Feudalism Revisited

Feudalism Revisited

Rejoice my fellow vassals, the Dark Ages have returned and every monarch from King Ronnie, the Reagan through King Obama, have secured peace & prosperity for our overlords in the corporatocracy. (John Perkins) All is well in the United States of Stupor. We are guaranteed a life of servitude & endless, mindless distraction with our high definition, flat screen televisions designed to ensure a flat-line citizenry. All we need to remember is that if it weren't for the benevolent elite, ruling over our "democracy," we would surely all perish because we are clearly an inferior, subservient class of human beings. And we should kiss the jackboots of our masters for allowing us to be their wage slaves. So, whenever you see one of our superiors approach you, don't forget your duty as a citizen of this best of all possible worlds, and promptly assume the prostrate position as our masters walk amongst us. And count yourself blessed to have been so close to the magnificent. I f you follow my advice, you too can someday, after years of showing the proper, subservient attitude, advance to serving the masters in their mansions of glass & metal. It's not such a bad life, they occasionally toss a scrap of food from their daily banquets of exotic delicacies beyond our feeble imaginations.

Naturally, to be of service to our superiors, is the greatest honor we can ever hope for in this life. And if they occasionally kick us, it's a sign of affection, just as they kick their dogs to remind them of their proper place. They wouldn't kick their dogs if they didn't love them, now would they?

Admittedly, not all of us have bought this subservient role our "leaders" wish we would accept unquestioningly. And I, am one of those proud rebels. Perhaps there is still a glimmer of a chance that we can wake our somnambulant fellow citizens? Therefore, in the spirit of hope, I offer this general overview of our situation which you might care to shar e with any who would listen?

Amazingly, most so-called democrats & many, so-called progressives, still consider former president Bill Clinton, a champion of working & middle class America. Do you remember that trade agreement known as NAFTA? What were some of the selling points? Oh yeah, it's going to level the playing field economically & raise the standard of living for the billions of poor, suffering people in the developing world. And it's going to raise those poor souls' standard of living. Boy did we get suckered! And Ralph Nader tried to warn us but we, the enlightened ones on the Left, & the American public in general, fell hook, line, & sinker for this massive, public relations snow-job. The true goal, though not publicly stated, but now revealed, is not the raising of those two billion souls who exist on $2 or less a day but rather, the pushing all of us who have enjoyed a clearly much higher standard of living than those two billion fel low human beings, down to a bare, subsistence level of existence like them.

You see, the masters of deceit have taken their cues from us, the truly progressive, and have turned our slogans against us in their corporate propaganda campaign to keep the American public in the Dark Ages i.e. globalization is presented as a compassionate program or agenda of making this a more equitable, just, or humane world when it is actually nothing less than their master plan for total world domination. Yes, we are all connected and the Internet & the telecommunications corporations have enabled us to connect at mindboggling speeds, but the sinister masters of commerce & control are working feverishly to undermine this tool we are using to unite in our struggle. The crocodiles of corporate fascism are doing everything they can to turn the Internet against us, and I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy nut but as Michael Parenti said, "not all conspiracy theories are theories ."

Consider this, if you will? The behemoth corporations which used to employ millions of Americans, are now rewarded with tax loopholes if they close down their factories, warehouses, plants, etc. here in America and open up new factories overseas in the "developing world," where the people are starving and will work for $2 a day under draconian, feudal work conditions. And these very same corporations often pay no, or very little taxes here in America. What happens if we don't pay our taxes? We are constantly bombarded with advertisements admonishing us to be loyal, good Americans, and buy American products. But where is their loyalty to us? How are we repaid for our hard work, paying our taxes, serving in the military? I'll tell you how, they increasingly invade our privacy & make us take piss tests (but they don't have to), pass credit checks, & pass criminal background checks. How about we require all bankers, investment counselors, politicians, cops, et c. pass criminal background checks? They further reward our loyalty & patriotism by selling off America to the once terrible Communists i.e. China is our biggest creditor & ships several times the number of exports to us that we do to them. Note also, WalMart, that bastion of free market capitalism that Hilary Clinton worked for as a lawyer, and that is virulently anti-union, is touted as the largest retailer & employer in America, I believe? And they get most of their products from China & we're discovering more & more that many of these products from China are unsafe & are produced by a de facto, slave labor force ---many actual prisoners.

