Thursday, November 11, 2010

Shock & Awe Coming To A Strip Mall Near You

WASHINGTON – Voters who demanded Washington rein in the nation's spiraling debt are getting a message from President Barack Obama and leaders of his deficit commission: It'll hurt.

A proposal released Wednesday by the bipartisan leaders of the commission suggested cuts to Social Security benefits, deep reductions in federal spending and higher taxes for millions of Americans to stem the flood of red ink that they say threatens the nation's very future. The popular child tax credit and mortgage interest deduction would be eliminated.

Interest groups on the right and the left squealed, predictably, about the plan, which would cut total deficits by as much as $4 trillion over the next decade — much of it from programs long considered all but sacred.

The full commission has yet to make its recommendations, and the chairmen acknowledged their plan was so controversial that it's dead on arrival. But they said putting it forth would prompt a more realistic national debate about what it will take to solve the nation's fiscal woes.


For anyone who has read Naomi Klein's Shock & Awe, this is an all too familiar strategy. Crash the economy & then institute unpopular austerity measures. If the people don't like it, send in the death squads & break out the torture chambers. Now its coming to America.
Of course, Americans have been molded into such passive & neutered lumps of dough, they'll probably just roll over & say "Thank you master. May I have another."

If Americans had any guts left they'd break out the guillotines for the wealthy leeches who have been enriching themselves on American blood & sweat for decades.
It will never happen though.
Americans are so far into fantasy land with video games & pointless sports addictions & celebrity worship that they won't notice the corn-holing they're about to get until it's much too late.

I'd bet that the military will miraculously escape the chopping block. They always do. Eisenhower warned everyone about the military/industrial complex 49 years ago and nobody listened.



For about 15 minutes on 911, I entertained the idea that America just might wake from its slumber after seeing so many Americans die while their multi-trillion dollar military sat on its thumbs and rotated. It was amazing how an industry that bills itself as "defense" managed to defend no one on that day.

But no, we just climbed back on that red, white & blue leech & fed it more fucking money & gleefully sent it off to murder somebody. It was completely & utterly irrelevant who that somebody was. The really funny bit is that that somebody will most likely be us in the near future.

Irony. Black as night irony. Learn to love it America. Learn to wrap your mouths around its pecker & suck for all your worth. Because that's all we have left here in the land of the overweight & the home of the stupid.

I found this bit written by Jung, and while it was aimed at Communist state dictatorships, it is eerily prescient in describing the 21st century American corporate state.



Then, of course, there's Killing Joke, who are as relevant today as they were during Reagan's tenure as Commander & Thief.



8 comments:

just_another_dick said...

Shrub, I just passed the part where Debra Winger tells Malkovich that he isn't afraid to be alone. Malkovich's character's obvious joy at the silence of that barren landscape contrasted itself against this article:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/25/generation-why/?pagination=false

I cribbed off the RI forum and read earlier tonight. It hides a scathing critique of the Facebook/Twitter/TextSpeak generation in a film review. It is long, but well worth the read.

For once, the RI crowd was right. It is profound.

"Personally I don’t think Final Clubs were ever the point; I don’t think exclusivity was ever the point; nor even money. E Pluribus Unum—that’s the point. Here’s my guess: he wants to be like everybody else. He wants to be liked. Those 1.0 people who couldn’t understand Zuckerberg’s apparently ham-fisted PR move of giving the school system of Newark $100 million on the very day the movie came out—they just don’t get it. For our self-conscious generation (and in this, I and Zuckerberg, and everyone raised on TV in the Eighties and Nineties, share a single soul), not being liked is as bad as it gets. Intolerable to be thought of badly for a minute, even for a moment. He didn’t need to just get out “in front” of the story. He had to get right on top of it and try to stop it breathing. Two weeks later, he went to a screening. Why? Because everybody liked the movie."

The contrast between these two versions of an American are astounding and chasm wide.

Morocco Bama said...

Richard, thanks for those links, I will dive into them later today when I get some free time. In regards to Facebook, much to our chagrin, it's not only here to stay, but it's about to take an even more prominent role in shaping the wasteland that is our destiny.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rockmelt_netscapes_andreesen_backing_stealth_facebook_browser.php

Netscape founder Marc Andreessen is backing a new browser dedicated to browsing Facebook, called RockMelt, according to rumors we've heard from reputable sources. A semi-independent desktop client for Facebook? Doesn't seem far fetched at all.

