Incentivized to What?

Déjà Vu: The Perennial War for Minds, Hearts, Bodies?
Web-search vaccine lottery* or vaccine incentives* and ponder the parallels to this:

Artist: Boardman Robinson | Title: "Europe 1916"
Published: 1916 | Source***

And this: The Three Temptations**

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*For example:
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/30/1022567245/vaccine-cash-incentives-100-dollars-lotteries-effectiveness
https://www.vaccines.gov/incentives/
https://www.nga.org/center/publications/covid-19-vaccine-incentives/
https://globalnews.ca/video/8165781/alberta-announces-100-gift-cards-for-residents-who-get-their-covid-19-vaccine
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/new-alberta-vaccine-lottery-includes-fishing-and-hunting-licences
https://www.alberta.ca/outdoor-adventure-vaccine-lottery.aspxnpr.org/2021/07/30/1022567245/vaccine-cash-incentives-100-dollars-lotteries-effectiveness
** https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-three-temptations-2021-conversion.html
***Artist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardman_Robinson
Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_1916_-_Boardman_Robinson._LCCN2010643837.jpg
File URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Europe_1916_-_Boardman_Robinson._LCCN2010643837.jpg
Attribution: Robinson, Boardman, 1876-1952, artist, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Source; Library of Congress
Catalog: https://lccn.loc.gov/2010643837
Image download: https://cdn.loc.gov/service/pnp/ppmsca/30700/30754v.jpg
Original URL: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010643837/
Author: Robinson, Boardman, 1876-1952, artist
Published in The Masses, v. 8 (October 1916), pp. 18-19
Description: Title: Europe 1916 / Boardman Robinson.

Boardman Michael Robinson (1876–1952) was a Canadian-American painter, illustrator and cartoonist. Boardman Robinson was born September 6, 1876 in Nova Scotia. He spent his childhood in England and Canada, before moving to Boston in the first half of the 1890s. ...
In 1910, Robinson took a job on the staff of the New York Tribune drawing editorial cartoons, a position which he retained for four years. With the eruption of World War I in 1914, Robinson's increasingly radical anti-militarist political views brought him into conflict with his employer and he quit the publication.[1]
In 1915, Robinson travelled to Eastern Europe on behalf of Metropolitan Magazine ;along with journalist John Reed.[1] The pair saw first hand the effects of the European war in Russia, Serbia, Macedonia ;and Greece. In 1916 Reed's account of the journey was collected in a book called The War in Eastern Europe, to which Robinson contributed illustrations.[1]
On his return from Europe, Robinson worked at the socialist monthly The Masses. His highly political cartoons as well as the general anti-war stance of The Masses was deemed to have violated the recently passed Espionage Act of 1917, and The Masses had to cease publication. Robinson, along with the other defendants were acquitted on October 5, 1918. Following The Masses, Robinson became a contributing editor to The Liberator and The New Masses, working with former Masses editor Max Eastman.
Robinson would later go on to teach art at the Art Students League in New York City (1919–30) ... Robinson is also known as a muralist. Some of his mural commissions include works at Rockefeller Center ;and the Department of Justice Building in Washington, D.C. and a nine-panel mural on the History of Trade for Kaufmann's flagship department store in Pittsburgh completed in 1929. Robinson also illustrated several books, among them editions of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1921), Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (1933), Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology (1941), and Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1942). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardman_Robinson

The Science of Money

FACTS (reproduced and reproducible—déjà vu on déjà vu):

IF there is money to be made in an established procedure or protocol:

▪ it will take decades before change can occur even in the face of overwhelming science discrediting that procedure or protocol (UNLESS a new procedure or protocol with greater pelf and patent potential can immediately substitute);

▪ most beneficiaries of moola will suppress, deny, disparage, or attempt to destroy the reputations, careers, even lives of those who discover and / or whistleblow about discredited practices and procedures that fund the money-machine;

▪ the money-controlled media in fraternity with gain-obsessed elites and mega-corps find blood-money thicker than water and wellness.

A(nother) SCIENTIFIC CASE in point:

Dr. Jerry Tennant: Healing the Body's Electrical Circuitry | Electricity of Life
(Time 21:20) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPDPrXEAe1s&t=575s

For a longer version (Time 48:25) see Jerry Tennant: Healing is Voltage -- The Physics of Emotions | EU2017 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm-Ia6vI4PA&t=570s

So what do we think? If root canals are known to be the “root cause”¹ of a myriad of illnesses and diseases where is the motivation to pull-the-plug when they keep the associated medical rat-race and hamster wheels spinning and caching non-stop?

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1. Root Cause Documentary: Skin and some language, but great survey of credible scientists and dental professionals. Portions of the documentary can be found on YouTube or perhaps borrowed from your local library or through Hoopla; or watched in full on YouTube for a fee.

Hypocrisy of YouKnowWhoTube?

Before I could even post, recommending this shocking exposé of hypocrisy and marketing of children, the End Times News Report video was DELETED by the lords of increasing censorship. (Oh, déjà vu!!) Here is evidence:

EXPOSED! Dangerous Pedophile Rings & Child Traffickers On YouTube (Time 51:28) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elYJFbpo2vQ
WARNING: Disturbing, graphic content exposing a reality that we ignore at our and others peril.

Here is where ETNR explains the take-down of his exposé:

#PizzaGate - YouTube Gags Journalists Trying to Expose YT Pedophile Rings (Time 8:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KPPWpGc27o

This explanation may also disappear in short order. If so, search his channel periodically for updates or try his vid.me channel for the exposé of adults-without-conscience who are sexualizing, filming, and uploading images of children (or of cartoon characters loved by children) for the (im)pure sake of ad revenues. ETNR's exposé should go VIRAL with a blowback to YouKnowWhoTube that will never be forgotten. Here is the ETNR initial exposé posted (hopefully) beyond the clutches of the lords of censorship.

