Addressing the Good People on the Left, (and others possibly interested): Mr. Hamilton Nolan, (sorry for mis-addressing you previously as Mr. Hamilton), a Labor writer for 'In These Times', was kind enough to reply to my recent comments concerning his advocacy for abolishing the filibuster. His entire reply: "Yeah, I know the history of it. The fact that it was created to be anti-democratic and to protect elite interests and that it is doing exactly that is not an argument in its favor." Well ... Mr. Nolan may "know the history", (and Hamilton is a very old name), but clearly he missed the point I tried to make ... I'm sure the fault was mine for not explaining it well enough. I was NOT defending the filibuster, or advocasting that it not be abolished. I'm not "arguing in its favor". I was trying to get people who can't seem to 'see' too far past their own noses to try to focus on a more comprehensive time frame. Raise your eyes from the confines of ideology and have a look down the road. Remember the grasshopper and the ants thing? Was that Aesop? Knowing him, Jesus Christ surely said much the same thing in one parable or another. No doubt Mohammed too. I'm sure Confucius didn't fail to add his version. Wisdom is wisdom. You've heard one prophet, you've surely heard the same from many.  We have to try to understand that we have deep systemic problems ... serious systemic problems. We aren't yet even talking honestly and openly about the depth and scale of 'the problem'. Our government and economic system is not working as a 'democracy'. At all! We all know that, but we are not acknowledging how this fact that forms our predicament, the fact that 'the system' is obviously rigged, must inform our decisions and actions. Does anyone really think that tweaking the rules of our blatantly and egregiously anti-democratic bi-cameral legislature is going to empower the passage of a progressive agenda? If you think that then you don't understand the nature of our predicament. Congress is far too corrupt to wield any real power. It is nothing but a giant clearing house for legalized bribery. The Mass Media are the primary locus of power. (The means of communication are the means of power). They, the High Barons of Mass Media, are 'orchestrating' events. They blow various 'dog whistles', and various breeds respond to their assigned pitch. What do those nice Antifa people have planned for the Chauvin Verdict? The murder charge is lucicrous. Unless new revelatory evidence surfaces, Chauvin and the other three were just working people doing their jobs. George Floyd was sky high on both fentanyl and crystal meth. He was a large powerful man who went violently berserk after he was already cuffed under arrest. Chauvin'll be acquitted of murder. The family already got its payoff from the city. $27 million I heard. Is that accurate? The city was negligent in not adequately training and equipping the officers to recognize a medical emergency and administer first aid. The knee on neck did not choke poor Mr. Floyd. He couldn't breathe because he was dying of a heart attack. Having someone sit on your chest while you're having a heart attack certainly was not beneficial.  Justice is justice. The truth is the truth. Chauvin was doing his job. He failed to recognize a medical emergency. Was he trained to do so? But never mind the mere truth. Can those nice Antifa folks restrain themselves from going out cavorting in the streets? It seems like a party to them. Rampaging 'free'. They do seem to enjoy rioting, a great deal. The thing is .. it will not be Antifa that decides what Antifa will do. The Mass Media Barons will decide. They could go either way, depending on their motivations at any given time. They could give it wall to wall 24/7 coverage, throw gasoline on the fire, so to speak, or they could just crush it brutally and bury the story under and behind other exploited, or even contrived, events. They could contrive an international crisis of some kind, to just obliterate a story they wanted to bury. Rally 'round Old Glory. More jets roaring over the stadiums. They buried the Biden Laptop story on no pretext at all! None at all! They just did it, right out in broad daylight. They threw the election. Right in front of our eyes. Everybody saw. We all can see the still sloshing sewage scum stink stains on Skinny Joe's trouser legs, and squishing from his shoes, from his tromping around those Ukraine swamps. The Biden Family certainly saw financial opportunity in Ukraine, (shall we say?). There stood Skinny Joe, pistol in hand, smoke still curling from the barrel, bloody body prostrate in front of him, and with the agreement of the Democratic Party Machine, and all its spectrum of ideological cults that support it, the Mass Media hath undertaken to erase Skinny Joe's record in Ukraine from our consciousness. Zip! ... FLASH !! ... That's it .. Canceled .. Never happened .... Free and fair election .. yea .. right... Some are pretending that they didn't see. Bless your little hearts anyway. It's the Naked Emperor's New Clothes again. A lie does NOT become the truth just because more people believe it. Majority rule doesn't mean you get to impose a 'narrative' that supplants actual 'Reality'. Some know very well what we so clearly saw, and we are determined that we are not going to have it erased from our minds by artificially contrived 'narratives' enforced by the constantly blaring megaphone of Mass Media. This is already well into Orwellian.   Our US Constitution defines a system of government that is very clearly (as should be self-evident, at this point) not adequately equipped to protect the interests of the nation's Common People against the interests and raw power of the Ruling Elites. It doesn't exactly take a genius to 'see' that the United States of America is now ruled over by The Mob, as skillfully orchestrated by the Syndicated Powers that centrally control ALL our Mass Media. Mob Rule? Is this our version of True Democracy? This is the best we can do? Adopt the crudest bluntest form of 'democracy'? The howling hateful rioting Mob? 10,000 years of experiments in civilization, and this is our apex of American democratic consciousness? Cancel Culture? Mob Rule? Mass Media United has the power to orchestrate events. This dominant locus of power can impose a Narrative that can supplant 'reality' in masses of people's minds. You just shout it into the Echo Chamber. The encompassing din of the echo, like a giant Great Horn on a height reverberating down a deep still valley fjord, reverberates through various networks of compliant 'true believers'.  Cancel Culture is our version of the guillotine. The Mass Media Barons have now learned that they can trigger a Mass Mob Hysteria at any time they want to. #Metoo has been fully weaponized politically, as was inevitable. (Ask Cuomo). And the Chauvin Trial, as we surely all know, is already underway. It's very clear that the Ruling Syndicate, (the Mass Media Barons, all same), now think they can actually 'do an Orwell' on masses of people. They think they can erase all embedded perceptions of the obviously stink-ass election, (the 'compromised' election, shall we say), from billions upon billions of people's minds. This is certainly daring insolence, if nothing else. They think their Mass Media bludgeon is powerful enough to extinguish the human spirit and desire to be free? They now think it's going to be like the 'little flashy thing' in MIB? Aint' gonna happen .. Is it? I guess we're going to find out. Almost half the citizens in the nation are now being openly demonized as "traitors" by the Democratic Party Machine. Hmm .. Treason is a capital offense. Are heads soon to roll? Will the street gutters again run red? How hateful and vicious IS this Bolshevik Marionette Mob, anyway? Traitors, are we? Okey doke, then ... It sure has the smell of desperation. The US Capitol remains garrisoned by 25,000 US military troops. What is the chain of command when the Praetorian Guard is fully deployed? Isn't this major show of force only a major show of fear? Well .. Now we know .. The US is now to be governed from behind the barricaded fortifications of a permanent armed garrison. Isn't that, then, now the established public posture of the US Government? Even if they pull the troops out, are we not meant to keep the vision of those bristling assault rifles, and their 'efficient' fortifications, in our own minds? Aren't we meant to keep in mind that our precious 'democratic' government (all genuflect) is fully prepared to shoot down its own citizens to force its will on them? Who are they prepared to fight? The US Government has imprisoned itself inside heavily armed fortifications. Our government, right there, on the ground, in old DC, with the cherries about to blossom, is now a Fortified Green Zone, just like they established in Iraq. In their own minds, they clearly imagine that they are governing over a hostile territory. That's how they 'see' reality. Hmm... The government is fully aligned with Corporate Power, and ruthlessly prepared, with armed troops bristling, to gun down US Citizens? And the American Left is fully aligned with Corporate Power, enlisted on command as the Ruling Elites' shock troops to quell any thrust from the left flank. The Bolshevik Marionettes have contained themselves within the self-defeating closed-feedback-loop of its cult Identity Politics ideology, an ideological offshoot of the neoLiberal ideology of the Ruling Empire. 