Hillary and Donald: Different Sides of the Same Coin.

With all the focus currently on Donald Trump as the likely Republican Party presidential nominee, many people are seeing Hillary Clinton as a ‘moderate’, ‘sensible’ alternative to the obviously outrageous buffoon, Trump. But, when you look a bit more closely, you will see it is not that simple.

I will not reinvent the wheel and attempt to argue the whole case against Hillary, as many other commentators have already done so far better than I could ever do, among them Cat Zavis on Salon-dot-com



http://www.salon.com/2016/03/26/hillary_leads_to_more_war_her_latest_speech_on_israel_is_just_the_newest_horrific_example/

For example, Hillary’s extremely hawkish foreign policy stance will be a disaster, as will her even more hawkish total support for the fascist regime in Tel Aviv.

So, the way I see it, is that both Hillary and Donald represent the two different faces of the SAME problem. And, that problem, which is actually quite complex, but, if we had to reduce it down to just one core ‘problem’ that is driving all of this, that problem would be this…..

Each of them represents two (somewhat) different aspects of “the synthetic society”, the totally FAKE thing that we often call “civilization”, but which in reality is not “civil” at all. The Clayton’s society, the society you have when there is actually nothing of substance there, just an imitation cardboard cutout, placed there to fool you into thinking the fake cardboard fascimile is the ‘real thing’.

We have been hurtling along on this trajectory for a long time now. I will not attempt to go into all of the sad, pathetic history of how we came to be in this total mess. It includes the false turn of neoliberalism, along with globalization, several decades ago, the Reagan and Thatcher versions of that false doctrine, and it stretches back to the foundation of the USA, as documented by the cultural historian Morris Berman, and explained so well in this interview.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzgY20d2MtU


It also includes many other false turns we have made, including much of what happened when our European forebears looted and pillaged the “known world” during the colonial era, in the process perpetrating huge injustices, and justifying their actions with a breathless display of cultural arrogance, that has been well-documented by the anthropologist Eric Wolf in his book ‘Europe and the People Without History”



http://www.amazon.com/Europe-People-Without-History-Eric/dp/0520268180/


Anyway, where we have ended up, with Hillary and Donald as our two archetypal political poster childs of the two faces of our fake society, is actually the real version of “The Matrix”, as per the movie, living in a kind of ‘virtual reality’. Only, there is no need for any fancy technology to make us think we are in a ‘real’ world, the fakery and trickery of our ‘real’ world virtual reality is built right into our collective minds!

The fake, synthetic world that the French Scholar Jean Baudrillard describes in his brilliant tour-de-force work, “Simulation and Simulacra”.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

There is a free online pdf copy of the English translation of Baudrillard’s book at this link.




http://www.bconradwilliams.com/files/7313/9690/1991/Baudrillard-Jean-Simulacra-And-Simulation2.pdf

What Baudrillard describes is the world of Disneyland and Hollywood, a make-believe Alice-in-Wonderland world of fakery and trickery, the world of (so-called) “reality” TV, which is a kind of ‘beyond real’ category of illusion that he calls the “hyperreal”, which is what you have when ‘reality’ goes BEYOND what is real, into a gross, exaggerated, surreal charicature of ‘real life’, where everything is grossly over-hyped, everything is fake in some way, including the smiles. (Speaking of fake smiles, think the TV show “The Bachelor”).

Hillary and Donald represent the two faces of that fakery. Hilary is the archetypal FAKE “politician”, the “insider’s Insider”, a woman whose smile is so plastic, one wonders if she peels it off at night, like an extra clingwrap type skin? A woman who represents everything that is so false within the “liberal establishment”. A woman who desperately craves power, to be “the one”, back in the White House, where she belongs, only this time, SHE will be “the boss”. SHE will be “kicking ass”.

And Donald. Well, is there ANYTHING about this clown that is not fake? Starting with the hair, and ending with the notion that he actually possess something known as an “intellect”! A larger-than-life ‘real life’ PRETEND of a ‘human’, a parasite who made his ‘fortune’ riding on the backs of all the people who do the real work, while he sits back and manipulates his ‘investments’. The ultimate capitalist, a kind of a cross between Scrooge McDuck and the Koch Brothers. He even LIVES (if it could be called “living”), in a totally synthetic, over-hyped building!

Unlike Hillary, Donald does not have a peel-off fake smile, his face displays a permanent cross between a smug, smarmy leer, and an arrogant “fuck you” stare. Just as fake though. The other side of the same coin. Which is a very appropriate metaphor, as, once the illusion of “democracy” has run its course, the American robot-people will have chosen the Emperor/ess who will be anointed as the next face of their nation. Watch out world, brace yourselves for another round of kick-ass from the latest incarnation of the “leader of the free world”.