How Pedophile Rings Target Children On YouTube (Time 51:07) at https://vid.me/24MBa
WARNING: Disturbing, graphic content exposing a reality that we ignore at our and others peril.

May it shock and disturb you into an awakening to what is really going on, into a commitment of united action against the marketing and abuse of children worldwide, and against the blatant hypocrisy of quasi-monopolistic corps who are prepared to do and sacrifice anything in pursuit and protection of power and gain.

“Guinea Pigs”?

("Crimes against God and Humanity"?)

If one is following the George Webb¹ / Jason Goodman² search for truth, exposure of wickedness in high and low places, and the depleted uranium threat, here is a doc to get up to speed on DU.

Beyond Treason (Depleted Uranium US-WMD Iraq War Veterans Dying 2005).divx.avi (Time 1:28:53) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViUtjA1ImQc

Also:

Depleted Uranium The Facts and Health Effects.Dr Doug Rokke (Time 57:14) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vquz4zQ5-C0&t=2421s

Another witness to the psychopathy of a world-gone-mad is Guinea Pigs: Technologies of Control by John Hall.

To discern reality is such a world, we must inform ourselves. We must follow the money and power plays; then unitedly stand up, speak up, and act out against all the evils, harms, and deceptions.

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1. https://www.youtube.com/user/georgwebb
2. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Cl9QaRtuW9CNjP7pP4BBQ

Are We Ready Yet?

(To awaken to the déjà vus?)

Day 103 - DynCorp Harvest, Killing Is Good Business, Part 1^[1] (Time: 16:40) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-EPMIPnW-w

Oversight needed, US Federal Law Enforcement, disposition matrix, gov. harassment and asset seizure (Time 17:17) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzVVZODQe78

(2017) PIZZAGATE MORE EXPLOSIVE EVIDENCE - DENNIS HASTERT CONNECTION - OUR GOVERNMENT IS CORRUPT (Time: 16:11) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI6Mq0Tj4G4

Somewhere between 150-600 B.C.(?) ~ American Continent

21 And [the secret combinations] have caused the destruction of this people of whom I am now speaking, ...
22 And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed; ...
23 Wherefore, ... it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.
24 Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.
25 For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; ...
26 Wherefore, I ... am commanded to write these things that evil may be done away, and that the time may come that Satan may have no power upon the hearts of the children of men, but that they may be persuaded to do good continually, that they may come unto the fountain of all righteousness and be saved.^[2]

Ready or not, much more is on the horizon than a NWO or a NAC³—unless perhaps those stand for NumbingWO-WO-WO (as in New Testament Revelation, etc.⁴) or for New American Catastrophe!

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1. Additional exposés: (Warning: Some graphic/disturbing content)
» Day 100 - The DynCorp Harvest - Why Killing Is Good Biz, Part 1 (Time: 19:02) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPdPI3KSqbA
» The Crimes of the Clinton Foundation with George Webb (Time: 54:13) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQgChHUet_o&t=1561s
» Elite child sex slaves "1981" forgotten documentary (Time 1:29:50 min) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6FKEwjPmHQ&t=2729s
» Conspiracy Of Silence: Banned Discovery Channel Documentary (Time 2:43:14) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uBMXOsryd0&t=3607s
» "Conspiracy of Silence" with extras, including John DeCamp interview (Time 1:59:44 min.) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x-IZS8uKYo
» Very Sick Men (Time 46:00 min.) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Al2EBpL44
» 60 Minutes Exposing The Truth About Boystown (Breaking The Silence) (Time 15:46) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y2PddkkJgs (If this link claims there is no such video, you may still find it by searching YouTube with "60 Minutes Boystown." It is a very powerful piece.
» The Kinsey Syndrome (Time 2:44:10) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ztmp1yDq8
» PIZZAGATE- AUSTRALIA - victim speaks out and names the pedos (Time 8:52) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3Iq5UDBmGo
» #PizzaGate Norway Exposes Horrifying Child Sex Trafficking Network (Time 11:58) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyn-Fo-gVyE
2. Book of Mormon | Ether 8:21-26 (Bold emphasis added; full text available at https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/ether?lang=eng); see also: Book of Mormon | Helaman 7:4-6 ~ And seeing the people in a state of such awful wickedness, and those Gadianton robbers filling the judgment–seats—having usurped the power and authority of the land; laying aside the commandments of God, and not in the least aright before him; doing no justice unto the children of men; Condemning the righteous because of their righteousness; letting the guilty and the wicked go unpunished because of their money; and moreover to be held in office at the head of government, to rule and do according to their wills, that they might get gain and glory of the world, and, moreover, that they might the more easily commit adultery, and steal, and kill, and do according to their own wills—Now this great iniquity had come upon the [people], in the space of not many years;
3. Project for the New American Century (PNAC) at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
4. New Testament | Revelation 8:13 ~ And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!
Book of Mormon | 2 Nephi 28:15 ~ O the wise, and the learned, and the rich, that are puffed up in the pride of their hearts, and all those who preach false doctrines, and all those who commit whoredoms, and pervert the right way of the Lord, wo, wo, wo be unto them, saith the Lord God Almighty, for they shall be thrust down to hell!
Book of Mormon | 3 Nephi 9:2 ~ Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole earth except they shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen!
Doctrine and Covenants | Section 38:6 ~ And even so will I cause the wicked to be kept, that will not hear my voice but harden their hearts, and wo, wo, wo, is their doom.

The Saching of America ~ 2017?

Considering the selection of so many Goldman Sachsers¹ by the newest POTUS D.J. Trump, it seems timely to re-post this observation from August 2, 2013.²

Econ 013 ~
Clip art from MS Office 2000

The Gods must have an infinite sense of irony to have inspired the naming of this modern behemoth.

Is this not the latest, perfect symbol of ten-thousand déjà vus since the days of Cain?

Is this what we champion with our capital addictions?

Isn’t this the inevitable legacy of Randians [and Trumpites]?

Isn’t there a better option? like maybe a third way? not right or left, but UP?³

Just asking.

