George Orwell, 1984
"To reduce a complex argument to its bare bones, since the Depression, the twin forces of managed democracy and Superpower have opened the way for something new under the sun: inverted totalitarianism, a form every bit as totalistic as the classical version but one based on internalized co-optation, the appearance of freedom, political disengagement rather than mass mobilization, and relying more on 'private media' than on public agencies to disseminate propaganda that reinforces the official version of events.
It is inverted because it does not require the use of coercion, police power and a messianic ideology as in the Nazi, Fascist and Stalinist versions. According to Wolin, inverted totalitarianism has 'emerged imperceptibly, unpremeditatedly, and in seeming unbroken continuity with the nation’s political traditions.'
The main objectives of managed democracy are to increase the profits of large corporations, dismantle the institutions of social democracy (Social Security, unions, welfare, public health services, public housing and so forth), and roll back the social and political ideals of the New Deal. Its primary tool is privatization. Managed democracy aims at the selective abdication of governmental responsibility for the well-being of the citizenry under cover of improving efficiency and cost-cutting.
Imperialism and democracy are, in Wolin's terms, literally incompatible, and the ever greater resources devoted to imperialism mean that democracy will inevitably wither and die."
Chalmers Johnson, Review of Sheldon Wolin's Democracy Incorporated, January 23, 2010
"A true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.”
Czeslaw Milosz, Discreet Charm of Nihilism
Stocks took a dive this morning, but then recovered slowly in the afternoon.
As I said on Friday, VIX was showing signs of a short term correction.
But as Jesse Livermore once said, 'Never short a dull market."
And dull this market certainly is, to the point of sleepwalking.
Gold and silver took an early, purposeful hit judging by the volume and timing, but managed to take quite a bit of that back.
A similar story for Bitcoin.
The markets are dominated by a few big players, who have neutered and captured the regulators and politicians.
I am going to be trading very lightly until the end of the year, keeping a close eye of exogenous geo-political events and other economic developments.
I have now shifted my outlook to a market break sometime by the end of March, but with an eye for any moderately impactful 'trigger event' that will take this bloated bubble in valuations down.
The disapproval ratings of the major Western leaders is almost shocking. This is the fashionable thing these days, to damn the public and do what they will. Their devotion to a new order of lawlessness and power is slowly consuming us.
This video interview with John Kiriakou and Anthony Napolitano is worth watching.
Have a pleasant evening.
