The secret economy

Conspicuous consumption exists and has an effect on people.  It has a big effect on people and on the world.  This is the realm of the ego, where our better judgment is tempered by the demands of the subconscious.  This is where the subconscious over-rules the rational, awake mind.  The secret economy of materialism, the hidden, largest part of the iceberg ice that lies below the surface, the elephant in the room.

Removing yourself from this secondary, secret economy is easier said than done.  This economy is a tax on all our activities – each generation provides a tabula rasa upon which advertisers – the active, knowledgeable group that is consciously manipulating these economies – inscribe the definitions of things, the base, acceptable modes of existence i.e. what material things are required if you want to be an American, what it means to be a man, a woman, a child, any actor of any sort.

This falls within the purview of the discussion recently held between Dr. Nafeez Ahmed and Chris Martenson on the latter’s Peak Prosperity podcast.  Martenson clarified a question he feels people are trying to formulate but are unable to put words to: “Our cultural narrative is broken.  How do we begin going about re-writing it and implementing a new narrative that comports with the realities? (min 23)  We need to be talking about new ways of living.  What is the thread we would need to pull to unravel the current system?

I would like to put forward the pessimistic answer – directed change is prevented because we are human.  Is political change possible?  Is it possible to create a new narrative, as Martenson mentions above?  Yes, I guess it is possible but the biggest barrier people meet on the path to achieving new ways of living is themselves.  And advertisers and politicians know this.  And advertisers and politicians make money because of this.  And therefore I would amend the affirmative answer above with a “No”, no, it is impossible to consciously affect change on our economic system.  Same goes for our political system.

One big necessity is being met all the time.  This is the primary, evolved need to simply stay alive.  Whether you are Republican or Democrat doesn’t matter as long as you are alive.  Whether you believe in God or are an atheist doesn’t matter as long as you are alive.  The primary demand of the species is not how to live but simply to live.  Behind all our actions there is the little voice that keeps saying, “Stay alive”.

Every way of living an answer to the question of ethics: how are we supposed to live?  If people feel that we need to find a new way of living whatever new way is found will simply satisfy the necessary category of “finding something novel which some people need in order to keep living”.  “Right” and “wrong” ways of living are both acceptable as long was people remain alive doing either.  The “right way of living” then in this case is any form of living that perpetuates the human creature.  This may seem redundant or obvious but is an important philosophical understanding.  This idea is put forward so well by Camus in his “The Myth of Sisyphus” – we humans, at a fundamental level, “choose” to keep on keeping on, an unspoken and unconsciously confirmed acceptance of imperative, perhaps built into us by our biology, the history of evolution which is our bodies, our selfs.  If you are alive now you are affirming life constantly by being alive.

That world of un-thought, of needs that form the second, secret economy and the world of unspoken affirmation are overlapping realms within which meaning is found.  And both of these worlds are manipulated by outside forces.

Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies.

A little lie, here and there.  Just, ya know, tweak the truth a little bit – for money of course.  If we justify actions by reference to money then those little lies can be ignored, swept under the rug.  No harm, no foul.  Lies become commodities and we take the blame.  Someone in a powerful position lies and that lie becomes a product with its attendant accessories of guilt.  And we buy the lie and we accept the guilt and the person in power is therefore absolved.  In the immortal words of Thom Yorke: “You do it to yourself, you do.  And that's what really hurts”.

All this against the backdrop of a raging sea (don’t forget Robert: “I opened up my eyes/And found myself alone alone/Alone above a raging sea”), fixed landmarks gone, focus kept on small truths that are ready at hand just to maintain some coherence.  Little lies are easily accepted to maintain this coherence, to bolster coherence: we agree with the stitch quality and color of the Emperor’s clothes not from placid, well-kept and well-lit streets but from ships passing in the dark on those turbulent seas, spotlighted for chaotic seconds, agreements made not out of luxury but out of the belief that all will be lost if these dubious concordances are not met and sustained.

These little lies amass and soon we do not see that we accept and/or ignore murderous wars overseas, that we submit to being poisoned by our accepted diet at home, that one Emperor’s cloak of words woven, spun with a silver tongue are acceptable while the latest Emperor’s orange flax façade is (justifiably) unacceptable, a call for action based on aesthetics and not any substance – Trump initiated his rule with murder in Yemen exactly as Obama did.

