The illusion of living well ...

Robert Scheer in "Hayden is the 'Perfect' Pick", truthdig.com, May 9, 2006, writes:

"This ability to accommodate totalitarian values in exchange for career advancement is viewed as a terrific asset by Negroponte, who handpicked Hayden for this new job within hours of Goss’ abrupt resignation. Negroponte, after all, is most infamous for his tenure as ambassador to Honduras during the Reagan years, when he exemplified that administration’s see-no-evil approach to monitoring the malleable military dictatorship’s human rights violations — which included everything from the army’s torture and slaughter of nuns to the regime’s arming and protecting the United States-created Contra guerrillas who were terrorizing civilians in next-door Nicaragua."

We are always wondering how some things happen as if they were choreographed yet we know there was no conspiracy as such.

It's because there are some common beliefs that are widespread enough in our economic calculations that they connect us like nodes in a lattice. Even the smallest vibration is then felt throughout, instantaneously.

One of these beliefs is that by pursuing my own self-interest, I best pursue the interest of the community of which I am a part.

(Please note, I think this is a crock ... )

This is part of the radicalization of human society by the politics of corporate power. As long as those whom I would define as "corporationists" can depend on key employees to pursue their self-interest—defined economically and socially as "their career"—they can expand corporate control over society ... which, by the way, is far from conservative principles in our historical perspective. It is a radical deviation from the founding principles of our nation.

So how does it all get choreographed without overt conspiracy? Everybody looks to the leader. "Corporationists" look for those examples that will best advance their careers within the corporate organizational structure and internalize the attributes of these examples, such as loyalty, secrecy, and obedience. We have been indoctrinated by our system of education—as one aspect of growing up—to face forward and accept the authority of the person at the head of the room. It is a wonder that any of us break off to pursue the creative possibility of our imaginations.

For the corporationists, their belief structure is "proven" by their economic success. This gets us back to the age-old story of Esau who sold his birthright for a pot of porridge. The corporationists are selling our (and their) birthright for the illusion of living well for a generation or two by raping the world of its resources.

This is a discussion thread on Vanity Fair's forum, V.F. Dish at:
http://boards.vanityfair.com/thread.jspa?threadID=15639&tstart=0