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Weekend Edition
June 17 - 19, 2011
By STEPHEN MARTIN
When they can get you asking the wrong questions they don’t have to worry about the answers
-- Thomas Pynchon, "Proverbs for Paranoids," Gravity's Rainbow
It is a dangerous form of treatment for a body infested with leeches which proposes to feed those leeches enough blood via ‘transfusion’ and they’ll get so bloated that they will burst; or will disengage themselves as they ‘can’t take any more’ - sense of parasitic feast on the host body ‘abandoned’ either way. But in analogical sense this is what the treatment of ‘Quantitative Ease’ by increasing the quantity of money or liquidity in an Economy proposes?
Or is this an example of a ‘wrong question’?
In such analogy the body is the Economy, and the Leeches are Global Financiers, who are Stateless or external to the body of Sovereign State in taking advantage of Tax Havens in a ‘Shadow Economy’.
The transfusion of blood into the body of the host is the equivalent of the injection of additional currency into the Economy; the problem where there is parasitic infection form of hematophagy is that such injection goes ‘straight to leech’ rather than serving to improve the health or metabolism which the host body as Economy represents.
The more money injected, the bigger the leeches get - and the more the host body struggles to survive.
In a healthy body blood circulates freely through the arteries and veins and supports the metabolism of that body by way of respiration. In a healthy Economy as can support Democracy money circulates throughout and there is investment in Industry in that Economy; the circulation of money supports job creation, it distributes wealth, it supports an anabolic ‘Consumption and Production Cycle’ to ‘velocity’ of circulation widespread commensurate in that Economy.
When the blood in a body fails to so circulate as a result of being extracted by external parasites such as leeches attached to that body, then there could be said to be an ‘austerity’ of blood reaching the parts as it would under absence of such parasitic infestation - and the body is weakened under such austerity.
The demand of the leech in such catabolic context ‘incorporating’ host body is for even greater austerity; for more ‘transfusion’ as can be fed upon. Such feed upon the blood of a body is what leeches do; in fact it almost all that leeches do. That is to say, ‘austerity’ imposed upon the body can have a ‘rationale’ when seen from the perspective of leech.
Leeches suck blood, such the despicable parasitical niche they occupy. Leeches borrow at half a percent and loan at twenty percent; they leverage their assets to manipulate markets, they disassociate value from any rational Economic or productive context through the creation of ‘bubble’, or ‘asset strip’, they tend towards monopoly, and in so many other ways exploit a ‘free market’ as can facilitate the illusion of ‘money for nothing’ where deregulation benefits parasite by permitting financial abuse, such the state of the host body disregarded.
Leeches do not ‘build’ other than bloody illusions; they destroy healthy host body through parasitical expropriation, such the bloody reality.
The real problem with ‘Quantitative Ease’ concerning treatment of the body administered by mere ‘Quack’ masquerading as ‘Doctor’ is that money does not reach the parts it is supposed to reach when there is infestation of leech. ‘Finance’ as ‘paramount’ or ‘too big to fail’ such masquerade, sense of hegemony of leech attaining dominance exemplified in the Orthodoxy of ‘Quantitative Ease’ as treatment, no longer lives in the body as Economy, it ‘lives’ in the ‘Shadow Economy’ where there is a control and manipulation of ‘value’; it lives in a darkness which bears little relevance to real value in a real Economy – in a darkness where circulation is primarily from leech to leech, in a Shadow Economy which would be as unseen as tax evasion.
The bloody reality of the leech is that it is an organism which gives very little if anything back in relation to that which it takes; it is a mere parasite which lives by depriving other bodies of Life.
When we talk analogically of leeches in an economic context in relation to the body of the Economy, it must be acknowledged that leeches are cunning?
The anticoagulants which leeches secrete to keep the blood flowing in the host body are the analogical equivalent of preventing a body of thought forming which would acknowledge the reality of their presence, and which would call not for the transfusion of more blood - but for surgical amputation? Think ‘RICO’ and the ‘Sequestration of Assets’ by the State, think not of ‘Socialism for the Wealthy’ but of ‘Socialism for the Citizen’, think not of ‘Socialism for the Minority’ but ‘Socialism for the Majority’. Think ’Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’ rather than ‘Subsistence, Manipulation and Control and Immiseration’?
Think ‘Plenty to go round’ rather than ‘Austerity’, of ‘Democracy’ rather than ‘Corporatism’.
To the cunning of the leech in such analogy, ‘Socialism’ is a filthy word reflective of an obscenity which it is criminal to contemplate. A world independent of leeches would be impossible. Leeches are the creatures who bring you Democracy. Leeches are necessary. Leeches are respectable and have been around a long time. Leeches are good for you. Leeches are ‘too big to fail’. Leeches are not just red; they are white and blue too. Leeches are Patriotic. Leeches believe in a Sovereign State.
