better "down below."

Hoover was a Progressive Republican, after all. Little understood is Hoover's massive efforts to feed Belgium after its conquest by Germany in World War I, subsequently to run an American food program once the United States entered the War, and then, after the defeat of the Central Powers, to feed all of Europe, including in time the new-born Soviet Union. This was a monumental task under extremely difficult -- and politically fraught -- circumstances which in previous eras simply wouldn't have been done at all. Famines were strategic weapons of the powerful, and millions of starving and dead were a good thing in the eyes of the Powers That Be more often than not.

When Hoover said, "These people will be fed," and fought those Powers he became a hero, not just in Europe but in the United States as well.

That's part of why his reaction to the Great Depression in the United States seemed out of character for him given what he had already shown he could do. In fact, what he had demonstrated already was that he could be far more of a radical on behalf of the People than Roosevelt would turn out to be. Hoover would not let anything stand in the way of his mission.

But in reacting to the Depression, he was slow, he was focused entirely on the plight of the upper-upper crust, and he was almost shockingly indifferent to the increasingly horrifying situation of the poor and the working classes.

It was as if he forgot everything he learned about doing what was necessary to ensure some sense of well-being at the bottom of the pyramid rather than devoting all interest at the top.

The continuing indifference of our rulers today to the expanding tragedies at the bottom of the American Pyramid is only going to get worse as the government transitions from "Democratic" to partial Republican rule. What had been a breathtaking level of indifference to the plight of the masses is about to become a deliberate campaign of demonization, vilification and scapegoating by Republicans, which will undoubtedly be picked up and sallied forth by many Dems as well. It won't stop with the unemployed. The sick and the elderly, the poor, the halt and the lame are all about to get thoroughly bludgeoned by the 2 X 4s wielded by the Marshalls of Austerity, on behalf of the Rich and the Super-Rich world wide.

I can't see at this point any sign that the White House will stand in the way.

We are going back to a much rougher time.

The question remains: how will Americans respond. So far, they have shown no sign at all that they can even conceive of the kinds of actions necessary to reverse the trend.

The Plan

Hm. Seems to me that a handful of folks are catching on that the way things are, especially the grotesquely high unemployment rates and the ripple effect throughout society of so much unemployment, is just the way Our Rulers have planned it.

Years ago -- remember? -- the now Endless Recession got under way, and remarkably, as unemployment figures rose higher and higher, "month over month," there was no effort, whatsoever to put people back to work. The "stimulus" was hailed as this Big Jobs Program when it obviously was not; none of the shovel ready programs the stimulus would eventually fund (maybe in Year Two?) provided more than very, very modest employment anywhere in the country. A project might be hailed as providing 300 jobs in an area where 30,000 had been lost.

Here we are, years into this Endless Recession, and there are still no Jobs Programs, no serious effort to put people back to work whatsoever. This Hooverite disinterest in the plight of the unemployed should have been alarming years ago.

It is only now being noticed to a very limited extent because of a study done by Rutgers entitled "No End In Sight: The Agony of Prolonged Unemployment." (pdf link)

Yes. Well. Glad they noticed. Finally.

But will Our Rulers? Why should they? As far as they are concerned, the astronomical levels of unemployment in this country can essentially be permanent. The American Plutocracy simply doesn't need all those workers, and there is no way in hell they will re-employ them. Furthermore, there is no way in hell the Plutocracy will allow the Government to become the Employer of Last Resort.

But worst of all, there is no way in hell that Americans will rise up in protest against this appalling situation.

None.

The White House economic team has been rigorous in maintaining its utter indifference to the fact that millions upon millions of Americans are annually being shoved into poverty. That millions upon millions have lost their jobs and will never be employed again. That millions upon millions of Americans continue to lose their homes to foreclosure, their savings to bankruptcy, their future to the Masters of the Universe.

Not even Hoover and his team were this indifferent. They couldn't afford to be because the People would and to some extent did rise up in protest.

Now? (Almost) Nothing.

