music to go: sweet thing / candidate
The truth is finally out: news is fake. Like we didn't have a hunch already, as the state of affairs we get presented by our media doesn't actually make much sense. It's always us who come out the good guys, us richest, fastest contaminating consumers, with the devastated country's people quickly forgotten victims, adding to the list of undead humans around the world. Meanwhile the single, all ire consuming madman who has supposedly concocted the idea of unleashing hell on their relatively prosperous country, is the stand out villain for as long as the war lasts, after which pure chaos sets in. I mean, we know the scheme by now, don't we? Looks like countries which have been recently untouched by western imperialism fare better than their wretched neighbours. Until they're taken out, that is.
It's not easy to make informed choices on daily affairs. The news presents them as a continuous struggle between good and bad, with good usually winning the day, but who be who depends very much on where you live and which sources of information you trust in. This makes it almost impossible to decide whether your version of what is commonly presented as plain truth is the right one. The world's a different place in Moscow and Lagos. Let's therefore try another approach to finding out what's going on in the world today, perhaps a more mathematical one. To make up for my brazen opining in the opening paragraph, I would like to show how my words can be verified with a simple equation.
They say power makes corrupt and this seems to be true at even the lowest levels. Power more often than not presents itself in the shape of a pyramid. There is a leader, there is a couple of trusted second tier individuals and there is the mass. A typical low level pyramid is an american styled office. There's a manager, some team leaders and a whole bunch of dispensable staff. As not everybody is happy with this build-up, there will be friction from down under, met with pay offs from above, creating a continuous movement for personal betterment on all levels. This is the embryonic state of corruption. It's what in America, I believe, used to be called free enterprise.
It is safe to say that more power leads to more corruption, with absolute power creating absolute corruption. Since power is commonly measured in money, €=P , it follows that wealth is a corrupting force: €=f.Ç This will help us establish certain norms for corruptibility and with it tendencies towards dishonesty, necessary to keep the corruption under the radar. We may presume that wealth is directly related to lying. Rich people are more inclined to lie than poor people: L=√€ , with the square root showing income usually rises faster than one's lying prowess. In the end, of course, while people can't get any better at lying than their brain allows for, their fortunes keep expanding. And it's not just the famously wealthy. Many may have witnessed this phenomenon up close.
Taken to state level, our theory suggests that the richest country is the most corrupt and also the most dishonest in its descriptions of what's going on in the world. If we want to establish what is happening in Syria, for instance, it is safe to assume that declarations coming from Washington are further from the truth than what is coming out of Moscow since USA has accumulated far more wealth than Russia. Pretending otherwise would imply a different level of sensitivity to corruption. While there is certainly a cultural element active here, L=ç√€ , it would be a show of profiling to conclude that a weaker opponent is nevertheless wrong in how it presents affairs.
Another example is the independence struggle in Catalunya. From Madrid, where the country's wealth and thus its corruption is concentrated, this fight is often presented as the height of ingenuity. Considering the submissive position of Barcelona, this simply can't be true. To be sure, everybody knows the Generalitat is lying about its motives, that the whole movement is nothing but a powerless plea for a bit more consideration with Barcelona's position in the world. If only Madrid gave us the resources to let us grow at everyone's benefit in stead of spending every last dime on itself to the detriment of the country. But the real problem is that Madrid is lying about the nature of this perceived threat, like it is lying about everything because it has the power to do so. Lying makes it impossible to understand what's going on. I keep saying there was something fishy about Podemos' election result.
Back to world affairs. USA is the top liar, the one least to be trusted. Yet all around the globe people consume the american vision through corporate news channels and Hollywood entertainment. Meanwhile, capitalism is eating the planet faster than ever before. We are running towards collapse at the top of our lungs. In stead of responding to the knowledge we have gathered about the dying oceans, the mass extinction of species and the poisoning of our environment, we continue supporting the system we were all born into and have grown accustomed to. We accept we may have passed the point of no return. In the meantime, we are diverted by war, devil worship and horror stories, all emanating a strong death wish. Yet we are lying to ourselves it won't be happening. That some outside force will save us from ourselves. We try not to see reality for what it is. We have all become liars.
(So there is something contaminating about corruption, though not about wealth.)
Corruption is the sickness of our time. It's how we all go to waste, through corruption. We lie when we work, we lie when we eat, we lie when we speak about hollow subjects.
It's hard to see escape from our predicament other than by personal growth. Shake of the cloak society has dressed you with and care only for the human beings that you meet. There is more satisfaction in doing your most to empower some fellow travellers than in lying your way to a false sense of security. Those who have gone this path are ready to meet their maker, in whatever form or shape they expect to encounter them. It's the final safeguard against what is coming at us at ever increasing rates.
It is interesting to witness how USA is drowning in its own lies. So rich and influential as their capstone is, they seem to increasingly hurt each other's interests with their self-protective bullshit. There comes a moment when everybody is off the plan and chaos sets in. With the pentagon gone rogue, you would say we're getting pretty close. Beware and be good.
Coos Palmboom
coospalmboom@gmail.com
P.S. If anybody has a plan to save the world, I'd be happy to join ranks, but I haven't come across a convincing idea yet. So let me know.