After all, what was that little skirmish we were involved in somewhere in South East Asia, oh yeah, Vietnam, about? Weren't we supposedly there to stop the evil hordes of Communist China? And now we borrow trillions of dollars from them & sell off ever growing bits & pieces of America to them, and consider them valued trading partners? What did our soldiers die for? What did the millions of poor, Vietnamese peasants die for? They say a wise man learns from his mistakes but a fool keeps on making the same mistakes. Well, looks to me like our "leaders" are gargantuan fools & we are too because the song remains the same i.e. we've now invaded Iraq to liberate the Iraqis just like we liberated the Vietnamese by killing millions of them, and we're now switching to liberating the Afghans. I think it's pretty god-damn obvious that the only thing our corporate & political cockroaches are interested in liberating in Iraq & Afghanistan is their oil i.e. Afghanistan offers a short route to the Caspian Sea & its oil reserves. Meanwhile, the evil doers in Washington D.C. & the corporate boardrooms because of their policies & sending our troops to invade & occupy these lands, are creating ever more terrorists because of the barbaric maiming, killing, &am p; humiliation our soldiers are inflicting on their peoples. It's the classic vicious circle, where there are no terrorists, or very few, create more by committing war crimes against their nation, & when some of their people have had enough & bomb us in "terrorist attacks," we have the justification to continue our immoral & heinous crimes against humanity. Of course, we're not suppose to think of our bombing of their innocent women, children, & elderly as terrorist attacks. As my dear, departed mother said many years ago in genuine astonishment, gee, how could anyone not like America?

Don't forget my friend, the Bush administration was made up mostly of former oil industry executives. In other words, it wasn't just a coincidence that we invaded (because they fabricated a web of lies), Iraq & Afghanistan. Meanwhile, back here in the new, U.S.S.R. (United States of Stupor Republic), the unemployment rate continues to rise even as the Robber Barons representative, Obama, tells us that the economy is improving i.e. Wall St. is making record profits as well as the Super Banks. We are periodically chastised that is also partially our fault that we are having such a hard time. We need to be wiser with our money, go back to school (ignore the fact that the universities are extorting the students with 33% fee hikes), buy medical insurance when we are making minimum wage, etc. No, we have to diffuse the guilt. It wasn't just those greedy, corporate crooks who are responsible & don't worry about punishing them, we will. Yeah, right!

And it just ke eps on getting better. By the way, just for the sake of clarity, I want to point out that "the terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming," is the new propaganda tool of fear that the power elite use to replace the old, "the communists are coming, the communists are coming." Yeah, now it's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" Answer, the Communists. And their dinner hosts are WalMart & Rupert Murdoch. Okay, here's the next in this series of negative or depressing revelations, perhaps? I have long known or believed that the credit card companies were rapacious jackals but the PBS Frontline program I watched last night, November 24, 2009, tilted "The Card Game," gave me a new connection or insight into this web of corporate conspirators who are devouring America and the world in their insatiable appetite for ever more mansions, yachts, private jets, whores, drugs, & power.

I believe that, according to the Frontline documentary, it was approximately 20 years ag o that an executive for Providian Credit Card corporation got the bright idea that hey, there are tens of millions of Americans who have no credit, poor credit, or bad credit and that if they seduced them by offering them "free" credit cards with 0% interest, they would fall for it & Providian would have a huge base of customers for life because they would never be able to pay off their balances in full & would foolishly believe that as long as they were making their monthly, minimum payments, they were okay. In another documentary by Frontline several months ago, Professor Elizabeth Warren, an economist from Harvard, admitted that she couldn't understand her credit card bills, and she's now an advisor to the Obama administration---don't misunderstand me, I believe she's on our side & is an honest person. What the credit card corporate criminals have & continue to count on is that most of us won't take the time & even if we do, we still won't be able to u nderstand all the legal, mumbo jumbo they include in our bills in very, fine or small print. They basically have carte blanche to charge whatever interest rates they want & to stick us with whatever hidden, penalty fees, late charges, etc.

Moreover, the banks too eventually caught on to this bonanza of money to be gained from the unwitting & gullible public and started screwing customers with outrageous late fees, overdraft fees (which you can't even decline i.e. overdraft protection), etc. and they have an assortment of devious techniques for fucking you i.e. they don't process your checks in the order that they come in. For example, your biggest checks are for your mortgage, car loans, etc. so, they'll process them first to eat up most of your checking account and then say, you write a check for a cup of coffee for $3 but don't have enough money in your account, they won't say anything and it's processed but you are assessed an insufficient funds fee of may be $25 or so and you continue to write several other small checks and the fees pile up.

As a consequence of these practices and many others, the super rich that make up the top one-tenth of the one percent who effectively own & rule America, have turned us all into wage slaves for life. I'm not arguing that this was a conscious, conspiracy on their part but the net result or effects are that we are pretty much condemned to a life of misery & servitude from birth. And for those of you who think me too "out there," just let one of your loved ones get seriously ill with cancer or something, and watch how fast your home, your RV, your life savings, etc. disappear.

Following this further, the Wall St. speculators came up with an elaborate system of sub-prime mortgages, derivatives, etc. that I don't even begin to understand but I do get the general gist of. And last night's Frontline program, as I stated earlier, gave me another window into this "recession " we're going through (seems like a god-damn depression to me no matter what those hollow, hyenas call it). The wanton & wicked wizards of Wall St. then devised these "sub-prime mortgage loans," which I mentioned earlier & saw this as another enormous market of captive consumers that would bring in billions. Ah yes! We've already got the suckers locked-in for life by their never ending cycle of credit card debt so what better way to ensure that they never escape than by luring them in even deeper with the American Dream (myth) of owning their own homes? And bear in mind, the deeper people are in debt, the more subservient/obedient they'll be to their masters in the workplace for fear of losing their jobs. Meanwhile, we keep on bombarding them with all the television commercials taunting them with the "good life" that our products offer. A perfect circle of captivity & consumerism for life.

