The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same. .... What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect. -- George Orwell, 1984, Part II, Chapter 9
In the midst of the constant info-tsunami, you may have heard that noted hairpiece enthusiast Sheldon Adelson is in grave health. Considering Adelson is eighty-five years old, has looked much older for many years, and is in fact pure scum, it would be understandable if you shrugged your shoulders at such news, and went off to go read your horoscope or fix a nice cocktail.
Nonetheless, let's all spare a thought and/or prayer for ol' Shelly, something in the neighborhood of I hope it fuckin' hurts, reeeeeal bad.
If Howard Zinn proved anything, it's that most of history really just consists of wealth and power subjugating everyone else by whatever means available at the given time. Torture, murder, rape, slavery back in the day, compelled by violence and force; usury, debt peonage, and wage slavery nowadays wrought by sophisticated systems of disinformation and culture-war stoking.
Where these modes of subjugation once were in the service of religious and territorial expansionism, now it's just for the money. Imagine: people who already have more wealth than they could spend in ten or twenty lifetimes, pitting the country against itself for another fucking tax break. A few more million dollars, which for them is a fraction of a percent, but for everyone else is more money than they'll see in their entire lives.
At least the religious fanatics believed in something, even if it was all bullshit. People like Sheldon Adelson believe only in what they already have way more than enough of.
Let's do the quick back-of-the-envelope calcs here: if you had a billion dollars, you could spend $100,000 every single day for over twenty-seven years. And that's if you're giving it all away and buying toys and shit with no further value -- no real estate, no businesses, no stocks or investments or anything with a yield or resale value whatsoever.
The average American family takes close to two years to earn $100,000 gross, before all the expenses of daily life are deducted. I have a pretty good imagination, and I like toys, and I have no clue how I would go about wasting $100k every day for nearly three decades. You can indulge in hookers and blow for only so long -- believe me, I tried back in the Eighties and Nineties.
But seriously, we're not just talking about a lot of money, we're talking about a staggering amount of money, at the cusp of what most people can conceive. The vast majority of Americans still think conceptually of a "millionaire" as someone who is doing quite well -- little or no debt; chooses houses and vehicles instead of just getting what you can afford; two or more vacations per year, domestically or abroad; will be able to retire well before you hit the age of sixty. So now picture all that a thousand times over.
Sheldon Adelson is reckoned to be worth about thirty-six billion dollars.
And of course you have your other greedy elders who take an active role in undermining this country with their shenanigans in its electoral process: Rupert Murdoch (turns eighty-eight next week), and Charles (eighty-three) and David (seventy-eight) Koch. Like Adelson, they count their billions in the teens. They could each live another ten, twenty -- another hundred -- years and still not be anywhere close to running out of precious, precious money. They could send hundreds of kids to college every year and not even feel it.
But it's not enough. It's never enough. I seriously think that the thing with people like them is that once you reach a point where you don't really need money anymore, because you have so much of it, you just use it to keep score, to compete with others in your social strata. It's all just a game for them.
Yes, they've done some philanthropy -- the Kochs have donated to rich-guy activities like symphonies and ballets, and Adelson donated $25 million to build a children's hospital. He also spent $100 million trying to get Newt Fucking Gingrich elected president, and another $100 million in the 2018 midterm electoral cycle. I'm sure he's got another $100M cocked and loaded for next year, to keep that jabbering scumbag in place. Probably already good to go, in case he kicks off.
Isn't that nice to know? When you flip on your teevee now, and are subjected to the daily ravings of a slobbering grifter, day after day after fucking day, it's all because a handful of elderly billionaires decided that the best way to lower their tax bills even further was to use their propaganda organs to pit working-class Americans against each other. Be sure to thank them.
Somewhere in hell, Jay Gould is smiling knowingly.