'Human Rights' are used, like bait, as a pretense for simply winning raw power. When challenging for power, human rights are a source of power. When in power, human rights become a constant problem for you. Blake's Bubble. Opposing forces define our human reality. The dialectic of reality is always constant. Corporate Government. Garrisoned behind armed fortifications. What else could any government do or be that would be more classically 'Fascist' than the system that rules over us now?  The entire world can see this. All US actions in the world will now be seen in the light of this glaring hypocrisy. 'Full Spectrum Dominance' is just "Amerika Uber Alles!" These people who now rule us from behind an armed and fortified garrison want to 'dominate' the entire Earth. Even Hitler just wanted to dominate only one region. The US Government is now permanently garrisoned? But still clownishly claiming it wants to "spread democracy" around the whole world? When the whole entire world is garrisoned by US Troops, will that be when everything is 'democratic' everywhere? LOL... Are we trying our best to deliberately make a clownish mockery of poor old Uncle Sam? Gee ... Maw ... That sounds swell ... Let's give our sweat and blood to pay for more troops and weapons to spread the Power of Democracy (all genuflect) all over the world. Won't life be swell when every 'democratic' government operates from behind a bristling US Army Garrison? Look at their current crop of 'leaders'. Geez ... Ole Skinny Joe and The Black Woman, (what's her name again?) Seriously? That's the best they can put forward in this their time of dire emergency? C'mon, folks .. Are we really this primitive? If so, we only play into their hands. The more we act like a 'mob' the less 'democratic' things will become. Trust me. This is proven. Anybody who has read much Human History knows it quite well. Mob Rule does not lead to good things. Mob Rule leads to vendetta. To bloodshed. The most brutal prevails. Mob Rule only leads to Fascism. Mob Rule is antithetical to Democracy. We've been doing this 'civilization' thing for almost 10,000 years now. And this is the best we can do? Become a Mob? That's exactly what we've been doing for all these tragic 10,000 years. Only it's much WORSE now! Under the social engineering of Mass Media? 'They' can whip up Mass Mob Hysteria whenever they want to. When one begins to fade, they are already laying the groundwork to release another. Governed from behind military fortifications? C'mon ... Can't we be rational? You want to talk about the filibuster? Fine! I think it is a VERY interesting subject, because it leads us deeper toward the root of the problem.   All the citizens retain their due legal and moral consideration of their rights and interests, even in any minority status. We have established legal civil limits on property rights, and legal limits on the rights of a majority to infringe on the rights of minorities. The flaw really is basic to our 'winner take all' system. It's really a crude system. Electing our own rulers, as we do now, (only with increasingly rigged elections), is only the crudest form of democracy. Much better, (better meaning more democratic), forms of democracy already exist.  Proportional Representation is much more democratic than 'winner take all'. Parliamentary systems assure all citizens that their interests are represented in government in proportion to their voted percentage of the voting population. With a minimum threshold, say 5%. So a party that wins 5% of the vote will be apportioned five seats of out every 100 in the legislature. So all citizens' parties, above an achievable threshold, have a voice in the legislature. Under our winner take all system, minority parties have no voice at all to send to speak for them.  