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1. » Steven Mnuchin, 17-year veteran of Goldman Sachs ~ as Treasury Secretary.
» Stephen Bannon, former Goldman Sachs banker ~ as Chief Strategist in the White House.
» Gary Cohn, sitting President of Goldman Sachs ~ as Director of the National Economic Council.
» Jay Clayton of Sullivan & Cromwell, Goldman Sachs outside lawyer ~ as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. (His wife currently works as a Vice President at Goldman Sachs.)
» Erin Walsh, an Executive Director and head of Goldman Sachs Office of Corporate Engagement for Asia Pacific ~ as part of Trump’s transition landing team for the State Department.
» Anthony Scaramucci, former Goldman Sachs banker ~ on Trump’s transition team.
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2017/01/heres-how-goldman-sachs-became-the-overlord-of-the-trump-administration/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2017/01/24/former-goldman-president-gary-cohn-leaves-for-trump-administration-with-over-100-million-payday/#5c9c863f4a72
2. http://dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2013/08/econ-013-aptly-named.html
3. http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2014/06/gods-economy-is-it-possible.html
http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2013/12/gods-economy-christmas-perspective.html

Look Out!!!

(Heads Up!)

Here's a recent CBCNews photo and headline (by Kyle Bakx/CBC):

LookUpBanff billboard promotes conspiracy theory about toxic chemtrails: Highway billboard promotes outlandish theory that government is sterilizing populace with sprayed chemicals
By Kyle Bakx, CBC News Posted: Aug 25, 2016 7:00 AM MT. Last Updated: Aug 26, 2016 7:40 AM MT at
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/chemtrails-david-keith-geoengineering-lookupbanff-1.3733776?cmp=rss&CMP=news-digests-calgary

Now that the facts of geoengineering* are getting wider exposure (and can no longer be ignored), the BIG (and small¹) guns are being positioned on the heights to “kill” the real story with denials, distortions, and mockery. And what is the real story? It is a story of power and gain.² The quintessential déjà vu. Perhaps the oldest déjà vu in the world where those pursuing power and gain will always

1) conspire to achieve their own ends;
2) deny and mock the very idea of conspiracy; and
3) do anything and everything necessary to protect power and gain.³

Does the fact that we continue to fall for these denials make us one of the most unobservant, unscientific, historically unlearned of all the ages? Are we just pretending to be 21st Century sophisticates? And what do we call people who refuse to learn from experience, observation, and history?

Thus, the companion story for those who wish to learn from the past is to be on the “Look Out” for

▪ increasing numbers of industry spokesman, (paid or privileged, duped or deliberate) to deny the history of geoengineering and to praise its glorious future;⁴
▪ trusted “scientists” who sell science and soul to industry dictates and agendas;⁵
▪ trusted “journalists” who generate talking-point stories from industry scripts;⁶
▪ so-called “objective” reports that fail to acknowledge contrary facts, evidence, or credible witnesses;
▪ knee-jerk, emotional tirades against “conspiracy nuts” by those who are, or trust in, monetized spokesmen;
▪ extreme or faux activists spouting fringe or bizarre claims that can be easily mocked or debunked and then conflated with real facts and evidence;⁷
▪ the bottom-line paradigm that hooks into the nose;
▪ the money trail that leads to modus operandi;
▪ the psychopathy of power and gain.⁸

So perhaps it would be a good idea to quit trusting in compromised / corrupted voices and to do some personal observation and research. Perhaps one could begin with an honest study of the evidence at

http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/

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* Also known in science reporting as weather modification, climate intervention, climate engineering or solar radiation management (SRM), but is mocked under the name “chemtrails” when trying to debunk so-called conspiracy theorists; however if one researches the science terms, one may discover that tinfoil hats are considerably more advanced than blinders and earplugs!
1. E.g., bloggers, journalists, pundits, commentators, dupes, etc., etc. who buy the BIG lies of Big Business—hook, line, and sinker.
2. A power-and-gain story as old as (if not older than) Biblical Cain.
3. http://dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2016/08/imagine.html
4. E.g., see the CBC Quirks and Quarks interview of January 30, 2016 rebroadcast August 6, 2016 (Time 18:09) at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/quirks-quarks-for-jan-30-2016-1.3425708/the-planet-remade-through-geoengineering-1.3425811  It seems that Oliver Morton is sadly uninformed or (more sadly) complicit when he presents geoengineering scenarios as in-the-future when they are already decades old in practice. The same applies to David Keith whose words and emotional POV seem to have been parroted by Mr. Bakx. How interesting that both Morton and Keith espouse “future” geoengineering technologies, yet utterly reject the idea that geoengineering have been in secret use for years!
5. E.g., the Ideas broadcast, Mining Science from March 24, 2016 (Time 53:59) at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/mining-science-1.3502958
6. Mr. Bakx' story seems to fit industry talking-points to a T⁺. See also, The REAL Truth Behind 'Chemtrails' published Aug 17, 2016 (Time 4:06) The Young Turks at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEii1_kEoZs
Then consider the insightful CBC Ideas presentation: Imprisoned by Profit: Media & Democracy from May 27, 2016 (Time 53:59) at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/imprisoned-by-profit-media-democracy-1.3601228
7. http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/
8. http://dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2014/05/a-plague-of-psychopaths.html
http://dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/search/label/Psychopathy
http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2014/12/without-conscience.html

Imagine?

If one were a psychopath/sociopath¹—i.e., a PWOC²—whose raison d’être was to pursue power and gain, what would one be predisposed to do:

▪ lie?
▪ steal?
▪ cheat?
▪ distort?
▪ falsely accuse?
▪ malign?
▪ short change?
▪ manipulate mankind and markets?
▪ create profit-generating catastrophes?
▪ foment wars?
▪ externalize costs?
▪ convert (corrupt) a good into an evil?
▪ hire shills and trolls to front for one?
▪ etc., etc., etc.

