Three-Card Monte at Davos 2020
![Figure 1: From the Uncle Sam Series by MR. FISH (Dwayne Booth ©2020) [1]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/569081d740667a56fc819605/1580845575049-Y6HIH5IHWFJ95HKPLZTV/The+Uncle+Sam+Triptych+1.jpg)
Figure 1: From the Uncle Sam Series by MR. FISH (Dwayne Booth ©2020) [1]
Caveat: as Bernie Sanders would say, let me be very clear: I am an ardent supporter of Sanders for POTUS46. I automatically contribute monthly to his campaign, my personal and social political interactions consistently reflect my support, and I am steadily becoming more fully engaged in grassroots efforts to move his campaign as fast and far along the path to victory as possible.
In the Circus2020 runup to its Iowa stop, a social media comment asks, “Will the party’s establishment voters align themselves with its neoliberal leadership and abandon the millions of citizens who support Sanders, many of whom are less well-off themselves, in order to deny Sanders a real shot at the White House?”
What if the answer to that question is "Yes! The party's establishment voters will align themselves with its neoliberal leadership and abandon the millions of citizens who support Sanders, many of whom are less well-off themselves, in order to deny Sanders a real shot at the White House. They already are and they won’t be stopped. There can be no doubt about that." What strategic and tactical revolutionary action plans do movements like this "Unified Voter Mobilization Campaign" then have for the future?
The DNC and its party establishment still have weapons and ammo in their fascist arsenal to derail or stop Bernie Sanders For President 2020 in its tracks, e.g., the June 2018 DNC bylaw changes that give DNC Chair Tom Perez unilateral power to, by sheer fiat, disqualify Bernie Sanders from the ballot and the race. That could still happen in a backroom where the meat-puppet strings of Perez and other party hacks are pulled by the fascist capitalist oligarchy and their praetorian corporatocracy. Nothing has exposed that meat-puppet show more clearly than the post-caucus vote juggling debacle in Iowa yesterday and today.
In the wake of such a power play by the 1%, at the end of the day the other 99% of us would see, hear, and know nothing of substance about it but a post hoc fait accompli press release and blitzkrieg tsunami of mainstream media shoving the lies down our throats and into every other orifice. That 1% fascist oligarch cabal and their praetorian corporatocracy already rule and control the world with ruthless pervasion and invasion in every occasion of opportunity. This is what an invading and alien species will discover of human fossils if they haven’t already observed it live and disengaged in revulsion at our stupidity and insanity, marveling at the hubris of regarding ourselves the pinnacle of sentience and sapience on the planet:
Figure 2: Bloodline by MR. FISH
At this juncture, we already have echo chamber threats of Biden, Obama, and the Clinton duo not standing in support of Bernie Sanders for President 2020 -- even if nominated (which, by the way, violates the DNC oath for party candidacy). Meanwhile, other candidate provocateurs pour more poison into the already toxic media well to destroy the political will of us the people with transparent semiotic manipulations that defy reason and beggar imagination. Installing Steyer and Bloomberg as a bookend pair of billionaire Praetorian guards is perhaps the most egregiously blatant example. One flanks the BERN with American Gothic Mom, Apple Pie, God and Country Howdy-Doody scarecrow guard duty over USAmerica's heartland flank. The other is a Nixon-era white-male-privileged (WMP) corporatist stood up as the black-vulture bulwark and buttress securing the elitist 1% cabal’s vested interests in the Circus2020 parade, brought to us by the power, wealth, rule, and control of that oligarchy and their corporatocracy.
There’s a bigger picture and story here – another burlesque show of global fascist capitalism is just wrapping up its propaganda public relations celebration of the 1%’s fabulous confabulation festival, the 50th World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, hosted by WEF Founder and Executive Chair, Klaus Schwab. The WEF’s 50 anniversary gift to the world its members are rapaciously destroying and systematically exterminating to extinction is – are you ready? – “stakeholder capitalism,” gift-wrapped in the “Davos Manifesto 2020” conceived and authored by Prof. Schwab himself. Here’s the gist of its “better kind of capitalism” pitch:
'Stakeholder capitalism' is gaining momentum, in part thanks to the 'Greta Thunberg effect'
It offers the best opportunity to tackle today's environmental and social challenges
The World Economic Forum is launching a new 'Davos Manifesto'
What kind of capitalism do we want? That may be the defining question of our era. If we want to sustain our economic system for future generations, we must answer it correctly.
Generally speaking, we have three models to choose from. The first is “shareholder capitalism,” embraced by most Western corporations, which holds that a corporation’s primary goal should be to maximize its profits. The second model is “state capitalism,” which entrusts the government with setting the direction of the economy and has risen to prominence in many emerging markets, not least China.
Shareholder capitalism, currently the dominant model, first gained ground in the United States in the 1970s and expanded its influence globally in the following decades. Its rise was not without merit. During its heyday, hundreds of millions of people around the world prospered, as profit-seeking companies unlocked new markets and created new jobs.
But that wasn’t the whole story. Advocates of shareholder capitalism, including Milton Friedman and the Chicago School, had neglected the fact that a publicly listed corporation is not just a profit-seeking entity but also a social organism. Together with financial-industry pressures to boost short-term results, the single-minded focus on profits caused shareholder capitalism to become increasingly disconnected from the real economy. Many realize this form of capitalism is no longer sustainable. The question is: why have attitudes begun to change only now?