The bi-cameral legislature itself, clearly fashioned on the British House of Commons, and House of Lords, is obviously intended to make the power of a few Elites at least equal to the total combined power of all the Common People together. If you make a few equal to all, they will naturally become more powerful, because they can more easily coordinate, plan, and execute the advancement of their own interests. We have a House of Commons. The US House of Representatives. Churns over every two years. (Every seat, every two years, is up for election). Politicians build local power bases, which consist of alliances with other officials and magistrates that have power and influence over events. A few US Reps become entrenched and powerful because they are aligned with the interests of Wealth and Power in their local districts. Districts are constantly 're-engineered' to favor one party or the other, according to the interests of the Syndicated Powers that effectively control BOTH parties. Thus our political system is engineered as a 'charade', a sort of dog-and-pony show to entertain the rubes while the Elites cut their own taxes, buy bigger yachts, build more ostentatiously gilded palaces for themselves to live in, and more heavily armored vaults for all their rapidly increasing treasures, all while spending a trillion dollars a year of the Common People's tax dollars on their gargantuan industrialized military which they foolishly, though ruthlessly, think can empower them to rule over the entire world, and bilking people through the ghoulish Medical Industry. The whole economy is rigged, and everybody knows it. "It's a racket". Our society is run as a giant Mafia-type "racket" that just favors a few.  And ... We have the US Senate. Our 'House of Lords'. The US Senate is obviously designed to favor the interests of Elites. Two senators for each state could hardly be less democratic. That makes Senatorial elections into high stakes (Big BIG Money) affairs. You can start out knocking on neighborhood doors to run for the House, but you must knock on gilded palace doors to run for the Senate.    So ... Facing all the immensity of these systemic problems, you think it's the filibuster that is the primary impediment to passing a 'progressive agenda'? We'll .. To my way of thinking, that assumption, that doing away with the filibuster is the key to progressive success, seems very short-sighted, even foolish. For starters it is likely to be only temporarily effective. Progressives seem to think that democracy means that the 'majority rules'. Period! Owing nothing to the rights and interests of minorities? Well .. What do you think the chances are that the Dems can hold Congress in '22? Nobody knows, of course, but we do have many tens of millions of people who remain outraged over the 'election' they just witnessed, and who thus are VERY highly motivated and chomping at the bit. If you get rid of the filibuster, with no other accommodation for the rights of minority factions, that could be very bad, for YOU! (Try to remember that I'm on your side. People who should be allies must first stop being enemies). Whatever you manage to 'pass' now can be 'unpassed' with vengeance. Whatever power you claim now for the majority can and WILL be used against you if the other party only gains a few seats. Are there other parliamentary rules we have in mind that can safeguard the rights and interests of minorities if the filibuster is abolished? Under the 'Democracy' we imagine, what will define it that will make it distinct from Mob Rule? Surely we understand that with their control of ALL Mass Media, it is relatively easy for the Ruling Elite Syndicate to whip up people's emotions into a lather of Mass Mob Hysteria, pretty much any time they want to. They have the power to manipulate events. But is it enough power to conquer the human spirit under their power and control?  Well ... The means of communication are the means of power. Their control of Mass Media is certainly a Big Club in their belt. But look how afraid they are. Their fear reveals their own perception of their own vulnerability, despite that Club in their belt. What their fear reveals is that events are not under anyone's power. Every player is at risk, and even the most powerful are fearful of unknown events currently 'in flux'. Even the most powerful can see things possibly coming that they greatly fear. The historical moment is upon us. It is a time for raising our vision beyond our noses. We must 'see' our predicament from a much broader perspective. Uhh .. The filibuster .. Yea .. sure .. Knock yerselves out... Go on ahead with simple 'majority rule'. I can already 'see' the Ruling Elites' eyes going wide with evil salivating anticipation. (heh-heh-heh). We all have to follow our own best thinking. If we're going to survive times ahead we must begin to look beyond our noses, to see our endeavors in the context of a coherent hopeful future. For the sake of those we love, and all we hold dear, (for our 'posterity', they once called it), we must surely commit ourselves to Humanity's survival. If we have a common objective, (True Democracy), and a Common Enemy, (the Ruling Elites), hadn't we ought to somehow be allies? Caliban Bent Birch Farm March 17, '21  |
Archives‎ > ‎