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The Powerful Feast Upon A Global House Divided
The Powerful Feast Upon A Global House Divided
By
Cognitive Dissonance
For several thousand years the rich and powerful have wielded the most effective tool know to man to control their servant populations, that of divide and conquer via mind control and social engineering. This underlying manipulation is always present as an integral part of the financial system and overall social conditioning and it usually expresses itself in the form of personal jealousy, greed and fear among the plebs. However, every three or four generations the big guns are brought to bear by the elite to strip the productive class of nearly all their social and monetary gains.
In the past this has been accomplished through various major and minor “financial panics’ as they were called in the 1800’s and depressions or recessions as they are called today. Or as the elite prefer to call the process, a reallocation and rebalancing of financial assets back to their rightful owners. And when on occasion even this fails to tame the herd or steal all a people’s wealth the rules of the game are changed, usually through massive social disruption caused by widespread and prolonged war. Once we hamsters are thoroughly disenfranchised and reprogrammed, often by fighting among ourselves over any remaining crumbs, we are set back down on our endless exercise wheel of futility to begin the process all over again.
Assuming the average Zero Hedge (ZH) reader truly understands this big picture view of the world, I find it curious that many in the ZH comment section are applauding the Egyptian resistance when they previously denigrated the European protests and rioting. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears as if one group of people who have been defrauded, lied to and robbed are more worthy of our support than the other. Ultimately the difference between these two groups is not freedom verses oppression but simply the freedom to choose (or lack thereof) the model and color of our own personal hamster wheel. I sense in some of my fellow ZH plebs a superior attitude and possibly even abject jealousy regarding the actual people participating in one nation’s uprising over another instead of recognizing the similarity of the basic social resistance messages. If we would just step back from our self interested pursuits and naval gazing for a moment we might possibly see this for what it really is, an inalienable truth. We are being divided and turned upon one another and we are helping the powers that be accomplish this. Sadly the methods used are quite transparent and as old as the hills.
Our general support of the poorer Egyptians over the better off Europeans implies that the Egyptian protestors are more pure and genuine and thus worthy of our intellectual benevolence. Of course the overpaid and under worked Europeans are not deserving of the right to protest and push back against their masters. How dare those lazy good for nothing Europeans react angrily to the wholesale theft of their nation’s wealth and the austerity measures slapped in place to pay off the bills the Ponzi masters ran up while engineering financial fraud.
We shouldn’t begrudge our masters for taking their generous cut off the top for decades before the game turned into vapor and the real wealth floated away into numbered bank accounts, QE2++ inflated stock prices, off shore factories and (increasingly) stolen precious metals. After all, they earned it the old fashioned way and the slaves were cut in for a small taste. Since it’s all those generous social benefits that are pushing the financial system into the abyss and not the wholesale global financial fraud, the European slaves have nothing to complain about. Let the masters eat their cake in peace for crying out loud.
It’s almost as if we here on ZH are declaring that toiling away in the service of our various capitalist Gods for fifty or sixty hours a week for ‘real’ slave wages, disappearing fringe benefits in lieu of actual wage increases and with a pittance of vacation time actually taken, is considered the ultimate in piety to our higher powers aka the financial and social elites. Don’t we gloriously ‘free’ Americans just love to proclaim to the world that this is ‘the only way’ to monetary salvation aka consumer nirvana.
And yet somehow we believe that even though the average Egyptian is doing essentially the same thing (only they’re earning actual slave wages) that this alone supposedly endows them (and only them) with the inherent right to attempt to throw off the chains that bind. Alas, if you get past the dramatically different living standards, both Egypt and Europe are protesting the same thing, meaning official complicity in the public financing of governmental and private fraud, theft and corruption.
