Up until now I merely considered our politicos unwise, not particularly sapient. Now they have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are stupid as well.
What that says about the electorate, however, more than proves my point re: sapience. There is no wisdom of the crowd. You, American public, voted these people into office. You have no one to blame but yourselves. The only problem is, you have no idea what I am talking about! What delicious irony!
Long live the king.
Next up. I will continue to describe what the truly sapient can do to prepare for what is coming. Yes it will be on the test.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/08/01/284274/debt-be-not-proud-lame-deal-cements-cement-shoes-on-energy-investment/
It continues apace: no leadership, corporate agenda, media complicity.
Posted by: Tom | August 02, 2011 at 05:19 AM
Alas, we are ALL caught up in the idiocy of the Great Unwashed and their "leaders." Reckon this will be the FIRST presidential election in which I will NOT have voted. Why bother? tweedle dee and tweedle dumb.....
Posted by: Molly | August 02, 2011 at 10:26 AM
Tom,
And will continue (probably accelerate) right up till the point where we hit the wall.
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Molly,
Be there in the non-voting booth with you.
George
Posted by: George Mobus | August 02, 2011 at 02:26 PM
The credit rating agencies have been threatening to downgrade US bonds all throughout this debt circus (sorry crisis). Of course not the real debt crisis of America taking on too much debt, but rather the manufactured "debt crisis" of politicians possibly allowing too little. A last minute passage of an increase means that America will now become even more insolvent...and Moody's response is to reaffirm it's triple A credit rating!
To add to the irony, although we were told the Chinese had much to lose from a downgrade, the Chinese rating agency Dagong Global actually just downgraded the debt themselves (That last sentence remains unpunctuated as I see nothing on the keyboard to adequately express what I'm feeling!)
Posted by: John Dlouhy | August 02, 2011 at 07:58 PM
Hmm stupid? Possibly but I believe there are other reasons. Think about lobbyists literally paying our congressmen to push their agenda to get their way. These people in power do not care about the public, but rather care about getting reelected and getting paid.
Posted by: Mark O'Riely | August 03, 2011 at 11:47 AM
In addition, only one candidate to my knowledge knows truth and that is Ron Paul. However, if he gets elected that may not change much as congress are the ones in power and as we know most of them are bought out by the elite who control things in Washington and Wall Street.
Posted by: Mark O'Riely | August 03, 2011 at 11:51 AM
As imminent as it all seems and as hugely frustrating, as a person with cancer who takes a medication that costs $7000 a month to stay alive; with a gay son who the tea partiers want to kill and a daughter who would like to make decisions regarding her own body, it really bothers me to hear you will not be voting. You and Molly must live really fortunate lives to not see the difference sad as it may be between the Republicans and the Democrats. Yes the Congress is in power, Obama has been less than effective, but if the right wingers really had their way then human rights would be off the table completely. There is also the 14th amendment.
Posted by: Patsi Robison | August 04, 2011 at 01:24 AM
Looking over there from the English side of the pond the dumbest, most conditioned, most brainwashed voters and activists in history has to be the US tea party mob!
Here you have a supposed (market) populist, grass roots movement against elitism and for the little guys...dont they know the origins of their own movement?
The movement started with Rick Santelli’s call on CNBC for a tea party of city traders to dump securities in Lake Michigan, in protest at Obama’s plan to “subsidise the losers".... it was a demand for a financiers’ mobilisation against the bail-out of their victims: people losing their homes.
On the same day, a group called Americans for Prosperity (AFP) set up a Tea Party Facebook page and started organising Tea Party events. AFP are bankrolled by the multi billionare Koch brothers.
AFP mobilised the anger of people who found their conditions of life declining, and channelled it into a campaign to make them worse. They supported and spent $45 million supporting its favoured candidates in the 2010 election. Now the grass root dumb decoy activists take to the streets to demand less tax for billionaires and worse health, education and social insurance for themselves!!
Urged on by propaganda from Fox news owned and run by another Billionare mogul, gruesomly familar to UK TV viewers recently- Rupert Murdoch & cronies.
A plot like that in a political novel would be dismissed as absurd and far-fetched......
Global plutocracy rules ok.
Posted by: GaryA | August 04, 2011 at 04:55 AM
Wouldn’t the truly sapient be distinguished by already being engaged in doing substantive preventive work? If not, may be we do not know what it is to be “truly sapient.”
