Evolution of Consciousness

Good article by Paul Krugman called “The Pain Caucus” expands on the idea of governments now making economic decisions based on what is best for the wealthy class, to the detriment of everyone else.

This is what Class Warfare feels like, the fruition of Reagan’s trickle-down dream. Push all the money to the top, and let the rabble fight over pennies (which explains the parallel emergence of Walmart, now the largest corporation in the land, where most Americans spend their hard-earned pennies).

It’s been a slow, steady dismantling of FDR’s New Deal, which was created in response to the first Republican Great Depression. This time we’ve got a complicit Democratic Party playing along, plus a retrograde Supreme Court, and a completely supine media.

The Owners have this country in a stranglehold, and revolution is looking like our only way out.

Another look at the economic shenanigans taking place in Europe right now: “Eurozone Crisis is Self-inflicted” by Mark Weisbrot.

And we might as well take this opportunity to recognize “austerity” as the buzzword of the day: code for economic raiding of public assets by private interests. Basically, it means “everyone else tighten your belts, while we raid the cookie jar.”

This standard Milton-Friedman-esque IMF-ish ploy, first perpetrated in far distant lands (Latin America, Asia, Africa), is now coming home to roost in the “western” countries (Iceland, United States, Greece).

Now that the rich boys have scoured the globe, I guess they’ve decided to target the really big prizes, before the whole charade falls completely apart. This could be a good sign, perhaps the end of this economic horror show is fast approaching.

These are interesting times we live in.

We are currently being presented with some momentous decision points concerning government and economics, so it is becoming more and more important for people, the masses, to understand what is happening at the foundational level.

If we continue passing through these crises largely unaware and misinformed (Hello, Teabaggers) we could go the way of the Weimar Republic (totalitarian fascism). That is what ignorance could bring.

On the other hand, this is also a golden opportunity for us to take an evolutionary step in a much more positive direction, but in order to accomplish that we must have some basic understanding of the actual forces involved. We need to attain a critical mass of consciousness about what is currently happening.

Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007) provides excellent background on this subject, and here’s a few more recent discussions on the latest events…

• “Austerity Does Not Produce Prosperity” by Robert Kuttner
• “The Greeks Get It” by Chris Hedges
• “Euro-Bankers Demand of Greece” by Michael Hudson

The buzzword of the day is “unwind.”

Strategic deployment of this term can bestow economic sagacity. Example: “Look at that Euro unwind!”

Note: although “unwind” has become widespread, is being overutilized well, and shows signs of longevity, it is not expected to threaten “deploy” for Buzzword of the Decade.

Matt Taibbi has some fun with Sarah Palin.

David Swanson gets all crazy on foreign policy.

And Joe Bageant hits it out of the park with “Lost on the Fearless Plain.”