Neoconservatives say they champion free choice but then they
try to limit the range of choices to one, theirs. In the case of economics this
means neoliberalism at all costs -- to society, democracy, and the environment.
They refuse to admit there are other solutions, ones that unlike neoliberalism,
might work - unless the destruction it is has wrought was the purpose, which I believe it to be.
What is neoliberalism? Basically it means keeping taxes low
for the rich and big corporations, simplifying tax evasion through tax heavens on
an obscenely massive scale, deregulation to make quick profit through gambling
and corruption, suppression of wages and labour rights, the reduction and elimination
of social programs, maximum funding for the military-industrial complex, and
profiteering from exploitation, destruction, and murder. It treats the world as
nothing but a market and it seeks to corner that market by any means possible. Neoliberalism
is robbing countries, allowing corporations and individuals to hoard and sit on
the world’s stolen wealth. It concentrates wealth at the top, leaving nothing
to support the society. It can’t help but collapse.
The neoconservative ideology is rife with hypocrisy, the
surest sign of evil. Claiming to champion free choice, they restrict that very
choice with intolerant laws and profit from exploiting, endangering and murdering
the very life they claim to protect. They limit opposing opinions and ignore inconvenient
facts in order to narrow our vision to match theirs so that their one solution
becomes the only solution we can see.
Regardless how much neoconservatives want us to think
otherwise, there are other choices and solutions that have a chance of working.
After more than thirty years of the present neoliberal disaster, we know it
doesn’t work - at least not for the majority of us. Neoliberalism actually
dates back to the creation of the first corporations, around the 17th
century, when nobles and their friends got together to fund colonial invasions
and exploitation while giving them “limited” liability, financially, and no
accountability. Almost immediately the first bubble inflated and collapsed, sparking
the first real regulations. Then, again and again, despite the lesson of
history, neoliberals deregulated , creating a bubble filled with corruption,
and a resultant recession or depression. It has happened every time, no exceptions.
Neoliberalism is what Einstein would term as insanity - repeating
the actions that caused the problem in order to fix it. You don’t save yourself
from drowning by drinking more water.
Neocons not only seem insane, they are insane, continuing to push their
one solution despite its obvious repeated failure. But then, as the Republicans
have shown, they neocons find it easy to forget entire presidencies (eight
years of Bush). They would like us to have memories as short, so they use the
media and triviality to distract us.
Neoliberals have hoarded society’s wealth, while charging us
interest, compounded, to make us utterly dependent on their largess and our
sense of obligation and honour (of which they have none). Interest inflates
costs, requiring higher wages for survival, sparking more inflation. It is counterfeiting
on a massive scale, devaluing currency as surely as printing more paper notes
or adding electronically to the supply in the system. It requires more currency
than exists in the system based on the real wealth of the country - resources, goods and services - creating it
out of thin airThe neoconservative neoliberal attack on democracy, freedom,
and nations is three-fold:
- Drain the nation's wealth through tax evasion, low taxes and large incentives.
- Underfund social services and push austerity and privatization so that citizens must become dependent on the private sector, who will assume the power and role of government.
- Inflate costs through interest, quicker if compounded, and create a debt-slave workforce of serfs.
The neoconservative neoliberal agenda has always had two
core ideas: conquest and exploitation. Being charged for the privilege of
working (how much of your paycheque goes to service charges and interest
payments?), while being forced to work in dangerous conditions and live in a
ruined environment, is exploitation of the conquered.
Rights are abandoned when survival becomes primary. Neocons
depend on it. Fear makes us accept almost any sacrifice if we allow it. Neocons
use neoliberalism to create artificial shortages to increase profits (diamonds
anyone?). They orchestrate and fund wars because that’s how colonies are created.
Everything is thought of economically. Everything has its
value. Everything has its price. Neocon neoliberals see the world as nothing
but a huge market to fund their privileges. Everything is considered according
to “Net Benefit” - but whose?
Neocons have nothing positive to add. They inspire nothing
but fear. They have no ideas about how to improve things, just threats that it
will get worse without them. They treat our money as theirs. They cut, restrict,
and ban, suppressing sources of unbiased knowledge and eliminating protections
for anyone other than themselves. And the poor ones are fooled into thinking
they might be one of the privileged one day, unless the rest of us make things worse.
Ruled by fear, they fear the truth, responsibility, and cooperation, not to
mention accountability. They claim there is no future unless we go backward.
They use fear, not hope and rhetorical attacks rather than productive,
intelligent debate.
Long before South Africa existed as a colony, the world had
economic, social, and political apartheid with the tiny minority ruling the vast
majority for the benefit of the minority. The 1% always tried to subjugate the
99%, whether economically, religiously, politically, or ethnically. They try to
convince us that it is we who can’t survive without them, that we incapable of
ruling ourselves and living without their trickle, and that average people, a
great number of whom are poor, are deserving of their misery and the socioeconomic
arrangement, while the 1% are somehow the deserving pure - aristocrats, Bluebloods,
our Betters. The very ideas of equality and democracy undermine their arrogant view
of reality - a royal view that they wish to restore to dominance.
Their “divine right”.
Serfs didn’t consider themselves slaves. They considered
themselves as servants, as honest farmers, labourers, and craftsmen. They were
allowed to live on their lord’s land and to work it for the privilege of maybe
being able to keep enough of the wealth, generated by their work and skills, to
survive. In return the lord, the “noble” (a term once synonymous with “virtue”)
protected the serfs by forcing them to fight and die, untrained, in battles over
personal insults, greed, or ambition.
Everyone served the “divinely chosen” king, or pope (a king in religious
trappings), through their local lord, who determined who could marry, and often
got to test-drive the bride. Thus virginity, besides being virtuous, was
considered a thing suitable for kings; a very valuable commodity. But serfs
didn’t think of themselves as slaves.
Yep, neoconservatism goes way back, and they want to drag us
back there. Christian, Jewish, and Muslim extremists are all neoconservatives,
with differing rules to which they pay lip service while perverting the true central
meaning of their religion. Unless they are skilled actors, neoconservatives can’t
hide their contempt for equality, democracy, and the common people (who they
believe do nothing more than eat, drink, and reproduce). They want to return to
the glorious past of princes and princesses, who fairy tales say anyone, even a
frog, can become with talent (spinning straw into gold, mathematical genius, or
a good slap shot), a magic benefactor (angel investor), or luck (better buy
your ticket). There’s always a “chance”
of joining the elite and making everyone else your servant.
Those who fail to obey the rules of their game are attacked,
intellectually and socially, with empty accusatory rhetoric, and even
physically, with incarceration and violence. They are attacked until silenced.
Neoliberals legitimize counterfeiting, usury, and greed.
They rely on the sacrifice of others and never sacrifice of themselves. They
profit from fear and violence; their only fruit death. Neocons are constantly
trying to drag us backward, digging in their heels as they face the future;
pulling us back with assholes leading.
The neocon believes that the way to heaven is through hell,
so they try to create hell, while the truly religious know the same thing, but work
to create the heaven. Neocons need
enemies, so they try to make everyone else like them by sabotaging efforts at
cooperating to get things done.
Neoliberals view the creators of their wealth, the workers -
through production and consumption -, as enemies. To them everyone and
everything is competition.
They have
been trying to strangle the Golden Goose of the innovative middle-class ever
since it arose.
If allowed, they will take us all down with it.
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