d Blog

Welcome to d blog, also known as Dan's rant. The content herein is essentially comprised of miscellaneous ramblings and random thoughts on the nature of contemporary existence.

"Quagmire Of Consent"

Our Sudden Loss is a Conspiracy
06/08/2007

The illusion that was the foundation of our strong American reality turns out to be a thin veil which has been ripped away without warning by a rapid fire series of events fed in large part by our own leaders and our own apathy and inaction.

*“the postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard's pronouncement, in his book "Simulations," that we live in a "desert of the real" -- an ever more virtual reality where fact and firsthand experience are displaced by media fictions. Baudrillard's example is tailor-made for the Bush presidency: "Propaganda and advertising fuse in the same marketing and merchandising of objects and ideologies," he wrote.”

If you elect the affable fellow be prepared to pay the price. Affable may not possess the characteristics and qualities required to get the job done. Affable may turn out to be a weak sister. Affable may or may not give in to its own fallibilities or even act in accordance with its own mistaken perception of morality, all to the same affect. Intent matters little if rights and privileges are denied in a misguided effort to do the greater good. In the long run this approach has consequences often neglected to be taken into account by the less than astute affable one, who as it turns out lives only to satisfy his own needs and only in the present. This is what was. We however must deal with what is, the future is now. The Affable man may withhold the truth to spare your feelings. The Affable man may open the door to the treasury and allow, nay even pave the way for looting by friends and special interests. This is what has occurred in the USA. Even without acknowledging the assault on our resources and by extension our lifestyle by the current administrations forces of corruption and neglect we would have had enough to deal with just considering the effects of the current global economic shifts. The global transfer of both economic and political wealth and power has long been at work.

While receiving moderate mention in the media and also by a certain low level coterie of public servants, we have not received anything near adequate warning of the challenges that we are just now beginning to face. At any rate the word was not loud enough for the populace to heed the message. We still have no one telling us the awful truth. No one is saying how hard it will be and for how long the brutal road will have to be traversed and if we will ever resume the lifestyles we thought we had.

The middle class life for most people is now on hiatus. If middle class jobs were largely funded by the industrial muscle required at large factories and these factories and jobs have migrated offshore to places where muscle is cheaper what has replaced them at home?

If mid level tech jobs from IT and backroom accounting service bureaus are forming the platform that is buoying up the burgeoning middle class in India and China what are the counterparts to these jobs stateside? If India, Ireland and the Philippines are now Call Center Havens….what are US customer service reps doing now? If China’s growing middle class is beckoning and the giant US multinationals are hearing this siren song, how can they be expected to support society here in the USA at levels previously considered de rigueur? Has corporate goodwill been shipped abroad?

A perfect storm of cheap and rapid enhanced global communications and transportation capabilities has fueled and is being itself fueled by the pervasive all consuming pursuit of profits that has been driving corporate expansion, mergers and acquisitions for decades.

At this time I will only mention the obsessive pursuit of wealth as the driving force behind both the irrational exuberance and abdication of conscience that fed the mortgage, credit, investment scandals and the unconscionable global rape of consumers by Big Oil. You can’t tell us that a $40Billion profit has nothing to do with $5Dollar per gallon gas at the pumps. Please lie better.

Will corporations rule the world? As our leaders stealthily modify the principals and policies and we accept impingements to our Freedoms in the name of security does this not give the terrorists what they want? Does this not enable corporations to become de facto governments?

Now we are at what will surely be acknowledged as a crossroads that will shape cultures globally going forward. Politically, economically, educationally we are all in danger of a reverse renaissance. An era defined by the suppression of truth not to mentions rights and individual access to due process may be at hand with the justification that it is in order to prevent chaos. This could very well occur if good people stand idly by and do nothing.

I have realized for quite some time now that people will have to work harder for their news. No longer can we expect an abundance of inconvenient but honest reporting to be pushed at us. Instead we get an echo chamber with thousands of bloggers commenting on the same event. Where have all the reporters gone? How are we to get the truth?

Can GE as a high tech financial corporation that owns NBC allow NBC News to fund an investigation into malevolent activities by the GE Board? Why should they? Can they allow similar reportage to occur on their corporate associates such as CBS or Viacom?
With profitable results as the prime directive can giant corporations be expected to expose each others malfeasances while under the threat of retaliation from competitors?
What of the responsibility to serve the public that they are entrusted with?

Is it any wonder that in the current evolutionary media age where extreme fragmentation is causing the disruption of traditional business in industries such as Television and Newspaper that funding is scarce for things like investigative reporting? When the government is looking to privatize everything including war and prisons is it shocking that public service by business is treated as an outdated concept. I hail from an era where government licensed media outlets had a responsibility to serve the public trust as it were. How does allowing a single corporate entity to own all the broadcast and print outlets in a community support this concept?

In light of the fact that these trends have been around for quite awhile now none of the current hardships should come as shock. Yet they do.

The Kennedy’s had infected my generation with “High Hopes” for a beneficent society where wealth and resources would be allocated for the benefit of all. I am disheartened of late and a bit long in the tooth to want to start all over again. But I see I must.

The all pervasive pursuit of the almighty dollar has blinded western society to the higher callings of existence. Did it begin when after 911 when George Bush told us all just to have fun and go shopping?

Government by my reckoning should protect all of its citizens. Through careful analysis, deliberation, adoption and implementation of proactive policies Government should afford some degree of protection from the medical, economic and social trials and tribulations that can occur in life to everyone. The economy should serve all citizens regardless of status. It most certainly does not. More importantly governmental policies and actions should serve the future. They apparently don’t. Change must come. It can’t come soon enough for me. I hope that it becomes a fact that a Reactionary Republican Cowboy paved the way for a black man to become the leader of the free world. I hope that this lesson is not lost on the greedy egoists. I also hope that the electorate realizes that a gun totin’ cowboy, ready to do battle with little or no provocation is not the strongest candidate to steward our National Security. The Cowboy may indeed turn out to be the weak sister. Smarter may be better. I hope change is rapid. I hope it is for the better.




SIDEBAR
A Sampling of Background Articles Related To This Post

SUDDEN JOB LOSS
http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourmoney/work/articles/sudden_job_loss.html

State of Investigative Reporting
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/04/crisis_in_newsstate_of_investi.html

Economic shift sees focus fall on China
http://www.procurementleaders.com/news/latestnews/economic-shift-focus-china

*McClellan's 'Matrix' moment
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-dery7-2008jun07,0,1934081.story

Taking Europe into the 21st century
http://europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/index_en.htm

Lisbon Treaty will undermine democracy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2094840/John-Bolton-Lisbon-Treaty-will-undermine-democracy.html

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