Granted, that article is from 2009, but there's been some activity moving this forward since. It's close to inception, and I can't help thinking it's yet another mental prison....one more of many constructed to keep us from seeing a curtain, let alone anything that might be behind it.

Some lines from the movie that I'm still unable to fully understand.

"You have more to worry about with Tunner than I do" Malkovich storms off in a huff.

In a fevered foray deep into the social heart of Messad, he attends a local opium bar, and it appears he partakes of some heroin, wherein a broker tells him "you must sell your illness in order to find a buyer." I'm still scratching my head over that one.

ericswan said...

What's wrong with me? I don't do Facebook, Twitter, forums or chat. I don't want to be liked. I just want to be right. Not all the time but in the end where it counts.

just_another_dick said...

Eric, the short answer is that we're from the wrong generation. Two other shorter answers involve dinosaurs & obsolete.

I still can't bring myself to type acronyms like LOL or LMFAO.

My under 30 co-workers obsessively text or phone web surf all fucking day, every day.

It can be somewhat creepy sitting in a room with 3 or 4 other people who have their little communicators velcro-ed to their hands, with the only movement coming from their thumbs.

One young guy told me "I couldn't live without my phone."

I told him "I couldn't live with myself if I bought one."

I think he's still scratching his head over that one.

just_another_dick said...

Shrub, I've got to thank you for the recommendation. I'm still digesting the film. I may even watch it again.

Since my vacation ends today I am, quite frankly, bummin'.
I want to return there about as much as want to sharpen a spoon & dig out my right eye.
I suppose I should be glad I have a job, but once SSI & Medicaid & Medicare hit the chopping block, that may become a moot point since they're the primary funding conduits for my job.

My co-workers naively believe that our owners would never turn the feebs out into the cold cold world.
I can't do much else but chuckle at that one.

Zadie Smith, the author of the NY Times article I linked you to, mentions something called Facebook Connect which sounds like another step on the road to hive mind.
I'm sure I'll be avoiding it, but I'm also sure I'll be deeply embedded in the minority.

Same shit different day.

Bigfoot said...

I'm barely keeping up with personal hygiene let alone showing off 528 twitterin & natterin spacetwat friends. I think I'm having some sort of mental breakdown.
Wasn't it J.Krishnamurti who once said that it was not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society? Maybe I'm rather healthy then.

Watching my dad perish in slow motion has just wrecked me, and my family. My mother has now got to sell the house to survive, but there's so much work to be done on it before it becomes sellable. It's just me and my brother-in-law doing this in weekends. I'm beyond exhausted.

Richard, was glad to read that your daughter will be alright mate.

Cheers for another insightful post.
Will check out these links. Best of health to yiz Richard, MB and mr Swan.

Cheers -psycho sasquatch

just_another_dick said...

Bigfoot, you have my deepest sympathies. It's been almost a year since my mom & I still haven't wrapped my mind completely around that shit stew yet.
I've avoided any manner of shopping lately because I dread that 1st Christmas carol.
All I can say is that the wound does stop bleeding eventually, but the scab pops off at the oddest times.

This is what life is I guess, love & joy & pain & loss, intertwined like a caduceus.

BTW, I think the mental breakdown part is obligatory.

I know what you mean about Facebook.
I'm feeling completely at sea because I've never been "friended."
I suppose I'd have to have a Facebook page before I could be friended, but that's a minor detail.

Peace mate.
Be strong.

Morocco Bama said...

BF, I second Richard's sentiments. This too shall pass, although you probably feel like time is standing still and the misery will never end.

I won't go anywhere near Facebook. Ever. I feel dirty enough swimming in Google, but I draw the line with Facebook.

Richard, apparently the book even trumps the movie. For example, here's an observation of his about some primitive tribe in the remote interior of Africa:

‘…Their faces are masks. They all look a thousand years old. What little energy they have is only the
blind, mass desire to live, since none of them eats enough to give him his own personal force…’