May 5th, 2010, 12:10 PM
Webster Tarpley on the "oligarchy". Ok. First five minutes is nothing, so thanks for that I'm on a slow internet at the moment; just warming up the audience by saying meaningless buzz words and phrases like "fascistoid militias" and "international depression breakdown crisis perspective" (I kid you not).
His 'resounding theme' for the year is "the crisis of the Anglo-American ruling class". In the US, and around the world. He includes Burma, Pakistan and others. Now, what is this crisis? Is it the crisis of there simply being a ruling class? That isn't a crisis in itself, otherwise we might as well consider almost the entirety of recorded history to be one long crisis, in which case it ceases to be a crisis and becomes the norm.
Ok, so now I'm told that the crisis is that they "make the wrong decisions for the economy". Implying that if they made the right decisions (who knows what they are) then everything would be ok and the oligarchy would be hunky dory. The "wrong decisions" include betting the farm on 1.6 quadrillion in derivatives. The Burmese oligarchs are part of this, btw. They are relying on green energy like windmills and solar cells to get them out of the worst world economic depression that we have ever seen. The reason behind relying on green energy is because they are too decadent and degenerate to think otherwise. Right.
++++DELETED A THOUSAND WORDS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX++++
This guy displays very Coolinator ideas on information, and he goes of on a tangent about how old windmills and solar cells are.
Now we find out what his "Oligarchy" are, they are the ruling class ("sounds Marxist? Well guess again!") yes, you heard it right, the oligarchs are the ruling elite. You could never have guessed this. He bases his views on Plato's comment that the rich ruling the poor, which I need not explain is as simplistic as it sounds. Rich rule poor. No question on how they become rich, through, say, their class standing and economic opportunities of said class standing, which might be more relevant to whether they are in power, since several different... ugh, never mind. Rich rule poor. So, the ruling class are "oligarchs", which is technically correct if we take Plato's starting point, but far too simplistic to actually mean anything; it's just a word used to conjure up fear or interest. The sort of buzz word that Coolinator supposedly hates. YOU SHEEP.
How else do we know that the world is ruled by an oligarchy? Well, Plato states that an oligarchy is filled with evils, and guess what? SO IS THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION. Wa bam!
Next. The world is, by definition (???), overpopulated. The definition of the world.... means that it is overpopulated. I'll just move on. The oligarchs only care about themselves, so they want to what sounds like 'cull' the poor population with wars, Death Panels, insurance companies, fluoride, genocide, and chemicals in foods. The Trojan war was based around the fact that the world was overpopulated, and the oligarchs wanted to keep the poor under control. As an ex ancient history student and enthusiast, this idea makes me cry. Hell, the idea that any wars are simply designed to cull your own population is a bit rich.
He mentions the Spartan Oligarchs, during what I am guessing is the Peloponnesian wars, lamenting the fact that Athens had a powerful navy with which to harm their rights (Athens being non-oligarchical, apparently... uh, despite us being told that the oligarchs are in power all over the world and have been for ever...). Thucydides prefers to think that it was mainly to do with trade issues and shit, but whatever. Why is he delving into ancient history like a ham fisted barbarian burning down the Acropolis? Well, it's not important, but it sounds quite technical, and if we talk about the past it sort of gives weight to the idea that the "oligarchy" has been around throughout history, rather than just being a buzz word.
Now, there was an idea growing in the 19th century that the world could support a certain amount of people comfortably. Darwin is mentioned as being on board with this. Rather than logically seeing this from an environmental and social perspective on how humanity can live safely, healthily and happily on a world with limited resources, it's OBVIOUS that this is just another example of the "oligarchs" wanting to cull the population, or keep the population low through god knows what methods. This, we are told, is fascism. "Hitler and so forth are based, to a significant degree, on the reading of Darwin by Nietzsche". Not social Darwinism, or something relevant to fascism, but the fact that Darwin believed that the world could support 3 billion people. People know that Nietzsche is related to nazis, right? It's like saying that Darwin had a beard, and Nietzsche noticed this, so Hitler had a moustache and this is why they are all oligarchs. Fascist oligarchs.
So then the derivativeness come up, and the failures of the governments of the USA and UK over a thirty year period, and this is the stuff that people cling to. If you can say that the economy of the world is failing, which I myself believe it is, then you link that in to the idea of "oligarchs" simply by association. They must be international fascist oligarchs because the economy is failing, duh! And the economy is failing BECAUSE they are international fascist oligarchs.
I'm not going to expect too much from it, but you did say it explains things. It does not. The idea that there has been some sort of unbroken line of rich people in power internationally since 350BC (or before) is ridiculous. The idea thrown in, almost hesitantly in what seems to be embarrassment, that the "oligarchs" want to keep the population low, is ridiculous, and in that video certainly not backed up. Why would they want the population low? Why would they want a smaller market to peddle their wares? Why would they want a smaller size workforce that inevitably would mean less competition for jobs and higher wages? Why would they want less people in impoverished nations to manufacture their goods? "So that the oligarchs can live comfortably" does not cut it.
This guy does not cut it. The economic horrors could be true or false for all I care, and I don't care to look up the figures, but thinking that mere association with these said horrors makes the idea of "evil" population controlling oligarchs any more authentic is absurd. The final nail in the coffin is that there is no solution offered; it's just whinging about "bad decisions".
You know Coolinator, I honestly think you could learn a lot from reading over a marxist view of the world. Not being snide here (just here though), but if you actually want to have explanations for these things that obviously affect (not effect) you, then maybe try reading up on something which can explain the process of history quite well. The idea of dialectical materialism, class struggles and conflicting class welfare is much more extensive and informative about where society has come and where it is going than Griffin Tarpley is.
If sane people are wondering why I care so much to type so much, well, it's a mixture of reasons. Some enjoyment, a lack of anything better to do, and a genuine feeling that there is possibility to inform.
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