Plus ça change, plus ça meme chose!
The more it changes, the more it stays the same!
Masochism among friends…
The current debate among Republican candidates for President is impressive. The GOP seems to be at odds with itself: Proper free market capitalism (Perry and Gingrich) v. its predatory practitioners (Romney). Ron Paul, the libertarian is anti-war, anti-empire, anti-federal reserve bailouts for bankers, and pro-personal liberty per the U.S. Constitution—although he seems dubious about equality for minorities or women—if the issue is not specifically mentioned in the original U.S. Constitution.
Rick Santorum’s righteous indignation about family values is confusing. Why does a party dedicated to the free market and limited government want to regulate activities in the bedroom or get between a woman and her physician or advocate for family values but discourage same sex couples from forming whatever union they deem holy or civil? The social conservative standard of “pro life” and “pro death penalty” seems suspect and reminiscent of a Church where you can hear the bells chime but the stairs don’t reach all the way to the steeple.
Among the Democrats, Mr. Hope and Change has turned into a supporter of the Bush–Clinton status quo: Unregulated bankers and bail-outs for the fraudsters, assassination of American citizens sans due process, Gitmo and indefinite detention, the blind-eye turned toward unlawful torture. Obama supporters nationwide seem disappointed not in what he says but in what he hasn’t done.
Both major party standard bearers give lip service to the issues of inequality referred to by Tea Partiers and Occupy Wall Streeters but neither can say “no” to their corporate masters. Class warfare—the rich against the poor—is now front-page news at the New York Times. Romney and Obama appear to be nominated by Corporate America and the election an illusion. Republicans and Democrats remind me of 50s era communist intellectuals in Europe, who were surprised when they realized that Stalin was a Stalinist. Obama and Romney are corporatists? Damn. Pinch me.
On the domestic front the financial industry continues to lay down bets on the market and manufactures little else but profits for men and women in suits. The free market is a casino but, like Vegas, the house always wins. Empire building can be seen in the worldwide deployment of drones for intelligence gathering and selective assassination–a symbol of how the military—industrial complex is running away with itself. Dissent in the national security state is forbidden—free food, too.
The corporate media presents candidates on television as if they are members of a virtual reality show. The wealthy 1% engage in the usual good conscience—bad faith exercises: Social tolerance, charitable gifts, and philanthropic exercises mask their vested interest in a system that rewards them with increasing riches. The blue collar and white collar servants genuflect to the higher-ups–as they have been taught to do for centuries by the Church, the Aristos, and their Governors, who pretend to be tribunes of the people. Back stage their betters divide up the spoils. But due to the sophisticated use of propaganda, the wealthy are defended by the very folks they exploit.
Social analyst Karl Marx said “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Today, when the wealthy bourgeois return the money stolen from the proles in the form of charitable contributions, the victims are quick to praise the robbers in Freudian terms: “Thank you. I needed a good beating. It feels so good when you stop.”
What’s a little exploitation and masochism among friends?