In the midst of the constant info-tsunami, you may have heard that noted hairpiece enthusiast Sheldon Adelson is in grave health. Considering Adelson is eighty-five years old, has looked much older for many years, and is in fact pure scum, it would be understandable if you shrugged your shoulders at such news, and went off to go read your horoscope or fix a nice cocktail.
Nonetheless, let's all spare a thought and/or prayer for ol' Shelly, something in the neighborhood of I hope it fuckin' hurts, reeeeeal bad.
If Howard Zinn proved anything, it's that most of history really just consists of wealth and power subjugating everyone else by whatever means available at the given time. Torture, murder, rape, slavery back in the day, compelled by violence and force; usury, debt peonage, and wage slavery nowadays wrought by sophisticated systems of disinformation and culture-war stoking.
Where these modes of subjugation once were in the service of religious and territorial expansionism, now it's just for the money. Imagine: people who already have more wealth than they could spend in ten or twenty lifetimes, pitting the country against itself for another fucking tax break. A few more million dollars, which for them is a fraction of a percent, but for everyone else is more money than they'll see in their entire lives.
At least the religious fanatics believed in something, even if it was all bullshit. People like Sheldon Adelson believe only in what they already have way more than enough of.
Let's do the quick back-of-the-envelope calcs here: if you had a billion dollars, you could spend $100,000 every single day for over twenty-seven years. And that's if you're giving it all away and buying toys and shit with no further value -- no real estate, no businesses, no stocks or investments or anything with a yield or resale value whatsoever.
The average American family takes close to two years to earn $100,000 gross, before all the expenses of daily life are deducted. I have a pretty good imagination, and I like toys, and I have no clue how I would go about wasting $100k every day for nearly three decades. You can indulge in hookers and blow for only so long -- believe me, I tried back in the Eighties and Nineties.
But seriously, we're not just talking about a lot of money, we're talking about a staggering amount of money, at the cusp of what most people can conceive. The vast majority of Americans still think conceptually of a "millionaire" as someone who is doing quite well -- little or no debt; chooses houses and vehicles instead of just getting what you can afford; two or more vacations per year, domestically or abroad; will be able to retire well before you hit the age of sixty. So now picture all that a thousand times over.
Sheldon Adelson is reckoned to be worth about thirty-six billion dollars.
And of course you have your other greedy elders who take an active role in undermining this country with their shenanigans in its electoral process: Rupert Murdoch (turns eighty-eight next week), and Charles (eighty-three) and David (seventy-eight) Koch. Like Adelson, they count their billions in the teens. They could each live another ten, twenty -- another hundred -- years and still not be anywhere close to running out of precious, precious money. They could send hundreds of kids to college every year and not even feel it.
But it's not enough. It's never enough. I seriously think that the thing with people like them is that once you reach a point where you don't really need money anymore, because you have so much of it, you just use it to keep score, to compete with others in your social strata. It's all just a game for them.
Yes, they've done some philanthropy -- the Kochs have donated to rich-guy activities like symphonies and ballets, and Adelson donated $25 million to build a children's hospital. He also spent $100 million trying to get Newt Fucking Gingrich elected president, and another $100 million in the 2018 midterm electoral cycle. I'm sure he's got another $100M cocked and loaded for next year, to keep that jabbering scumbag in place. Probably already good to go, in case he kicks off.
Isn't that nice to know? When you flip on your teevee now, and are subjected to the daily ravings of a slobbering grifter, day after day after fucking day, it's all because a handful of elderly billionaires decided that the best way to lower their tax bills even further was to use their propaganda organs to pit working-class Americans against each other. Be sure to thank them.
Somewhere in hell, Jay Gould is smiling knowingly.
1 comment:
And the system is set up for them to rule!
Ever since the Supreme Court decided that yes, money = speech, they've had a clear shot to ensure that he who has the most money has the most free speech.
The rabble fights over the crumbs. Which doesn't mean that we can't have great lives in many ways. It just means that we don't actually have a democracy. We don't decide. Those couple handfuls of families with the most free speech do.
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