-- Posted Monday, 20 June 2011 | | Disqus

Rick’s Picks

Monday, June 20, 2011

“Phenomenally accurate forecasts”

America appears primed for a political revolution, but will it happen?  Or are we too glutted with middle class amenities to put creature comforts at risk?  A similar theme permeated Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1980?,  an important essay published in 1970 by Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik. Amalrik predicted revolution would come despite the seductive appeal of the middle-class life that many Russians were beginning to experience in the post-Khrushchev era.  With so many households so close to owning a Lada automobile, a washer/dryer and a color TV, why would anyone risk rocking the boat? The average Russian had lived like a serf for centuries, after all, and so the promise of significant improvements in the standard of living was no small thing.  

Such concerns may be no less relevant today in the USA, where the economy even in recession has sustained bourgeois luxuries at levels not far below the civilizational peak achieved in 2008, just before the Great Financial Collapse.  Indeed, even as joblessness mounts and the country continues to wallow in what has cynically come to be called The Great Recession, one needn’t leave the couch to enjoy a surfeit of bread and circuses that puts Rome at its most decadent to shame . However, and ironically, the escapist trash of, reality TV, has distanced huge swaths of the populace from reality itself.  In such a climate of hedonism and shop-till-you-drop hubris, the Founders’ concerns with liberty and the tyranny of government hold about as much interest as a philosophical treatise by Plato, Mill or Emerson.

And yet, even for those who care more about Snooki and the Weiner affair than about the state of the union, there is no ignoring the by-now overwhelming stench emanating from Washington, D.C. We have watched the most liberal president in the history of the Republic secure the fortunes of the bankers, even as the working man has seen his income erode in real terms, his debts mount to the point where tens of millions of homeowners may eventually face bankruptcy. As the economic plight of the average American has worsened, the lies we’ve been told about the economy’s supposed recovery have become increasingly brazen.  This has widened the gulf between Americans and their elected leaders.  But is the disconnect severe enough to provoke a revolution at the ballot box?  The answer, unfortunately, is: Not yet.  What more proof of this do we need than the failure of Fox News to take Ron Paul seriously?  Putting aside the issue of whether or not he is electable, his ideas have come resonate deeply with Americans’ sense that, economically and politically, things have gone dreadfully awry.  And yet, Fox treats Paul as a political non-entity at best, as a crackpot at worst. If the Libertarian stalwart cannot stir things up at Fox, then what hope has he of emerging from the tapioca served up each day by the other news outlets?

Still, a quote from Amalrik provides hope that we will break free of our inertia and bring about the changes needed to put America back on track: “There is another powerful factor,” wrote Amalrik, “which works against the chance of any kind of peaceful reconstruction and which is equally negative for all levels of society: this is the extreme isolation in which the regime has placed both society and itself. This isolation has not only separated the regime from society, and all sectors of society from each other, but also put the country in extreme isolation from the rest of the world. This isolation has created for all—from the bureaucratic elite to the lowest social levels—an almost surrealistic picture of the world and of their place in it. Yet the longer this state of affairs helps to perpetuate the status quo, the more rapid and decisive will be its collapse when confrontation with reality becomes inevitable."

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Information and commentary contained herein comes from sources believed to be reliable, but this cannot be guaranteed. Past performance should not be construed as an indicator of future results, so let the buyer beware. There is a substantial risk of loss in futures and option trading, and even experts can, and sometimes do, lose their proverbial shirts.  Rick's Picks does not provide investment advice to individuals, nor act as an investment advisor, nor individually advocate the purchase or sale of any security or investment. From time to time, its editor may hold positions in issues referred to in this service, and he may alter or augment them at any time. Investments recommended herein should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor, and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company. Rick's Picks reserves the right to use e-mail endorsements and/or profit claims from its subscribers for marketing purposes. All names will be kept anonymous and only subscribers’ initials will be used unless express written permission has been granted to the contrary. All Contents © 2011, Rick Ackerman. All Rights Reserved. www.rickackerman.com 

-- Posted Monday, 20 June 2011 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

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