But let us consider: corrupting a good into an evil.

A recent exposé of unconscionable corruption and fraud is profiled in Vaxxed³—a documentary that everyone should watch (as Robert De Niro encourages) so we can make up our own mind as to its credibility. Despite shills, trolls, and dupes maligning this film, it is NOT anti-vaccine. It presents as anti-corruption, anti-fraud, anti-abuse, anti-tyranny, anti-PWOCs; its concern: pro-health, pro-child, pro-family, pro-transparency, pro-choice, pro-safety, pro-uncorrupted science. It is a voice crying in the profit-driven wilderness against vaccine protocols that are:

▪ untested and unproven respecting the safety of vaccine mixtures;
▪ decades past due for review and exposure of timing and effectiveness;
▪ insufficiently and corruptly assessed by oversight bodies;
▪ in critical need of open, honest discussion;
▪ in dire need of punitive accountability.

So, how long till we clue in that mega-corps and their HyPEs⁴ who swim in psychopathic waters (who stand to lose massive amounts of “power and gain” if truth be told) cannot be trusted in any degree?

Can we not see the déjà vu?—that vaccine “science” has become a latter-day, oppressive tyranny like unto the days of Galileo?—blindly committed to its own preservation, gain, and status quo, whatever the cost to others?

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1. http://dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2014/05/a-plague-of-psychopaths.html
2. PWOC = a Person WithOut Conscience, which includes corporate (faux-)“persons” by so-called court decision. See also http://dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2011/02/econ-005-person.html ; http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2014/12/without-conscience.html
3. Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe (Time: 1hr. 35 min.) at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5562652/
4. HyPEs = Highly Paid Employees

ADDITIONAL VIEWS AND COMMENTARIES: As always, watch, listen, and learn with discernment.
● VAXXED Documentary Explored with Filmmakers on Antidote (Time: 50:58 min.) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KrpK0rbl9w
● VAXXED DIRECTOR ANDREW WAKEFIELD BREAKS SILENCE ON VACCINE VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN AND CDC COVERUP (Time 12:49 min.) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=titN2bZYlUU
● Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe (Time: 1:31:43) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gepyvumlS-8
● FULL Vaxxed Coast to Coast AM Interview Bigtree, Wakefield & Hooker (Time 1:18:39) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG6ZHT0L8rs
● Robert De Niro on Pulling 'Vaxxed' From Tribeca Film Festival (Time:5:01) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eHZVqDbdEc
● Robert De Niro, Tribeca and the censorship of the VAXXED documentary (Time: 26:35 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFAGViYJ_VI
● UN VAXXED A Docu Commentary for Robert De Niro (Time 1:26:04) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM_rTjKdegw

Spellbinding

Once again, leaks, hacks, and unauthorized revelations (i.e., “The Panama Papers”¹) shock / anger /sadden us as if we expected something different. How many times must this déjà vu repeat itself before we truly understand the warning:

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. (New Testament | Matthew 19:24)

Wealth changes people, so if we are still dreaming about striking it rich, let’s read and listen to these discussions:

● The Rich Are Different: More Money, Less Empathy²

● Studies reveal the super-rich suffer anxiety, lack of empathy due to wealth³ (Time 23:25 min.)

And let us revisit this from a March 18, 2014 Déjà Vu Times post, Truly Afflicted (With Riches)!!⁴

    “Money on the Mind” (8:.55 min.)
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuqGrz-Y_Lc&sns=em

Great wealth also seems to be accompanied by a companion condition called spellbinding. We may know we have wealth (sufficient to conceal it in shell companies) but we may never realize we have contracted the companion condition where money and its power progressively blinds and deafens us to fatal consequences.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. And now for a man to take up his cross, is to deny himself all ungodliness, and every worldly lust, and keep my commandments. … Therefore forsake the world, and save your souls; for what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (New Testament | Matthew 16: 24, 26 combined with Matthew 16:25-26, 29 JST⁵)

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1. Panama Papers: Document leak exposes global corruption, secrets of the rich http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/panama-leak-offshore-records-putin-messi-money-1.3518951
Panama Papers reveal billions hidden in anonymous paper shares http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/panama-papers-bearer-shares-1.3525434
2. http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/24/the-rich-are-different-more-money-less-empathy/
3. CBC’s The Current with Maria Tremonti (podcast hosted by Laura Lynch Friday, April 8, 2016) at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/popup/audio/listen.html?autoPlay=true&clipIds=&mediaIds=2686455432&contentarea=radio&subsection1=radio1&subsection2=currentaffairs&subsection3=the_current&contenttype=audio&title=2016/04/08/1.3526575-studies-reveal-the-super-rich-suffer-anxiety-lack-of-empathy-due-to-wealth&contentid=1.3526575
Text summary at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-8-2016-1.3526499/studies-reveal-the-super-rich-suffer-anxiety-lack-of-empathy-due-to-wealth-1.3526575
4. http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2014/03/truly-afflicted-with-riches.html
5. JST = Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible

Perfect Patsies ?

(the SHARE-side of shareholding?)

pat•sy
Noun [plural pat•sies. slang.]
1. a person who is easily swindled, deceived, coerced, persuaded, etc.; sucker.
2. a person upon whom the blame for something falls; scapegoat; fall guy.
3. a person who is the object of a joke, ridicule, or the like.
    (Source: Dictionary.com)

In follow up to the Déjà Vu Times post of October 5, 2015 entitled, “Capital Punishment,” I recommend a CBC News Post of October 19th:

From Bell to VW, shareholders pay for executive sins: Don Pittis
Why do innocent shareholders pay fines when company executives go scott-free?
By Don Pittis, CBC News Posted: Oct 19, 2015 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Oct 20, 2015 10:57 AM ET^[1]

Mr. Pittis’ first two paragraphs inform us thus:

Martin Winterkorn stepped down from his job as CEO following the Volkswagen emissions scandal last month and will get a golden goodbye worth as much as $90 million. The figure was calculated by the Wall Street Journal from information in the company's annual report.

