Firing the Elites
Given what’s happening right now with the EU redux, it’s hard not to write a little something about it, so I won’t even try to resist the temptation. Stock markets are crashing, banks are on the verge of failure, gold is spiking and City of London and Wall Street financial types are running around with their hair on fire. But beyond such financial superficialities, what is really happening is that class warfare is back with a vengeance, so far in the UK with the Brexit referendum, but likely to spread.
In that referendum, the older generations who know which class they belong to voted to fire their malign overlords in Brussels and London, while the younger generations, brainwashed by EU propaganda, did not. Some “experts” claimed that there is some sort of generational divide, but I think that older generations did a smart thing, and that this is adequately explained by the fact that they are smarter. You see, fools tend to die young, and the mere act of surviving is a sign of intelligence. But that’s just a minor side-point.
The main point is that the malign elites very much need to be fired, both in Europe and in the US. There are several problems with them, which I would like to briefly enumerate:
• They tend to be neoliberal, and espouse all of the faulty ideas that come with that failed ideology. The results are plain to see: retirees robbed, young people deprived of meaningful employment; fabulous riches for a tiny elite and austerity for everyone else; more of everything for Germany, less of everything for everyone else. A financial scheme that is fundamentally a Ponzi scheme, is guaranteed to blow up, and may be blowing up as I write this.
• They tend to be under the sway of the neoconservatives in Washington, and together with them they lurch from one disaster to another. The results are again plain to see: an entire list of countries destroyed (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, the Ukraine), a flood of migrants flooding out of these countries and into Europe in what is the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, and extremely dangerous, and entirely unnecessary provocations against Russia.
• They espouse an ideology that seeks to erase all ethnic and cultural distinctions and that forces a repulsive political correctness on everyone except the Moslems (who are, curiously, considered exempt). Having eliminated most significant human freedoms (including, most significantly, freedom of the press, which in Europe is a captive of corporate interests), the two remaining freedoms that are now championed in Europe are the freedom to rootlessly drift about the continent, and the freedom to engage in any sexual perversion you like, including bestiality and pedophilia.
• But the biggest problem with these transatlantic elites is this: they cannot be fired. The more they fail, the more entrenched they become. Obviously, this has nothing to do with education, or merit, or popularity; it is simply a matter of class. The elites consider themselves to be Übermenschen, elevated far above mere mortals. Democracy is a plaything for them. Most of the time they have been able to manipulate the politics to their advantage. When that fails, the “little people” get to vote over and over again until they “get it right.” But this political fix is now failing, on both sides of the Atlantic, because it would appear that the “little people” have finally had enough.
The automatic recourse is to start insulting the “little people” in an attempt to browbeat them into submission. If they don’t want to see their country overrun by illegal migrants (note that having had you country destroyed by NATO does not qualify you for political asylum) then they are called racist and bigoted. If they fail to grasp some of the finer points of EU’s bureaucratic governance (because, frankly, who would want to waste time on all that nonsense?) then they are called ignorant and misguided. And, most importantly, if there is a financial crash (which was inevitable in any case; see “Ponzi scheme” above) then that is blamed on their bad choices at the polls.
Perhaps most importantly of all, every effort is being made to equate patriotism with nationalism and fascism. Now, this bears explaining, because these concepts are perfectly distinct:
• Patriotism is one’s love of one’s native land and people. It is a natural, organic result of growing up in a certain place among a certain people, who have also grown up there, and who pass along a cultural and linguistic legacy that they all love and cherish. This does not imply that those not of one’s family, neighborhood or region are in any way inferior, but they are not one’s own, and one loves them less.
• Nationalism is a synthetic product generated using public education and is centered around certain hollow symbols: a flag, an anthem, some yellowed pieces of paper, a few creation myths and so on. It is supported by certain rituals (parades, speeches, handing out of medals) that comprise a civic cult. The purpose of nationalism is to support the nation-state. Where nationalism serves the needs of one’s native land and people, nationalism and patriotism become aligned; when it destroys them, nationalism becomes the enemy and patriots form partisan movements, rise up and destroy the nation-state.
