Exactly zero percent of the world's worst criminals are in prison. Imperialists. War profiteers. Ecocide profiteers. The very worst of thieves are financial elites. The system isn't designed to protect us from society's worst, it's designed to protect society's worst from us.
Always love the clarity driving the heart of your writing. I've a family member who clings to the NYT chiefly because it's "authoritative." That it regularly engages in outright propaganda seems less of a concern. I suspect that millions of other Americans are similarly smitten. This reveals a rather ugly facet of human ego-driven chimp-brain poo-flinging madness, acceptable so long as it's dressed up in a tuxedo.
Unfortunately, as we see time and again, foreigners who collude with the US are often viewed as traitors by their countrymen, and the punishment is often prison or death. Thus, officials in the puppet government, translators, and bureaucrats have until September 11th to flee or face the music. The US often does provide easy refugee status to such individuals, but as that famous helo on the roof of our Saigon embassy communicates - not everyone will make it out.
Let's not kid ourselves that Afghanistan was going to end any differently than in past US-occupied countries. Iraq, is surely next. The poor SOBs.
The terms and labels attached to people and/or governments by the media shape the narrative. The DNC and the corporate liberal media used "socialist", "Russian asset", and "Assad apologist" to delegitimize the 2020 Sanders and Gabbard presidential campaigns and Americans and citizens of the rest of the world will suffer greatly as a result. It's never been more clear that our top political, military and intelligence officials and the media they control are engaged in a disinformation campaign aimed at American citizens in service of fabricating “enemies” to justify their huge budgets and genocidal colonial wars. Their utter lack of concern let alone guilt for the millions of innocent human beings murdered or displaced as refugees as a result of US "interventionist wars" and “wars on drugs” in the middle east and Latin America revealed to be based on lies is astounding. The bipartisan racist, sociopathic zeitgeist that describes US domestic and foreign policy is unconscionable.
People took an understandable sigh of relief after Trump lost but as the reality of the fact that Biden is a straight-up neocon and neo-liberalist, "progressives" (i.e. people with a normal conscience and morals) find themselves in a very dark place.
It should be obvious, as Caitlin has pointed out, that the current system doesn't work, but getting rid of capital (private property) entirely was already attempted. It didn't work, either. Remember Stalinism, Maoism and Pol Pot? You can't eliminate exploitation simply by murdering all Kulaks, because eliminating entirely the incentive to work and accumulate modest personal wealth is itself oppressive, and doesn't really benefit anybody. It's a negative sum game and led to Soviet collapse. Society needs ambitious people who work hard, innovate, take risks, give others opportunity by employing them as apprentices and laborers, and accept responsibilities for their failures and torts. So what creates most of the problems?
Caitlin has pointed out that none of the biggest criminals are ever punished. So accountability is a problem. The biggest limitation on personal accountability in the current system is government limitations of liability, and the grand-daddy of them all is the limited liability corporate charter whereby investors are granted the privilege of investing while accepting no personal accountability for how their money is used beyond the monetary value of their initial investment. Common law holds sole proprietors and partnerships personally liable for debts and torts created by their enterprise. Their entire net worth is on the line. Government intervention to grant this privilege is the root of many problems like pollution, dangerous products and working conditions, encroachment on the property of others and corporate fraud tolerated or even encouraged by corporate management.
Another problem that's been pointed out repeatedly is the power imbalance inherent in plutocracy. As soon as an entity accumulates more wealth than is physically needed for sustenance, he/she/it will use that wealth for power to protect the his/her/its continued sustenance. Over time, this has led to plutocratic control over government institutions, especially since limited liability removes almost all limits to the size of corporations.
The invention of the limited liability corporate charter has led to many if not most of the excesses of the current political-economic system in the West, which is more fairly labeled corporatism rather than capitalism. It would be difficult to eliminate the joint stock corporations made possible by limited liability without massive disruption of society and suffering for all, not just the elites. However, it may be possible to corral the "corporations are people" and "money is speech" doctrines created by an activist, elitist judiciary that has caused so many problems, such as the Dred Scott decision.
Thus, one of the narratives that imprison us is that we live under a system of private property (capitalism), while the reality is that we are oppressed by corporatism.
Beyond that, Caitlin sometimes falls into the identity politics trap, such as her "nineteenth century slaver talk" comment. Nobody should die just because they resist arrest, unless they credibly threaten the life of an arresting officer or bystanders. If Caitlin thinks only a "black man" can suffer that fate, she should review the videos of Daniel Shavers' death. He wasn't even resisting, but doing his best to be compliant to a bully that was looking for an excuse and subsequently killed him. The idea that only black men are the victims of police violence is part of the divisive narrative used to control us. Don't feed it.
