Free Markets Are Slave Markets

THE TRIUMPH OF STUPIDITY OVER DEMOCRACY

The Fall and Decline of the American Empire as Engineered by the Bush Imperium

“It is a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing in Iraq. What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."

Nelson Mandela, 30 Jan 2003, Johannesburg

Stupidity is the single greatest political force ever devised by human kind. It is the single greatest threat to democracy of any kind, flavor or degree. It has been lovingly cultivated since the election of Ronal Reagan.

For example, I live in a country that elected Ronald Reagan. Twice. In a frenzy of arrogant self assertion, the electorate went on to claim ownership of the right to maintain entrenched stupidity by then electing first one Bush, then a Clinton, and finally, yet another Bush.

The program of eliminating democracy in America was launched with the election Reagan. The strategies pursued were:

1. the de-education of the electorate, or the dumbing down of America, that is, the cultivation of stupidity

2. the purchase and take over of the media as the key tool for disseminating the accurate information required to maintain a democracy, as well as the suppression of the openness of debate

3. the mechanism for institutionalizing an oligarchic purchase of the legislative and executive branches of government

4. the globalization of oligarchic interests at the expense of global human interests

5. the rightwing take over of the judicial branch, most significantly, loading the Supreme Court

These strategies have already won the struggle against those who sought to fight against totalitarianism and the oligarchic class aggression. America, as even a token democracy, as the land of the free and the brave has gone well past the point of no return. That the struggle has been lost is patent in the observation that the American system is no longer able to self correct. There is no mechanism left for a peaceful, legal and democratic return to cultural sanity, humanistic value, progressive ideas, to freedom, peace, economic stability and equality for all. In fact, there is no longer any public will to do so.

Reagan’s purchase of the Supreme Court paid off handsomely in the 2000 elections. Caesar crossed the Rubicon at the head of his legions. Bush the Second crossed the Rubicon at the head of a legion of lawyers.

Caesar was granted imperium by the Roman Senate and the Republic became a footnote in history. When the Congress granted Bush imperium in the right to pursue war unilaterally, without the permission of either the Congress or the of the electorate, and without the agreement of the rest of the world, American representative democracy became another historical footnote.

American policy at the Nuremburg trials included the idea that first strike attacks against sovereign nations were tarred with the brush of Imperial terrorism. Such strikes bordered perilously on the edge of being international war crimes.

This is what our non-democratically installed First Citizen, Kaiser Bush now proposes to do.

Incidentally, the long belabored question that wondered how could an entire generation of otherwise law abiding and sane Germans had become a nation of fascist, genocidal fanatics, has now been answered.

All persons of stable mind, ethical gravitas, good will and human compassion who now find themselves impotent to change the course of their own sociopathic and suicidally deranged government now understand what it must have been like to have been a good German in the 1930s. It has happened all over again, right in front or our own noses, sandwiched in between reality TV, football games the Oscars.

We have found the enemy and they is us.

“They create a wasteland and call it peace.” Tacitus

The war on terrorism is not only unnecessary, it is ethically repugnant and stupid besides. It is unnecessary and unethical simply because the two thirds of the global population who lead poverty stricken, malnourished and hopeless lives, and who actively hate America, and are the matrix from which terrorists arise, were created and oppressed by American foreign policy, especially the economic imperialism as exemplified in the World Bank, the IMF and the American habit of making the world safe for corporate and economic predation.

It is unethical to suppress a people and then kill them for rebelling. The only reasonable course to take, even at the level of enlightened self interest, let alone taking into consideration humanistic and ethical standards, would be to cease preying on the powerless of the world as if they were economic cattle, and to include all people, as an act of true globalization, into a world that guarantees some minimum level of a decent quality of life. Freedom from starvation and the eradication of preventable disease would be a reasonable starting point. You cannot feed and heal a people you are busy trying to enslave.

Terrorism would disappear overnight. Madmen such as Osama Bin Laden would have no willing audience.

Incidentally, in a world where a child dies every few seconds from starvation or preventable disease, it is ethically indefensible to claim that the unborn fetuses of less than 6% of the world’s population have a right to life. Apparently, only American fetuses have a right to life, as Americans seem willing to kill any number of other people’s children, unborn or living, to prove it.

The war on terrorism is stupid simply because, in the long run, we will loose.

“We had to burn the village to save it.”

an American tactical genius after the Zippo burning of a Vietnamese village

The unilateral Imperial attack on Iraq does indeed raise the ideals of stupidity to hitherto undreamt of heights.

It is stupid of Kaiser Bush. It is doubly stupid of the American electorate to allow it, always assuming they have any means of preventing it.

But, it is well known that stupidity pays; stupid movies, stupid TV, stupid literature, a stupid electorate, an illiterate population, stupid entertainment, stupid sports, stupid politics and a massively stupid population to occupy the feeding pens of economic cattle for the benefit of a more than stupid oligarchic class.