Considering these points I have brought up, I find it humorous tha t my ex-wife, my son, and several friends & relatives over the years have labeled me as "irresponsible," and etc. for not giving a damn about my credit card bills or other such bills. I have long said that they are crooks & don't give a damn about whether I live or die so why in the hell should I care about "honoring," my so-called debts to them? It's taken many years but I'm feeling more & more vindicated as time goes on and we're seeing the results of their corrupt & immoral business practices. I have always honored my debts to friends & family but don't lose a minute of sleep over these bastards of business & burglary. What does sadden me though is all those Americans who do feel guilty about not being able to pay their debts and many who got sucked into the sub-prime mortgage scam, turned around and used the illusory profits/savings from them to pay off their credit card debts and only sunk themselves even deeper into the cesspool of shame & d espair these vultures of venture capitalism dug for us.

As a result of years of unregulated greed which was helped along substantially by that Alfred E. Newman president of ours, George W. Bush, the strutting, bantam rooster who was perhaps the biggest whore Washington D.C. has ever known, the house of cards began to crumble. Yet that rich, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, inside trading, military duty evading, lying son of a bitch leaves office & is making thousands of dollars on the public lecture circuit. It's truly mindboggling that these puffed-up, masters of the universe who are always crying for the freedom of the market, instantly plead for help from the federal government whom they're always denouncing as the enemy. "We're too big to fail," the peasants must save us & even though the vast majority of Americans said hell no, don't bail them out, the federal eunuchs gave them billions/trillions that somehow magically is available when the rich ne ed it but not us e.g. medical insurance, public education, etc. Of course it was necessary to disguise this grand swindle by waging a massive public propaganda campaign claiming it was necessary to bail out Wall St. so the entire economy wouldn't crumble. They also pretended that the billions given to the banks would loosen up credit i.e. loans, so small & medium sized businesses could survive & new ones could be established thereby saving/strengthening the economy. And surprise, surprise, surprise as Gomer Pyle used to say, the banks told us & the few caring souls in Congress when we asked where the money went & why are you still not loaning money to the public, go fuck yourselves, it's none of your business!

Even more mindboggling is the audacity of these assholes because not only didn't they honor their obligations to help stimulate the economy, they posted & boasted of record profits and gave their crooks in charge, record bonuses. This is rep resentative of how they truly view us. They steal our dignity, our spirits, & sometimes our lives via their pollution and our fighting in their wars of exploitation of the two billion souls existing on $2 or less per day. This is the new feudalism but on a global scale & they have tragically & unfortunately duped the majority of us into believing it's somehow our fault, our inferior characters, our laziness. But don't you believe it for a god-damn minute. They have brainwashed us through our disgraceful, public education system & our corporate owned mass media into believing their ideology of greed, fear, & hatred. I'm not saying that Ralph Nader is a saint but he's done a hell of a lot of fighting for us, the poor, the working class, & the nave, middle class who play along believing they too can become the upper class. And Nader tried to warn us about NAFTA & he's now reviled and demonized by democrats & progressives alike.

Summing up , our new prince of Camelot, Obama, has shown who he really cares about with his appointment of Geitner, and the other foxes guarding the hen house. If this doesn't reveal the sham of Obama's campaign mantra of "change," as he ran for the presidency, then we are truly the United States of Stupor! I do take some consolation in the lesson of some ancient Greek myths regarding the consequences of hubris. I just hope & pray that they don't take us all down with them. The bottom-line is that their goal is to always privatize their profits but to socialize the costs incurred in making those profits e.g. the public infrastructure of roads, highways, bridges, airports, seaports, etc., the research & development of the major industries such as telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, space exploration, electronics, etc., the costs due to their pollution of our environment & the "accidents" which are results of their greed (Three Mile Island for example), and when their greed & avarice finally catches up with them, we are forced by threats of imprisonment, etc. to foot the bill. What do people do when their dreams & their lives have been crushed? They can get so angry that they go off the deep-end, they can escape in alcohol or drugs to numb their pain, or they can go down various other paths. Of course, the power elite also profit from the "criminal class" they have created & this is reflected in the booming "prison industry" and private security firms which have sprung up as a result. And to rub salt in our wounds, the scum that dares to portray itself as "superior," have the nerve to label us as "bums," "losers," etc. We need to focus our energy & our anger on the true criminals. If we're not worthy of saving, then the corporate crime lords aren't worthy. They're not too big to fail, they're too big for their britches!

Persevere my friends!

Rob DeLoss, Nov. 25th, 2009