Before I get rolling here, this is not a paranoid unibomber-esque manifesto. These are some political-financial-pilosophical observations that morph gradually into allegorical fable at the end which I elect to deploy in lieu of angry foot stomping both to improve entertainment value and circumvent petulance. So, without further ado:
For a country that 238 years ago was established by a bunch of disenfranchised and landless commoners seeking to throw off the shackles of oppression represented by ‘taxation without representation”, the United States today certainly urinates in the face of those founding fathers and mothers and their ideals.
The massively oppressive financial services industry has replaced the U.S. military as the default hegemonic force under the command of a handful of self-entitled, elitist, and increasingly smug politicians and bankers who now guide us unilaterally into poverty and war. (Oh yes…war is coming/spreading). And all the while, the country’s citizens ineffectively protest, blog, rant and spout from soapboxes in the obscurity enforced by the complicit Google, Apple and Microsoft. (Through the act of expression, we mistake ourselves as rendering action to injustice. This suits the suits perfectly.)
Americans are kept perpetually anesthetized by their self-absorbed fascination with who Kim Kardashian is doing or what was said on Jimmy Kimmel last night. Or they are doped up strung out alcoholic abandoners of the American Dream, which they have yet to find evidence of. By day, the entrenched Party Line broadcasters at Bloomberg and CNBC and Reuters and the Wall Street Journal make sure that the unified message of “Carry On, Work Hard, Things are Getting Better” entice the complacency of the masses.
Google Decides What You Think
North Americans are for the most part oblivious to the degree of compromise that the principles of their founding fathers have undergone. Freedom of the press, popular sovereignty, and shared powers are just a few examples of such principles which stand in stark contrast to the present reality. The totality of their subversion is obfuscated by the mainstream financial media, which is near-perfect mimicry of the Doublespeak described in George Orwell’s seminal work “1984″.
Freedom of the press, in particular, has been corrupted in a way that is only possible in the internet age. Google controls the vast majority of traffic direction on the internet, determining what results you see when you search. Google claims to direct traffic to sources deemed reliable based on reference links and citations. The more sites that link to a source, the higher its page ranking. The more traffic a site gets, the higher its site ranking on sheer nominal terms.
That strategy is likely riddled with good intent, but the sheer size, scale and reach of Google into homes invites its perversion by elite interests. Under the guise of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency invades the privacy of whomsoever they choose with impunity. They’ve even been caught warehousing personal information for future analysis of everyone on the planet. The champion of that revelation, our Edward Snowden, has been deemed a criminal and forced into exile where he remains a pawn to be played in the growing conflict between East and West.
This system ensures that the largest sites, financed by the largest capital pools in the world, are the recipients of the lion’s share of the traffic (us), while publications that focus on alternative and original thinking and viewpoints, get much less. In short, you get to see what the lowest common denominator gets to see. Your perspectives and viewpoints are thus informed by what Google determines should influence you, and you, unconsciously adopt these opinions and make them part of your own repertoire.
If you want to discover content that is critical of government, or businesses, or the financial services industry and markets, you need to literally know the URL of the site hosting such information, as Google diverts inquisitive minds from such pursuits.
Thus, the vast majority of internet news readers are directed to a uniform message crafted by government and industry, and subversive, incendiary and publications critical of that conglomerate remain obscured and very difficult to find in news and search engine portals.
A Two-Party System Does Not a Democracy Make
The American political system has come be characterized by a duopoly of nearly identical parties whose interests are uniformly aligned: protect the banks, print money like mad, encourage the sanctity of individuality to inoculate against social reform movement, isolate and disenfranchise alternate idealists, steal as much as possible from the general public without getting caught, big your way out of going to jail if you do get caught.
The financial barriers to entry for any non-Democrat or Republican candidate are so substantial, you’d have to be a billionaire just to get in the game. Which ensures that any political contenders can only ever have the same aligned interests as the rich elite.
When Americans wonder where the deadly mass shootings and random acts of violence originate, they need look no further than the maddening self-righteous hypocrisy that permeates American culture, politics and business.
What Does that Say About Canada
Our Canadian political class tries so hard to emulate the American domain of the elite that it’s almost pathetic, were it not so ubiquitous across every nation on earth. That doesn’t make it excusable, but at least it is possible to understand that the Grasping Class, as I prefer to think of them, are an expression of a defect in the broader human character.
