Power Asses

I can't travel freely, I cannot live where I choose, I have to get a job where there are jobs and pay rent where there are jobs.  I can't grow my own food because I don't own property.  I don't "own" property because I don't have enough money and it takes quite a lot to own.  If you do own property, regardless of how you came to own it, even if you were born into it, you can make money purely from that ownership.  I will never have that much money because I'm not at the top of society.  Rents and property 'values' increase but wages do not.  And most Americans live within some form of serfdom.  


Historically, there's almost always been a group of folks circulating within the same power pool.  "Power" is power over other people.  But how do these Power Asses keep their thrones?

1. Make people think they're just like you.
Because the "terms" have changed over time and "anyone" can be king.  No longer are there serfs, required to work the lord's land, mines and roads in return for protection and the ability to grow food, there are free workers, able to move between jobs and climb metaphorical ladders!

There's a huge difference between modern workers and serfs.  Having a job is no longer required - modern workers should be grateful to have jobs - thank you so much for giving me a job in your factory/business/house/restaurant/field!  And no longer is there a "lord of the manor", there are several to choose from!  And because those lords made decisions to cheat, swindle and steal from the public, there are now fewer jobs then there are people that 'need' them.

Workers do not have job choices, but they don't fully realize that.  If they don't get a job, if they don't pay to rent property, they will be sent to jail (for 'tax evasion' at the very least) and have their natural rights taken from them, just for choosing to not be a part of the system.  So, again, especially with the top-earner-induced recession (it wasn't the fault of the poor), the workers will be grateful to have whatever shit job is thrown at them.

The American Dream is still alive in the hearts of the masses and therefore people don't admit they've been swindled.  Oh yes, The American Dream!  People still believe that they no longer have to officially be "born" into a class to be in that class and that it's still technically possible to move between classes!  In practice, however, class immobility is the norm, especially if you are born into a poor family.

And education, as a method to improve social status, is becoming more and more prohibitive.  Costs of education are increasing drastically, in private and public institutions.  Student loan debt, which has topped a trillion dollars and cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, has become a shiny new form of indentured servitude.

2. Make people too broke to care.
If wages are kept low, many people have to take extra jobs or work longer hours to keep up with increases in rent and goods.  Productivity has been increasing steadily in recent decades which means that more money is being made with the same amount of labor and virtually lower wages.  But if people are scared into believing that there will be fewer jobs if wages are increased by those who 'create' jobs, more and more workers will be forced to take on more jobs while more and more money goes to 'them'.

In addition, people are forced to incur debt for necessary things like medical bills.  America is the only industrialized, wealthy country with no national health care.  And over half of all bankruptcies in America are due to medial bills or illness.  So, if you're poor, you can't afford health care and you're therefore more likely to have outrageous debt if something does go wrong.  And that debt will be made more outrageous by the fact that insurance companies can negotiate for substantially lower costs on medical bills than an individual can.  So you uninsured poor person are likely picking up whatever slack the insurance companies are negotiating - additionally, non-profit hospitals aren't in your area, sorry.

3. Distract people with shiny things.
Scandals!  Sports!  Reality TV!  Encourage "voting" along lines of religion or social issues that have nothing to do with what politicians actually do once they're in power!

4. Make people scared for their lives.
Jail is little more than a holding tank for government threats.  If not, why are there so many drug possessors and angry, disenfranchised young men in jail and very, very few bankers?  Why else would America, with 5% of the worlds population, incarcerates 25% of the world's prisoners?  Why else would squatters, who are otherwise homeless, be sent to jail?

As a very literal holding tank for angry young men, Gitmo holds prisoners that aren't charged or confessed to charges under torture.  But these people cannot be released because of the security threat they pose, among other freedom-loving reasons.  Anyone perceived as anti-American can be classified as a security threat.

When I was growing up, I naively believed that people were born with certain rights, inalienable rights even.  These included the right to not be shot in the back by an unmanned aerial vehicle because the vehicle operator's government secretly determined that a person is a threat to them.  But if enough people are killed, including American citizens who are expressly protected from such extrajudicial killings by one of the few explicit social agreements in American society, the population will be too scared to rebel.

And so the world turns around the Asses of Power.

New Life, New Adventures, New York

I don't write enough on the inter-blogs.  I see that it's almost been a year since I wrote my last post and, privacy be damned, the government information-collecting servers needs to know how I'm feeling about my life!!  And under CISPA, the Office of the Second Children could see my data!  MY data!  How flattering is that?!

This article, posted today, Why I’m Attending the Dedication of the Bush Lie Bury, coincides with the recently-passed 10-year anniversary of the Iraq War.

Not only have we learned that Powell, Cheney and Bush all lied to us about WMDs and many in the country (maybe most) believed, through press briefs and official statements, that Saddam was directly linked to the 9/11 attacks, but we've recently be inundated with news of Nixon's "treason" with disruption of the Vietnam / Paris peace talks.  History is repeating itself, it seems, but there is a lot the country seemed to have learned from the Vietnam War, especially when it comes to trusting the United States government.

When did the government earn the 'should never be questioned' status that it enjoyed in this War, especially in the beginning?  Grag Mitchell, in So Wrong for So Long, which I'm currently ingesting, the author rehashes articles written for Editor & Publisher (a media trade publication) before and during the war that constantly question the media's role in promoting the government War Agenda without (substantial enough) question.  He does allude to 9/11 being a huge factor in silencing dissenters, as many people were angry and wanted to lash out at someone.  An interviewee on the movie Why We Fight, whose son was killed in the towers, is an amazing example of this reaction.  He's also a major example of the WTF reaction to the later-emerging facts that do not link the terrorists with Iraq at all (they were mostly from Saudi Arabia?).

Ultimately, our media and government have failed us.  The lies and ensuing manipulation to support those lies are abhorrent, at the very least.  The 'embedded' journalist scam, the prevention by the military/government to publish images of the dead (let's not have another Vietnam, or anti-Vietnam on our hands!), the cowardice of journalists to stand up to bullshit press conferences and to jeopardize their careers...sick fucking shit.  How many people died?  How many people's lives were ruined?  And, for what?  Lining of pockets?  A vendetta?  Sick. Fucking. Shit.

These people are psychopaths and they have to be stopped (you read that correctly, CIA, I'm advocating for an overthrow of the government because it has become tyrannical - suck it).

On that note, moving from the DC Liar's Den to the LA Entertainer's Den to the NYC Rich Funding the Liar's Den (whatever...)... it's going to be a fun year.

Rise Up, Rebel, Revolt.