PAUL EDWARDS—Though it’s clear that none of these game-changing events was consciously, intentionally arranged, or effectively planned, by the massive, fumbling powers that own and operate our government, they all were due to blundering loss of control of the vaunted, failsafe management system. The fact that they occurred proximately was purely accidental, but what they demonstrate, each in its own particular way, is how pathetically inept our government really is in defending its vulnerable core interests.
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FRANK SCOTT—The increasing threats posed by capitalist economics that bring luxurious splendor to some only by creating grotesque misery for others have increased to become immediate rather than long-term problems for all of us and not just some of us. The present mass murders taking place in Israel and Ukraine are immediate problems for tens of millions but the profit seeking assault on all of nature puts all humans in terrible jeopardy.
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BRUCE LERRO—For the most part, the use of electronic media, especially television, had a debilitating impact on political rhetoric. The number of outdoor speeches declined as the politician was followed by television cameras inside the studios. The public now had to make much less effort to hear a speech as they could now watch it on television. For various reasons, over the years the attention span of the public got shorter and shorter in part because there was a lot to see on television and also because the pace of life quickened.
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PEPE ESCOBAR—The plenum proved once more that “socialism with Chinese characteristics” – or, for the recalcitrant, Chinese-modified capitalism – is “people-centric”. The supreme values are national interest and the people’s interests – attested by the fact that large private corporations remain under the strategic control of the CPC.
It’s idle to try to find in the final communique at the end of the plenum any restrictions on private capital on the path to “universal prosperity”. The key point is that the role of capital should always be subordinated to the concept of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.
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BILLY BOB—Trump is nothing more than a callous, self-interested salesman, selling us the idea that he is a genuine Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, or Ho Chi Minh, while he simultaneously upholds the lie that socialism is evil. I mean, what a fucking farce all of this is. Trump is trying to sell us on revolution while he must simultaneously pander to the inculcated biases of the masses and affirm that history’s actual and authentic revolutionaries, were “bad”. This is the pathetic state of Western society: The lines that divide the people against themselves, to the benefit of the oligarchs are imaginary and not based on any sort of actual fundamental political or economic reality. What a monumental brainwashing success this has been and what an accomplishment for their system of indoctrination, confusion, and control. They have succeeded in destroying the minds of the masses and they have divorced the masses from reality itself.