Pray tell what the attitude will be among us when Americans finally take to the streets. Will we make fun of anyone who shows enough balls to actually gather together and push back against the Ponzi machine? Unfortunately, despite the fact that we claim to be aware of the propaganda and manipulation machine, how we react to the protests often depends upon how the mainstream media frames the protesters combined with our own lovingly nurtured prejudices and biases. The end result of this psychological cocktail often inflames or endears the observer (meaning you and me) to what we’re seeing on the boob tube. How easily controlled and manipulated even the supposedly aware Zero Hedge flock appears to be.
Aside from the geographic location, economic maturity and methods used in The Middle East, The Far East, Asia, Europe, Africa, The Americas etc, I see little difference between the various figure head leaders and their suckling and supportive elites in their effort to rape rob and steal from the masses that populate the countries they rule. Aside from the fairy tale belief that the world’s leaders wish to make life better for the downtrodden and disadvantaged, I find every country’s cabal has a single purpose in life. And that is (for the most part) self enrichment, personal comfort and power exponentially compounded.
That being said, would someone kindly explain to me why we jeer those who fill the streets in Europe yet we cheer the Egyptians for doing precisely the same thing for essentially the same reasons? I guess it’s only OK to revolt from your masters when you’re already groveling in the dirt and live in a terror filled world called the police state. But it’s not OK if you already own a flat screen TV and you presently (but not for long) receive 6 weeks paid vacation, state paid child care and the police state is carefully hidden. It sounds like the better kept house slaves have no right to revolt, but the beaten, exploited and worn down field slaves do. Forgive me if I’m missing something in the translation here, but isn’t the unifying theme and operative word among both classes of people “slave”?
Why is it that we can’t seem to understand that an economic system can be created where everyone doesn’t need to work sixty hours a week in order to survive. We passed the point of increased productivity decades ago where we no longer need to be chained to a desk or assembly line in order to live and live well. The fact that we still are chained speaks volumes to how effectively the system is drained of its fundamental wealth one B(L)S politically expedient lie at a time. We remain chained because it remains the elite’s best method of mind control.
Real wages over the last 30 years have seriously declined while the elite’s wealth has skyrocketed, particularly when you recognize that where one spouse could comfortably provide for the family of four thirty years ago it now takes two wage slaves toiling away to support the same sized family, an often overlooked part of the “real” wage equation. The system is being (and has been) systematically bled, even destroyed, in order to enrich the few. In its place illusionary wealth called ‘credit’ has been extended to keep us deaf, dumb and blind while even more tightly bound to our intellectually customized hamster wheels.
We all seem to be experiencing a massive Cognitive Dissonance of the truly self destructive kind and it’s the most obvious indication yet that we all suffer from a terminal case of Stockholm Syndrome combined with victim-perpetrator bonding similar to battered spouse syndrome or families of the addicted. Our world has been systematically looted by a small cabal of financial and political elites over the last 30 plus years and arguably for millennium. And whether we wish to admit it or not, we haven’t put up much of a stink because we were given a small seat at the table and a few extra servings of moldy bread and watered down rum.
As long as ‘we the abused’ were compensated enough to dull the pain we allowed the abuse to continue. Repeatedly beat me about the head, then give me a dirty rag to stop the bleeding and I’ll kiss the masters feet and be eternally grateful. Now that we the abused are being dealt out of the Ponzi card game, but the abuse itself is being ratcheted up, only now do we cry foul. “Hey, where’s my dirty rag?” Worse, we are increasingly angry with our fellow wage slaves who are relatively better off (those SOB house slaves have two dirty rags, imagine that) but who are finally attacking their abusers while we are not.
Incredibly we claim the rebellious are selfish, lazy and over indulged. We condemn those uppity house (wage) slaves for reaching beyond their station in life because they aren’t satisfied with their more flexible chains and increased beatings. The truly conditioned mind, the mind of the house broken and kept slave, can never see beyond the reach of his or her own chains. The real world ends where potential freedom begins, all because we are too busy tending to our narrow belief system which demarks the extent of our reality and existence.
