Behind The Global – Game Of – Thrones
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Arthur Rothstein Going to church to pray for rain, Grassy Butte, North Dakota Jul 1936 Greek PM Alexis Tsipras yesterday laid out Syriza’s stance, and
[See the full post at: Behind The Global – Game Of – Thrones]Sarkozy is the one who reintegrated France into NATO after 43 years and Lagarde was his former economic minister. Sarkozy is just following Marine Lepen’s line, I wouldn’t put too much faith in what he says.
Show me a man or woman who will speak as Sarkozy just did here, while in power and, , well it’s impossible. It just doesn’t happen. Those in power are in power by the fact that they will never never ever ‘talk out of school’ as the old US saying goes. There are many significant former leaders in the military/national security and financial worlds who speak out only after they leave. There can be no exception or hasn’t been until now. Not at any high level. I suppose it pertains to their personal and family economic security, in comfort.
As to Ron Paul, the go to hero of the alt economics and foreign policy worlds. Paul is what we in the US call a neo Confederate. In earlier days Paul traveled with and supported the overt racists whose lives are filled with dreams of a return to the proper social order that black chattel slavery institutionalized. For all Paul’s true Libertarian-ism one has to come to grips with what such means in regard to government power. It means if a majority of those in power in some local level in theory anyway want slavery or any other thing you can think of, then so be it.
It’s a complicated world.
I suppose in one way or another that is the world to which we are headed but disabuse yourself of any notion it will be more free.
You are addressing the psychological factors that lead to the dysfunction of large powerful organizations. As these dysfunctions not only affect the individual, but by the nature of the dysfunction, ie the need or desire for power, they affect the greater arena that these dysfunctions manifest in. In other words, were a dysfunction might normally affect a family or personal relationships, these particular dysfunctions affect the much larger family of nations and nation systems.
How can this be avoided is a relevant question. I would answer bluntly that just as the criminal justice system will order a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether the subject holds enough sanity to be charged in court for an offence, we should institute a psychological evaluation of those who are given positions of power and influence within our society.
These evaluations should become as common as an IQ test we are often asked to take we when we apply for certain types of employment. Due to the nature of the results of this testing, it should be done by a triad of mental health professionals that not only interview the individual but gather information of past decisions and behaviours that will also contribute to the final evaluations. Leaders of political parties, members of parliament, senior bureaucrats, individuals that are called on to make decisions affecting others etc. I think it should be a fundamental principle of society they we have the right to have sane and wise people in positions of power.
In fact, in terms of organizations such as the IMF or Nato, they should be analyzed to determine whether there actions would pass definitions of insanity or dysfunction that harms the greater society.
My senior high school Social Studies teacher maintained that most any organization that lasts into the 2nd generation becomes useless and if it survives the 3rd generation becomes corrupt and typically has no relation to its reason for being born. Makes a lot more sense now than it did 40 years ago.
Sarkozy is probably flying a flag for Hollande. The current president could not be the first to say it, so he asked Sarkozy to do him the favour. Doubtless, Sarkozy will get favours in return – e.g. the abandonment of court proceedings against him and so on. He never does anything without a good personal reason.
“Accusations ‘Grotesque,’ Nicolas Sarkozy Says of Inquiry”
Let’s not forget that the French political class is highly incestuous. For many years, the main political parties – supposedly political enemies – shared in the wealth extracted from African tyrants. They did not share it with the Communist party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_political_scandals
Prof Richard Werner, the inventor of quantitative easing (QE), was on Boom/Bust and said QE was never intended to be paid for by taxing citizens.
What the IMF, WB, and WTO have done is to weaponize the financial’s to steal assets from the public.
The Mafia pales by comparison, mere pikers. Varoufakis and Tsipris are the first Europeans to stand up to the criminals. I hope this will be followed shortly by Italy, Spain, Portugal, and maybe even France.
Follow that with the breakup of NATO and leave Ukraine the hell alone.@ V. Arnold, reply # 19061
The current IMF, WB and WTO are not your grandfather’s IMF, WB and WTO. Your grandfather who instigated those organizations would not recognise those institutions as they presently are. The change came as a result of opening the use of credit from strictly a source of economic production to that of amplifying consumption – look at the period when credit cards first came into widespread use, about mid to late nineteen-sixties. This opening of credit for consumption was not alloyed with a corresponding requirement to service the debts credit created. The miasma of that debt so created has not since cleared. That same scheme was applied to the IMF, WB and WTO by administrators installed by those under the influence of neoliberal thought collective mindset, who replaced the New Deal originators. The Nixon administration politicised not only the administration of jurisprudence but initiated the politicisation of the monetary/financial system as well. Both were necessary to begin the disassembly of the New Deal institutions and constraints on business. The Reagan administration marked the takeover coup by acolytes of neoliberal theology.