• Fascism is the perfect melding of the nation-state and corporations, in the course of which the distinction between public and private interests becomes erased and corporations come to dictate public policy. An almost perfect expression of fascism is the recent transatlantic and transpacific trade agreements negotiated in secret by the Obama administration, which at the moment, to everyone’s great relief, seem to be dead in the water.
It should be obvious that fascism has to be defeated, and if we were to pick just one perfectly good reason to fire the transatlantic elites then it is to thwart this corporate power grab. But it does not stop there, because nationalism and patriotism are also in play. Patriotism is a natural, core human value without which all you have is a rootless population shifting about opportunistically. Nationalism is a relatively recent innovation (nation-states are a 17th century invention) and as such a dangerous one, but in the case of some of the older and more successful nation-states it does provide significant benefits: a cherished cultural tradition anchored to a national language and literature, the ability to keep the peace and to repel outside aggression. And then there is the European Union, with its flag depicting a constellation of stars that are obviously orbiting something—something that could only be a black hole, since it is invisible. The United States is a similarly artificial, synthetic entity of very recent derivation, with its flag obviously depicting a tray of star-shaped cookies which are, most unfortunately, no longer for the “little people” to eat because the elites have decided that they want all the cookies for themselves.
And so they need to be fired. If this is to be done by voting (as opposed to, say, from a cannon) then the object of voting is to elect somebody who is, first and foremost, capable of firing these elites. The British seem to have done this; now it is the Americans’ turn. A somewhat thoughtful question that is sometimes asked (after people are done making spurious claims that Donald Trump is insane, a misogynist, a racist, a fascist, a bad businessman, generally not very nice or whatever else) is whether he is qualified to govern. To my mind, this question reduces to a much simpler question: Is he qualified to fire people? And the answer is, Yes, he most certainly is qualified to fire people. In fact “You’re fired!” is one of his trademark utterances. In fact, he just recently fired his very own campaign manager. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, heads up the entire cohort of people that need to be fired. And that is why I think there is a good chance that the “little people” will finally rise up and vote for somebody who will do just that.
In that referendum, the older generations who know which class they belong to voted to fire their malign overlords in Brussels and London, while the younger generations, brainwashed by EU propaganda, did not. Some “experts” claimed that there is some sort of generational divide, but I think that older generations did a smart thing, and that this is adequately explained by the fact that they are smarter. You see, fools tend to die young, and the mere act of surviving is a sign of intelligence. But that’s just a minor side-point.
The main point is that the malign elites very much need to be fired, both in Europe and in the US. There are several problems with them, which I would like to briefly enumerate:
• They tend to be neoliberal, and espouse all of the faulty ideas that come with that failed ideology. The results are plain to see: retirees robbed, young people deprived of meaningful employment; fabulous riches for a tiny elite and austerity for everyone else; more of everything for Germany, less of everything for everyone else. A financial scheme that is fundamentally a Ponzi scheme, is guaranteed to blow up, and may be blowing up as I write this.
• They tend to be under the sway of the neoconservatives in Washington, and together with them they lurch from one disaster to another. The results are again plain to see: an entire list of countries destroyed (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, the Ukraine), a flood of migrants flooding out of these countries and into Europe in what is the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, and extremely dangerous, and entirely unnecessary provocations against Russia.
• They espouse an ideology that seeks to erase all ethnic and cultural distinctions and that forces a repulsive political correctness on everyone except the Moslems (who are, curiously, considered exempt). Having eliminated most significant human freedoms (including, most significantly, freedom of the press, which in Europe is a captive of corporate interests), the two remaining freedoms that are now championed in Europe are the freedom to rootlessly drift about the continent, and the freedom to engage in any sexual perversion you like, including bestiality and pedophilia.
• But the biggest problem with these transatlantic elites is this: they cannot be fired. The more they fail, the more entrenched they become. Obviously, this has nothing to do with education, or merit, or popularity; it is simply a matter of class. The elites consider themselves to be Übermenschen, elevated far above mere mortals. Democracy is a plaything for them. Most of the time they have been able to manipulate the politics to their advantage. When that fails, the “little people” get to vote over and over again until they “get it right.” But this political fix is now failing, on both sides of the Atlantic, because it would appear that the “little people” have finally had enough.
