FORWARD THE TITANIC!

We live on a planet where the dominant species is half mad. (Perhaps this is an underestimate.)

It is on course to destroy the basis of its own continued survival and the speed is picking up.

The route being traveled is now 99% on auto-pilot.

The intersection of interests is now so great that an iron web of fixity has become almost totally invulnerable to any normal process of evolutionary change.

The crucial fact is that these interests are not focused on general well-being of all but on the narrow self-interest of the few. If it was otherwise we would feel the benefit rather than be experiencing the pain.

Many continue to get what they can out of this mess, taking advantage of the new innovations that inventors, manufacturers and merchandisers offer. Some are doing well, making good money and take full advantage of the plethora of pleasurable choices they have before them at all times.

Those above are the same ones running the illusion that essentially all is well and who imply in almost all they say and do that there is no need for any fundamental change to the status quo.

The primary channels for the appetite of most people to learn how things are going are politicians and mainstream press/media. Some few of us seek more accurate information via the internet.

The ones having ‘the good life’ run everything of importance regarding the political and media spheres. Though the dramatic events of today’s world generate viewers, readers and adherents for politicians who say they have solutions, you must understand that this is a game designed to keep things just the way they are. Just the way they are for those running things as they are doing fine thank you very much.

Watch CNN for an hour or two if you have never done so before, even though it’s an extremely painful mental exercise to do so. You will find a mix of ‘business is great’, ‘invest in the market’, ‘isn’t life great, look at this’ and a bunch of talking heads relating how scary this or that is in an interminable cycle where the only solution is a change to another type of politics and nothing that changes anything in any way that could be regarded as in any way fundamental.

And so time marches on as the old newsreel always said before relating some reasonably actual news. Now the news circles within a tight algorithm of speculative reality, opinion-generation and political advocacy. Newspapers in the mainstream have become Viewspapers, channeling the opinions of self-important commentators that reflect the prejudices of their most important owners, benefactors, well-heeled liberal clientele and of course their advertisers. Factoids, shockorama and newstainment to draw in the crowds plus conspiracy theories about ‘foreign enemies’ abound. It’s a tight circle of mental containment designed to generate wealth and maintain that same old status quo that all their peers are working hard to maintain.

Meanwhile the world divides into a kaleidoscopic mix of opposing notions of what comprises right and wrong where no agreement is remotely possible while resources shrink, pandemics rise and climate change looms on the horizon.

A world divided cannot stand.

Our elites are united in one thing and one thing only: maintaining the status quo.

The rest of us are just their means of earning the living they so enjoy.

While we, unable or unwilling to join the ranks of the blissful rich don’t have the luxury of being surrounded by the many fascinating and rewarding aspects of life they do which gives them the pleasures of the Titanic without having to consider the name of the ship.

We... peering into the darkness without such distractions see a shape looming up ahead.

We gaze up to the captain’s quarters, the exclusive lounge and five-star cabins all well beyond our access where we can see and hear all is lost in uncaring gaiety.

We are on auto-pilot. Those above are merely adjusting their seating. Some of us below are shouting up in warning. But the cacophony that surrounds us drowns out almost every voice.

Forward the Titanic!