The freedom and sovereignty of our own consciousness has been removed via the lies of the war on drugs – states of consciousness have been made illegal.  Are certain thoughts illegal too?  Will the phrase “we are murdering people overseas” land one in jail just as the possession of a joint already does?

Yet we are free to consume soda – actively encouraged to do so by the little lies of advertising.  It is Susan Neely’s job to prevent children from drinking soda while encouraging its consumption among adults – the tasks of the President and CEO of the American Beverage Association.  How to square that circle, but Neely does so mostly unflinchingly – what do you expect form the woman who helped create that little organization called the Department of Homeland Security.  Kudos to her.

And that building bombs should be recognized primarily as a source of jobs – little lies amass and we end up not giving a fuck about the use of those bombs.  Makes one wish that church attendance would correlate to a basic understanding of the concept of murder.  Or that the magnanimity of Jesus’ New Testament lessons wouldn’t have to be put through a logic meat-grinder creating an American moral-meat with too high a content of nitrate-lies.

Let’s all wash death-brats down with the science experiment that is high fructose sodas, an ample feast to consume whilst living our lie-permeated existence.  Salud!

Monetized morals

The use of our budgets – individual budgets, household, city, state and nation (global?) – is varied.  On a basic level we spend money in order to survive – think of good old Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I guess.  But just as it doesn’t take long for the association of income with happiness to decouple in the upper income brackets, money quickly breaks the gravitational pull of bare survival and becomes an expression of beliefs, a palette with which to express aesthetic choices.

So, topically, how do you feel about spending more on consumer goods typically bought from Mexico in order to put up a wall between that country and the US?  One rebuttal has stated that Americans will end up effectively paying for the wall through increased consumer goods products.  Now, obviously not everyone supports the construction of this (un?)aesthetic perimeter.  Of those that do, how many would up-front agree to paying more for cars, trucks, avocados and beer?  Would this expense be accepted by those in favor of the wall?  I would say yes, some people would find a rallying cry in this expense, especially with (or in anticipation of) their new-found spending power since the wall would (assumedly) limit contests for jobs.

That one would spend more on goods to promote something they want is akin to people going out of their way to purchase organic foods – a positive thing, wrought by one’s values.  But this voting with one’s dollar takes a turn for the pragmatic when you consider the willingness we have to promote violence just to provide jobs – which lets people have money to spend on those avocadoes, organic or otherwise.  That we have military contractors that are big employers is something everyone is familiar with.  And limited our military actions overseas is kind of equivalent to the choice we may make to build a wall. 

Rambling, I know.  But one thing every American should hear, understand and make their peace with is the comments of Wolf Blitzer during an interview with Rand Paul which you can read about here.  The headline reads “Wolf Blitzer Is Worried Defense Contractors Will Lose Jobs if U.S. Stops Arming Saudi Arabia” and that says it all.  Another aesthetic choice.  An aesthetic choice of work to complement the aesthetic choice of how we spend our money.  If the more expensive avocadoes provide food for thought then the choice of mil. contractor jobs perhaps fucking-countries-up-overseas for thought.

Why the NFL is rigged: thoughts on Trump

So we’ve all heard the allegations: the NFL is fixed.  Refs make shitty calls at decisive moments tilting the balance in favor of whichever team Roger Goodell has selected to win.  Why else do the play reviews get routed back to New York and NFL headquarters?  Along with college football nearly $100 million are bet on NFL games – you think outcomes are left to chance?

What?  You haven’t heard of this?  Well I’ll admit it is not an open and shut case – no Bill Hicks’ “case-fucking-closed” on the idea that the winner of each NFL game is predetermined.  I’ll admit that.  Yet, my mind can’t help but jump to such conclusions.  This is based on a few things, like Brian Tuohy’s work and things I’ve seen: those fucked-up calls/no-calls that even the announcers feel the refs and reviewers get wrong.  But my idea that the NFL is rigged is also based on an overall impression; something arrived at by the gestalt of weird calls, built-in vagueness of the rulebook and the disheartening slavish devotion of the fans.  It just feels like something is not right and I find watching games difficult (though I still watch sometimes – it is entertaining, goddamit).

Let me now translate this to the negative views many people have of Trump.  As my views of the NFL may seem irrational so too – to me and others – do the reactions people have to Trump.

