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These two statements on the credibility trap and reform are from the bottom of my blog, and a
permanent fixture to the layout
of the site.
I wanted to take a moment to remind you of them, because they can be so
easily overlooked. And they often are.
What I say in quite a few words, Chris Hedges says in a fairly pithy manner in the video below. And I think he is right. And this applies as much to Europe and the UK and the Mideast,
including Israel, as it does to the US and the rest of the Americas. Of course
one could name many other countries, such as Russia and China, but unfortunately they cannot fall from
freedom, because despite the changes in names and
slogans and the self-serving advertising
campaigns of nationless corporate predators, they already have little or none.
The progressive movement lacks
a spine for the moment, and is
badly divided over a number of difficult issues which diffuse them, instilling hatred and fear in their hearts, driving out love, and leaving room only for a
destructive pride and selfishness.
And the timid thinkers,
the so-called intelligentsia, hide
in their studies and in their cellars, and in their work, waiting
for someone else to do something.
Eventually progressive people will
come together or, as Edmund Burke observed, "...they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
To those who say to hell with
it, to hell with thinking, to hell with complexity,
to hell with others, I say, be careful of the madness which you seek to unleash,
because it will come back to consume you and your children, as it has done so many
times before, and will do
so inevitably again.
This is what I believe is happening now based on a careful reading of history.
This is not a prediction.
This is a warning for a generation
that is being prepared to accept the unthinkable on a much wider scale
than they might imagine in their worst nightmares: torture, murder, ethnic cleansing, and repression. And what is most
frightening of all is that they think
they are immune to it, because they are so different, so special, so
exceptional. And so they become willfully
blind, and in their blindness, may become beasts.
A credibility
trap is when the regulatory, political and/or informational functions of a society have been compromised
by a corrupting influence and a fraud,
so that they cannot address
the situation without implicating,
at least incidentally, a broad swath of the power
structure including themselves.
The status quo has at
least tolerated the corruption and the fraud, if not profited directly from it, and most likely continues to do so. The
power brokers have become susceptible to various forms of blackmail. And so a failed policy can become almost
self-sustaining long after
it is seen
to have failed, and even become counterproductive, because admitting failure is not an option for those in power.
The Banks must be restrained,
and the financial system reformed,
with balance restored to
the economy, before there can be
any sustained growth and recovery.
 
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