Reblogged from Golem XIV:
In
every country I can think of, the sovereignty and wealth of the Nation, which
was once the embodiment of the power and will of the people, is being butchered
and sold to the highest bidder. Everywhere, the Nation and the people within it,
are under attack. Not from without by terrorists but from within. Because in
every country the people who run the State have largely decided they no longer
wish to serve the people but prefer instead to serve the interests of a Global
Over-Class.
Of
course we are not encouraged to see this clearly or if we do, certainly not to
speak of it to others. And many of those we might try to talk to, do not want to
hear.
Many
of us prefer instead to find what warmth we can in the false and threadbare
beliefs fed to us by the quisling elite of the State and their close friends and
allies in a rigged and corrupted ‘free’ market. Together they tell us that whole
functions of our nation which we built and treasure, are no longer viable
because they are at odds with the ‘realities’ of a global economy. The more
ideological of them proclaim that the state, whenever and wherever it tries to
do good, will always and by necessity do harm. The more ‘realist’ among them
tell us that once inalienable liberties, must now be curtailed or suspended in
the name of defending the ‘nation’ from outside enemies. And yet I want to argue
it is now, not ever us or the nation that is being defended or empowered. It is
always and everywhere a small elite who own and control both the State and the
Markets who are being defended.
In
my view, we are, in most industrialized countries, watching the machinery of the
State being used to betray the Nation in favour of global finance and the elite
who own it. It is a familiar betrayal in the third world. One we have all
watched with sordid complacently as the wealth of nation after nation is gutted
for the benefit of the few. The disease is now with us.
That
great ideal of government by and for the people is being butchered – for profit.
The Nation-State is dying, because any given arrangement of power can be
corrupted and will be, by those who benefit from it most – those who hold its
powers – in this case the powers of the State - IF people cringingly let them.
And that it what we are doing.
We
are allowing the elite of the State, to convince us that we are ‘all in it
together’, and to claim that our interests and their interests are still one and
the same. But they are not. And we must come to see this clearly – and soon. As
long as we deny the truth, that they are not standing ‘with us’, and do not have
our best interests at heart – until we can face these self evident but chilling
truths, then we are never going to see them for what they have become nor see
their actions for what they are.
It
is critical that we disentangle in our minds the State and the interests of
those who control it, from those of what I am calling the Nation. The State and
the Nation are not the same. They are, in fact, at war.
The
Propaganda War
Our
problem and their advantage is that it is deeply ingrained in us to see the
State and the Nation as almost interchangeable. The very name, ‘The Nation
State’ inclines us to believe that the State and Nation are one and therefore
that any action taken by the State, no matter how harsh or unfair it might seem
to us, must necessarily be for our good. It allows those who control the State
to hide their narrow selfish interests behind a smokescreen of talk about the
Nation State.
This
intentional confusion of Nation and State is everywhere in reporting about
global finance and trade.
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