Confessions Of A Political Atheist
It's all a pyramid scheme
Shameless plug here: you’ll want to read my book “Paper Golem” to learn the history behind today’s screed.
Capitalism - private individuals own everything
Communism - everyone owns everything
Socialism - government owns everything
Fascism - corporations own everything
There are essentially four political systems bandied about these days. If you squint hard enough, you’ll notice they fall into two camps — individualist and collectivist. All of the -archies and -cracies fall into one of these two categories, and most of them are collectivist.
Fascism is the ultimate expression of collectivism. Many folks think there is a left-right schism between Fascism and Socialism, but that is a mythical narradigm designed to offer you a false choice. The whole fake dichotomy allows you to choose one of two paths, both of which lead to the same destination.
Let’s say we’re talking about potato chips. One brand offers chips that are all the same size and shape, and stacked neatly in a tin. The other brand offers freeform chips in a bag. Both have more or less the same range of flavors, and both are equally crunchy and salty, but ultimately they both are made with potatoes.
No matter where you join the collectivist spectrum, you will always end up with corporations owning everything. That is the way the world has been heading since ancient Sumer.
There was a brief flash of brilliance during the Renaissance and Enlightenment, where individual sovereignty and rights as a foundation for self-rule made a run at the prize, but it’s been mostly squashed this past century and a half. Some of the aging and tattered window dressings can still be found, but that ship has sailed.
If there is a perfect symbol of Fascism, it is the Unfinished Pyramid emblazoned on the reverse of the US $1 bill. Fascism is a pyramid of pyramids that ultimately rises to the Omnipotent CEO, otherwise known as the All-Seeing Eye.
The United States was founded as a Fascist nation. If you don’t believe me, let the US government tell you directly. Fascism is the ultimate goal, the capstone on the pyramid, a secular version of the Roman Church’s hierarchy. Corporations are literally collective “persons” stacked in “holding companies” in a figurative Tower of Babel reaching unto the Heavens. Listen to Thomas Aquinas quoting Augustine of Hippo:
"Hence Augustine says (De Baptismo contra Donatistas i): 'Just as in the ark of Noah the unclean animals were with the clean, but outside the ark none survived, so in the Church those who are unclean, that is, sinners, are with the just, but outside the Church no one is saved.'" (Summa Theologiae, Part III, Q. 73, Art. 3)
In other words, the corporate body is the only existence in which humans can thrive. Those outside the corporate body will die, full stop. Strip the theological context out and replace it with modern Newspeak, and Thomas Aquinas might well have been giving the world a roadmap for Fascism.
Socialism, therefore, becomes an intermediate phase for those who fight the corporate take-over. They seek to put everything under the government, thinking this somehow protects them from Fascism. The result, however, is to put all the eggs in one basket, making it easier for the Fascists to simply squat on top of the basket.
These days, laws are not written by governments and certainly not by individuals. They are only rubber stamped and enforced by governments. The laws are created by NGOs and corporate interests to serve themselves. It doesn’t matter which system or nation you point to, they are all organs of the Corporate Body. Nations and governments are effectively departments and divisions within the global corporate structure, representing the first few layers under the capstone.
My old friend Cletus B. Tojam, from Dimebox, Texas, called me the other night. Ever since he discovered VoIP calls were “free,” he’s found it easier to hit the phone icon than actually type any words.
“Dude,” he began urgently, “you gotta vote for Trump!”
“Do you have any idea what time it is on my side of the planet?” I replied blearily.
“Dude, I’m serious!”
“Why should I vote for Trump?” I asked, prepared for the usual arguments.
“He’s gonna fix everything,” Cletus enthused. “This time,” he added.
“I’m afraid, my friend, that even Trump can’t violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” I explained.
“Whut’s…dermo-mechanics,” Cletus inquired fearfully, realizing that he was about to learn something.
"The Second Law,” I began slowly, “states that a system cannot do work on itself. If your pickup breaks down, it won’t fix itself if you just leave it in the shade for a week or two.”
“Well, I don’t know whut the hell yer tawkin ‘bout, but we just need to git back to the Consteetution,” Cletus declared, “an’ everthang will be jess fine.”
“Cletus, my old friend,” I said mournfully, “the Constitution is how we got here.”
Let’s take a look at what Thomas Aquinas said about the Body of the Church:
"For this reason, then, that men are brought into association for the purpose of the best life, it follows that the more united they are among themselves in their association, the better it is. Now there is no association among men more perfect than the unity of the Church, which is a fellowship of the elect for the purpose of the best life, viz. of the life of grace and glory. Hence, the Church is the most perfect society." (Summa Theologiae, Part I-II, Q. 99, Art. 9)
Now let’s compare that to the Preamble of the Constitution of the united States of America:
"We the People of the united States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the united States of America."
The only effective differences are the context and terminology.
I know this will rankle some readers, but yes, Trump is a Fascist, who rose to power using corporate structures within a political system that is Fascist by design. Trump has made no indications that he would unwind the legal framework of “corporate personhood,” nor does he seem inclined to dismantle the entire system and rebuild it as a dispersed individualistic paradise.
Instead, Trump sounds more like someone who would strengthen the tripartite centralized system in preparation for the placement of the corporate capstone.
Don’t get me wrong, the Bumbledicks are no different, they only use an alternative form of Newspeak. Their goal is to vest all power in the presidency, which would then be replaced with the corporate capstone. Same result, slightly different approach.
If you want to know who I would vote for, and this person does not exist on the national or global stage, it would be the one calling for strengthening county, city and neighborhood bodies, until the smallest possible unit — the household — had all the power within the confines of private property. Every other level of governance would be subservient to that entity — the inverted pyramid.
As a species, we really haven’t advanced much since the days of feudalistic monarchy. We have divided and renamed a lot of stuff, but it essentially operated the same way, and none of the collectivist solutions offer anything radically different.
Ultimately, the question before us is whether we support individuals or the collective. Those are the only real choices. Whether your potato chips are uniform and stacked, or chaotic and crinkly doesn’t change the underlying ingredients, only the manufacturing process and packaging to get there.
Think outside the bag on the Far Side:
E-book: Paper Golem: Corporate Personhood & the Legal Fiction
Contact Bernard Grover at luap.jkt @ gmail . com
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"No Treason" intensifies!
People are not taught the things Lysander Spooner wrote in 1874 about how the constitution has either authorized the tyranny we have had or has been powerless to prevent it. Of course the pubic skoolz won't let his books in their libraries. It's a shame.
"The capitalist system was termed 'capitalism' not by a friend of the system, but by an individual who considered it to be the worst of all historical systems, the greatest evil that had ever befallen mankind. That man was Karl Marx. Nevertheless, there is no reason to reject Marx's term, because it describes clearly the source of the great social improvements brought about by capitalism. Those improvements are the result of capital accumulation; they are based on the fact that people, as a rule, do not consume everything they have produced. That they save, and invest, a part of it."
Ludwig von Mises