"The money of vested interests nullifies genuine voter choice and trust. The democracy gap in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the least worst every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the least worst gets worse.
We’re told that we’re a polarized society, right? And, sure, there are differences between the Left and the Right over reproductive rights, school prayer, gun control, government regulation, and now, immigration.
That’s the way the ruling classes have manipulated people for more than two thousand years: divide and rule.
The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door."
Ralph Nader, Crashing the Party, 2007
“Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty."
Simone Weil
"The transnational corporations and the money markets have declared the era of human-designed regulations over. Now the market must reign. Because few people in the business community are paid to think about phrases such as 'western civilization,' they don't seem to realize that they are proposing the arbitrary denial of 2,500 years of human experience.
Ever since the democratic systems permitted their various courts to give corporations the status of persons, the individual as citizen has been on the defensive. How could it be otherwise? If you are a person before the law and Exxon or Ford is also a person, it is clear that the concept of democratic legitimacy lying with the individual has been mortally wounded.
If allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is, after all, not a natural state.
It could be argued that we are now in the midst of a coup d’état in slow motion. Democracy is weakening; few people would disagree. Corporatism is strengthening; you only have to look around you. Yet none of us has chosen this route for our society, in spite of which our elites quite happily continue down it. Certainly corporatism is creating a conformist society. It is a modern form of feudalism.
Capitalism was reasonably content under Hitler, happy under Mussolini, very happy under Franco and delirious under General Pinochet."
John Ralston Saul
Quiet holiday trading with an upward bias, check.
Most of the adults already left for vacation, check.
Gold and silver bounced higher, as the Dollar declined, check.
The Fed heads are trying to dampen the misconceived story of rate cut heaven with a soft landing next year, and no one is listening, check.
Complacency reigns as multiple wars rage, check.
Control frauds simmering through the financial districts, searching for greater fools, check.
Another Hobson's choice [the necessity of accepting one of two equally objectionable alternatives] on deck for the presidential election next year, check.
A myopic, self-absorbed elite that cannot seem to see anything other than winning, check.
Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.
Who could have seen it coming.
If we are not too busy with ourselves, fighting and kicking and knocking down the other guy to get something we probably don't need, if we look in quiet places and in the little common but endearing things in life, and yes, even while in the midst of heartbreak and suffering, we can see glimpses of the face of God and his angels, and his loving kindness and tender mercies.
Love is moving, all around us.
Time to come home.
Have a pleasant evening.