The automatic recourse is to start insulting the “little people” in an attempt to browbeat them into submission. If they don’t want to see their country overrun by illegal migrants (note that having had you country destroyed by NATO does not qualify you for political asylum) then they are called racist and bigoted. If they fail to grasp some of the finer points of EU’s bureaucratic governance (because, frankly, who would want to waste time on all that nonsense?) then they are called ignorant and misguided. And, most importantly, if there is a financial crash (which was inevitable in any case; see “Ponzi scheme” above) then that is blamed on their bad choices at the polls.
Perhaps most importantly of all, every effort is being made to equate patriotism with nationalism and fascism. Now, this bears explaining, because these concepts are perfectly distinct:
• Patriotism is one’s love of one’s native land and people. It is a natural, organic result of growing up in a certain place among a certain people, who have also grown up there, and who pass along a cultural and linguistic legacy that they all love and cherish. This does not imply that those not of one’s family, neighborhood or region are in any way inferior, but they are not one’s own, and one loves them less.
• Nationalism is a synthetic product generated using public education and is centered around certain hollow symbols: a flag, an anthem, some yellowed pieces of paper, a few creation myths and so on. It is supported by certain rituals (parades, speeches, handing out of medals) that comprise a civic cult. The purpose of nationalism is to support the nation-state. Where nationalism serves the needs of one’s native land and people, nationalism and patriotism become aligned; when it destroys them, nationalism becomes the enemy and patriots form partisan movements, rise up and destroy the nation-state.
• Fascism is the perfect melding of the nation-state and corporations, in the course of which the distinction between public and private interests becomes erased and corporations come to dictate public policy. An almost perfect expression of fascism is the recent transatlantic and transpacific trade agreements negotiated in secret by the Obama administration, which at the moment, to everyone’s great relief, seem to be dead in the water.
It should be obvious that fascism has to be defeated, and if we were to pick just one perfectly good reason to fire the transatlantic elites then it is to thwart this corporate power grab. But it does not stop there, because nationalism and patriotism are also in play. Patriotism is a natural, core human value without which all you have is a rootless population shifting about opportunistically. Nationalism is a relatively recent innovation (nation-states are a 17th century invention) and as such a dangerous one, but in the case of some of the older and more successful nation-states it does provide significant benefits: a cherished cultural tradition anchored to a national language and literature, the ability to keep the peace and to repel outside aggression. And then there is the European Union, with its flag depicting a constellation of stars that are obviously orbiting something—something that could only be a black hole, since it is invisible. The United States is a similarly artificial, synthetic entity of very recent derivation, with its flag obviously depicting a tray of star-shaped cookies which are, most unfortunately, no longer for the “little people” to eat because the elites have decided that they want all the cookies for themselves.
And so they need to be fired. If this is to be done by voting (as opposed to, say, from a cannon) then the object of voting is to elect somebody who is, first and foremost, capable of firing these elites. The British seem to have done this; now it is the Americans’ turn. A somewhat thoughtful question that is sometimes asked (after people are done making spurious claims that Donald Trump is insane, a misogynist, a racist, a fascist, a bad businessman, generally not very nice or whatever else) is whether he is qualified to govern. To my mind, this question reduces to a much simpler question: Is he qualified to fire people? And the answer is, Yes, he most certainly is qualified to fire people. In fact “You’re fired!” is one of his trademark utterances. In fact, he just recently fired his very own campaign manager. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, heads up the entire cohort of people that need to be fired. And that is why I think there is a good chance that the “little people” will finally rise up and vote for somebody who will do just that.
Dmitry Orlov was born in Leningrad and immigrated to the United States in the 1970’s. He is the author of Reinventing Collapse, Hold Your Applause! and Absolutely Positive, and publishes weekly at the phenomenally popular blog www.ClubOrlov.com
posted by Satish Sharma at
07:31
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