This is our true hamster wheel within which we are locked into the illusory, but all consuming pursuit of money, itself a state of mind and a symbol of our acceptance of the status quo every time we use it. This tool of enslavement called fiat ‘money’ has been cleverly equated to freedom, but is actually the ultimate form of bondage. I owe, I owe, so off to work I miserably go. The company store is still there, only remodeled and restocked with QE powered iGags dipped in hope and change. Yum, finger licking good!
To gaze upon another placated mind living the better life is infuriating and immediate tension and division is created by our own jealousy and greed. Natural allies are divided by the ruling elite who create intentional shortages and artificial differences. This doesn’t happen by accident or ‘nature’, but by manipulation and conditioning. The global masters have vast experience cultivating their human crop and managing their plantations. Can’t we see that by not supporting our fellow abused when they fight back, regardless of their ideological, financial or physical condition in relation to our own, we are directly supporting our own abusers financially, emotionally and intellectually?
I understand this essay may be considered harsh or even derogatory to some. But to be frank I’m tired of using words that won’t disturb the placated mind. Rarely do we grow when we are not deeply disturbed or strenuously challenged. It’s time to grow up folks. It’s time to recognize that the enemy of my enemy is my friend and that anyone resisting the global financial elite in any country for any reason is fighting our battles for and with us.
Anyone pushing back against tyranny, financial slavery and the process of publically financing and socializing private debt is fighting the same abusive power elite that we should be. Instead of squabbling over the dwindling crumbs on the floor it’s time to pull our head out of our posterior and understand that either we fight the abusers together or we will surely be abused separately.
02-09-2011
Cognitive Dissonance
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Agreed.
Maybe you need to take a stroll through the ZH comment section from earlier last year when the European riots were going full blast. That sentiment hasn't disappeared and it is that to which I refer to. Those who have been here for a year or more and comment regularly know who and what I'm talking about. At times it was down right ugly and it still bubbles just below the surface.
Maybe if you had a couple of businesses to run like me, you wouldn't have time for so much "naval gazing" and hand wringing about what goes on here. Get a life, CD.
mmm, and yet you're still "here" trolling, Mr. Busy.
Perhaps we are lacking an adequate analytic framework within which to situate the professional class in relation to a workable model of wealth creation. There is a lot of hatred and bitterness couched in moralistic terms here at ZH, some at the traditional underclass but a lot at what amounts to the average professional middle class in the USA. I get the feeling that the Galtish sect is wallowing in an Imaginationland of small entrepreneurs and yeoman farmers. Eh.
Personally having seen a fair amount of global economic modeling, it remains unclear exactly what the American household thinks it ought to be doing to sustain wages at multiples of the global average. On the other hand, US citizens fought and died for decent wages, leisure time, health & safety etc. As a result we grew the original mamma's teat of a middle class consumer society for these ungrateful corporations to suck dry.
They think they can cast our collective husk aside and eat Chinese. They are very very wrong.
Because freedom, justice and yes information are an intrinsic part of an affluent society. Stunted and malformed, unstable and often murderous environments await our corporate overlords on far shores. The corruption that threatens freedom, justice and information is what needs to concern us the most (hooray for Egypt FWIW). It should also concern the elites; the fact that it does not shows them to be suicidal psychopaths in an economic and, crucially, political sense.
The elites are literally gloating as they destroy their own worlds. Will we let them take us all with them? When you can't get cotton or grain or fuel, it'll be just a tad too late.
Union bashers, I challenge you: stop indulging in self-righteous tantrums. Instead, get ready for a sober and grown-up discussion of what's been promised, what's affordable, and how to balance pension obligations against other, equally valid but incompatible obligations, including our obligation to avoid saddling our children with intolerable yokes of debt.
Please stop with identity politics, pandering, Rovian 'chaos' etc. We are all citizens and mostly human too (check to see if you have a belly button, not 100% but a good indicator).
Also be prepared to place your own most favored items on the altar for sacrifice. Defense? Taxes? High school sports? Prisons?
Chop chop. Let's roll. But remember, the global elites have to play too or we will totter into the abyss. And they are crazy, so coercion is required.
