Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Last State of the Union

Yves Smith gives the last word on Obama:

"Obama is a neoliberal who campaigned as a leftist but has governed as a right-winger. His apologists have regularly used the meanie Republicans as excuses for his sell outs, when Obama gets what he wants when he wants it, and there’s no evidence that his center-right results are at all at odds with what he intended to achieve."

Her quote relates to Obama Care comments but is a concise summary of where he stands:  With the neoliberals.  Not at all democratic.  We have been fooled again.  We were fooled on Iraq.  Fooled by illusions.

"I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all" 

-- Joni Mitchell -- Clouds

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

Worked for Obama. 

It will work for Hillary.

The final kick that Obama wants to give the dog on the way out the door is TPP, TPIP.  Things don't get anymore neoliberal than putting our democracy on the international big business market place rules. 

This is an extremely interesting study related to fooling the public:
 http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance

"Agnotology is the study of willful acts to spread confusion and deceit, usually to sell a product or win favor.
“I was exploring how powerful industries could promote ignorance to sell their wares. Ignorance is power… and agnotology is about the deliberate creation of ignorance.""

It is one thing to take advantage of public ignorance, another to build upon it and extend it deliberately.  The best practitioners of the art do both and are experts at it.  Those that only exploit existing ignorance without creating more of it to exploit further are novices feeding on dead carcass low hanging fruit and are not smart enough to have a future business model for growth by going out hunting and killing intelligence to expand their business.  They are lower chains in the food chain.

Turn the tide. 



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