PLUTOCRATIC POWER

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Perhaps the greatest advantage the ruling class has over us is that they’ve got a crystal clear idea of exactly what they want and exactly what they’re pushing for, and we, on average, do not. It’s easy for us to be manipulated in unwholesome directions when we don’t know where we’re going. When it comes to our future, the ruling elites have compelling narratives worked up by teams of talented creatives to sell us the products they want us to buy. They know exactly where they want to herd us. We just have a notion of “No, not that!” and some very vague, amorphous ideas about what we do want.

VOLPONE REDUX—No matter how we look at it (provided we have not been seduced by the pyrotechnics concocted by its creator, Julian Fellowes, a proud hidebound reactionary) Downton Abbey (DA) is and will remain an artifact to offer rancid midlebrow entertainment and effective propaganda for a rotten bourgeois status quo artfully camouflaged as a peek into the private lives of a supposedly vanished aristocracy. I say “supposed” because the aristos are still very much alive and thriving in this world. Their widely proclaimed demise one of their greatest and most successful tricks in deflecting social and political criticism in a world that abounds in gross injustices and which currently—despite the existence of “democracy”—registers one of the most outrageous levels of inequality in centuries.

Andrew, favorite son of Elizabeth I, is enmeshed in the sordid Epstein scandal. His sense of invulnerability may have rendered him reckless.

MIKE SIEGEL—The proposed bill would create a broad definition of “domestic terrorism” to include any attempt to “affect” or “influence” government policy or actions. And it would include property damage—even attempted property damage—as a terrorist act subject to a 25-year prison sentence. In other words, if you opposed the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock and wanted the government to revoke the pipeline permit, you might be considered a terrorist. If you painted “Black Lives Matter” on a wall to advocate against police violence, that could be terrorism, too.

ANDRE VLTCHEK—The Western public cannot do too much to protect itself, really. The regime knows everything about everybody: it spies on every citizen: where he or she walks, what he or she eats, drives, flies, watches, consumes, reads. There are no secrets, anymore. You are an atheist? No need to ‘confess’. You are confessing every minute, with each and every computer click, by pressing the remote control button, or by shopping on Amazon. Is Big Brother watching? Oh no; now there is much more detailed surveillance. Big Brother is watching, recording and analyzing.