While Winterkorn and other departing executives enjoy their perks, shareholders face up to $18 billion US in fines in the United States alone after VW cheated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, plus the cost of lawsuits and fixing millions of affected cars.

We are even informed that the North American Volkswagen CEO Michael Horn admits knowing of the “emissions rigging” in 2014.

So patsies of the world unite! Begin with Winterkorn and Horn. Hit this rhyming duo with the Capital Punishment² decreed by Moses; and thence onward to those “Bell Boys (& Girls),” and to the myriad other “profit-loss” schemers that hang to the [g]rafters of the corporate structure.

Why indeed do shareholders tolerate crimes against themselves by their HyPEs?³ How long before “patsy” definitions 1, 2, & 3 are added verbatim as ”shareholder” definitions 2, 3, & 4 at Dictionary.com?

How long before we admit the great con, corruption, and connivance of the shareholding system? The whole game is supposedly “gain,” but it seems that most shareholders are so far removed from influence, knowledge, oversight, or conscience they have become the perfect patsies.

--------------/
1. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/corporate-legal-responsibility-volkwagen-and-others-1.3272750?cmp=rss&cid=news-digests-canada-and-world-morning
2. http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2015/10/capital-punishment.html
“If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double. ... If a man shall deliver unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out of the man's house; if the thief be found, let him pay double. … For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour.” (Old Testament | Exodus 22:4, 7, 9; bold emphasis added.)
3. Highly-Paid Employees = HyPEs

Gods ?

St. Paul's Chapel & World Trade Center
Public Domain ~ See footnote 6 for source

If we were accused of believing in the God that George Washington and the first U. S. Congress invoked to bless the United States, following Washington’s April 30, 1789 inauguration,¹ would there be enough evidence to convict us?

Perhaps the best (or worst) evidence (as the case may prove) can be found at the site of that 1789 invocation—at St. Paul’s Chapel of Trinity Church in New York City.² Many have forgotten where that first inaugural-day prayer took place, but in 1789, St. Paul’s Chapel occupied a parcel of New York land that would eventually see the construction of neighboring twin towers—monuments to financial prowess—skyscrapers jutting into the heavens—shrines to power and gain that would tower for nearly three decades above St. Paul’s Chapel—until September 11, 2001.

As Rabbi Jonathan Cahn has observed, the “Ground Zero” of 9-11 is the same ground where the first congress and president prayed after the first inauguration. In Cahn’s déjà vu reflections, he calls this “Ground Zero” site the equivalent of Israel’s Temple Mount—a ground of consecration.³

So, beyond the King Solomon déjà vus observed by Cahn, do we see an additional one?

And [Jesus] found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. (New Testament | John 2:14-17)

What does the juxtaposition of this chapel and the (former) twin towers of the World Trade Center say about us?

Does the miraculous, unscathed survival of St. Paul’s during 9-11 carry a message when one considers how that neighboring, two-headed “temple” devoted to power and gain fell so precipitously?

Does the term “Ground Zero” carry an additional message, if we would but hear?

What does the new “Freedom Tower” say about us and our concept of “freedom”?

Could the official name “One World Trade Center”⁴ be a foreshadowing of intentions by the powers that be(lieve in themselves and their own sufficiency)?

How many witnesses do we need to convince us that Babylon has no permanence?

Is the “One World Trade Center” just one more example of self-con as we pretend to worship The One God while our thoughts and energies are devoted to pursuing the gods of power and gain—those fickle idols of recycling boom-and-bust?⁵

How many witnesses before we return to our foundations—to principled-living and -working?

How many more traumas?

----------------------
1. Inauguration of George Washington at Federal Hall, Wall Street, New York City ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Hall ; see also http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr30.html
2. St. Paul’s Chapel of Trinity Church: http://www.911memorial.org/sites/all/files/IV_Pews%20at%20St%20Pauls%20Chapel_Presentation.pdf ; see also http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0209/st_pauls/online_extra.html ; https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/about/stpaulschapel
3. Quotes from Cahn, Jonathan. The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America's Future (Kindle Edition (2011-09-03); Charisma House.

“[St. Paul’s Chapel] stands now much as it did on April 30, 1789, when America’s first government entered through its doors. It was here that the nation’s first president, Senate, and House of Representatives bowed together in prayer to consecrate the new nation’s future into the hands of God. This is the place where the new nation was committed to the Almighty; this is America’s ground of consecration.” (Kindle Locations 3156-3159).

“Had we been there on that day of inauguration, everything over there, everything beyond that point, would have been water. But between here and the water was a field…now known as Ground Zero…a field owned by a church. Ground Zero was originally church land.” (Kindle Locations 3184-3185).

“Thus, it’s not only that America’s ground of consecration is at Ground Zero; America’s ground of consecration is Ground Zero.” (Kindle Locations 3188-3189).

4. (From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_World_Trade_Center): One World Trade Center (also known as 1 World Trade Center, One WTC and 1 WTC; the current building was dubbed the "Freedom Tower" during initial basework) refers to the main building of the new World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere, and the fourth-tallest in the world. The 104-story supertall structure shares a numeric name with the North Tower of the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The new skyscraper stands on the northwest corner of the 16-acre (6.5 ha) World Trade Center site, on the site of the original 6 World Trade Center. The building is bordered by West Street to the west, Vesey Street to the north,Fulton Street to the south, and Washington Street to the east.
Construction of below-ground utility relocations, footings, and foundations for the new building began on April 27, 2006. On March 30, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed that the building would be officially known by its legal name of "One World Trade Center", rather than its colloquial name of "Freedom Tower". The building is 104 standard floors high, but the tower has only 94 actual stories.
One World Trade Center became the tallest structure in New York City on April 30, 2012, when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building. The tower's steel structure was topped out on August 30, 2012. On May 10, 2013, the final component of the skyscraper's spire was installed, making the building, including its spire, reach a total height of 1,776 feet (541 m). Its height in feet is a deliberate reference to the year when theUnited States Declaration of Independence was signed. The building opened on November 3, 2014. The new World Trade Center complex will initially include three other high-rise office buildings, which will be built along Greenwich Street, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located just south of One World Trade Center, where the original Twin Towers stood. The construction of the new building is part of an effort to memorialize and rebuild following the destruction of the original World Trade Center complex. [Footnote references not included.]
5. Boom & Bust: http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2011/04/growth-funds.html ; http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2011/03/vast-fund-of-stupidity-recycling.html ; http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2014/07/high-frequency-deja-vu.html .
6. St Paul's Chapel and former twin towers, New York City; in public domain at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photograph_of_St._Paul%27s_Chapel_with_the_Towers_of_the_World_Trade_Center_in_the_Background_-_NARA_-_549918.jpg

Bawdy Politics ?