Let me be straightforward with two things.  One, I pay a lot of attention to foreign policy and foreign relations.  And secondly, I have a penchant for world-changing, dare I say, cataclysmic events.  So my hands-off Trump policy, which was decided on mostly subconsciously, has keyed on things Trump has said about foreign policy to a great extent.  And he gets passing marks, in this regard.  My approval springs from the hope that the pain and suffering being inflicted by the US on other parts of the world right now may perhaps be brought to an end.  You still with me?  Let’s let other countries defend themselves and Jesus Christ let me turn a blind eye to the fact that the reason we are over wherever is not simply to intervene in a squabble amongst other nations but because we have financial and strategic interests in those countries.

So maybe you can see, for the above two reasons, why I’m not super freaked out by Trump.  On those issues.  (Hillary destroyed Libya and bragged about it – case fucking closed and that is why it would have been unconscionable for me to even consider voting for her.)  You probably can’t, though, and that is what is fascinating to me: for some folks Trump is the devil incarnate. 

What is this dog whistle?  That is the crux.  For some folks there is something that is just not right with Donny Tinyhands.  On paper I get it but I do not have the visceral reaction so many seem to have.  Perhaps to belittle all involved, this is analogous to my NFL feelings, that something is just not right.  I know he said some shitty things in the run up to the election – I think this is what a lot of people are reacting to.  And those controversial statements didn’t bother me at all.  Our reactions are crafted in our hearts and not in our minds.  To be honest I get that “something is just not right” feeling about our whole country at times.

Why Donald Trump is already a more liberal President than Obama

Congratulations America, we did it!  Same thing could be said after any Presidents’ election.  Left, right, center, fascist, libertarian, liberal, we are all in it together.  “It is what it is” as they say, a phrase I’ve been hearing more and more people say these recent years.

And I’m not condoning anyone.  I’m not excoriating anyone that was in contention for election or that did get elected.  If there is a problem it lies in what we, as a population do.  Or the problems lies in what don’t do.

Who was the last liberal president?  Well, many would perhaps say Obama.  On the right this perceived liberalness is a source of ire.  On the left Obama’s liberalism is a source of pride.  But let me report the observation of a few political observers that Richard Nixon was our last liberal president. Yes, Richard Milhous Nixon, Prez No. 37.  Our last liberal president.

First we have good old Noam describing Nixon as the last liberal president.  Talking about the current minimum wage debates Chomsky stated, “It’s a shame that it’s taken so long to even be a discussion.  As for support, we may recall the last major program for helping families at the level of survival was under Richard Nixon. In many respects Nixon was the last liberal president”.  Nixon signed an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act which raised wages more than 40%.

Then we have Chris Hedges.  “Who was the last liberal president we had?  It was Richard Nixon.  Not because he was a liberal, but because he was frightened of movements.”  Hedges recounts a scene from Kissinger’s memoir where Nixon had parked buses end to end to block protesters’ access to the White House.  “They’re going to break through the barricades and get us,” Kissinger recalls Dick saying to him.  And for Hedges, that is right we want to have the powerful.  Does it feel that way today?

And now Donny Tiny Hands is in office.  I can’t truthfully say yet that he will be a liberal president in this contrarian sense but the movements have started.  We will see what we get.  The last eight years had Occupy and that was a big deal.  But for the most part people kind of chilled out with Barack in the White House.  And there was reason to be critical.  I’ll let Hedges conclude:

We will begin to build forces that will pressure power to respond.  And I think that’s what we’ve forgotten.  We have to begin to make the power elite terrified of us.  And occupy did that by the way.  They were terrified of Occupy . . . and they had to destroy it.  And let’s remember who destroyed it: Barack Obama destroyed it in a coordinated federal campaign.  Because the people most frightened of Occupy were the Democrats which is why they tried to co-op the language.

The Lion of Idaho series: Borah and the end of US neutrality during World War I

At the outbreak of World War I, the United States was a neutral country wondering: “Should we go to war?”  At issue was the sinking of the RMS Lusitania (sunk May 7, 1915) which claimed the lives of 128 Americans.  Was the US now involved?  Senator Borah urged his fellow legislators to take a hands-off approach.  He begrudgingly accepted the US’s invasion of Mexico during the coincident Pancho Villa Expedition and felt that the Lusitania did not merit breaking neutrality.

