"But what’s puzzling you Is the nature of my game"

[zeemike]

One of my favorite songs Sympathy for The Devil came into my head as i was reading about the FISA bill and the whole drama of it, and realizing that it will pass and once again little boots will get what he wanted. Again.
At first I wasn't sure why that song but thinking about what it is about and the lyrics it makes sense to me
The problem is that we do not understand the nature of the game;


Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a mans soul and faith
And I was round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

I stuck around Saint Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
I rode a tank
Held a generals rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah

[ret5hd]

1. A challenge to all DU'ers...

Lets write a new verse or two about the last eight years.

[zeemike]

5. That could be too easy

here is for starters.


Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for eight long long year
Stole two elections and killed their faith

[zanne]

2. That does it.

Now I must go to Youtube to listen to it. http://youtube.com/watch?v=mM-VvLvmV6o&feature=related

[zeemike]

3. Oh I am sorry

I didn't mean to trigger your jones.

[zanne]

4. My pleasure, zeemike. nt

[kimmylavin]

12. Ha!

I loaded it up on iTunes before continuing to the comments! :)

You just can't deny a damn good song a chance to play...

[hootinholler]

6. Yep that's where my head's been lately.

Clearly we don't have any of the critical pieces of the real picture.

-Hoot

[napoleon_in_rags]

7. how complex can it be?

Look at everything else: Crashing economy, food prices, gas prices, debt, everything is wreck. So what mysteries lie behind closed doors with Bush? Wrecks. Some embarrassing, some potential security threats, but wrecks, that's what we always see when the smoke and mirrors clear. And I'm sure, one way or another, that's what lies behind the FISA deal, some big stinking turd to risky or dangerous or complex or whatever to deal with. That's my bet.

[Hannah Bell]

8. what's the benefit of wrecks?

[napoleon_in_rags]

10. This administration doesn't seem to be accomplishing their objectives.

So I don't think that they are pursuing these wrecks for their beneficial values...you can say what you want about 9/11, but when you have Katrina and a crashing economy it just looks downright incompetent. I mean I believe they THINK they have really complex things going on, like the reasoning that would lie behind a horse breeder behind appointed the head of FEMA, but in the end what you had was just a huge mess.

[Hannah Bell]

11. i think it's a mistake to assume incompetence. even if leaders

are personally incompetent, they can hire competence. "incompetence" all the way down is something else.

[napoleon_in_rags]

14. That's a valid idea for sure...

...I've had thoughts that these guys are for some kind of new order and are out to do in the US nation state. But that's from the side of my mind a consider a little batty.

[Hannah Bell]

15. well, i don't think you'll go nuts from considering the idea.

besides, "sanity" is something of a scam. bush is supposedly sane.

so, assume they desire the present mess. how do they benefit, or who benefits?

just as an intellectual exercise.

i don't know if you're familiar with michael parenti, but he has a little riff on liberals & intellectuals - he starts out by talking about how those folks always assume bad public policy is the result of "stupid" or "incompetent" leadership.
i was beginning to question that idea on my own, & he sort of crystallized my discomfort.

[napoleon_in_rags]

17. Cui Bono? My mind can envision all sorts.

There are the ideologues, social darwinist types who see a controlled chaos as an opportunity to purify the genepool and strengthen the culture. But a thirst for power generally makes tools of ideologies these days, not the other way around... So the benefits would be in terms of power. My old guess was that trans-national corporate entities have grew to such a level of power that sovereign nation states stood in their way, so they overcame the power of nation states one by one, with the USA itself being one of the last obstacles. But nowadays I see things more sharply in terms of impending resource shortages, and I'm not sure. (And of course there are always wildcards, like foreign powers.)


The question for me at this point is how do we come through these resource shortages transformed into something nice, and how do we pad the fall. How do we morally grow if the economic growth is over, that kind of thing. My own little life has come into sharp focus for me and its hard to think about what they are doing when I am so damn worried about what I am doing... :(

[Hannah Bell]

20. "My own little life...

has come into sharp focus for me and its hard to think about what they are doing when I am so damn worried about what I am doing.."