(OR, Alas! Alas! Wo is US!)

In remembrance of the 120th year of the death of

Joseph Ferdinand Keppler (1 February 1838 Vienna – 19 February 1894 New York) … an Austrian-born American cartoonist and caricaturist, who greatly influenced the growth of satirical cartooning in the United States;^[*]

and the 125th year of the publication of his The Bosses of the Senate^[†], I repost his sadly enduring look at puppetry, power, and “bawdy politics”:

The Bosses of the Senate by
Joseph Keppler [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
First published in Puck 1889.
page URL: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Bosses_of_the_Senate_by_Joseph_Keppler.jpg
file URL: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/The_Bosses_of_the_Senate_by_Joseph_Keppler.jpg

How many déjà vus before we actually VU? and then DO something about this?! And that includes especially you: SCOTUS, POTUS, SOTUS, and HOROTUS!

PS: If “bawdy politics” can describe the (past and current) Senate, what might we call the House^‡?!

------------------------------/
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ferdinand_Keppler
† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Bosses_of_the_Senate_by_Joseph_Keppler.jpg
‡ (being the House of Representatives, which, in this age of abbreviation and economy, may be shortened to HOR, which surprisingly!! may be a synonym!)

Truly Afflicted (With Riches) !!

Back in October 2009, I wrote the following:^*

“Despite the “neon” warning that:

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God^[1]

most of us, in our fondest dreams, wish we were smitten with riches and that we should never recover—in likeness of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

“The strange thing is—if we go by scripture—there is probably no greater risk to man’s eternal prospects than to have riches. The failure rate is nigh 100%! And we should wish such a test upon our self?!

“Strange too, when we consider the story of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man^[2] At their sequential deaths, the beggar finds himself carried into the bosom of Abraham and the rich man finds himself raising pleas from hell. Where are the justice, merit, and conservative thinking in that scenario? From a trans-world perspective, it would almost seem safer to be a beggar than a rich man! Is that a contradiction or what, to our current capitalistic, individualistic, blessed-driven paradigm?!

“What is it about riches that so afflicts mankind with failure? Is it the sense of merit? Of entitlement? Of ownership? Of self-sufficiency? Of freedom and power? Of basking in glory and honor taken unto oneself?”

Then, 4½ years later, I encounter this revealing video^† that is both a déjà vu and cautionary reminder to those afflicted with riches (or the sensation thereof).

“Money on the Mind”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuqGrz-Y_Lc&sns=em

Dove-tails with last week’s post, ME, ME, MINE^‡ !! and seems another nail in the coffin of (scientifically-challenged) Objectivism.

-----------/
*    http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2009/10/to-those-afflicted-with-riches.html
[1] New Testament Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25; Luke 18:24-25
[2] Luke 16:19-31
† Thanks to the blogger at http://barerecord.blogspot.ca/2014/03/247-what-influence-are-we-under.html and his side notes section part-way down his #247 post of 17 March 2014 where I first saw this video.
‡ http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2014/03/me-me-mine.html

ECON 013 ~ Aptly Named?

The Gods must have an infinite sense of irony to have inspired the naming of this modern behemoth.

Is this not the latest, perfect symbol of ten-thousand déjà vus since the days of Cain?

Is this what we champion with our capital addictions?

Isn’t this the inevitable legacy of the Randians?

Isn’t there a better option? like maybe a third way? not right or left, but UP?

Just asking.

Econ 013 ~Clip art from MS Office 2000

The Sach-ing of America*

*(et al.)

Just one more déjà vu from the burgeoning vaults of Goldman Sachs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOrSRsqSV4k (The Daily Show of July 25th, 2013)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFIcNreBSi0 (NBR)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj07djP9L2U (MSNBC)

At least Rome was sacked by outsiders. We seem to prefer, tolerate, and reward sach-ing by insiders. For how long? Till sackcloth and ashes?

-------------------------/
For more on Goldman Sachs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJtO_o-G5Jk -- Goldman Sachs: Power and Peril (Documentary) - Money and Finance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMc6KyM_CrE -- How Does Goldman Sachs Make Its Profits? (Part 1) - PBS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98NhoCmaMt4 -- How Does Goldman Sachs Make Its Profits? (Part 2) - PBS

Blissful Ignorance*

(*A tirade inspired by Salt, Sugar, [‘n] Fat)

Let us NOT count the ways we are addicted. It’s too depressing. Too déjà vu. Or so it seems for all the changes we don’t make in our lives when faced with massive evidence. Take for example, our addiction to ideas—such as competition, efficiency, capitalism, bottom-line, etc. as being the prime drivers of innovation and progress. And by progress, shouldn't we mean, that which advances mankind—not that which conspires to addict or enslave as seen in the old tobacco trials; and now again (yes, déjà vu again and again and again) in recent revelations about the processed-food industry? Take a look:

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/The+National/Health/ID/2341079476/ 

How much more advanced might we be if we cooperated for the benefit of mankind? Why are we still playing grade-school versions of “king-of-the-dirt-mound?” Haven’t we matured at all? Isn’t that what our CEOs are still up to: pushing and shoving for top-spot on the virtual mound at Wall Street? Pushing and shoving in two-piece pin-stripes? Pushing and shoving adulterated and faux foods down our blissful throats? Pushing and shoving “new and improved” electronics down our virtual throats so we feel driven to dump perfectly good ones into 3rd-world, unregulated waste sites? Pushing and shoving because we are so push-able and shove-able—abetted by Salt, Sugar, ‘n Fat?

