Saturday, January 31, 2009

Free Market Deja Voodoo



The cause of Great Depression II is identical to the cause of Great Depression I -- a financial speculative feeding frenzy that progressed from a boom, to hysteria, to true, clinical insanity, then collapsed, leaving only a black hole of debt in its wake.

In both cases the catastrophe was enabled by Republican administrations who adopted a "hands-off" approach to the frenzy while it was in progress because the REAL government -- the corporate and financial institution honchos who remain in the shadows pulling the strings of dwarf marionettes -- Coolidge and Dubya -- extended their mandate to rule only as long as their puppets carried out their wishes. These things are understood in the upper echelons of government, and don't even have to be spoken out loud.

So that's twice in less than 80 years we've gone through this same disaster. Different decade, same old shit, you might say. How many more times will we have to do this? As long as the American media is imprisoned in its Babylonian captivity, we could do it again any number of times.

After all, ABC is owned by Disney, all the various NBC networks by General Electric, CBS by Westinghouse, CNN by Time-Warner, etc. etc., so their primary objective is to coat the inside of every American head with propaganda and truthiness rather than information. Even when the news anchors ask questions, the effect is to spread propaganda, for example, Should the state of our economy be determined by the "natural" processes of "free markets," or should the government be "allowed" to "interfere" in the process?

Karl Marx observed 160 years ago that we can no longer live with this ruling class because its continued existence is incompatible with the continued existence of any kind of orderly society. But most people still have not gotten wise. Maybe 200 years and three great depressions are the magic numbers.

5 comments:

Joe said...

We even still use terminology from feudal times, "landlord".

Joe said...

The term voodoo economics fits since "free market" capitalism is treated like religion if is not technically it.

©∂†ß0X∑® said...

Joe, Remember who first came up with the term "voodoo economics?"

It was George H.W. Bush, when he was contending with Reagan for the Republican nomination in 1980.

Joe said...

Dave, at your prompting, I recall that he used it first, but I didn't realize that it was way back then. Interesting.

Joe said...

Great post, by the way.