I am john galt. And i pay a fair share of taxes withou cheating. There is a lot that i and millions of other john galts will tolerate, but when we think we are being taken advantage of your tax receipts will decrease and everyones standard of living will go down. Target the plutocrats, the o.5 percent. Dont target the near wealthy next two percent
So if it turns out that insane interest rate policy has 'force fed' economic growth via debt and thus a large reckoning is upon us, your position is to take the gain and ask to be left alone for the tough part.
Noble. We'll get back to you. Actually I sympathize but think we've let the rot go too far and that is everyone's problem.
They've finally reached the generation that is totally consumed w/self. Programmed to believe that everything is great because we are free. But starting with the generation after the greatest generation, (so boring I don't know the name) our parents generation. I must say that they truly are a selfish lot that gave birth to rampant selfishness into the Boomers Then in to the Gen X's etc. then today you can ask a college student about financial state of the world, Their leadership, Inflation and blank stares will reveal themselves. Even I, at 50, tasted fear reading your article CD because I saw the younger generation in me and am no different. Man what a coward I am. If we were men wouldn't we stand up to this?
What's a people to do. There will come a time soon maybe that we will have no choice but to rise up, unfortunately, it will be too late.
The nature of man - Evil, Corrupt, Selfish.
if you believe in evolution and its logic, as I mos def do, then you would have to agree that H.Sapeins, on an evolutionary time-line, is a dead end. we're too arrogant and selfish and smart for our damn selves. we are an evolutionary MISTAKE. we disrupt everything , including ourselves, to no positive macro effect.
Well spoken! I couldn't agree more. All the technological upgrades=more waste. Our net affect on the planet is close to catastrophic! Nowadays, I feel bad for other species we share the Earth with.
if natural SELECTION is the MECHANISM then it must have reached its dead-end in Homo Sapiens, is evolution an infinite process? does it escape functionality? By definition, Impossible. Hubris!
CD, having eletes and plebes is one thing, but BREEDING tens of millions of them (plebes) for use as cannon fodder or consumer place holders (e.g. the Great Society) with no real economic prospects, I consider a great evil.
CD, thanks for finally throwing down. You nailed this one in beautiful form.
I enjoyed your post, CogDis. Thank you.
Not you again.
I think there is a big difference between the two. In europe's case they were protesting over the retirement age of 55 to 58. They were protesting over a 35 hour work week and the rage of having to fund university with loans rather than taxpayer freebies. Egypt was all about basic freedoms and a completely corrupted and tyranical government. Seriously are there any one party dictatorships in europe where people are routinely tortured for speaking out? Are there any 30 year tenured tyrants in europe who are personally worth 40 to 70 billion dollars they stole from the people? I rest my case.
flip side: the USA gave him $1.3 Billion a year for years......who's to say he stole from Egyptians? If anything, and I hope, he stole from our stupid asses! Still, it goes to show that Dictator pays better than bankster!
the protestors target is Govt.... they are targeting who reneged on their promises, the politicians... promises of cushy jobs, promises of comfy pensions, promises of student funding... they are protesting about the usual, politicians making promises and reneging on them... politicians cannot be trusted, same as it ever was, the protests are 'legit' just not as legit as what should be happening, the private sector rising up and taking their wealth and freedom back
i guess so what you said, just get your targeting right, pols and wallstreet, especially barnie and jaime. it aint about the 90% it's about the 10% and more so the 600k ruffly 1%. and i include my dear mum in that. her portfolio is going up irregardless that she had to sell her home to get out of loan, she is cluelessly happy cause her portfolio is +. now, how the fuck can i talk to my own mother as i do to you fucks here. ...?
if your Mum has sold her (declining value) house to get out of (pay off) her debts and her portfolio is rising then you shouldn't be telling your Mum anything as she sounds a very astute person, you should be listening to her, she's doing all the right things!