Looking forward to the test!
Posted by: Tiité Baquero | August 04, 2011 at 05:26 AM
John D.,
My recommendation is that you give up the frustration of thinking there is a "solution", especially one that involves politicians, and simply accept that everything you witness is due to the fundamental relationship between energy and the economy.
Net energy needed for driving the economy in growth mode is diminishing, ergo, no more growth. Once you let go of the illusion that we could ever recapture the past glories of a growth-oriented, consumer-based economy, you will join me in being amused at the show of stupidity. Of course I still get angry knowing that some of these clowns actually have been briefed on the situation and just go on lying to the public for political reasons.
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Mark O.,
Yes stupid, but mostly foolish. Short term thinking in a world where energy supplies are winding down is both.
As for Ron Paul, I'm afraid I do not see him as a savior either. I am quite adamantly negative on libertarian ideology. Conservatives, progressives, liberals, and libertarians all see different facets of a reality but they interpret it through their own biased lenses. And that leads to untenable positions. The libertarian viewpoint, for example, eschews the need for governmental regulation and coordination because it has a completely wrong belief in human nature and how complex systems are in fact organized in nature.
I prefer to expose the reality with science (biophysical economics and brain science) and let the interpretations follow the facts as best I am able to filter out my own biases. I am not in a political middle, I am literally outside of politics as we know it. My point is that politics as we know it is precisely the mechanism that has produced our current state of affairs given the nature of low-sapient humans.
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Patsi,
Hi. Long time...
Can you provide me with a vision of how my vote will change anything. Indeed, how will all votes change anything. You are witnessing a phenomenon that is not a matter of choice. What you are seeing happening has happened in every society that has come up against limits. The Tea Party is not a new phenomenon (well perhaps somewhat new to Americans, though it seems to me to be no more than some contorted version of neoconservatism mixed with stupidity and fear).
I do see differences between the two dominant parties. But they are differences that will not make a difference in the end. The problem is (as I indicated to Mark above) the political system we have based, as it is, on ideologies that are no longer connected with reality in meaningful ways.
There are alternatives to simply playing in the political game and believing you are doing something noble. Whether I vote or not is immaterial. I am engaged in other activities that I think may matter more in the long run.
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GaryA,
Amen. Until, all the rules change, of course.
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Tiité,
See my comment to Patsi. However, the term "preventative" could mean anything. If prevention of the collapse of BAU is the meaning, then I would be surprised to find any long-term strategic and systems thinkers trying to prevent that.
On the other hand, if the prevention of the demise of sapience itself is the order, then, yes, I would agree.
George
Posted by: George Mobus | August 04, 2011 at 11:17 AM
George, I embraced biophys econ when I first read your views. I posted above to share the idiocy of both the govt and the money based system. I hold no hope for a solution but believe the collapse of the system is in fact imperative and imminent. (SPXv5%) NNTR
Posted by: John Dlouhy | August 04, 2011 at 06:13 PM
George,
You are doing phenomenal work for the "long run". That doesn't mean we should not be cognizant of humanity in the short run. Does it really have to be pick one or the other? I think I did give you an example of the difference between e.g. Michele Bachmann vs Obama for President. When some of us depend more on Medicare and Social Security to survive in retirement than others, (and many do)it can literally mean life and death to some people. Remember good old Dubya who wanted to privatize SS? The future with climate change, peak oil etc. is dismal, but many of us can hardly survive in the here and now.
Posted by: Patsi Robison | August 04, 2011 at 07:19 PM
John D.,
Understand. Thanks. No clue as to what "(SPXv5%) NNTR" means though.
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Patsi,
My view is that it doesn't matter who the president is, or what supposed ideology they espouse. They are simply ineffectual because it is not they, but the corporations and bankers who really run the show. Michele Bachmann could do no more harm than Barack Obama and vice versa. It is whatever the bankers/CEOs want that will happen. And that may very well include the reduction of entitlement programs and the safety net philosophy. The only difference between Obama and someone like Bachmann will be that Obama would use rhetoric to try and convince folk that he really is trying to stand up to the bankers. But in reality, as we have already seen, he won't do so. Bachmann would make no pretenses, which, in one sense, would at least be more honest.
