Whole lotta crazy in this one... http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022061691 Jackpine Radical (35,357 posts)
Jackpine's Theory of Everything--Come talk me down…
Last edited Mon Dec 24, 2012, 05:19 AM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
The ultimate fear of the super-rich PTB is that the people will awaken to everything that's happening and rise against them. OWS is a new kind of populist threat, precisely because it is leaderless. It's much harder to kill a leaderless organization than one with a leader. The mass media have expended considerable energy ridiculing the movement for its leaderless nature, and trying to force it to adopt a conventional hierarchical model. You can't decapitate something without a head. (For much elaboration of related ideas, see Brafman & Beckstrom Starfish & Spider)
Ultimately, TPTB know that the end-game is upon us, there is a contest coming between them and the awakening crowd and and they need all the help they can get to protect themselves against the coming Jacquerie. They have a volunteer military and a large contingent of mercenaries. They have militarized the police forces throughout the land. They are "domesticating" their drones, first for surveillance and no doubt with plans to weaponize them a bit later. Some of the drones will be in private corporate hands, serving private corporate purposes. The weaponry at their disposal is unthinkably complex and sophisticated.
There is not much point in trying to fight a modern military/paramilitay/mercenary force with your assault rifle or Glock or whatever. The only thing those weapons are good for is use on your fellow citizens. The day when an informal "armed militia" of pioneers in coonskin caps could take down their blunderbusses from over the mantel and have a realistic chance of defeating a standing army died sometime around the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791. The notion that a modern gang of well-heeled thugs in cammies with semi-auto rifles and 50-round magazines could take on any force much more powerful than the local police is ludicrous.
In fact, I think that TPTB want a well-armed ring of wingnuts between us and them.
The prototypical survivalist wingnut has a bunch of high-powered weaponry and mounds of ammunition for it all, stockpiles of canned food, bottled water, and the bricks of gold Glenn Beck had told him to buy. He (almost always he) envisions himself as besieged by ravening hordes of dark-complected welfare cheats, illegal aliens, Muslims and pointy-headed intellectuals, all of whom are after his precious canned goods and gold, and all of whom he will mow down like kudzu with a Weed-Eater.
This is the modern equivalent of J.P. Morgan's solution to unionization which he encapsulated when he said that he could always hire one half of the lower classes to kill off the other half. The rich never had it so good--the modern goon squads are volunteers who willingly pay for their own weaponry and fortifications.
The real situation is that they're arming the wingnuts for the ultimate disaster, the trifecta of global warming, post-peak oil, and social collapse. The NRA goons are their first line of protection against a potentially awakened people.
