This morning as I was driving and stopped at an intersection, I noticed a middle-age woman in a car on the left-turn lane, next to me. The reason she caught my attention is because when I got to the intersection I noticed some distress. She would bury her face in her hands; she seemed to be crying. There was what appeared to be a GPS navigation system display in front of her (dashboard). All of the sudden, she was banging at the GPS panel, started muttering very upset (from what I could tell). Obviously, she was very stressed; so much so, that she was unaware that her display of temporary insanity (or emotional distress) was being observed by a complete stranger. The car seemed to be new, and very nice...
I'm very observant that way... And I notice people in extreme distress in many places. I see how people can become very angry in a split second at places you wouldn't expect. I've seen people being followed to parking lots because they cut somebody off a few blocks away, and being yelled at and threatened. And then you see the guy get on his car and speed away at dangerous speeds, in the parking lot.
To many people reading these words, these things may still be foreign to them. There are still people who are doing relatively well, and because they themselves are not experiencing economic hardships, they can't relate (yet) to the fact that a generalized social breakdown is happening.
We humans are like that, and that's probably a natural self-defense mechanism. The concept of "justice denied for one, is justice denied for all" it really becomes just a meaningless slogan to be used only when we want to fake our Progressive of Liberal bona fides.
It took a very long time for society to get to this point, and it's because the citizens felt prey to one of the biggest scams in the history of humanity. The ruling elite enticed us with the idea of the "American Dream" which basically meant that average people could emulate the rich by acquiring more and more and more, material stuff. The citizen became a consumer instead.
Our minds were controlled by a relentless propaganda message that said: Buy, buy, buy, consume, consume, more, more, more. In comparison to the rest of the world, what we do as a nation can only be characterized as a gross display of avarice, gluttony.
But that too was what we've come to know as a "bubble." It would have to end one day, and we would have to face the downturn--you know, boom and bust.
Essentially, the concepts of loan-sharking, and indenture servitude had been applied by the ruling elite on the entire society. Somehow workers were convinced (through propaganda) to reject the concept of unionization, and equitable and sustained wage increases (in par with productivity gains), opting for easy credit.
And as years went by, workers' rights and benefits were constantly attacked and chipped away by the "system" (moneyed elite).
Eventually keeping up with your credit card payments, and keeping a high credit score, and keeping up on buying a never-ending supply of worthless stuff (buckling under the influence of a uber-consumerist system), became the new and improved psychological whip to keep the slave class in check.
And the system compiles all manner of information and puts it into a database that it's then used to control you; to subjugate you; to enslave you. Fall off the hamster wheel (which is being winded faster and faster and faster), and off you go, to die. Your credit score goes bad, and you can't find a job, or even rent an apartment (in a "good" neighborhood).
Lose your job, and lose your health coverage, and get sick... Bankruptcy is near.
And it's not that these institutions, like the credit score system, etc., are inherently bad. They are useful in a normal system. But we are not living in a normal system. Essentially, the system has been taken over by a criminal cabal of plutocrats, and they have been using those tools to exploit you.
And they will use the newly-minted Police State to control you and keep you in line.
And people have no idea how truly powerful, and ubiquitous this criminal cabal of international plutocrats is.
Even in the face of a massive general strike in Greece, where people are essentially rising up against the same evil, bought off sycophantic politicians like Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos react with this:
"We have to explain to all these indignant people who see their lives changing that what the country is experiencing is not the worst stage of the crisis," he said. "It is an anguished and necessary effort to avoid the ultimate, deepest and harshest level of the crisis. The difference between a difficult situation and a catastrophe is immense."
As people reply with statements like "We just can't take it anymore."
It can't be clearer than that. The people are clamoring to their government, "Please, stop the oppression; we can't take it anymore."
Do you think this criminal cabal of international plutocrats gives a flying fuck about those pleas? Obviously, they don't. They could not give a shit, or two.
Their reply is, "You ain't seen nothing yet; get ready for more."
And what's reprehensible is that all the so-called austerity measures (i.e., hard push down oppression on the populace) are being imposed by choice. There is no need for them. There is no need to push the lady on the left-turn lane next to me to break down under the relentless stress she may be experiencing; much (if not all) of it caused by a criminal and broken system.
Fuck that shit!
Number one, all peoples and workers of the world unite! That's probably the most ridiculed phrase in history, right? Who made it so?
Get smart. There is not way in hell that this international uprising against this tiny group of true sociopaths will relent. The oppression needs to end, one way or another.
Why do we accept the premise that our labor, our lives, our communities, the environment, the rivers, the air we breath, the oceans, the fisheries, the farms, have to all be brutally exploited for the benefit of a tiny little group (of easily identifiable) plutocratic parasites?
No fucking way!
My Greek brothers, and my English brothers, and my Italian brothers, and my Spanish brothers, and my American brothers, keep the uprising going. Do not relent. Occupy every financial center in your countries and let these sociopaths know that the jig is up. That you have awaken from the stupor. That you have decided that you will not let them manipulate you anymore.
A new economic paradigm must result out of this worldwide movement: Democracy, properly regulated free markets, robust social safety net, local sustainability, the curtailment of dangerous accumulation of power by any one sector, and the rule of law applied equally to all.
What a concept? Did you think that that's what we had? No, what this criminal cabal of parasites has done is turn the government systems into plutocratic kleptocracies, that have nothing to do with democratic systems and true and properly regulated free markets, and the rule of law. To this criminal cabal, these are indeed very dangerous ideas.
Keep the pressure on, and show these plutocratic parasites the FIST of a United Front. The time is now; if not now, when?
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning.
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.
- Frederick Douglass