The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that and organized our lives in that way so we do not have any time, energy or capacity for the things that are rightly important to us."
Walter Brueggemann, Truth Speaks To Power, 2013
"What happens to a society fed a diet of rushed, re-purposed, thinly reported content? Or branded content that is really merchandising — propaganda — posing as journalism? And what happens when PR turns a profit and the truth goes penniless?"
Bill Moyers, Journalism in the Pressure Cooker of Plutocracy, May 26, 2015
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then? Power is not a means; it is an end.”
George Orwell, 1984
"Thus the elements are in place: a weak legislative body, a legal system that is both compliant and repressive, a party system in which one party, whether in opposition or in the majority, is bent upon reconstituting the existing system so as to permanently favor a ruling class of the wealthy, the well-connected and the corporate, while leaving the poorer citizens with a sense of helplessness and political despair.
That scheme is abetted by a sycophantic and increasingly concentrated media; by the integration of universities with their corporate benefactors; by a propaganda machine institutionalized in well-funded think tanks and conservative foundations; by the increasingly closer cooperation between local police and national law enforcement agencies aimed at identifying terrorists, suspicious aliens and domestic dissidents."
Sheldon Wolin, Inverted Totalitarianism, 2003 essay
"What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the will to power, and the power itself in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is increasing— that resistance has been overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but competence. The first principle of our humanism is that the weak and the failures shall perish. And they ought to be helped to perish."
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, 1895
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
You snakes. You brood of vipers. How will you escape being condemned to hell?“
Matthew 23:27-28,33
The cult of power desires to control what you can say and what you can hear, and finally, what you can do.
There has rarely been a more naked display of the power of silencing in this century as there is now.
It is the domain of oligarchy, of empire, of the so-called power elite.
It is not something that resides in one man, in one Administration. It has its roots in a system that has steadily become distorted by the lust for power above all going back at least 30 years.
It seems that the system is no longer capable of producing reform on its own, using its own internal mechanism. Take a look at the candidates that the system is producing.
If you say things that they do not approve, that they do not wish to be heard, that obstruct their tales of an empire of illusion, the power of the markets will reach out and destroy your ability to be heard, to freely express yourself, to earn a living, and in some cases, even take your freedom.
This is the story of our government, of our campuses, and of the persecution of journalists. Freedom of speech is crushed under a witch hunt of lies and power politics. You will see only what they wish you to see, and hear what they wish you to hear. They tell you that you have no other choice.
All in the name of peace and freedom.
Stocks came in slumping again this morning.
But voila, Alphabet to the rescue.
Stocks ended the day well into the green.
Gold and silver held a little bounce higher.
VIX fell.
The Dollar dropped.
Non-Farm Payrolls and FOMC next week.
Have a pleasant evening.