As I said over at Digby's Place, Reagan must be chortling in his grave, Baroness Thatcher tickling his corpse. The idea of an uprising on behalf of one's own interests and those of his and her compatriots is almost alien to modern Americans. Instead, such uprising as there is is almost entirely confined to the right wing stooges of capitalists and their running dogs.

Issues and Answers

So.

The Health Care Reform effort was derailed by some chatter about the arrest of Harvard Prof Skip Gates at his home in Cambridge for "disorderly conduct." The arresting officer had been dressed down by Gates, and at his Health Care news conference, the President himself dressed down the cop by calling the arrest "stupid" and reminding Americans that Blacks and Latinos are disproportionately detained by the police as they have been historically.

Consequently, nobody's talking about healthcare, everybody's talking about Gates and the police.

Yes. Well. Why not? The Health Care Reform issue has essentially been taken out of the hands -- and interest -- of the People by those who are so busy crafting a "reform" measure that, at least to this observer, is primarily intended as a giant wealth transfer from the bottom and middle to the top, yet another one. The People may get a few benefits from this "reform" -- and they may not. In fact, so far as anyone can tell at this point, the centerpiece of "reform" is a mandate that everyone purchase healthcare coverage, coverage that initially will only come from private extortionists, also known as insurance companies. There may -- or may not -- be a so-called "public option" at some point (say four years down the road, or maybe never) by which people can be covered by a government sponsored plan, but by that time, most everyone will be compelled to be covered by private insurance. So, it's hard to see how the public can get very enthused about simply handing more money over to the insurance companies, a lot of it no doubt being tax money and extortion.

I've always seen the course of Health Care Reform in this country as following the pattern set by Medicare Part D, which -- yes -- has provided prescription drug coverage to many elderly and disabled Americans at little or no cost to them (if they're lucky) through miriad private insurance companies, in an extraordinarily complicated format that confuses the heck out of a lot of recipients, and that pays drug companies fortunes, hundreds of billions of dollars, in what amount to windfall profits.

Likely, that's what's going to happen with Health Care Reform, something immensely complex and costly to the government and to individuals -- who aren't lucky enough to qualify for subsidized care -- all to the benefit of insurance companies and the Medical Industrial Complex.

So let's talk about Gates instead.

At least with that incident, you can get a handle on what's going on, and you can opine to your heart's content, no harm no foul, no matter what your Position on it is.

But I'd rather deal with one of the burgeoning economic issues that seems not to penetrate the Versailles Bubble of Washington, nor does it seem to be of more than passing interest to the various progressive powers that be.

It's unemployment, and the continuing skyrocketing unemployment statistics, and the utter absence of any jobs programs to get people back to work. I've been harping on this since last year, to no apparent effect. Indifference is the standard operating status of nearly everyone in the field of economics, no matter what their political persuasion. Just like the crippling household debt loads that keep dragging down the economy, the vast ranks of the unemployed do not rise to the level of attention that requires action by the High and the Mighty. No crisis. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

There has, after all, been "action." Unemployment benefit extentions, for example. Never mind that at least half the unemployed don't qualify for benefits at all. And the other half are lucky if the benefit they receive amounts to half their employed salary (usually it's much less). Each extension has new qualification rules, more stringent every time, so that ultimately, the rolls are further reduced, and unemployed people are required to take any job offered, no matter what the pay/benefit scale.

As for those who don't get benefits at all, "tough luck, suckers!"

The absence of any jobs program, and the utter indifference of most "progressives" to this absence is striking. The point of putting people back to work, after all, is to provide them with income so they can spend money on necessities and luxuries and contribute to economic recovery. But for whatever reason, the groaning load of unemployed, now around 7 million "officially" -- and 14 million + in actuality -- and their heavily reduced household incomes are just fine for most economists and seemingly for most "progressives", too.

The expectation is that unemployment will continue to rise through the end of the year, maybe into next year, and there will be no substantial reduction in unemployment for years to come. A 10% or 11% unemployment rate by the end of the year, which means an acutal unemployment rate of as much as 20%, may continue indefinitely, and economists and "progressives" seem to be fine with it.

