Aaron Good, American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, June 2022
"This is what a society looks like when the glue that holds it together starts to dissolve. This is the way ordinary citizens react when they learn that the structure beneath them is crumbling. And this is the thrill that pulses through the veins of the well-to-do when they discover that there is no longer any limit on their power to accumulate."
Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion, June 2018
"Political corruption is one aspect of a more general immorality; the level of moral sensibility that now prevails is not merely a matter of corrupt men. The higher immorality is a systematic feature of the American elite; its general acceptance is an essential feature of the mass society.
Of course, there may be corrupt men in sound institutions, but when institutions are corrupting, many of the men who live and work in them are necessarily corrupted. In the corporate era, economic relations become impersonal-and the executive feels less personal responsibility. Within the corporate worlds of business, war-making and politics, the private conscience is attenuated-and the higher immorality is institutionalized. It is not merely a question of a corrupt administration in corporation, army, or state; it is a feature of the corporate rich, as a capitalist stratum, deeply intertwined with the politics of the military state.
Despite – perhaps because of – the ostracism of mind from public affairs, the immorality of accomplishment, and the general prevalence or organized irresponsibility, the men of the higher circles benefit from the total power of the institutional domains over which they rule.
Status follows big money, even if it has a touch of the gangster about it. Status follows power, even if it be without background. Below, in the mass society, old moral and traditional barriers to status break down and Americans look for standards of excellence among the circles above them, in terms of which to model themselves and judge their self-esteem.
A society that is in its higher circles and on its middle levels widely believed to be a network of smart rackets does not produce men with an inner moral sense; a society that is merely expedient does not produce men of conscience. A society that narrows the meaning of ‘success’ to the big money and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal. Blessed are the cynical, for only they have what it takes to succeed."
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, April 1956
"True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."
Martin Luther King, Stride Toward Freedom: Memoir of the Montgomery Boycott, September 17, 1958
"There is probably no greater threat to the faithful than that of the sanctifying of success by worldly measures."
Jesse, Sanctifying Greed, 6 June 2023
I think that some day historians, in their attempt to make a coherent sense of a diversity of actors and events of our time, may make the case that the most common denominator among the people of power, our Western elite, was not wisdom or virtue or learning or even genuine accomplishments.
The most valued characteristic of our system seems to be the willingness of the individual to surrender themselves to the unspeakable— to do whatever they are told to do, say anything that they are told to say, attend whatever institution and join whatever organization that may be required, and to profess anything with fervent conviction that they are told to believe. And to never, ever violate the secrecy and carefully crafted image of the ruling class.
Whether this servile attitude comes from a total lack of character, a sociopathic obsession with power and money, or on the negative side a susceptibility to sexual or financial blackmail, for example, it just a spectrum of a system that has degenerated into a secretive series of schemes, scams, and cons, hidden behind an official mythology of manufactured stories under a blanket of closely guarded secrecy.
Gold, silver, and the Dollar rallied.
VIX rose.
Stocks meandered, finishing weakly for the most part.
The locus of the bubble, big cap tech, made a decent showing. But it is mostly for show, with little substance as of yet.
There will be an option expiration for the precious metals on the Comex next Monday the 28th.
The average person is busy caring for family and building and growing things, and so they treasure productivity and peace.
The powerful and their elite love chaos, war, uncertainty, injustice, and unrest. For they gather in lawlessness from the misery of others.
And the band played on.
Have a pleasant weekend.
