"...it's not the training to be mean but the training to be kind that is used to keep us leashed best." ~ Black Dog Red

"In case you haven't recognized the trend: it proceeds action, dissent, speech." ~ davidly, on how wars get done

"...What sort of meager, unerotic existence must a man live to find himself moved to such ecstatic heights by the mundane sniping of a congressional budget fight. The fate of human existence does not hang in the balance. The gods are not arrayed on either side. Poseiden, earth-shaker, has regrettably set his sights on the poor fishermen of northern Japan and not on Washington, D.C. where his ire might do some good--I can think of no better spot for a little wetland reclamation project, if you know what I mean. The fight is neither revolution nor apocalypse; it is hardly even a fight. A lot of apparatchiks are moving a lot of phony numbers with more zeros than a century of soccer scores around, weaving a brittle chrysalis around a gross worm that, some time hence, will emerge, untransformed, still a worm." ~ IOZ

May 25, 2010

Concentration

An expanding executive covers the needs of a shrinking ruling class. As the wealthy seize their greater share of the fruit of labor - in extracted materials, finished products and services - they will tend to concentrate their mastery of the political in a smaller, leaner, more efficient, more manageable protection racket. One not encumbered by legislative prerogative. A racket which protects more wealth held by a smaller number of people does not require large public programs or excess populations with their own speakable interests. They must serve only as one way conduits, as receptacles, as consuming spectators and never as active participants:

"President Obama is now asking for a modified version of the line-item veto, called the Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2010 (PDF). This law would give the President the ability to force the United States Senate to take a guaranteed up-or-down vote on a set of budget cuts without amendments. This request by the President to gain more of the legislative branch’s power is deeply disturbing on many levels."

Source. 

And they will reduce their liabilities by treating excess laborers as any company treats costs which they can externalize: as costs they will externalize. Wealth concentrates:

 "Obama's 'National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform' plotting to cut Social Security..."

Source.


h/t ATR

No comments: