Economics IS The Control

Yes, Madame, Yes!

Unexamined (even unaware) selves, disdain, and unconcern: We modern-day Romans are following the cut-out pattern to civilizational doom near perfectly.  Add to the irony that our general underlying system’s yearnings, like Rome’s, will likely survive us.  Rome was gone many, many scores of years, but still the peoples of Europe longed for all that it had been—even for its return---and tried to incorporate many elements into their own societies.

But when Rome in the West was gone, it was gone.  It wasn’t coming back. Utter dissolution and dissolving of its people ensured that.  Don’t expect to go to Rome today and find anyone who actually has the characteristics of those on the busts in the museums.

But then again, as you and Hedges intimate, narcissists and sociopaths tend to self-destruct, don’t they?

As Hedges so glumly has to tell us, our march of folly and rise of the corporatist state was warned about—even predicted with remarkable accuracy at times—by a number of people (he lists them on p. 146).  “This generation of writers remembered what had been lost.  They saw the intrinsic values that were being dismantled. The culture they sought to protect has largely been obliterated.  During the descent, our media and universities, extension of corporate and mass culture, proved intellectually and morally useless.” We instead bought—lock, stock, and nearly every bit of the barrel---“the idea that all change was a form of progress.”  (146)

Sheldon Wolin, in his book, Democracy Incorporated, described our system of true power in America as inverted totalitarianism.  That is, not one centered on some popular leader or celebrity, but an anonymous corporate state.  A structure that “purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers to subvert and thwart democratic institutions.”  Sure, the candidates of the political system are elected by the votes of citizens (those that 1) clear the hurdles to vote, and 2) actually find the time and desire to do so), but the candidates are beholden to corporations and billionaires for the funds to compete.  And these are waiting with lobbyists to dictate to the elected what WILL be legislated.  The corporate media—that controls the vast majority of what we see or hear, and certainly shade any discussions—will hardly remark on this phenomenon, and even when they do, will imply that nothing can be done about it.  Then they will move on to the latest non-issue and celebrity meaninglessness.  (146)

In this inverted totalitarianism, economics controls the political system.  The public is manipulated rather than engaged in policy discussions of significance.  What few “discussions” that take place are shouting matches and political jockeying for advantage, not an earnest process for true consensus and best solutions.  The power of the state is used to silence or enfeeble most opposition that could seriously challenge the inversion. 

And military intervention and war—once a subject so serious it brought shudders to both statesmen and the everyday citizen—becomes casual.  And these are wars essentially initiated by us, the “democracy” that the system feeds its 1984ish Proles the propaganda that we want peace while the rest of the world apparently only wants to force us into war.  War is not only profitable business, but it weakens the power of the federal government to take action against corporate and plutocratic power.

Fortunately, a still large portion of the population refuses to take war so lightly.  We will see if they can make their voices heard AND felt.