When future history books are written, people like Edward Snowden, Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, Julian Assange, Chris Hedges, Bill Moyers, and other giants of our times when it comes to a true understanding of morality, justice, civic duty, and ethics, will be credited with having played a very important role in helping hasten the fall of the destructive and oppressive global corporate state. Because they are our contemporaries, and because they are only human and imperfect, it is hard for us to understand the enormous contributions these folks (and others like them) have made when it comes to the ongoing unraveling of one of the most destructive and oppressive socioeconomic systems in history...
The corporate state has hit a brick wall; climate change will not allow it to keep devouring and destroying the environment with the same rapacious greed with which it has thus far. Also, its built-in penchant for rapid wealth accumulation has resulted in unprecedented levels of income inequality, and just like the environment is beginning to push back (as it were) in the form of destructive climate events, the people have also started to push back as the level of oppression due to economic exploitation becomes intolerable.
And just like it happens at smaller scales, the global corporate state finds itself with a overabundance of "labor," and reflexively resorts to "downsizing." The only difference is that when it comes to the global corporate state, the method of downsizing is a little different from the one used by individual corporations, i.e., you get a pink slip and are laid-off. The downsizing method of the corporate state is more basic: just kill off millions of people. Thus one of the most incredibly misused euphemisms in history: austerity measures.
Here's another way of saying the same thing, as told by Archbishop of Tegucigalpa Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga (confidant of Pope Francis) during an October 25th speech at the University of Dallas (as he quoted J. Ziegler's Human Rights and World Democracy:
“The globalization of the exchange of services, capital and patents has led over the past ten years to establish a world dictatorship of finance capital. The small transcontinental oligarchies that hold the financial capital dominate the planet… The lords of financial capital wield over billions of human beings a power of life and death. Through their investment strategies, their stock market speculations, their alliances, they decide day to day who has the right to live on this planet and who is doomed to die.”
The emphasis is mine
And thus we've finally reached the proverbial fork in the road. Turning right means that we would have fully embraced a dystopian world based on corporatism ruled by social Darwinism where a tiny (global) ruling elite manages to set people up against each other in a kind of "Hunger Games" where those who are able to keep up with the demands for enrichment of the fascistic ruling elite survive, and those who can't die. They die of self-inflicted wounds when they can't take the pressure any longer; they die for lack of proper health care; they die of malnutrition; they die homeless in the streets; or they die once right wing (useful idiots) groups who have been purposely armed to the teeth are "activated" to go after "certain groups."
Now, if we turn to the other side, Left, and choose to take that road, it means we would have rejected the ethos of global (unfettered and exploitative) capitalism (or in reality, Kleptocracy) in favor of democracy, community, decency, collectivism, sustainable living and respect for the environment.
Either way we choose, it is not going to be easy from this moment on... Turning Right in the fork means we will remain on our knees as the abuses from the corporate state and the sociopathic ruling elite not only continue, but get worst with every passing day. And when we die, we will die alone, cold, in the streets; we will be picked-off one by one (just like it is beginning to happen now), if we dare not to be able to keep up with the increasingly brutal system.
Turning Left in the fork, means we will stand up from our knees, will unite in solidarity, and will confront the global corporate state head-on with the full understanding that the people united by the millions and millions can never be defeated by a few thousand fascist oligarchs.
But a necessary condition for us to be able to, number one, unite in solidarity, and number two, garner sufficient strength to finish what has already started (bringing down the global corporate state), we will need to come to a clear understanding of not only the nature of the enemy we are facing, but that of our own.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
-- Sun Tzu: The Art of War
The emphasis is mine
And what does it means to know the enemy in this context? It means that we need to realize once and for all that the government institutions (in the U.S., and England, Italy, Greece, Spain, and other countries) have been captured by a "world dictatorship of finance capital," acting as a "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity."
Although for decades now there have been people trying their best to warn us about this reality, the message wasn't getting through fast enough for many reasons, including the effects of the most powerful propaganda machine the world has ever seen in the form of the corporate media conglomerate, as well as the paralysis caused by induced economic insecurity, what Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and others, have been able to do is hasten that understanding of the true nature of the system.
And now that that understanding is spreading across the world like wild fire, we need to work on understanding our role in the demise of the global corporate state.
When I refer to "our role" in the demise of the corporate state I mean that in the purest sense of the word... Because of the nature of the system we are dealing with we can no longer rely on "leaders" or "institution" nor even "liberal organizations" which have actually done more harm than good because of having been co-opted.
In the age of the total information awareness surveillance police state potential leaders can be quickly neutralized and compromised. We will need to be guided not by leaders, or organized groups, or institutions, but by a moral compass, again, based on a universal understanding of what it means to be a citizen, the true meaning of the concept of society, of democracy, of living in harmony with our environment and with each other... And so, I argue, that we will have to embrace the concepts and practices of non-hierarchical organizations, and voluntary associations, again, all guided by a clear understanding of "morality" when it comes to our roles as "citizens."
In my previous writings I've compared this concept to the way flocks of birds move in unison, as if guided by some force, in "murmuration."
And all this is already happening... People are realizing that we are facing a global tyranny; we are starting to understand its true nature, and as that knowledge spreads like wildfire across national boundaries, it is going to become harder and harder for the tiny group of oligarchs pulling the strings (pushing "austerity," and Neoliberalism) behind the scenes, to remain hidden. And once that understanding reaches a certain level, there will be a tipping point. And when that happens it will be like a dam bursting!
We live in the world that your propaganda made, but when you think you are strong, you are weak. Your lies tell us the truth we will use against you. Your secrecy shows us where we will strike. Your weapons reveal your fear for all to see. From Cairo to Quito a new order is forming. The power of people armed with the truth.
-- Julian Assange / Calle 13 multi-viral
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Market For The People |Ray Pensador | Email List | Twitter | Facebook