The Greta Thunberg effect
One likely reason is the “Greta Thunberg” effect. The young Swedish climate activist has reminded us that adherence to the current economic system represents a betrayal of future generations, owing to its environmental unsustainability. Another (related) reason is that millennials and Generation Z no longer want to work for, invest in, or buy from companies that lack values beyond maximizing shareholder value. And, finally, executives and investors have started to recognize that their own long-term success is closely linked to that of their customers, employees, and suppliers.
“Stakeholder capitalism” indeed. The only real “stake” representing the interests of the other 99% of us — the only rational and sensible sign and action of our times — is the one we’re trying to drive through the black heart of fascist capitalist omnicide. But the 1% hold that stake in the iron-fisted hands of their death-grip. We have at best one blow left to drive it to its target. Will we waste it?
The good news is that while the Circus2020 USAmerican Empire parade is so transparently and palpably naked, in other forms the spirit of the BERN has grown globally acute and profoundly astute. The BERN vibe resounds and reverberates in palpable resonant harmony with Extinction Rebellion (XR), Deep Adaptation (DA), et al. worldwide. In the 6th mass extinction level event on Earth (which I acronymize as ‘MELEE-R6’) we’re already far-gone into, and the pandemic spread of existential threats it holds for human being and presence on the planet, three ‘parties’ must be attended to before the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday clock reaches midnight (on January 23, 2020, the setting was changed to the shortest time ever in its 75-year history – 100 seconds to doomsday):[3]
Deluded deniers in the parade, obliviously abiding in the evil heart of fascist capitalist darkness with no grasp or understanding of the “stakeholder capitalism” choice that’s already been made for them, nor of its direction, strategy, and plan for full-scale public relations propaganda semiotic engineering of their rule and control as afforded by the wealth and power held by that 1%.
Any and all who are now or may choose to become willfully, volitionally, actively, and culpably committed to building humanity’s future on any form or institutional being and presence of “stakeholder capitalism” on Earth.
The rest of us. Think of us as stewards and messengers of truth and reality who are standing in empathy with deniers (#1) and seek to help them clearly discern truth and reality in our times. We adamantly and directly oppose stakeholder capitalists (#2) for the rapacious omnicidal fascism that remains the 1%’s prime directive and their modus operandi that will be neither denied nor escaped. We are the party of “Truthteller Realists.”
Truthteller Realists find personal and communal affinity with Sanders’ POTUS 46 campaign, and with any one or more of a rising chorus of other global movements such as XR and DA and their national, regional, and local affiliate groups, and other rising and nascent resistance or rebellion choruses active in Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, Bill McKibben’s 350.org, Elders for Climate Action, Fridays for Future, IDEAS for Us, the Sunrise Movement, and many, many more. #1 and #2 in essence form rank-and-file delusional brigades (#1) and the 1% merchants of death oligarch cabal and their praetorian corporatocracy (#2) hell-bent on eliminating every last Truthteller Realist (#3) on the planet.
Beware the World Economic Forum’s “stakeholder capitalism” rebranding of rapacious elitist fascism. Stand firm on what I sense to be the forceful energy of BERN’s version of Truthteller Realism. We are not alone. But we stand a chance if and only If we are ‘parties’ to Truthteller Realism in revolutionary rejection of and rebellious opposition to stakeholder capitalism. We must be fully committed to love and aid deluded deniers and graciously awaken them to the truth and reality of the 21st century. At the same time, we must isolate and disempower stakeholder capitalists. If we are honest with ourselves and with one another as Truthteller Realists, however, we are honor-bound to confess our own sins and transgressions of reflexive presumption of immunity privilege, exemption by exception, and our chronic and acute indifference to all the MELEE-R6 truths and realities of the 21st century.
As elites ourselves relative to the majority of G7 and G20 nations’ populations and especially the margins and hinterlands of LDCs (least developed countries), we exercise incomprehensible hubris and reflexive vanity as we build our caricature lifestyles of the rich and famous on piles of corpses left in the wake of our corporate profiteering and industrial exploitation of billions of externalized others to blithely bask in the relative comfort and immunity of our privilege and exception. We are the morbid and mortal disease murdering people of color, indigenous people groups, and the oppressed poor, infirm, and vulnerable victims of our blind exploitation of their world with such hubris as to only recently have begun giving these truths and realities of our wasted lives as much as a second thought. Could we thus empathetically love and forgive even the 1% for their absurd “stakeholder capitalism” fascism makeover and omnicidal rapacity and extract just retribution for their wanton and deliberate extinction by extermination agenda that permeates human history? How might the justice of such restitution somehow be managed to mix unmerited grace rationally, ethically, and morally with right repair and equitable amends? This is what the full fascist apologetic for “stakeholder capitalism’s” deliberate blindness to its own heart of fascist darkness must achieve. In this sense, they the 1% are us the 99%.
Live out your 21st century life-sentence abiding in the being and presence of seismic resonant harmonies of truth and reality found in the power and force of the BERN. We heed Hedges and Sartre’s injunction, “we don’t fight fascism because we expect to win; we fight fascism because it’s fascism.” That life energy also courses through many channels within XR, DA and beyond in other tributary movements building into the surging momentum of truth in reality powered by the inertia of inevitability. Go there. Be a Truthteller Realist for Life.
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NOTES
[1] A snippet from the iconic “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr (born January 15, 1929; murdered by his government April 4, 1968) in Washington DC during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963.
[2] MR FISH illustrations appear here by permission from the artist.
[3] See Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Doomsday clock metaphor, see John Mecklin, ed., “Closer than ever: It is 100 seconds to midnight,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: 2020 Doomsday Clock Statement (January 23, 2020). John Mecklin notes, “Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 13 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies in other domains.” Echoing the Bulletin’s November 2018 Special Issue on the “existential nexus,” Mecklin further writes, “Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.”