The effect, of course, of such a high level of unemployment sustained over such a long time is to put immense and relentless pressure on wages, driving them down, down, down for ordinary people -- at least for those who manage to find or keep jobs. We're already seeing significant wage cuts for workers in many fields. Cuts of 5%, 10%, 15% are common; if trends continue -- which there is every expectation they will -- wage cuts of 30% to 50% will not be unusual. And yet, even with such heavy wage cuts for workers already drowning in debt for which they receive no relief (unlike the banks and Wall Street speculators), those on top of the pyramid are strutting and boasting about their spectacular profits and bonuses. In other words, certain people and certain sectors of the economy are not suffering at all; they have their debts covered by the groaning workers, they keep their yachts and their mansions on various continents, and they see their incomes increase exponentially.

Something is desperately wrong with this picture, yet for whatever reason, most economists -- and most "progressives" -- are oblivious. Victory in the Class War has been won by the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe, oh yes, and now it is being consolidated with enormous brio and vengeance.

Workers will be lucky to wind up at the end of this recession -- assuming there is an end -- drudging at minimum wage or less, with no job security, few benefits, and little future, still drowning in debt. Assuming, that is, they can find work at all.

Why do the Masters of the Universe hate America and hate Americans?

Because as their loot-fest shows, they clearly do.

But perhaps more to the point, why do Americans take it? At what point do Americans say "Enough!" and act on it? From appearances, at any rate, we're nowhere near that point. Workers, desperate to stay employed, essentially agree to anything their employers propose, and popular media essentially advise workers to be as creative as they can be in their submission, for it is only the cleverest submitters who will survive this bleak period. But submit employees must, or they will be out the door.

The anomaly is a workers' strike of any kind or (heavens!) a plant take over, so anomalous is it that it's regarded as bizarre, incomprehensible. When a strike is won, as still sometimes happens, you might not hear about it at all. Don't want to give workers ideas, after all. Unions are cutting deals -- and cutting members' salaries -- right and left, foregoing benefits, raises, job security, retirement, anything, just to keep the membership employed at all.

Workers' retirement funds have been looted and stolen by employers for years, and now those at the top of the pyramid are getting ready to raid Social Security, unwilling as they are to pay the taxes necessary to replenish the Trust Fund. They have been using that money to fund their wars and their tax cuts for generations, and now that the bill is coming due for their raids on the Trust Fund, they're making lots and lots of noises about being unwilling to pay. You mean the Treasury bonds that they insisted were good as gold are no good at all? Could be.

And still the People are passive.

Is it a lack of interest, a lack of knowledge, a lack of leadership? Or is it a lack of will?

I have no answer to that one but it is very clear where this period of economic restructuring is headed for most of us: down.

Ideology

Our government is struggling mightly to shovel out trillions of dollars to the plutocrats and oligarchs who pull the strings at the White House and in Congress, give this money away to a class of unwilling and protesting bankers and speculators and investors before the spectre of Socialism descends upon the land and Class War (by other means) gets under way in earnest.

They can't shovel the money out fast enough. They can't find enough plutocrats to give it to. But they keep trying.

Meanwhile, millions of people are losing their jobs, social services are groaning under the additional caseload of people at the end of their ropes, foreclosures continue to mount, inflation looms on the horizon, people who are still working are seeing their incomes fall and expenses mount, factories and merchants are shutting down, cities and counties and states are running out of money, running out of alternatives, civil society is cracking up.

And our government in Washington not only won't do anything about it, they are actually engaged in policies and practices which are making the problems worse, far worse, and they are doing it in the face of a shocked and astonished populace that just voted for a "Marxist" president and the "Most Liberal Congress in History."

Why can't the government in Washington do anything -- at all -- on behalf of the People of the United States of America? Why are they so utterly intent on emptying the treasury -- apparently for generations to come -- into the pockets of the super-rich, who say, bless their hearts, that they don't need and don't want the money?

What is keeping the government from acting on behalf of the People?

It's Ideology.

