The Debt Ceiling Cat is Watching

I didn't pick up on it at the time, but weeks ago Republicans in Congress kept saying over and over again that the President requested they raise the debt ceiling. The Repubs are saying it's a compromise of their beliefs and values enough for them to raise the debt ceiling at all, even in exchange for the President putting entitlements on the table. For them to also put tax increases in there is asking for two major compromises to the President's one. There are certain Republicans who will not vote for a debt ceiling increase no matter what and there is another large group in addition who will under no circumstances vote for tax increases....unless there was a Republican in the White House! That's part of what's killing Dems...they all know that Republicans have voted for both these things many many times.

I understand that the color levels of the constituencies of each party have significant variability, but the economic system is the same and economic philosophies of both parties is also significantly the same. They both want the system to have full employment, price stability, and maximum economic growth and they both believe that government should have the power to economically engineer variables in the system to get to that desired state. I don't see Keynesian and Austrian economics as being particularly more advanced than the other on the color chart. They're both adaptations to different real world circumstances within the same level. Keynesian and Austrian economics are sold to the differently colored constituencies of the parties in a very elaborate ideological messaging process. The system is in a downward spiral because there is no adaptation at the orange level that can handle the larger and more complex economic problems that come with living in the globalized and flattening world we find ourselves.

Corey, C4;

Of course there are real historical developmental tendencies for the two parties. In particular the establishment republicans and democrats both run campaigns based on talking points geared towards orange/amber, or green/orange, as well as an axis around interior vs exterior.  However in many ways those old talking points are what is dying.  The parties, president, and congress have horrible approval ratings because things continue to get worse in this country, and the two parties compete to out talk each other.

However regarding interior/exterior

Republicans tend to look toward interior causes of suffering and empowerment--you are poor because you have shitty values, or lack of work ethic, or lack of motivation. Democrats tend to recognize exterior causes of suffering and empowerment--you are poor because the system is stacked against you, because there is no level playing field, and because the conditions of the market create opportunities for some, but not for others, and requires a real change in policy in order to overcome these social obstacles.

While this is in some ways generically true about the party’s point of view, it gets deeper than that.

Democrats also obsess about others interiors. That person needs to respect the earth, that person shouldn’t eat that shitty fast food, this person shouldn’t smoke, these people shouldn’t own guns because they are inbred rightwing radicals likely to hurt themselves.  These people suffer because they don’t have the right values and we can’t trust them to make choices. So democrats ban light bulbs, toys in McDonalds happy meals, implement carbon taxes, layer on bureaucracy with thousands of laws, because they are attempting to mold a person’s interior values to their liking; micromanaging consciousness.

Republicans also hate certain exterior things.  This small business can’t compete because of regulations holding them back, millions of people will lose their jobs in the US when carbon taxes are implemented, and companies move more jobs to China and Mexico to avoid strict environmental laws. There are too many trial lawyers always ready to sue doctors and citizens to make a quick buck off of the system, too much regulation on health care for doctors to provide properly for their patients, etc.

However this debate was all spelled out around 2002 when KW published Boomeritis. I get it.

What I am talking about are the LR sytems, LL corrupt culture of Washington DC.  Specifically the LR economic systems which are without question controlled by the 6 megabanks, Federal Reserve, and foreign central banks, IMF, World Bank, you get the picture.  How can you have campaign finance reform if the people do not control the flow and issuance of credit and money. Why should you be required to pay off the interest expenses on the debt created by congress when you don’t agree with how they spend it. They act like they can’t stop spending. Do you really need the war in Libya, the no bid contracts to Haliburton, Xe? Do you need the bailouts to Goldman Sachs and GE? You will be taxed to pay those bills back, and you didn’t sign up for it.

 But to write it all off as a single perfectly-executed conspiracy, in my mind, is reaching for a simplicity that exists on THIS side of complexity, rather than on the OTHER side of complexity.

 Nothing is simple except natural awareness.  The two parties, the Fortune 100 corporations, think tanks, and foundations (Council of Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group) are undoubtedly large groups of wealthy, self appointed bureaucrats, corporatists, oligarchs, media tycoons, and wealthy donors that get together for central planning of society.  They incorporate the ultimate mindset of micromanaging civilization. They want to control the food supply, water supply, force vaccinations, control vitamins (Codex Alimentarius), and practice population reduction, as they have in China, etc.

 And how do they maintain so much power.  For one is the control of the flow of credit, the access to cheap money from the Fed’s discount window, the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act here in the US. Ownership of the media has consolidated down to a handful of companies (5 or 6).  Truly they do conspire to rule the world, but a lot of them think that they are doing god’s work.  They want to manage the world’s populations for their benefit, for business as usual, and for the establishment. Of course they fight with each other and wrestle for power between groups, but they all still work for undemocratic global control over society.

 but what is truly unnerving is to realize that in the end, no one is truly in control, despite the very best efforts by those who think they are.

 Exactly!  This is a great point.  But while the megalomaniacs struggle to control a reality that isn’t theirs to control, they launch wars, bailout banks, spy on citizens, practice torture, and rack up debt and then force us to pay it off. Their myopic view is crashing the economy, civilization, and the planet.

 I sometimes get the suspicion that everyone at integral life is a democrat, and the democrats being home to green values, they just assume that democrats are awesome, and republicans suck. Maybe back in 2002 when Ken was really pushing the ideas of integral politics. But with the election of Barack Obama, I think it throws some of those values assumptions out the window. Barack is not some sort of green wishy washy president.  He is not a liberal, and he is not integral.

Thanks for your response!

Live free or die bitchezz! 

--

 <If you can hear this, you are the resistance> J. Connor

Dear Corey,

On the one hand you say,

"One final point I will make is that I personally think that it is far too cynical to write off American politics as a single conspiracy theory playing itself out through a faux Right/Left dualism...  But to write it all off as a single perfectly-executed conspiracy, in my mind, is reaching for a simplicity that exists on THIS side of complexity, rather than on the OTHER side of complexity..."

and on the other hand you say,

"I do very much believe that our system is being severely gamed by plutocratic forces, and until we have some sort of governing structure that supersedes international corporations, this will continue in just about every developed nation in the world...  Even while acknowledging the presence of conspiracies within conspiracies within conspiracies that we can never truly know about, each exerting a particular influence within particular social, economic, and political spheres--but what is truly unnerving is to realize that in the end, no one is truly in control, despite the very best efforts by those who think they are."

So, I suspect that what you're really trying to point to is not that the activities themselves are in question, but how we hold them in our awareness. Either we are cynically "writing it off" or we are "acknowledging". Dropping the term "conspiracy theories" when discussing the plutocracy is not really helpful here.

Either way the Right/Left dualism, tho real, is no longer the reality that it once was but is now mostly a "reality show" put on by Big Media in order to distract us from what is going on behind the scenes. And the American public is very, very easily distracted. Folks who commented on this thread even got distracted!! The point is: even tho Left and Right are ideologically different, those differences don't really get us anywhere near solving the problem we've got now. To still be talking about Left and Right is not going to be as productive as talking about The Man behind the curtain... I don't really give a flying fuck if Left and Right are real right now. Neither are what is ruining the entire world economy. I get it that no one person or Corp is behind the curtain. But so what? What difference does that really make?  THX 1138  Something still needs to be done about it. And in order to do something, it must be pointed to and categorized.

So, since you are in favor of "acknowledging", why didn't I get any response from IL to this request? Was I not polite enuf? Was I too polite?

--

"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148