Hiding in Plain Sight: Why We Cannot See the System Destroying Us


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We have well-known sayings about power: “Knowledge is power”, and “Power tends to corrupt, while absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.”

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Just as a feudal elite was driven not by ethics but by the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of land; just as early capitalists were driven not by ethics but by the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of mechanisation; so neoliberalism is driven not by ethics but the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of the planet.

 

The only truth we can know is that the western power-elite is determined to finish the task of making its power fully global, expanding it from near-absolute to absolute. It cares nothing for you or your grand-children. It is a cold-calculating system, not a friend or neighbour. It lives for the instant gratification of wealth accumulation, not concern about the planet’s fate tomorrow.

Source: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/24/hiding-in-plain-sight-why-we-cannot-see-the-system-destroying-us

  • Haha 1

Part 2: Time to Wake Up: the Neoliberal Order is Dying 

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In my recent essay, I argued that power in our societies resides in structure, ideology and narratives – supporting what we might loosely term our current “neoliberal order” – rather than in individuals. Significantly, our political and media classes, who are of course deeply embedded in this neoliberal structure, are key promoters of the very opposite idea: that individuals or like-minded groups of people hold power; that they should, at least in theory, be held accountable for the use and misuse of that power; and that meaningful change involves replacing these individuals rather than fundamentally altering the power-structure they operate within.

 

In other words, our political and media debates reduce to who should be held to account for problems in the economy, the health and education systems, or the conduct of a war. What is never discussed is whether flawed policies are the fleeting responsibility of individuals and political parties or symptoms of the current neoliberal malaise – manifestations of an ideology that necessarily has goals, such as the pursuit of maximised profit and endless economic growth, that are indifferent to other considerations, such as the damage being done to life on our planet.

 

The focus on individuals happens for a reason. It is designed to ensure that the structure and ideological foundations of our societies remain invisible to us, the public. The neoliberal order goes unquestioned – presumed, against the evidence of history, to be permanent, fixed, unchallengeable.

Source: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/26/time-to-wake-up-the-neoliberal-order-is-dying

 

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The Guardian: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

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So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.

 

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Again you bring what you seem to think is going to provoke "Wow, thank you so much for opening our eyes" and really just prompts "Sigh, another kid finding the same crap we all wrote off as junk years ago".

 

  • Like 2
3 hours ago, Human.Online said:

Again you bring what you seem to think is going to provoke "Wow, thank you so much for opening our eyes" and really just prompts "Sigh, another kid finding the same crap we all wrote off as junk years ago".

 

Pretty much. There is anyways always someone like they

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