Always love the clarity driving the heart of your writing. I've a family member who clings to the NYT chiefly because it's "authoritative." That it regularly engages in outright propaganda seems less of a concern. I suspect that millions of other Americans are similarly smitten. This reveals a rather ugly facet of human ego-driven chimp-brain poo-flinging madness, acceptable so long as it's dressed up in a tuxedo.
Thank you for your clarity about healthy/conscious and unhealthy/unconscious behaviour.
Unfortunately, as we see time and again, foreigners who collude with the US are often viewed as traitors by their countrymen, and the punishment is often prison or death. Thus, officials in the puppet government, translators, and bureaucrats have until September 11th to flee or face the music. The US often does provide easy refugee status to such individuals, but as that famous helo on the roof of our Saigon embassy communicates - not everyone will make it out.
Let's not kid ourselves that Afghanistan was going to end any differently than in past US-occupied countries. Iraq, is surely next. The poor SOBs.
The terms and labels attached to people and/or governments by the media shape the narrative. The DNC and the corporate liberal media used "socialist", "Russian asset", and "Assad apologist" to delegitimize the 2020 Sanders and Gabbard presidential campaigns and Americans and citizens of the rest of the world will suffer greatly as a result. It's never been more clear that our top political, military and intelligence officials and the media they control are engaged in a disinformation campaign aimed at American citizens in service of fabricating “enemies” to justify their huge budgets and genocidal colonial wars. Their utter lack of concern let alone guilt for the millions of innocent human beings murdered or displaced as refugees as a result of US "interventionist wars" and “wars on drugs” in the middle east and Latin America revealed to be based on lies is astounding. The bipartisan racist, sociopathic zeitgeist that describes US domestic and foreign policy is unconscionable.
People took an understandable sigh of relief after Trump lost but as the reality of the fact that Biden is a straight-up neocon and neo-liberalist, "progressives" (i.e. people with a normal conscience and morals) find themselves in a very dark place.
It should be obvious, as Caitlin has pointed out, that the current system doesn't work, but getting rid of capital (private property) entirely was already attempted. It didn't work, either. Remember Stalinism, Maoism and Pol Pot? You can't eliminate exploitation simply by murdering all Kulaks, because eliminating entirely the incentive to work and accumulate modest personal wealth is itself oppressive, and doesn't really benefit anybody. It's a negative sum game and led to Soviet collapse. Society needs ambitious people who work hard, innovate, take risks, give others opportunity by employing them as apprentices and laborers, and accept responsibilities for their failures and torts. So what creates most of the problems?
Caitlin has pointed out that none of the biggest criminals are ever punished. So accountability is a problem. The biggest limitation on personal accountability in the current system is government limitations of liability, and the grand-daddy of them all is the limited liability corporate charter whereby investors are granted the privilege of investing while accepting no personal accountability for how their money is used beyond the monetary value of their initial investment. Common law holds sole proprietors and partnerships personally liable for debts and torts created by their enterprise. Their entire net worth is on the line. Government intervention to grant this privilege is the root of many problems like pollution, dangerous products and working conditions, encroachment on the property of others and corporate fraud tolerated or even encouraged by corporate management.
Another problem that's been pointed out repeatedly is the power imbalance inherent in plutocracy. As soon as an entity accumulates more wealth than is physically needed for sustenance, he/she/it will use that wealth for power to protect the his/her/its continued sustenance. Over time, this has led to plutocratic control over government institutions, especially since limited liability removes almost all limits to the size of corporations.
The invention of the limited liability corporate charter has led to many if not most of the excesses of the current political-economic system in the West, which is more fairly labeled corporatism rather than capitalism. It would be difficult to eliminate the joint stock corporations made possible by limited liability without massive disruption of society and suffering for all, not just the elites. However, it may be possible to corral the "corporations are people" and "money is speech" doctrines created by an activist, elitist judiciary that has caused so many problems, such as the Dred Scott decision.
Thus, one of the narratives that imprison us is that we live under a system of private property (capitalism), while the reality is that we are oppressed by corporatism.
Beyond that, Caitlin sometimes falls into the identity politics trap, such as her "nineteenth century slaver talk" comment. Nobody should die just because they resist arrest, unless they credibly threaten the life of an arresting officer or bystanders. If Caitlin thinks only a "black man" can suffer that fate, she should review the videos of Daniel Shavers' death. He wasn't even resisting, but doing his best to be compliant to a bully that was looking for an excuse and subsequently killed him. The idea that only black men are the victims of police violence is part of the divisive narrative used to control us. Don't feed it.
soooo interesting to think about narratives ty for the focus