These statements are as ridiculous as the Age in which we ‘live’; they parallel the Orwellian:‘War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength’;such the absurd world where ‘Globalization’ is progressing as to the best laid scheme of cunning leech concerning the imposition of austerity through the expropriation of control and issue of currency, and the destruction of Sovereign State?
Where has all the transfused blood gone? – Into the leeches.
Where has all the Quantitative Ease money gone? – Into the Tax Havens of Global Financiers.
One of the lessons to be learned from the source and application of TARP funds; that which bloody leeches would rather have you not know about ‘Bailout’, is how ‘Global’ it was, and remains. The money expropriated from the American People went, and is continuing to go - courtesy of said ‘quantitative ease’ - to a lot of other Countries sense of Banks have Economies of Origination though they would be ‘Stateless’, and in as much as there is a best laid scheme not of mice or man, but of leech?
Such the Globalization.
When a leech attaches itself to a host body, it is a form of ‘War’; that leech will continue to gorge at expense of the host body until it is stopped, it will continue to take as much lifeblood as it can by way of giving as little as it can back. As it sucks gleefully away, the leech diminishes Life; it deprives the host of Liberty and undermines the Pursuit of Happiness.
As acknowledged earlier, in this analogy we are dealing with a variety of leech which is as cunning as it is greedy; as pernicious as it would be Panopticonic.
It will disguise its presence. It will be known by another name. It will pretend to be carrying out different activity. It will distract the attention and have focus directed elsewhere. It will have the ‘wrong questions’ asked. It will foster ‘Orthodoxy’. It will ‘co-opt’ protection. It will corrupt the Politics of the Body through purchase as an ‘externalisation’. It will misinform. It will have Corporatism prevail as a ‘power of mind over mind’.
By way of deception, it will ‘do war’.
You are fortunate to be reading about the ‘Panopticonic Leech’ in one of the few Political Journals left which has managed to escape their corruptive influence.
The reality is that there is only one cure for infestation of Leech, and it is ‘revolutionary’ - in so far as it rejects entirely the paradigm of feeding them further through ‘quantitative ease’ and austerity.
The only cure for infestation of Panopticonic Leech is surgical removal.
The Panopticonic Leech must be treated as a highly organised syndicate operating diversity of racket; it must be identified as a criminal entity, and the assets it controls subject to such identification as proceeds of crime must be sequestrated by the State. The true voice of Democracy as a Body of Life must silence the lying sycophantic whine of Corporatism as a Body of death. The illusion must be seen for what it is, and why it is. The Wars fought on the basis of lies must be stopped. Nations must arise again to be Nations, and States to be States. Finance must return to being a lubricant of Industry and not a destroyer of Industry; it must cease to operate primarily in the shadow Economy, but be brought out into the light where it can transparently and accountably serve Democracy, and support Sovereign State. The stopping of the bloodletting as serves mere leech must occur as peacefully as possible. The shadow economy must be destroyed.
Those as could have been of the body of Humanity yet who serve Panopticonic Leech will not ‘get’ such analogy ; when Humanity is abrogated there can be embrace of Orthodoxy which denies ‘thought’ as much else which is Humane.
When Humanity is abrogated a missile blowing up children can be seen as ‘Humanitarian’, others can be seen as ‘sub human’ worthy of concentration camp, illusion can be accepted as reality, and ‘denial’ can be embraced. Loss of blood can be seen as necessary. Mere leeches can be seen as ‘too big to fail’.
When a Man abrogates Humanity, hope ceases to spring.
When it gets down to abominable abrogation, mere leech can be glorified as a ‘pillar of society’, much as degenerate warmonger can be awarded a Peace Prize; or mere corporate stooge seen as a Man.
Such the deception as War can be done by when it comes to the ‘power of mind over mind’ - and as a shill for leeches can be bloody awful when it comes to Quack masquerading as Doctor concerning treatment?
Such the Truth that hope is good and nothing good ever dies – and that quantitative ease has unquestionably been a bloody awful failure?
Of course the real bloody awful question of the liquidity of Quantitative Ease is whether it was ever designed to rid the host body of leech, or to help the Economy of a Sovereign State in the first place.
Could it be that quantitative ease was implemented as a treatment in the knowledge that it would be at the expense of Economy and to the benefit of the shadow economy in which leeches thrive?
Do Panopticonic leeches with Global Dominance have such cunning?
One wonders how Pynchon would categorize such a question.
Stephen Martin can be reached at: stephenmarti@yahoo.com
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