ZG told her to buy gold at 650 she laffed at me
told he r to sell atthe top of market she wanted to buy a sinlg condo at 350 in los angeles cause she was greedy at top of market nonetheless!
i love my mum btw but damn. i gave up. now she tells me i shouldve bought gold when you told me!!! FU BITCH!
well lessons learnt missing the Gold run but remind her there's a downside profit to be made as Gold comes off the top so every cloud has a silver lining ....and a golden one!
tahrir was about food, moubazid tunisia was about food, dude was fruit seller, he bought cheap sold w a margin. to eat. middle class in egypt is miniscule. when us middle class gets to about size of cairo then we can talk about a revolt here. maybe.
Gangland if I remember correctly from some of your older posts you dont work and.you get some kind of.government check. If that is.true the real problem is people like that thinking that they should take more of my hard earned money. Only so many people can ride in my cart before i go all john galt on them.
Spoken like a truly brainwashed slave. Bravo. You sycophant.
"Those in power are blind devotees to private enterprise. They accept that degree of socialism implicit in the vast subsidies to the military-industrial-complex, but not that type of socialism which maintains public projects for the disemployed and the unemployed alike."
William O. Douglas, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice
+1
spell that
tct I've NEVER EVER gotten a handout, I've refused to be on umemployment! I've been pushed to get the freaking food card, BUT I HAVE NOT AS OF TODAY! I'd rather steal than ask for gov assistance ok tct? :) thas y am so pissed cause i go buy 16 oz of rice for 1.29 and i got a chic w 3 kids and 300$ worth of food stamps in front of me getting into a white cadillac escalade. should i be pissed tct? or am i an asshole extremist? you want my answer?
IM FUCKING MOVING.
btw tct ur memory so called is fucked. jusayin bro.
"Pray tell what the attitude will be among us when Americans finally take to the streets. Will we make fun of anyone who shows enough balls to actually gather together and push back against the Ponzi machine"
America is currently doing precisely that now, and when we finally take to the streets, I fear it will be dog eat dog at best. Bitchez gotta eat.
we can fantasize as i do some days, but amerikkka will NEVER pull a tahrir, a moubazid, nothing! never! ever! maybe a tuscon now and then but even that won't be real and if it is it's useless and neutered before it even begins. for STHF thing swould have to get per capita gdp reduction by over 50%. long fucking way to go. plus there's always TV and cheap beer.
the reason i jeer European protests/rioters is because the protestors are not the over-taxed private sector but the bleating, pampered public sector (and subsidised students) who expect their cushy lifestyles to be maintained by obese European Govts continuing to extort taxation from the real productive over-burdened already suffering private sector.
Namely the pampered over-paid, under-worked, over-pensioned whining useless Union organised public sector wasters are out on the streets, not the hard working people who have been paying for decades for this parasitical bloated ponzi scheme we call "democratic government".
These public sector moaners do have one legitimate protest toward Govt and politcians that promised so much and once again reneged on their sugary jobs-for-life cushy pension promises. So if they want to moan and stick it to these lying political parasites I suggest they stop cue-jumping and join the back of the line for legitimate complaints.
When the private sector finally rises up and protests and storms the sewers we call parliaments then I'll be cheering, in fact I'll probably be there with my f'n pitchfork
I totally agree this time you punk anarchist!
I'm not a punk tct xD ...and i didn't junk you my brotha.
none of us would be here TODAY if it were not for the banks and wall street and the City. Agree? maybe in 10-20 yrs, but not like this, on our knees, not today. canard. did you even read the article? jeeesus fucking christ. you....are a shithead.
No way in hell. Pursuant to UCC-- the banks are borrowers of credit, debtors are the sellers of promissory notes.
We own every f'n thing, and they steal it from us anyway under color of law. No quarter asked or given.