And what of our esteemed scientists who have sold themselves for a mess of (processed, bliss-point) pottage?

Why are we so enamored by the big boys (and those few girls) who cudgel their way to the top by obsessing about the bottom-line? Those who buy up “competitors” to co-op or bury products and ideas, or to sell off thriving company assets for a quick profit (and bonus); or those who bypass the buy-up and resort to stealing, maligning, or killing ideas or products that threaten their ideas or products?

How long this blissful ignorance? How long before we recognize the catastrophic damage that our obsession with competition and bottom-line has wrought? How long till we understand that every beneficial progress could have been achieved faster and further by men and women who had matured past the stage of juvenile pushing and shoving? But alas! the powerful “haves” prefer competition. It is the plush curtain that hides the faux-wizard of their superiority and entitlement.

Too BIG. (OHHH, Déjà Vu!)

HSBC.¹ "Too big to fail! Too big to jail!"

Wasn't that the paradigm of Assyria? Babylon? Persia? Greece? Rome? And most of the corrupt popes, priests, kings, and tyrants of yesteryear? And now our BIG corporations recycling the follies of hubris and privilege (with the assist of governmental authorities). And where are all the predecessors of our BIG paradigm? Broken remnants in the dust?

And where have we seen HSBC before? Agreeing to pay a record 1.9 billion-dollar fine for its most recent crimes (money-laundering) so it can maintain stability and the confidence of its investors and shareholders! It joins almost every BIG (respectable? indispensable?) corporation on the planet. Just google "corporate fines and settlements" and ask: "Déjà vu what? The sale of indulgences? The Ancien Régime?² The historically ubiquitous delusions and machinations of BIG power and money?"

We must be living in the most unobservant age that ever was! We have access to more information and wisdom than any time in history, and instead of evolving as human beings, we sequester behind faux-persons, recycle folly, and in due course cast ourselves upon the accumulations of dust and debris.

Just consider Hank Greenberg³, a former HyPE (highly paid employee) of AIG and current shareholder. Just consider all of us mesmerized by BIG power, BIG fame, BIG wealth. Are we evolving or are we in a state of spiritual and mental entropy?

-----------------/
1) HSBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/12/11/hsbc-penalty-laundering-case.html.
2) A system of privilege, power, elitism, authority, and wealth that has survived, in some form or other, every attempt at reformation. One of its most current renditions resides with the militant atheists who are trying to boot religion of the pedestal of elitism and privilege so they can ascend with their own (rational?) substitute version of "the old ways" (about which this writer will elaborate in a coming post).
3) Hank Greenberg: http://www.businessinsider.com/matt-taibbi-on-greeberg-aig-suit-2013-1 and many other sites. Just google "Hank Greenberg" if you want a range of opinions.

A Series of Massive Delusions*

(or The Toxic Fallout from Ayn & Uncle Miltie)

Posted in observance of April [etc.] Fool’s Day

Here are a few quotes from Boomerang by Michael Lewis—a déjà vu of “what you sow is what you reap [eventually**]”:

“They created fake capital by trading assets amongst themselves at inflated values, … This was how the banks and investment companies grew and grew” (p. 17 ~ quote from a London hedge fund manager).

… bankers buying stuff from one another at inflated prices, borrowing tens of billions of dollars and relending it to members of their little … tribe, who then used it to buy up a messy pile of foreign assets (p. 19-20).

One of the hidden causes of the current global financial crisis is that the people who saw it coming had more to gain from it by taking short positions than they did by trying to publicize the problem (p. 20).

Inside Greece [or nation X—take your pick], there was no market for whistle-blowing, as basically everyone was in on the racket (p. 63).

Extremely smart traders inside Wall Street investment banks devise deeply unfair diabolically complicated bets, and then send their sales forces out to scour the world for some idiot who will take the other side of those bets (p. 153).

… Morgan Stanley designed extremely complicated credit default swaps so they were all but certain to fail, so that their own proprietary traders could bet against them … (p. 153).

The American bond traders may have sunk their firms by turning a blind eye to the risks in the subprime bond market, but they made a fortune for themselves in the bargain, and have for the most part never been called to account (p. 161-2).

They’d [Americans] been conditioned to grab as much as they could, without thinking about the long-term consequences. Afterward, the people of Wall Street would privately bemoan the low morals of the American people who walked away from their subprime loans, and the American people would express outrage at the Wall Street people who paid themselves a fortune to design the bad loans (p. 202).

“We have lost the ability to self-regulate, at all levels of society. The five million dollars you get paid at Goldman Sachs if you do whatever they ask you to do—that is the [reptilian scarcity/abundance trigger that short-circuits long-term benefit for short-term biology/gratification; in other words, diet versus] chocolate cake upgraded” (p. 205, quoting/ paraphrasing Dr. Peter Whybrow—UCLA neuroscientist).

The extent of the corruption, self-service, and criminality is so pervasive and incredible that too many view it as just that—not credible; or in the alternative, as a regrettable, collateral zit on the divine face of free markets. These nice-people-in-suits who furnish/entice us with consumables, loans, investments opps, and aspirations can’t be so bad!

Well folks, the bad news is: it is BAD, BAD, BAD; BADDER (Yes! BADDER because worse doesn't sufficiently describe it) than you even imagine. And the toxic fraud and fallout will continue till we demand a new cultural paradigm of balance, where libertarianism is seen for what it is—an untenable extreme of individualism—as untenable and devastating as extreme collectivism. (What it really amounts to is a concentrated collectivism on the right as opposed to a supposedly broad one on the left. At both extremes, the status of the majority is impoverished, despite the hype.)