I know the feeling, but I think the worry over one's own life is one of the main reasons people DO pay attention (& need to pay attention)...if things were going swimmingly in my immediate neighborhood, i'd be more likely to assume folks in power are doing a great job. I think that's pretty normal, though not always true.

Which is all the more reason to try to figure out the real game. So long as we're distracted & demoralized & divided by phoney issues, phoney solutions & phoney movements (& they abound), the less likely it is that anyone's life is going to improve.

For example: "resource shortages". I don't think this is a completely real issue. I think there are elements that are real, & elements that are completely manufactured. But it's very difficult to talk to people who are stocking up on gas, food & ammo about data. IMO their solution is worse than useless. It's unlikely to save them in the even they're right, & makes things worse in the event they're wrong.

But if we can't find "truth," everything becomes a matter of individual perception, which is pretty much good for the powers that be, because they're the makers of individual perception via control of ideological dissemination through education, rese arch, media, & entertainment. It doesn't matter which side of a phoney issue one stands on.

[napoleon_in_rags]

42. "my own little life"

I'm glad you picked out that line because I was thinking about it after I posted it, how that could be the purpose of it all, to MAKE us focus on our own lives rather than the big picture. But I also thought about how effective it is, at some point you really do have to focus on your own time on this earth rather than vast issues...But its at that moment when terms like "all politics is local" show their value, changes in our own little lives are connected to the much larger picture.

I agree, BTW, with pretty much everything you say, except I do think resource shortages are the real backdrop of everything that's going on. Its a manufactured reality yes, but a reality nonetheless. Its manufactured in part by that 120 pound woman who thinks she needs a 4000 pound transport (and corresponding energy consumption) to commute alone 30 miles to work, multiplied by millions. Its clear to see the problems with waste in our culture.

But that said, I really do agree with you about hoarding and stockpiling being wrong. Now is the time for a cautious optimism. People need to stop investing in the apocolypse, and start putting money into the reality of alternative energy, which is just as inevitable as the end of oil. It comes down, as you say, to truth, and the fact that it is not on any side of these phoney issues.

[bvar22]

40. This administration accomplished EVERYTHING it wanted....

...with the sole exception of the privatization of Social Security. They are going to let the Democrats do that one. Just watch.

* Massive increase in taxpayer money directed to the pockets of their friends in the armaments/HealthCare industry....check.

* Establishment of a Unitary Executive....check

* A much greater disparity of wealth distribution....check

* Destruction of Environmental safeguards....check

* Destruction of Organized LABOR....check

* Diminished (eliminated) accountability for the Global Corporations....check

* Diminished (eliminated) accountability of the US government....check

* Merging of the supposed "Two Parties"....check

* Successful removal of Constitutional Protections for the Middle Class/Working Class.....check

* Theft of the richest Oil Reserves in the World paid for by the American taxpayer, and given to the Richest Corporations in the World....check

*Unverifiable Elections....check

*Defacto Police State...check

What is missing? :shrug:

[napoleon_in_rags]

44. Ah, but a parasite that kills its host also gets what it wants...

though in reality it kills itself in the end. What good is total control over a wrecked country? Its like hijacking the Titanic right before it hits the iceberg...

[bvar22]

47. The Guilded Age was a wonderful time to be alive....

...if you were in the top 1%.
The host won't die... Only the people NOT in The Ownership Class.

[kimmerspixelated]

46. Yes, and I think I must hurl now!

These Bastards must go down!

[FiveGoodMen]

43. They've shredded the Bill of Rights, looted the Treasury, used the Army as a profit center

Made themselves and their buddies filthy rich, made the US safe for rich people who ignore the law.

They've accomplished all of their objectives except for permanent power -- and they're still working on that.

