Usurper: an illegitimate or controversial claimant to the throne in a kingdom; a person who succeeds in establishing himself as an illegitimate king without inheriting the throne; or any other person exercising authority unconstitutionally. Prerogative: an exclusive right given from a government or state and invested in an individual or group, the content of which is separate from the body of rights enjoyed under the general law of the normative state. A common facet of feudal law.
Bail-Out
The G-20, amidst locked down streets, in a sea of subdued protest, where citizens of the world united to share their discontent and lack of faith in the global financial sector... announced their latest move. A $1-trillion dollar bailout! As the numbers add up, it seems that the G-20 are writing cheques that they themselves cannot cash. They've been doing it for a while. As houses foreclose, and become possessed by banks that go bankrupt. The governments of this world keep writing these monumental cheques. Which leads me to ask one question.... When a government goes bankrupt, who does the country belong to? And I can only think of one answer... the Banks. Its where the 'public's money' is all going.
Which leaves us in a Catch-22. We're being 'governed' by individuals who are handing over the public asset of governance to banks, who are now possessing our private houses while simuteanously needing the public's money to do so. They were given the privilege of governance under the pretext that their embezzling of funds began to clarify the mirage. You see... governments are too afraid to tell their constituents that the mirage of paradise is a mouthful of sand. People don't want to think that what they have come to appreciate and understand as normal, can no longer be so. Dick Cheney said "the American way of life is non-negotiable". So he wrote cheques for us. We're all writing cheques really. This last $1 Trillion, thats only $300 per Canadian, goes to the IMF. An organization with a history of leaving poor countries poorer, while placing conditions of economic restructuring upon them, that only guarantee the foreign liquidation of each country's mineral and industrial wealth.
Where is all of this money coming from? Are the government's cheques coming from the pockets from its increasingly unemployed and homeless constituents? What I'm seeing here is not 'saving an economy'. Its the beginning of the foreclosure of our government. As the House of Parliament cannot cash the cheques its written, awaiting foreclosure, the House of Parliament is up for sale, and the only one who can afford it is the bank whose money it was given. Now perhaps others would argue that that happened long ago... I only comment on what I know, and what I see... and what I'm seeing here, is the passing of responsibility, or ownership, of governance from institutions who claim to represent us... to others who's liabilities are limited, who's leadership does not possess a history of morality (some things remain the same), and who's decision making powers are not within the public's reach.
Now, I'm not an economist, or a political scientist... yet why does the government give out such funds without acquiring ownership. If I'm to get a loan from a bank, they always seem to want collateral. Do I have a car thay can take... a house? What are my assets? When the government gave me money to study, they did so under the pretext that I would pay it back. They even required financial information so that they could bypass me and go straight to the bank, to take what funds I may or may not have acquired in this era of unemployment. So why did governments not take ownership of the banks, the car companies, or of any other enterprises that couldn't seem to manage themselves without losing billions, while paying their executives millions to do so?
If governments retained ownership of the banks, then when the banks took ownership of the government, the government could still retain some control of itself. That way, the cheques that we are all writing would end up in our own pockets... and like Jack Handey would say... "If I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar... Yipee! Cause I'd have all my money back".
Until that day, "democracy" for sale!
Lost in Translation...
So here I sit, amidst a flurry of corporate bailouts... in what looks like an era of socialism for the rich, yet for the working classes… the framework of a system which no longer represents them. For a glimpse at liberal infotainment, what the comics of analysis have awarded me, I turn on Jon Stewart, only a week after he humiliated NBCs Jim Cramer in their one-on-one expose... Amidst a series of boo-ing, and silence, the audience is delivered Bruce Springstein, who after a short 'toughing it out interview' goes on to croon his pitch ‘Working on a Dream’, like he’s just emerged from a long haul of emotionally draining soul seeking, from which blood and dirt taught him the lesson of the day... to keep on going... and 'working on a dream'... and I can’t help feeling like I’m being sold ‘work!’.
I mean... we have a millionaire, belting out what being a workin' man is all about... yet for some reason I feel disconnected. At first I thought... 'No... Not Jon Stewart too', until I immediately laughed at myself for failing to spot the medium of the message. It seemed like the aftermath of 'Network', where Arthur Jensen just took Howard Beale (or in this case Stewart) into his office and reminded him of the "corporate cosmos". When put back in his place... directed not to shake his finger too wildly at the corporate greed which defines the system we know, and this is what we get? We're now being told by Bruce Springstein (who tooks his directors cue) that its time to 'pull up our socks... and work harder'?
The message seemed to be lost in translation. I wasn't hearing "hundreds of millions of dollars are being handed to the executioners of the global economy for being so efficient in their sin", or "pull your socks up America, cause there's a dream that's worth fighting for"... All I heard was "keep on sitting right there on your couch, sure there are problems... nothings perfect, but you're the audience, so watch this or another channel, just so as long as you know you're always going to listen to us!".
It was by no means a revelation, but it was a harsh reminder that the brightest spotlights only blind... that the mainstream only flows in one direction... and that if anyone wants to go upstream to see things on their own, that there is only one last medium, the wild domain of the internet. So here you have me... not that I don't put pen to paper, but for once feel the draw to embrace the digital domain which connects us all, to spit out whatever glitches my mind has in repulsing what I'm directed to think. Feel free to comment or critique, or share your own twitches of critical thought.
More to come, 03/19/09
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