So, what can be done? Nothing can be done, unless, by a miracle Bernie Sanders was to come through and snatch victory from the two different/identical fakes. Bernie is far from perfect, and he is not quite so much a synthetic human as Hillary and Donald. He appears to not have totally lost touch with real people, But, even if he were to somehow engineer that miracle, in the long run, it will not make all that much difference. The American dream has turned to ashes, and nobody can turn that around, not even a Bernie, and certainly NOT a Hilary nor a Donald. If you do not believe me, watch the Morris Berman video, at the link above, or read Berman’s book, “Why America Failed” (note the use of the past tense”).



http://www.amazon.com/Why-America-Failed-Imperial-Decline/dp/149233393X/


What to do about all of this? Start making your personal preparations for the collapse of “civilization”, and of the fake synthetic society, which always was totally unsustainable anyway, and which had the seeds of its eventual demise planted right from its founding.

Unmasking the TPP's Real Purpose

There have been many claims and counter-claims regarding the TPPA, and whether it is overall a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ deal. I have been thinking deeply about what it’s real purpose might be, once all the hype is stripped off, and some of the implications are analysed.

Let’s examine the TPP within a historical context, and by that I am NOT referring to the usual practice of locating it within the historical mileu of ‘free trade agreements’, but as the ‘logical’ culmination of a long line of events that have manifested as part of an ongoing campaign to cement in the cult of market fundamentalism (neoliberalism) as the predominant socioeconomic system of the world, and, if its proponents succeed in their aims, as the ONLY system.

Over the past 30 or so years, humanity has been subjected to a series of events that are usually placed under the label of ‘neoliberalism’, and which I prefer to call ‘market fundamentalism’ (MF), because that label accurately reflects its purpose and ideology. The ‘market’ has been elevated to the position of being the primary ‘god’ of the postmodernist era, and all else, including people, is subservient to that god. We do not need to review all of that in detail, as it is well-known, including things like mass privatization of community-owned assets, the privileging of the ‘rights’ of ‘investors’ over the rights of the citizenry, the contracting out, for private profit, of government services, and many similar policies.

I see the TPP as, primarily, the latest event in that long line of events, only, this time, we have reached a watershed, because what the TPP is designed to do, what its real purpose is, is to CEMENT IN, in a manner that cannot ever be reversed or modified, much of those earlier ‘reforms’, especially the primacy of the ‘rights’ of ‘investors’ over the rights of the citizenry. Without the TPP, under the process of ‘democracy’, a majority of the citizens of any country can, at some future time, through that democratic process, elect a government that stands on a platform of reversing some of those (previously enacted) ‘reforms’, and, specifically, on a platform of removing the privileging of ‘investor rights’ over the common good of the community.

However, post-TPP, it will be very difficult for any government to do that. Not only will such a (hypothetical) government quite likely find themselves dragged into one of those off-shore ‘investor tribunals’, and sued for very large sums of ‘damages’, but also, even for a political party to stand for election on such a platform will be seen as an invitation for their (pro-MF) opponents to decry such a platform as being “crazy”, because of the costs of doing so, thus cementing in MF as the ONLY economic system that is vaiable, for ever.

Placing this also within a different historical context, it seems obvious to me, that the TPP can also be seen to be a form of neo-colonization, and neo-imperialism. The old style colonial and imperial system involved physical invasion and military action. The new style version is much more effective, as it is accomplished at much lower cost, and in a manner whereby it can be passed off as merely being a ‘free trade agreement’, rather than what it really is. The other difference is that the main beneficiaries of the new-style colonial-imperial venture are not governments, but a cartel of large corporations, owned by a complex array of other commercial and investment entities and individual ‘investors’. This cartel has only one objective: ever-increasing profits for themselves, and they will go to any lengths to obtain those profits.

Looking further at that historical picture, one can see a progression. First there were kings, who ruled over ‘subjects’ in their kingdoms. Eventually, the ‘royalty’ system was (largely) overthrown, replaced by ‘democratic government’, where the citizens (supposedly) all had a say in the makeup and policies of their government.

The next step in that progression, if the pro-MF oligarchs have their way, will be the Global Commercial Oligarchy. Nation-states will be pushed somewhat down the pecking-order, and will be subservient to the new global order. Market fundamentalism (MF) would have ‘progressed’ into EMF (extremist market fundamentalism), or “fully globalized market fundamentalism”, and it will have been cemented in so that it is so deeply entrenched that it will be almost impossible to get rid of. It will have cunningly imposed on the citizenry, a globalized commercial agreement that has a similar effect to a ‘Constitution’. In fact, the TPP, and its sister ‘treaties’, WILL BE the new ‘Constitution’ of the whole world, embedded in such a way, much like the constitution of the USA, that it is a permanent fixture.

Is this REALLY the new globalized system of governance and constitutional law that we wish to live under, for a very long time, with no possibility of change, even when it becomes obvious that the only beneficiaries of the system are the ‘investors’ who own the corporations?