More importantly concerning whether to stay neutral or not was the selling of weapons to European belligerents.  In tail-wagging-the-dog fashion then – as today – the role of weapons manufactures was in question.  Is it a breach of neutrality to sell weapons to other states involved in war?  Borah’s Senate colleague Robert La Follette, a remarkable statesman in his own right, took up this issue.  “It is repugnant to every moral sense,” La Follette said, “that governments should even indirectly be drawn into making and prosecuting war through the machinations of those making money by it.” (197)

The war drums were beating steadily by this time.  Calls to go to war were made in the name of patriotism.  And the weapon sales that La Follette was arguing against were already taking place.  Although in 1914 Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan had “advised bankers that loans to belligerents would be inconsistent with our ‘true spirit of neutrality’”, the US government decided on the laissez-faire option.  And war became good for business:

[T]he Government announced that it would not approve or disapprove credits made by American banks for the purpose of facilitating belligerent purchases in the United States. […]  So much prosperity arose from the purchases made by the Allies in the United States that in August, 1915, the Government of the United States agreed that the belligerents might float public loans in this country. (198)

JP Morgan & Co. positioned the United States to support the Allies which “fueled charges the bank was conspiring to maneuver the United States into supporting the Allies in order to rescue its loans”.  The bank funded Russia, France and England.  After the war Morgan & Co. managed the reparations from and loaned money to Germany.

Borah eventually voted for joining the war saying, “I make war alone for my countrymen and their rights, for country and its honor” (203).  Was Borah picking one current among many leading to war that he deemed acceptable, running with it, arguing for it almost as a proxy?  Liberty is quite the concept to fight for but can also serve to blind one to the complexities of many situations, especially ones involving world politics.  Near the end of his life, as the next world war was breaking out, Borah infamously said, “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler – all this might have been averted,” garnering scorn.  But who knows what would have happened if Borah could have addressed the German as men discussing pure concepts of liberty, etc.

I feel that in the events of war Borah maintained his integrity: another post could be the topic of his relation/opinion about banks.  I will let Claudius Johnson conclude with these stirring words re: Sen. Borah:

By inheritance, by instinct, by environment, by education, and by profession Borah is an individualist.  By the same token he has always stood for national individualism.  Political isolation and political isolation only, will, in his opinion, give us peace and the opportunity to work out our own democratic destiny.

Populism, democracy, aristocracy and dictators - post-election thoughts/complaints

The Bernie bumper stickers are fading.  All the hopes and dreams represented by a candidate are now forgotten as we move forward in our new reality.  This is the forgetting of the casually involved, those who activate their attention/have their attention activated for them only for the duration of the presidential election process.  Others remain involved: “the involved minority” always active on the periphery.

How much do you research politics and economics?  Oh, if you’re like me do you (sometimes?) spend more time reading about sports than you do about topics that actually matter to your life?  And keep in mind these ideas of state are debated by motherfuckers who study this shit full time.  Which means your part-time, exclusively tuned-in only during the months around the election research amounts to a drop in the intellectual bucket.

What is the right way?  Kaleidoscopic, myriad interests.  Fundamentally different moral bases that people operate from.  Different levels of intellect demanding different levels of stimulation.  What are the foundational ideas of a nation?  Of a people?  Of a family?  How do you debate merits of a presidential candidate when you cannot agree to common definitions of words you debate with?

Is it not time to reach a consensus on fundamentals instead of the clusterfuck of interests that our distracted attention spans so cloudily focus on for brief periods of electoral time?  Can we not cede – if we do not already in practice do – the responsibilities of deciding our interest to those who are more intelligent?

We do cede decision-making powers to others since our government, fed-state-local, is representative.  How do you decide what being intelligent is, though?  That is a big question and recently I was considering the work of Jose Ortega y Gasset in this light.  Basically, let an aristocratic class solve our problems – this has been the state of affairs in so many times and places throughout history.  Heck, you may even say that it is the case today, though we celebrate some kind of ideal of democracy.

Everyone is equal and gets to have a say.  Mob rule.  Isn’t this the ideal?  Is this possible?  Desirable?  I’ll be honest: based on the way my fellow Americans behave I would like a beneficent dictator to take over.  Remember, dictator did not always have a negative connotation.  If only those that rule today had the interests of the people in mind . . . um, never gonna happen, right?