The probability of the European Monetary Union surviving the Greek challenge is becoming vanishingly small given the obduracy of the vested interests involved. The EMU edifice, fragile in its concept, will be in full disarray as the crisis moves to the other PIIGS and possibly France as well (PFIIGS?). By austerity they ruled, by austerity they fail. It will be fun to watch Turkey put their gas terminal on the Greek border, and Piraeus will make a fine warm-water port for the Russian Navy to occupy. Two of the find hand of cards dealt the new Greek administration. Not to overlook the milch cow that remaining in NATO could turn into.
@ T-Bear reply #19064
What a great post and spot on.
Your closing paragraph nicely summarises an eventuality I see as well.
You also detail the politicising of the economics, which is purely a form of corruption/theft.
With Varoufakis and Tsipris (some very smart guys it seems) I sense some important things are afoot.
What I worry are the unseen, unrecognised, future consequences…
CheersHow do we support them? What helps?
Call – or write to – your Congress(wo)man, or someone like him/her in other countries, and tell them you don’t want Greece to be sacrificed in your name on the Troika altar. Tell them if they don’t stop US/EU aggression in Ukraine, you will never vote for them again. Better yet: launch a campaign to this effect, and get thousands of people to do the same.
“Call – or write to – your Congress(wo)man”
Sorry. It will take something like the economic crisis in Greece for a citizen-responsive political system to be brought to power in the US and, for that matter, in any other so-called representative democracy in the world:
2014 Princeton Study
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizenshttps://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9354310
Excerpt:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.
The Lesson of Greece: Only Collapse Makes Real Change Possible (February 5, 2015)
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb15/collapse-change2-15.html
@ Raúl Ilargi Meijer, reply # 19084
Armed as TPTB are, that may be the optimal position to take. And since these institutions have lost the run of themselves, they become vulnerable, not only to a growing failure of public support but also to the ability to self correct. That combination of factors become the cancer that ends empires; it only takes a little patience, wisdom and courage (none of which is controlled by a monopoly), a widespread withdrawal of consent has earthshaking power.
Raul, in the last 45 or so years I have written, phoned, voted , marched with 10’s of thousands of like minded people countless times, organized, demonstrated, been maced and arrested.
I have in the last dozen or so years seen civil rights, voting rights, labor law, health and safety standards, reproductive rights, environmental and resource standards, banking/ fiduciary standards decimated and eliminated…oh, yeah how many illegal, immoral and treasure sucking wars??? I forget now.
Let us not forget the NYPD, our Municipal Police force, who has just announced the formation of an “elite” trained group who will be equiped with machine guns to fight terrorist threats…and protesters. Yay!!!!!
Pardon me if I am a tad skeptical of our 99% abilities to make any direct impression, having been in demonstrations of phenomenal size which mass media deemed too unimportant to mention at all on the news..well, except a passing mention of the old hippies and anarchists who were socialistscommunistsnazislazyparasites, who hate the baby Jesus.
While I will continue to tilt at windmills, I can no longer take a face full of mace or pepper spray so I also have concluded that we need a second front to fight on.
I am not a consumer of stuff or any of the mass illusions pedaled by TPTB and have organized for local food security and sovereignty, barter groups and all forms of what used to be called counter culture living etc etc etc
I believe that the system will have to crash totally for any of what we have been saying and doing to have the slightest national or global effect.
Meanwhile I keep on, tired and mighty pissed off at the idea that we have all just been sitting on our hands.The first calf of the season is due tomorrow on our dairy ranch in western NY. In
Greece they have goats, and sheep, and cattle, pigs and whatnot. The biblical father directed the slaughter of the fatted calf to celebrate the return of his prodigal son. Let us do the same for those of our number who have squandered their substance on ephemeral tokens of dubious value, thinking all the while theirs was the greater prize.@ Raúl Ilargi Meijer, reply # 19084 – OK, so you do nothing.
Well, for a start you don’t waste your time emailing your Congressman – he is your enemy and will ignore you, obviously.
For another, don’t waste your time on non-violent demonstrations – they will be ignored.
And you know what will happen if you try violent demonstrations – you will be met with greater violence – mace, tear gas, flash grenades, water cannons, sonic cannons, baton charges, trained dog attacks, bean bags and rubber bullets.
Don’t even think of being even more violent back – you will be declared a terrorist and then attacked with everything you see in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria and Yemen – Hellfire drones included.
TPTB will do THAT to YOU, make no mistake about it.
I know, start a new political party! But be prepared for being infiltrated by spies, sowing discord and splits, having all your communications read and perhaps modified, ridiculed in the MSM, character assassination of leaders, jailing and if all else fails actual assassinations. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Syriza gets a plane crash in the coming weeks. Or the “Greek Nazis” start a bombing campaign of destabilization and never seem to get caught. Or both.
In the end though, their system will crash, due to Peak Oil if nothing else. And then you will see a cascading implosion so massive that all the transport fuels will dry up, the electricity will go off for good, the water won’t come out the taps, the toilets won’t flush, no food in the shops and no money to buy it anyway, no internet, no phones, no TV and no radio. And everyone will be saying “WTF?”
Keep your powder dry until then, because THEN things will be ready for change.
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