[Fire Walk With Me]

19. Google "bush failed businesses" and note that he has always personally profited

from destroying things.

Follow the money.

[robinlynne]

24. exactly. They have been highly successful in their own terms. they don't give a damn about

dead people or a wrecked economy. They're buying more and more and paying less and less. you can't have immense greed and profit unless you have someone to take the moeny from. It was the third world for all these years. This time it was the US treasury. a huge easy target.

[glitch]

39. Dead people and wrecked economy are actually benefits to them

Never forget how petty and vindictive they are, and how they feel they've been wronged. They hire rational people to do their looting, but they are operating from irrational emotions. IMO.

[Hannah Bell]

27. i think it's not only personal profit. in general, when life is

in chaos, it's easier to steal & manipulate.

can we extrapolate the principle? i think it has many applications.

[Fire Walk With Me]

45. I'd kick and recommend an OP with those words.

:thumbsup:

[Hannah Bell]

9. i think that's absolutely correct. we don't understand the game - its

goal or how it's played. not only that, we're encouraged to view events through schmema like "capitalists v. communists", "good guys v. bad guys," "republicans v. democrats," "liberals v. conservatives".

but those lenses distort, to the point where sometimes nothing makes sense at all. for example, when you learn that corps & gov fund both left & right, made loans to both the ussr & the nazis, that foreign direct investment has funded a lot of "communist" china's "capitalist" boom - it doesn't fit in the standard storyline.

not knowing the game, or even being able to sort the players - is a big handicap.

[kimmylavin]

13. Yup.

We don't know the rules - and they won't tell us.
Only certain people are allowed to play.
And you never know who has "won" - but the losers become easier and easier to spot.

Crappy game, if you ask me...

[Hannah Bell]

16. if it were all out in the open, that would destroy the home team

advantage. so of course we're not told.


but i've many times been told by management types that the way to "succeed" or "be selected" by upper mgt is to figure out the game without being told, & play hard - i.e. never question the ethics of it.

if you have to ask about the rules, you won't make the team.

[zeemike]

18. What triggered my thought was the drama in the Senate

Dod gets up there and gives us liberals red meat and with it hope that we would win one for a change...and then tomorrow that hope will be dashed to pieces as they through us off the cliff.
Divide and conquer is the objective and the best way to do that is demoralize the troops.
And Dodd Innocent thought he may be, is still a player in the game.

[Hannah Bell]

22. i've noticed my senators trade off on unpopular votes;

one time one will take the hit, next the other.
so they cancel each other out.

[janet118]

29. I'm not sure that the votes are "unpopular" with voters

Are voters even taken into account? Or is it, like the Iraq War Resolution, when approximately 60% of the public were against going to war at the time. Yet the politicians voted to hand over their war powers to Bush so they couldn't be blamed if something happened to change those sentiments before their election so they could be framed as terrorist- loving liberals. (See Kerry, Clinton, Biden, Dodd, etc.)

Or maybe the bill is "unpopular" with campaign contributors like the oil, weapons and telecom industries? The equation becomes: how many voters does it take to make up for the money that enables me to get the ones who aren't really paying too much attention to vote for me?

I am pretty sure that the calls asking Senators to vote against the FISA/telecom immunity bill vs. those for the bill were about 50 to 1. Did it matter? No. They figured (probably correctly) that most Americans weren't even paying attention. And to the ones who were? Screw 'em.

[zeemike]

30. Welcome to DU

And of course you are right.
But it works to there advantage also in other ways, because it demoralizes the liberals and many of them will say what the hell why bother the game is rigged anyway.
And then they do not have to worry about getting voted out of office.

[Occam Bandage]

21. Well, I hope we're not too messianic, or a trifle too Satanic.

We love to play the blues.

[The Doctor.]

23. It's not puzzling.

It's been spelled out for centuries, and captured in song through the ages.

Here's to the Greatest Garage Band ever.

