antness

"one thing that always strikes me as mysterious is that so many of the northern towns see fit to build themselves immense and luxurious public buildings at the same time they are in crying need of dwelling houses." george orwell from the road to wigan pier_________________________no mystery here george...just an expression of power that is meant to overawe the proles and instill in them what geert mak terms "antness'...a feeling of smallness and inferiority in the face of monumental public structures...

from the hideous "palace of parliament" in bucharest...

to the neo classical kitsch in washington d.c....

to the somewhat less imposing local architecture, the intent is still the same...the message is "power resides here" ( you can't fight city hall...unless you are in this town which has questionable competency in wielding authority ) and you should understand that you are a supplicant ( think kafka's keeper of the gates of the law ) despite the propagandized " of the the people, by the people, for the people" ( asking which people is a valid question ) propaganda from high school civics...why george should find this physical manifestation of bureaucratic power to be mysterious is beyond me...the intent is to snuff out any sort of questioning of the wisdom of the powerful before it is expressed...and if the architecture doesn't quite do the job there is an army of aparatchiks inside to exhaust you with interminable requests for "one more document"...it's all part of the hegemony's institutional diminution of the individual...and it is all for the benefit of a few and has been from the get go...for the umpteenth time, read the federalist papers...mein kampf wasn't the very first blueprint of political intent...it goes a long way in explaining how a kleptocrat wormed his way into the oval office...he isn't the first..just the noisiest.

mountains of useless drudgery

“his work is servile…he is paid just enough to keep him alive; his only holiday is the sack……consider what pleasure it can give anyone to think of men swabbing dishes for life. For there is n doubt that people, comfortably situated people, do find a pleasure in such thoughts. A slave, Marcus Cato said, should be working when he is not sleeping. It does not matter if his work is needed or not, he must work because work itself is good, for slaves at least. This sentiment still survives and it has piled up mountains of useless drudgery. I believe this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply a fear of the mob. The mob ( the thought runs ) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think.” -George Orwell Down and Out in Paris and London_____________ denying the mob the leisure time to think or the assets that would make that leisure possible is a continuing theme in orwell’s writing…and there is validity to that view…the elite fears the mob’s number and they hate a populist ( the root of the n y times and Washington post’s loathing of don trump…not his arrogance or pre-teen behavior…it was his appeal to a populist base that fired them up )…and the current “gig” economy has people jumping from part-time job to part-time job…juggling schedules and working long hours to make ends meet…the mob may indeed be discontent in this but they are exhausted by the stress and so fatalistic…”that’s just the way it is” is something i hear a lot…but few are pondering “why” that’s the way it is or what might conceivably be done about it…so why do we keep working…we all need material goods to survive…food, clothing, shelter…so there is the survival element of work that keeps people at it…there is a dichotomy at work here however…the hegemonic culture long ago discovered there is money in necessities…their greed also told them there wasn’t enough…there had to be another method of extraction that paid better…and the solution was to pay the mob marginally more…not enough to make them truly comfortable…but enough to create the appearance of comfort…or, at least, to allay the fear of imminent death from starvation or exposure…and then take back that small excess and a little more by engineering desires and establishing a system of credit…debt makes new money far faster than selling shoe laces and razor blades…raise the level of debt to meet income…people are still hustling to pay the bills…but the bills are larger because of the perceived need of “stuff” engendered by a materialist propaganda system that tells us what we need…which is another convenient way of keeping the mob balkanized by “branding”…ford/chevy…nra/gun control…democrat/republican ( with both parties in the pay of the elite pretending to be ideologically opposed while cohabiting )…pepsi/coke…which beings up a germane point…i read an article on line about coke preparing to introduce “a new flavor” and the fact that “people are nervous”…well… is orange-vanilla coke which admittedly does sound frightening ( and remember you are dealing with someone who cut soda [ along with hfcs ] out of his diet eleven years ago…i may be biased )…there were some twitter posts quoted in the article…both in favor of and questioning the need for a “new” flavor…there was one that was both germane to my point and instructive ( i think anyway )…” soda is poison but i will be first in line for orange vanilla coke”…are we branded or what? i left out the twitter handle…mostly so i don’t get a lot of blowback from the preprogrammed robot that posted it ( or the corporate shill that was paid to do it )…a fair example of reflexive consumption…habitual…no wonder they do so many surveys and mine data on facebook…or google…or wherever they can…orwell is correct…we do this to ourselves… he said that if the mob thought it would have organized a union and gone on strike for better treatment…that’s one habit we have not developed yet…too busy debating coke.

the billionaires sit down to eat

jeff bezos has assembled a team of crack jurists to take it to american media and the specious and fatuous scandal rag they call the enquirer which litters the floors of bathrooms everywhere for any number of worthwhile purposes...as bathmats say...one supposes the heart of the matter lies with the cozy relationship between the enquirer's publisher and the irredeemable clown in the white house and his social media war with the publisher of the washington post...a scandal rag of somewhat better repute...it would perhaps be instructive to ponder on what might be the subtexts of this very public and vindictive feud...so what do we follow here...money or ego? since the two are inextricably entwined...especially in the case of the two major protagonists...we will probably have to deal with both...so..minor players first..the appropriately named david pecker...enquirer honcho and trump sycophant...ran an expose on bezos' extra-martial affair and allegedly threatened to publish embarrassing photos of bezos and his enamorata if he didn't call off a private investigator...clearly this bozo sees circulation and so profit as well as an offensive against one of his hero's detractors...a cog in the trump propaganda machine and a fine example of the consequentialist ethos of capitalism...because of a plea deal last year he and the enquirer may be in trouble here as the feds are nosing around...no matter though as long as the good work goes on...the president ( i was never overly impressed with the office or the whoring politicians who held it...still...after this stint of nonsense it will never be redeemed...a term of opprobrium from here out ) sees political mileage if he can discredit bezos and, through him, the washington post, which seems second only to the new york times in its loathing of trumpy..and if he and/or his family can turn a buck in the process of an attempted character assassination so much the better...money is the measure intelligence...right? and on the subject of money...with a messy public divorce and obvious continuing legal entanglements, bezos is clearly in line to lose a bundle..that said, amazon and the washington post aren't going anywhere ( despite the trumptard's continued inane twitter assaults...absolutely the best case against social media i can think of...and yes, i see the irony of this in posting this link on social media ) i don't think we need worry about jeff missing a meal...he will be alright...he says he is standing up to pecker because he wants to defend the small fry the enquirer might go after who do not possess his resources...laudable if true...sounds more like pr spin...cover for the darker motives of wealth and ego...the deeper motivations in this are an education into the ethos of wealth and power...whoever has the most wins while the rest sulk and scheme to take back what they can...the government here was never "by and for the people"...a shiny lie that perpetrated by madison and co. all those years ago...and deeply abetted by the great emancipator...currently we are being schooled in what it is really all about...pay attention.