So essentially, we’ve got a nation of 300 million anesthetized self-absorbed lunatics south of our border, with our ruling class trying desperately to act like them. We should build a tall fence and taser all the politicos who would transform Canada into an industrial cess pool like much of America has become, before it’s too late.
In the meantime, Google increasingly determines what news we see, whose opinions we read, and which talking heads we get to listen to. Incrementally, subconsciously, we imbibe the repeated opinions of billion dollar fund managers and silently repeat them to ourselves in dreams so that they can be glibly delivered as our own over lunch the next day. If George Orwell was going to right a sequel to “1984″, I think a good title would have been “2014″.
Portfolio Mangers Don’t Know Anything
I once found myself striving up the ladder to the commanding heights of the financial ivory towers of Wall Street. After my hands had been stomped on and I had plummeted back to the ground a few times, I became angry, and vowed to destroy the ivory tower. Unfortunately, the ivory tower’s base is so thickly surrounded by legions of would-be climbers that one can’t get near with nefarious intentions. Even getting to the base to launch an assault generally requires post-secondary accreditation involving at least two letters. I was not so equipped, and had fought my way to the base with nothing but speech.
Afterwards, I resolved to live happily and simply in the distant meadows from which the ivory towers can be seen gleaming in the afternoon sun. I can see them but they can’t see me. They can only see that which surrounds them, which is ivory tower walls and glass, and climbers who have successfully reached the upper floors. They are portfolio managers, and they are smug in the conviction that as talking heads, there are none more relevant or prescient. They share among them a conviction that they are the chosen ones, who rightfully direct the consumption of the world’s resources, and enrich or impoverish clients according to the whims of their superiors.
They have been prepared for climbing at universities whose walls are covered in ivy – an excellent training ground for climbers. Here, they absorb the doctrines and protocols and knowledge of all the climbers who have gone before them, and who now -not coincidentally – control the curriculums of the ivy-clad climbing schools. After 4 or 6 or more years at the school, the nimblest climbers are released into the ivory towers through special back doors that provide immediate access to the upper reaches of the ivory towers, where their scrum is limited to other ivy league ivory tower climbers. The competition is no less cut-throat and ruthless as if starting at the bottom. But the weapons of choice are keener and kill cleanly, whereas at the base of the ivories its more akin to getting trampled, as I learned the hard way.
But the successful ivory tower climbers who become Portfolio Mangers and their ilk (analysts, lawyers, accountants, etc) are invited onto Bloomberg (where the minimum Funds Under Management is $1 billion to get on – and yes that is where the ‘FUM’ in ‘Fee Fi Fo Fum’ originates…the beanstalk is a metaphor for the ivory tower designed to induce in the sharp-toothed and flinty-eyed offspring of Ivory Tower families a thirst for The Climb from an early age…) to espouse their opinions, which they now view as their own, in accordance with the indoctrination process recently completed at the ivy towers.
Since the only difference between the ivy towers and the ivory towers by name is the ‘or’, this subtle little conjunction can be found sprinkled liberally throughout numerous admonitions that form the clichés of the battle of the ivory towers: “Sink or Swim (now a brand name in the world of the Ivory Towers), Do or Die (literally), Make or Break (no explanation required).
Economists are Worse
Economists are even worse than portfolio managers in maintaining the ivory towers that guard the political class and give them both their lunch money and their marching orders. Economists are also climbers of ivory towers commonly, but are just as often happy to perform the guardianship of curriculum that ensures a steady stream of like minded ivory tower pretenders.
Economists provide the voluminous statistical diatribe that is required of the political class to justify its otherwise seemingly senseless decisions and actions, while at the same time providing statistical justification for whatsoever requires a statistical explanation to bamboozle the common folk outside of the ivory universe.
Sadly, the large majority of residents in the fields beyond the ivory towers would gladly switch places with those inside the topmost floors of the towers, even while they generally espouse contentment with their modest lot.
Among the young, there is a common desire to take down the ivory towers (at least among those who are not invited and hence do not pass through the ivy towers, and opt to travel the world raving and toking and seeking the peace and brotherhood of man), but alas! No methodology presents itself to gain egress or render harm unto the towers. And so our youth become increasingly disillusioned with the world and its future, and fritter away the hours in a hedonistic, live only for the moment manner.