Our government has become ideologically incapable of recognizing let alone doing anything about the situations faced by the People. Since the Reagan Revolution and its consolidation under the Busheviks, the government has become fully integrated with and accountable to the Plutocracy only. The People, at best, are an afterthought. Ideologically, the People are of no consequence at all. They may as well not exist.

And unfortunately, the People of the United States of America have accepted this state of affairs as if it were natural and normal.

And yet they just elected this Big Marxist Redistributor to the White House. Surprise, surprise. So far, he has shown no interest in the plight of the People at all, has repeatedly reassured the Plutocrats that their interests shall continue to be served by the government -- and that everyone else will just have to tighten their belts and suck it up.

This Big Marxist Redistributor.

Who is apparently as aligned with the Powers That Be as any of those who went before him since Reagan.

Surprise, surprise.

If the People continue to be passive in the face of what is going on, can we really blame the Plutocracy and their Government for ignoring them?

No, It's YOUR Fault!!!!!

Even the wingnuts seem to be recognizing that they can't escape the economic whirlwind -- or is it a hurricane -- on the prowl for its pounds of US flesh. While they are still busy claiming to be blameless, as all Republicans always are for everything, it seems to be dawning on them that they can't run from whatever consequences are on the way. And they can't tax Libruls enough to save their own behinds.

It boils down to a matter of taxation and who will be stuck with the ultimate bill and how. Because we are going into a "socialistic" phase (call it National Socialism, Nazi, if you prefer, since everything is coming from Above, nothing being generated from Below, and to date it is all a matter of fusing government and corporate interests) all these bailouts and all of them yet to come will ultimately be paid for through 1) inflation, 2) taxation, 3) continued seizures of resources domestically and overseas.

If there were any real Socialism involved, of course, the Mighty Rich would be forced to pay a punative level of taxation, basically confiscatory of everything they've gained in the last decade or so. Any income over say a million a year would be taxed at 90% or more. Capital gains over a certain amount likewise. Oh, most of the wealthy would still be wealthy, but they would not be able to profit from the economic conditions immediately preceeding the current mess, and won't be able to profit from what's to come, at least not in the short term.

If there were any real Socialism involved, then the people with mortgages scheduled to "reset" -- ie: increase interest rates -- to an unaffordable level would have their mortgage interest rates frozen until such time as the mortgage could be refinanced through a government program that stabilizes interest rates at a reasonable level (say no more than 6% or 7%) for up to 50 years, and returns up to 50% of any gains in real estate value to the government. That way, at least for the time being, most of the families living in houses which might soon be foreclosed upon will have a reprieve, and those who are able to make reasonable mortgage payments will keep their homes, thus stablilizing the housing market. (Note: It's been claimed that most of the millions of foreclosures so far have been on speculator and investor owned properties and that "real families" haven't been forced out of their homes, at least not in any great number. That's a nice claim. I'd like to see the facts.)

If there were any real Socialism involved, the banks and financial institutions who participated in the gaming of the real estate market would be forced to eat their losses, and yet they would not be allowed to fail without provision of alternative banking/financial institutions. Investors and stockholders would lose their gains over the past decade or so, but that would not necessarily mean they would "reset" to zero.

If there were any real Socialism involved, the services provided by Government (which means through general taxation) would include basics like health care and education, social welfare, utilities, clean water, healthy environment, transportation and communications infrastructure, and so on. It's not rocket science, it's all been worked out in great detail over most of the civilized world long since. Americans need to catch up.

The Masters of the Universe want to make it impossible for Americans to catch up to the rest of the world. Given what they are setting out to do right now -- to save their own asses at the expense of everyone else -- they are likely to succeed in the short term.

Americans show no sign, whatever, of bestirring themselves en masse to interfere with the secret plotting and planning going on now to saddle them with gargantuan debt for many generations to come in order to keep the best off among us in wealth and privilege forever. A permanent aristocracy to rule over them is being established as we speak, about which most Americans are completely oblivious.

What are any of us going to do about it?

Most will do nothing at all.

A few -- very few -- still have their monkeywrenches...