Politics of Despair or is it Just Jamiroquai?

 

Starting with this important international mind blog, many thousands have noticed the frightening similarity between UK pop legend Jamiroquai and the Horned Hippie who broke into the Capitol yesterday. With a crew of bearded freaks who were obviously, ahem, MAGA.

Is he a Qanon Shaman or an undercover intel asset with cameras in his horns, filming the wickedness of the coup? Or is he simply a West London Jazz fusion artist, looking for kicks and adventure in the dying days of an Imperial North American Republic? That's opaque, but here at the Compound we know you'd like to get the look. Here's how.

On a serious note, why did police wave and lead people into the Capitol? I don't know, but I do know that more than 70 million people aren't too pleased at our incoming governing kleptocracy, and that's just the Trumpists. Chris Hedges, a leftist, and you can imagine him voting Bernie only to be thwarted by Dominion, puts it well:

The seizure of control of the economy by a class of global speculators and corporations has ruined the lives of the very groups the Democrats pretend to lift up...

The power of politicians such as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer or Mitch McConnell comes from being able to funnel corporate money to anointed candidates. In a functioning political system, one not saturated with corporate cash, they would not hold power. They have transformed what the Roman philosopher Cicero called a commonwealth, a res publica, a “public thing” or the “property of a people,” into an instrument of pillage and repression on behalf of a global corporate oligarchy.

 

Again:

The tinder that could ignite violent conflagrations lies ominously stacked around us. It may be triggered by Trump’s defeat in the election. Millions of disenfranchised white Americans, who see no way out of their economic and social misery, struggling with an emotional void, are seething with rage against a corrupt ruling class and bankrupt liberal elite that betrayed them. They are tired of the political stagnation, grotesque, mounting social inequality and the punishing fallout from the pandemic. Millions more alienated young men and women, also locked out of the economy and with no realistic prospect for advancement or integration, gripped by the same emotional void, have harnessed their fury in the name of tearing down the governing structures and anti-fascism. These polarized extremes are inching closer and closer to violence. 

 

His prediction?

There are three options: reform, which, given the decay in the American body politic, is impossible, revolution, or tyranny.

 

I don't agree with everything Hedges writes, which I'm sure upsets him deeply, but I'd say he nails the "corporate oligarchy" of our reigning and apparently triumphant uniparty. Trump attempted to overthrow that and faced a coup, but where will it end?

We'll see, but it won't be status quo pro ante, not by a long shot. In the meanwhile, enjoy dressing up like Jamiroquai. Does anyone listen to zhir rubbish music?

Cheers,

LSP

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