My position re: Obama, fool me once...
I know this is not what you want to hear. But this last round of debt ceiling debates and how the Republicans (those guys owned by corporatocracy) came out on top should provide compelling evidence that whatever the Democrats think they stand for, it really doesn't matter.
If Obama could not move the progressive agenda along at all (remember health care?) when both houses were Democratic, then what does this tell you about the underlying forces at play?
Believe me I sympathize and if I thought there was anything at all that would be different by my participation in the political process I would not hesitate. I can offer no comfort though because as this process of decline continues more and more people are going to end up in the "hardly survive in the here and now" category. All I can do is offer a vision of what people should be doing to prepare and self-mitigate before it is too late. To see this vision takes a completely different way of looking at the world and how it works and giving up on trusting the conventional wisdom. I fully realize that most people will not be able to do that, but some will.
George
Posted by: George Mobus | August 05, 2011 at 12:21 PM
Hello George,
Glad to read your comments on politicians and whose really running the show - Bankers and Corporations/ the high priests of Finance and militarism.
If there is one picture that represents Obama (or any politican who gets into the presidency), then this one has to be it:
http://ravenwild.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/obama_sellout_pstr_sm1.png
Posted by: xraymike79 | August 05, 2011 at 02:13 PM
And I did post that picture along with a diary I put together concerning the subject of the presidency being simply a sock-puppet position for the agenda of the corporate elite:
"President Obama: Servant Boy for the Wealthy Elite"
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/05/1003439/-President-Obama:-Servant-Boy-for-the-Wealthy-Elite
I got banned from the DK site because people got hung up on my use of the word "servant boy" in relation to Obama. Pulling the 'race card' out whenever remotely possible is how the Obama apologists deflect criticism, even when its completely valid criticism.
Posted by: xraymike79 | August 05, 2011 at 02:24 PM
You have a better chance of finding a unicorn in your backyard than finding actual cuts in spending from the corrupt clowns inhabiting the halls of Congress.
Posted by: Plumbing | August 07, 2011 at 09:33 PM
The UNITED STATES is a privately owned imperial corporate-state incorporated in the occupied military district in DC with no actual actionable/enforceable statutory obligations to make good on public obligations apart from those of the owners of the corporate-state.
Like all corporations, the principal shareholders of the UNITED STATES could any day they choose decide to default on obligations to others than themselves, cut or eliminate social benefits ("labor costs"), restructure and recapitalize the balance sheet, spin off assets, and prioritize and refocus on critical investment and income streams.
In this context, at a minimum, gov't spending will have to be cut 30-35% over 10-20 years and 40-50% per capita, reducing nominal GDP per capita by 1%/yr. and resulting in negative real private GDP per capita indefinitely hereafter.
There is no conventional economic theory, school of thought, or political party that is equipped to deal with, or "manage", the end of uneconomic growth and contraction; therefore, there are no viable conventional political prescriptions for the effects of the end of growth, which in turn implies that there is no conventional political solution to our dilemma.
No politician, central bankster, CEO, or Wall St. shill can concede publicly that growth is over and that they have no solutions expect to cut and allow thermodynamic and resulting market effects to force a reduction in per capita material consumption.
This is antithetical to representative gov't and a system in which selected officials and appointed technocratic (largely rentier financial) experts know better and can devise programs and solutions to keep the masses placated while protecting the wealth and privilege of the elites.
Thus, casting a ballot for a politician is a futile, self-selected act of distraction and self-delusion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk
And for the readers who would criticize those of us who perceive the futility of voting for selected, bought-and-paid-for politicians, claiming that we have no right to complain if we don't vote, see the link above for the late George Carlin's perspective on voting.
Posted by: Bruce | August 09, 2011 at 09:05 AM
xray,
I'm not into censorship for PC so your comment and links stand. Readers can judge for themselves. OTOH I'm not sure the polemics are served by too blatant an exposure of sensitive and affective opinions.
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Plumbing,
You are probably right. The next few months should be quite interesting (in the Chinese curse sense).
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Bruce,
While I have come to a similar conclusion WRT voting in national elections, I still feel it is an individual decision and those who do want to be a part of the process should feel denigrated for doing so. Time and experience will teach those who are educable, yes?
George
Posted by: George Mobus | August 15, 2011 at 10:29 AM