Tag: illusion

End the Farce at Least in Your Own Mind

Chris Hedges has written a book called The Death of the Liberal Class that says a lot just by its title. He is saying, essentially, that the liberal class which is the class of intellectuals, professionals and so on that are the cornerstone of any economy or ruling coalition, is finished and reform is impossible. Liberals in our context are people who have been able to “solve” the contradictions of capitalism by putting pressure on the oligarchs to provide reforms that can keep the system functioning. Liberals are and always have been anti-communist and anti-socialist, in this country at least, because they believe that capitalism can evolve into a friendly and progressive system through things like humane treatment of workers, social-safety nets, and universal health insurance (the last gasp of liberalism was the failure of HCR).

But let’s be clear here: liberals exist at the pleasure of the ruling elites. The minute liberal ideas threaten the system in any way liberals are crushed–and this goes for any society not just ours. Hedges is saying that this class in this country is finished as a class because it can no longer deliver reforms to the system. This is what I’ve been saying for some time. There was no need to put liberals in prison or assassinate them. Liberals have purged themselves by accepting cushy jobs in the system and learning to keep quiet all the while engaged in the illusion that they were “doing” something by voting for Democratic Party politicians who are designed and branded by Madison Avenue to keep the liberal class from facing reality or looking in the mirror.

Cross posted at Writing in the Raw.

Red Pill blogs in the American Matrix

Never has so much accurate and impartial information been so thoroughly ignored by the general public as in the current econmic downturn. There are numerous sites on the Internet that have been accurately predicting the steady decline of the world economy while government cheerleaders and corrupt “journalists” have been encouraging the public to smoke green shoots. As a public service, I will post a few links that are the equivalent of the “red pill” in the Matrix.

The Automatic Earth

Zero Hedge

James Howard Kunstler

Naked Capitalism

Stirling Newberry at Firedog Lake

Jesse’s Cafe Americain

Calculated Risk

If you have the least interest in understanding the magnitude and direction of the economic turmoil around us, you owe it to yourself to swallow the Red Pill and visit these sites. Otherwise, you will be trapped in a Matrix dream characterized by this ridiculous headline from today’s New York Times business section:

“June Sales at Ford Fall Less Than G.M. or Chrysler”

By contrast, here is a quote from Cafe Americain that shows the attitude of the Red Pill blogs:

We are on the record in the opinion that the Obama economic team is ineffective, backward-thinking, compromised, and possibly corrupt. They are serving the corporate banks and not the people. They should be replaced starting with Larry Summers who is a Greenspan and Rubin crony and the core of failure on the team. Tim Geithner should follow to find better employment for his talents, possibly as a salesman of men’s suits.