Without recourse to any form of democratic mechanism, the American population is going to acquiesce in the criminal act of sacking another nation; Imperial Terrorism. Kaiser Bush is going to take this action for the benefit of a very stupid few at a stupefying cost to an amazingly stupid many.

The risks without mandate, without permission, without caring, that Bush dares to expose the American people to are:

1. killing of American military personnel

2. destruction of the economy

3. destruction of American civil rights and democracy

4. invitation and provocation of terrorist attacks on US soil, of ever increasing magnitude

· minor attacks; buildings, roads, minor biological/chemical, EMP bombs

· infrastructure; economy, damns, power grid, communications, internet, water supply

· major biological/chemical attacks on large population centers

· dirty nuclear bombs in major cities

· nuclear

· nuclear with missile delivery

5. thereby converting America into an Israeli like police state

6. prolonged, perhaps never ending, global class warfare; war widened to include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lybia, Sudan, Iran, North Korea, etc.

7. global military adventurism, while the world is preoccupied with Iraq, possibly including;

· Revolution in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Afghanistan, Latin America

· Nuclear confrontation between Pakistan and India

· Chinese takeover of Taiwan

· Israeli genocide of Palestinians, possible nuclear involvement

· North Korean invasion of South Korea, possible nuclear involvement

· Numerous African hostilities and Genocide

8. A generalized world war

Regarding Bush’s current campaign of disinformation and strategy for military adventurism:

1. It is obvious that the driving motivation is oil and the ongoing consolidation of military and economic power, that is, American Empire.

2. The inspection process and its results never mattered. The only tactic under consideration is to implement the invasion after the Haj in mid February and to finish the invasion and establish the occupation before the heat in April.

3. The current euphemism ‘coalition building’ is merely a tactic to lower the cost. It has already been announced to the world that world opinion no longer matters; that America is the sole arbiter and enforcer of political and economic issues on the planet.

4. By ‘coalition building’ the Bush Imperium really means sharing the cost of the war and the even more expensive maintenance of an occupation by a military force in Iraq.

5. Even though the Oligarchs hope to derive wealth by stealing Iraqi oil, it must be assumed that many of the oil fields will be sabotaged by Saddam, damaging much of the global economy. Even so, revenue is eventually to be expected. But more advantageously, American economic control of oil will be established in the entire mid-East for many years to come. Probably for the foreseeable life span of fossil based fuels.

6. Say, for example, that it costs $100 billion to global maintain operations and the occupation in post war Iraq. No ally has any hope of deriving income from the American control of mid-eastern oil, especially America’s economic competitor the European Union. So, they have no motivation to pay for either the war or for the post war occupation. Instead, the $100 billion will be paid by the American poor and middle classes. But any possible wealth extorted from American economic control of mid-eastern oil with be paid to the Global Oligarchs. Not a cent will be returned to the American poor and middle classes.

7. Bush’s lies regarding his domestic compassion, improving health care, restoring the economy, developing alternative fuel sources are simply PR smokescreens. They are nothing more than a disingenuous wish list with no means of implementation, no funding to accomplish, and no intention to pursue. They are merely palliatives offered to pander to the stupidity of the American electorate.

8. No doubt Imperial Bush diplomacy has purchased the tentative cooperation of China by offering them a free hand in Taiwan, and Russian cooperation by agreeing to ignore their own pseudo-war on terrorism and aggression in places such as Uzbekistan. No doubt both of these nations have been bribed by the expectation of profit by controlling the oil reserves in Kazakhstan and the Aral Sea basin.

9. There is no complimentary bribe available to the European Union and so the difficulty that is being experienced by the Bush Imperium in obtaining their cooperation.

10. Popular protest and antiwar sentiment never mattered except as an excuse for European politicians and as a bargaining chip in establishing the economic results of an Imperial war.

11. In the end, unsubstantiated and unproven claims of Iraqi weapons will be cynically promulgated and the war will be launched on time in the last half of February or early March, with or without the consent or cooperation of the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, the Islamic nations, other allies or the American electorate, which is too stupid in any case to switch off the Superbowl and the Oscars.

12. If, by some miracle, Kaiser Bush is denied his war, he need only provoke another major terrorist strike against American civilians, and the cycle begins all over again.

Stupidity long ago consented to political and economic slavery.

As for the so called Bush domestic policy;

1. It has always been and will always be a systematic plundering of American economic cattle by a class of oligarchs.

2. A mild recession in the summer of 2001 has been deepened to the brink of global depression by the opportunistic use September 11.

3. Had September 11 not occurred, the Bush Imperium could confidently expect such an event, having provoked two thirds of the world into a state of international terrorism by American foreign economic policy.

4. The war on terrorism and the subsequent military Imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq are the obvious means of establishing a global extortion racket for siphoning off the wealth of the poor and middle classes, beginning with America.