:toast:

[Mind_your_head]

25. This is one of the best/most honest/important DU threads in a long, long time

k & R

[Hannah Bell]

26. I think so too, but you notice half the responses are about the Rolling

Stones.

But if this were a thread on pedophiles, or evil Hillary/Obama...boy howdy.

Seriously, I've pretty much concluded that we spend most of our lives acting in accordance with a conceptual framework that has very little to do with reality.

"The Matrix" is the metaphor, & all the dystopias are fact, from Orwell's Big Brother controlling both sides & "we have always been at war with Eastasia" to Huxley's "betas aren't as smart as alphas."

What a waste of life & human possibility.

[janet118]

28. Their game . . .

Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" is on the right track. Chaos and confusion are good. They create a milieu for fascism. As for our "representatives," I'm reading an old book (1991) by William Greider, "Who Will Tell the People?" It's about the dangerous complicity of Democrats and Republicans in the devastation of the middle class. The myth of representative democracy is the curtain behind which corporations and their minions in politics and the media do their dirty work. Religion, patriotism, fear, poverty, and racism are the tools they use to divide us and keep us from seeing who the real enemy is.

And now for another musical interlude:

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid,
And the marshals and cops get the same,
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool.
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

Only a Pawn in Their Game
- Bob Dylan

[Echo In Light]

31. ...and...

I'll take your evil wind
And give it right back to ya
Hungry buzzards are waiting
On the grey fence of ignorance
It's a classic case
They obfuscate
A brainwashed populace

Screaming crows and sirens
A normal world is cryin'
Bright bird of redemption
Winged truth with eyes of fire
One more fool
Divide and rule
A brainwashed populace

You dance around the question
Cause the answers you must hide
You crept into this dimension
Now be lost through all time
It's a classic case
They obfuscate
A brainwashed populace

~ Spirit Caravan, Brainwashed

[zeemike]

33. Another great song

With equally thought provoking lyrics.

[zeemike]

34. Another great song

With equally thought provoking lyrics

[windoe]

32. Yes what is puzzling you is the nature of my game

Hitler called it The Big Lie
George Carlin said, 'They don't care about you'
Psychologists write about sociopaths who don't feel anything for anyone

It is puzzling to people who hang onto the myth that everyone has good in them, they tell themselves that when they work for companies that are making bombs, or producing propaganda, or voting for a charming person with a cross and a flag.

Not everyone has a conscience. This is what holds civilizations back, that they do not take steps to assure that this social disease (religions call it evil) does not proliferate and take over. Some people should never be given power.

The founding fathers knew all of this as they designed the balance of powers. But this could only last as long as people knew what it was, so they could be the final check on power. We are the ultimate check on power, instead now we give it to them (in the form of work, money and confidence) by continuing to play a game that is rigged in their favor, instead of deciding not to play anymore.

[zeemike]

35. Excuse the expression but ...amen to that

We must never let them dissuade us from using the only power we have...the vote

[windoe]

37. Mission was accomplished with the voting machines

We have to insist on paper receipts or we are toast. This is where the front lines are, yet enough people have got to wake up and see it in time.

edited to add: All that has to happen now is a clusterf*ck in Iran to distract us, and the same shock n awe is played all over again (and they don't care who gets killed), covering more draconian forces applied here. Abuse of power can keep going, we are at a crossroads right now, if just enough people wake up in time, we may be able to stop this endgame.

Part of their power has always been to put an idiot in the 'helm' so most people will underestimate their power, W and McSame fit this MO completely. Look beyond all appearances, and notice that all rhetoric speaks in exact opposite to actions taken.

Obama has to get in, and we have to start cleaning House (and Senate).

[zeemike]

38. Absolutely n/t

[boomerbust]

36. The next eight years

BROWN SUGAR?

[Blue_In_AK]

41. I was never a big Stones fan

but I love that song. As relevant today as it was 40 years ago.