"Incredibly we claim the rebellious are selfish, lazy and over indulged. We condemn those uppity house (wage) slaves for reaching beyond their station in life because they aren’t satisfied with their more flexible chains and increased beatings. The truly conditioned mind, the mind of the house broken and kept slave, can never see beyond the reach of his or her own chains. The real world ends where potential freedom begins, all because we are too busy tending to our narrow belief system which demarks the extent of our reality and existence."
ok, after all this time and all the headaches, you've finally said something good. I twatted your ass. What you are referring to in that particular paragraph reminds me of the FICO chase. I guess I never actually gave up on you CD, hope someone would do the same.
http://twitter.com/False_Politics
edit: we all got our good and bad days cog, i ve seen and read you on yours, you've definitely read and seen me on here on mine, I'm guessing and will gladly give FS room to vent, for today. we all have days. more people are getting it and I tell a lot of people about this site and I would not be surprised if when they find it they express some rage. it's one of the safest places to do so for many reasons. I know you agree a little. anyway I reserve the right to rant! goddammit and this post. ; ) ultimately, we're all going to be on the same side(minus the shitheads), trust me. this is just fun and goofs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No1UKN-SKlg
I notice this abominable POS has been properly yanked. Thank you very much. And Cog Diss can KMA.
BTW, where the fuck is Zeus' The Big Squeeze, Part III? Hello.
What is your problem?
He frequently wastes my time.
it's the internet moron - YOU control the KEYboard!
waste of time troll is a waste of time.
You are not being forced to read this post so you are wasting your own time. You have asked one question and the rest of your comments are just verbal abuse.
I am providing the only entertainment value to found on this particular post.
Please inform me as to which PIIGS citizens have endured 29 years of martial law. Cog Diss previously asked what is wrong with ZH these days. Look in the GD mirror, you ignorant MFer.
Well, there was that Spain thing under Francisco Franco in which the fascists won. You know, that whole period from 1935 until around 1975? That one? Maybe not the same thing, but pretty damn close. You mean that one? Hell, the dictator was replaced with a fucking KING! A 'constitutional monarchy' and democracy. Now, there is a fucking oxymoron if anyone as ever seen one.
How about Belgium. Same shit, different day. The Belgian King is, gasp, above the law! Hey, but Belgium is wealthy, isn't it? Who cares! Sure, Belgium is run by a monarchy where pissing off the King's eigth cousin (who happens to own parts of industry) can get you shit-canned out Belgium.
And the plebs? They are trying to get away from one another. Walloons and that other group. Peaches and cream.
Little history of Greece for anyone? That place is fucking corrupt. Nice weather, though. And an American/CIA playground for a few years after the war battling commies. Just a few thousand dead there. It's still Europe, though some would argue: NOT!
Italy? Well, Italy is Italy. Mafia bombings in the past. A few bouts of pseudo-martial law. Communist terrorists. And, who knows just how much of Italy the Mafia and Berlusconi (Mr. Italy!) truly own.
Ireland? Well, prior to 1923 (or so), they just suffered under the bootheel of The English for a few centuries. Don't mention Cromwell. Portugal? Is that a country? I joke, of course.
+1
Cog Diss is not as bad as that pro-Obama fraud GW. He was on here a week ago telling us how The Muslim Brotherhood were like The Boy Scouts.
CogDis, I love your stuff, even though it is hard to read and comprehend (like FOFOA, one of my favorites).
I have a long day tomorrow, and so need to get to bed now, but I will finish your piece and comment tomorrow.
+++++
Thoughtful ZH-ers ought to examine and carefully read CogDis's pieces... They are worth wrestling with and can open minds. We can escape the Evil Empire, but it requires courage, knowledge and the fortitude to go against the grain...
+ $1360 millions when gold gets recognized!
Sorry, but when I want the word on neoliberalism, I prefer Chris Hedges to an echo chamber hero. And when I'm not wasting my time trying to get through dreck like this, I'm humiliating local pols on YouTube. And unlike the majority of you mopes, I read other great economists who frequently goof on the stupid shit disseminated here. So junk away, because I've been stirring up local trouble in my neck of the woods for years, and not just whining about it here.
well FS if you liked mike Hudson you sure didnt act like it getting against public unions and employees. ! as oppossed to jaime and lloyd in the privat seccccccccctor! wtf dood!