5. War and a military industry are one of the most efficient means of stealing the wealth of human populations.

6. Taxation is another means.

7. Forcing wealth into the stock market is by far the most effective means. The stock market is an even more efficient means of siphoning wealth form the poor and middle classes. When the market collapsed there was no more talk of forcing social security and retirement money into the market. Instead, market recovery and stimulus is being used as an excuse to force wealth into the stock market via the elimination of tax on dividends. Eliminating the tax on dividends means that savings and retirement money must be put into the stock market, otherwise inflationary forces will cause such savings to devalue. Obviously wealth put into the stock market is not protected from theft, predation and incompetence, and is therefore even more easily extorted than by such cumbersome and legal means as taxation and war. War, after all, has overhead costs. Financial theft has almost none.

8. Other convenient means of stealing public wealth include an unregulated and global financial market, the war on drugs, insurance and other broker industries, and the healthcare industry.

9. The ever increasing deficit, including the cost of wars, occupations and the $650 billion cost of the elimination of the dividend tax, all contribute to the long term destruction of the American economy.

10. In fact, America has been earmarked for becoming a third world nation within two generations; polarized classes, widespread poverty, elimination of democracy and loss of civil liberties.

11. Immediately, this means that the Baby Boomer generation must be eliminated by euthanasia.

12. All the wealth that the boomer generation has already paid to maintain a reasonable life style and healthcare in its retirement has already be stolen and spent.

13. America cannot afford to pay for the boomer generation’s retirement all over again. It is, by global standards, too used to too high a standard of living, and is too costly to maintain.

14. The most effective means of euthanising the boomer generation is to devalue their savings and by denying health care.

15. Health care has already been written off. Bush’s ineffective and largely PR solution of drug benefits, only benefits the HMO and insurance industries and will eventually lead to even higher costs. In any case, it will only be available to that part of the middle class who still has the funds available too pay into additional forms of insurance. This, in spite of the fact that they have supposedly already paid for this via the social security extortion racket. When their wealth has been finally drained off, they too, just like the poor, will be allowed to die off without health care. And, more importantly, without further expense.

16. Once the boomer generation has been killed off and their wealth absorbed into the oligarchy, what remains of the middle class and the last vestiges of democratic sentiment, will simply die off by attrition and not be replaced.

17. The final state of the American economy for the foreseeable future is widespread poverty, depression, siphoning off of wealth and its final collapse into third world status.

Athens decided to conquer Syracuse for no good reason other than Imperial conquest, a show of supremacy and control over resources. It was the most powerful state on the planet at the time, and it was a democracy too boot. The democratic electorate was easily swayed and/or purchased by demagogues such as Alkibiades, who was an egotistical and aristocratic bully with pretensions of imperial grandeur. (Although Alkibiades was, arguably, far more intelligent than the current American leadership.) Athens had numerous client states and allies, a coalition in fact. It assembled the largest armada and most powerful army of the day and sailed off to humble Syracuse, which was considered to be easy pickings.

Thanks to stupidity, bad luck, stupidity, betrayal, stupidity, overconfidence, stupidity, incompetence and stupidity Athens suffered a total, brutal, costly and humiliating defeat. It never recovered. Three generations later it ceased to play any significant part in world affairs; forever.

How stupid can you get? We, America for one can get at least that stupid. Athens at least had the excuse of having little historical precedence on which to base a critical decision. America has 3000 years of historical stupidity it chooses to ignore. Stupidity has conquered democracy before.

Stupidity has now conquered American democracy and the remnants of the American republic no longer have any legal means or the popular will to correct itself and to chart the course of its own destiny. Syracuse, here we come.

Such a catastrophic path does not require conscious planning or a conspiracy. In defense of the Bush Imperium, they are too stupid to think much beyond their own immediate greed and short term gains. It will all happen simply by adhering to what free market fundamentalists believe in, unregulated cultural, political and economic forces.

All that is necessary for the victory of the law of the jungle is that intelligent regulation not be applied.

All that Armageddon requires is that good men do nothing.

Michael Andrews, 1 February 2003

Postscript, Saturday morning, 1 February 2003

As I finish this the space shuttle Columbia, with six American and one Israeli astronauts, has disintegrated in the atmosphere, scattering debris over Texas.

Just before sailing to attack Syracuse, the Hermae (most homes in Athens had a sacred statue of Hermes) were destroyed by vandalism. This was considered to be an extremely bad omen for Athens and for the invasion. And, indeed, it was. Throughout history bad omens, evil portents and unfavorable signs have often been noted before catastrophic events. No doubt the significance of these are skewed by selective hindsight and are essentially meaningless. Unfortunately however, portents, signs and omens have been taken seriously by the large masses of populations most of the time, and used unscrupulously by egomaniacal conquerors.

The fact that the crew was only Israeli and American and that the debris rained down over Emperor Bush’s home state will, no doubt, be noted by the hysterical and weak minded among that vast majority of the human species that already hates America. It will no doubt be cynically used and no doubt there will be many who will declare this to be a sign from Allah.

The real danger for every human on the planet is that it will distract serious attention from preventing war just at the crucial moment. And as the world grieves the death of seven unfortunate human beings, the machinery of annihilation will grind inexorably toward Armageddon and the wholesale slaughter of millions of human lives.

alea iacta est

Michael Andrews

02/15/2003