Perhaps it is time the “masses yearning to [be] free” of massive fraud and corruption demanded a massive right-wing correction in a déjà vu mirror image from 1987: “Tear down this Wall Street!” And “Let my people go find a more just and equitable way.”

------------/
* p. 198 from Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis (2011)—a book every adult should read; every libertarian should read twice (a day); and every bond trader (and accomplice) should have piped into their Leavenworth/FCI-Tallahassee (etc.) cell 24/7 on a rotating basis with other exposes, including The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine also by Michael Lewis.
** If not now, then hereafter, as in “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (New Testament 1 Timothy 6:10)

“Tear down this wall!” reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tear_down_this_wall !

“The Great Chain of Being” [Subservient]

~
If ever there were a clear case of ubiquitous déjà vu, it is The Great Chain of Being Subservient. Not in the sense of being subject to authority for the maintenance of social order balanced with individual liberty, but in the subjugation of one’s life, gifts, talents, and yearnings for the sake of money—whether for one’s own gain (or survival) or for the gain of an employer or master.

History has seen men, women, and children cycle through soul-crushing subjugations to every type of master—with reforms and revolutions mostly just empowering some new over-lord.

We pretend The Great Chain (vis-à-vis humans) was broken with democratic and industrial revolutions yet we seem to have merely extended the reach of a harsh, unmerciful over-lord—debt. An over-lord, extant from ages past, loved by the market-place, oft fed by inadequate wages, and now bloated with manufactured desires.

Why do we, too often, sacrifice gifts, talents, dreams, soul, and integrity to over-lords like debt, pay-checks, perks, bonuses, loyalties, prestige, possessions, security, etc.? Perhaps the chief cause is Fear, as in “What will become of me if I leave my soul-depleting employment?” How long before oppressions and stress manifest in mental illness?¹ Can one prosper in doing what nourishes the soul?

Haven’t we endured long enough the dogmas of competitive capitalism? Don’t we have enough evidence that cooperative capitalism is the more sure means to widespread prosperity and to the pursuit of happiness for the majority? Why is our excess (if we have any) locked in investment reserves (managed by financiers) instead of “kick starting”² projects WE deem worthy?

Thankfully, more and more activists are challenging the discredited ideologies of omniscient markets and global glorifications. Until we reject the false extremes of “free-market competition,” self-interest, and profit-primacy, The Great Chain of Being Subservient will persist in its various manifestations from the most elite HyPEs (Highy Paid Employees) to the working poor to the involuntary unemployed.

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1. http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2011/12/20/the-high-cost-of-workplace-mental-health/
2. http://www.kickstarter.com/

See also http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/12/lucky-you-lucky-them.html

Thoughts sparked in part from studying The Great Courses “Foundations of Western Civilization II: A History of the Modern Western World,” with Professor Robert Bucholz; from David C. Korten books; and from Yes! magazine.

Broken Pillars

Author: A. Sobkowski
ruins of a Roman Temple
from Wikimedia Commons
Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike license

In the Great Courses^®, Foundations of Western Civilization II series, Professor Robert Bucholz reminds us in the very first lecture, that “Above all, European culture produced certain ideas that have become pillars of our culture:

1. ‘All men are created equal.’
2. ‘No taxation without representation.’
3. ‘The people united can never be defeated.’
4. A free press.
5. Limited government.
6. Innocence until proof of guilt.
7. Judgment by a jury of peers.”

Prof. Bucholz does not ask this question, but this writer does. Why are these foundational pillars of our democracy so transparently broken in this sophisticated 21st Century? Consider:

▪ [Faux*-]Citizens United that entrenched even further the plutocracy of a corrupted system wherein corporate power and wealth make a mockery of equality.

▪ Plutocratic corporations that complain of unfair tax rates, yet seldom pay the rate and seldom suffer significant consequence, leaving the middle and lower classes to take up the tax-slack in a corrupted government in which real citizens have only faux representation.

▪ Corporate HyPEs (Highly Paid Employees) who beat the media drums of culture and social war against any who dispute the legitimacy of illegitimate reign—dividing citizens into divisive camps of beloved propagandites and reviled fact-finders.

▪ A press caught in the spin of false witness, half-truths, mammon-mongering, pandering, fear-baiting, ratings wars, and Murdoching. Where is press freedom when ad dollars kill stories, ideology trumps analysis, job security buys soul, and profit reigns supreme?

▪ Where limited government means—“too weak” to control the excesses, crimes, and corruptions of multinationals, but unlimited enough to bail out avarice; subsidize corporate profits; grant massive favors; and then to pass the costs to the people.

▪ When proof of guilt is in the mind of the Chief Beholder; when habeas corpus means to bring the body secretly to Guantanamo (et other secret places); where guilt is presumed and thereafter “confirmed” via torture.

▪ Where a “jury of peers” means authoritarian elites in secret, hearsay- or speculation-driven sessions. Where fair trials are precluded by national security claims and rights exclusions, though sometimes (preferably?) pre-empted by assassination. By what low road have we come to openly cheering assassination and defending torture in the “land of the [formerly] free”?

The pillars are shattered and broken, folks! Another déjà vu!

The only hope to rebuild and restore them is in a united, informed citizenry—rejecting the abuses and propaganda of the far right and the far left and the 14th Amendment-based person-hood of corporations. And to ask ourselves at every step: Can we ever rebuild if we fail to honor, in every instance, the virtues of those pillars (especially in relation to perceived opponents or enemies)?

How grateful we should be for the many unsung, relatively unknown activists who are in the trenches, already at work in various aspects of restoration. Fifteen have been profiled in the recent issue of Yes! Magazine.**

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* Author's contention: Every corporation is a faux-person and thus a faux-citizen despite the alleged 1886 SCOTUS ruling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
** Winter 2010: for other positive works see, http://www.yesmagazine.org/