We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Commentary regarding yesterday's post: Wikipedia Fraud EXPOSED

Click here to access article by the "administrator" of Disruptive Fare

First, I need to apologize to the activist who sent me this article. It was re-posted on Tyler Durden's Zerohedge which he sent me. I, out of habit, saw that the original post was from Disruptive Fare, and I gave them credit for the post. (Actually, as an aside comment, I have a strong suspicion that both websites are run by the same person or persons.)

I thought the post was very revealing to those who have over the years came to trust Wikipedia as an honest and independent source of information. It still is for many entries, but over the years the website has seen powerful/rich influences that have subverted many entries to serve their interests. All that they needed was a lot of money to hire people to do their subversive work by submitting 500 entries, following their rules of documenting, and qualifying as an "editor". It didn't matter that the documentation was from spurious or self-serving sources. Long ago I saw this weakness and knew that Wikipedia was eventually to succumb to those with vast amounts of money. But that's true of every institution in capitalist society. They and their supporters with their concentrated wealth/power have been harnessed to serve only the interests of the capitalist class: the preservation of their system, the accumulation of wealth, and power.

Fortunately, Karl Marx and his followers have long ago contributed to an understanding of classes and how societies are structured according to the needs of the dominant class. This class analysis is, in my opinion, the greatest of all of his gifts toward the understanding of social and historical development of societies. This commentary intends to use class analysis to understand why the website Disruptive Fare have used this issue of the corruption of Wikipedia.

While perusing the website of Disruptive Fare, I noticed several clues to its class identity: the sidebar that cited stock market data and the supportive passages of Trump's policies, in a addition to the incisive and thorough analysis of the Wikipedia issue. And the latter post attacks some main institutions of capitalist society: CIA and Big Pharma, an industry that has grown to be a self-serving behemoth that interferes with attempts to provide affordable healthcare for all Americans. This take on the issue of Wikipedia frames the issue much like left-wing analysts do--the corruption of a website due to the power and money of concentrated wealth. Yet the "administrator" as an author of the commentary is very supportive of Trump. What gives?

I've long ago pointed to the resentment of the older ruling capitalist class toward the neo-conservatives who have taken over the ruling capitalist class beginning most demonstrably with the Reagan administration. I pointed this out more than five years ago with my commentary to Amed's post "Who the hell are the Henry Jackson Society?" (now located here). I identified this new group of capitalists as neoconservatives who as transnational capitalists under the US Empire were taking over for the transnational ruling capitalist class of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. 

Since then there have been signs that the older ruling class, which I will identify as "old-fashioned capitalists", have terrifically resented this takeover. These latter people include Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, Paul Craig Roberts (he served in the Reagan administration and his comments are always positive in relation to this administration which brought in the "neocons"), Tyler Durden, the Mises Institute, and a host of others. Ron Unz is the latest to establish a website to counter the influence of the neoconservatives by appealing to a variety of ruling class critics and posting their articles. But there is a whiff of antisemitism to his website with increasing references to "Jews" rather than Zionists. This trait, too, is common among old-fashioned conservatives.

What these two capitalist factions have in common is their basic contempt for working people who do not live off of Wall Street stocks and bonds, but instead live off of their labor producing actual goods and services. This theme runs like lace through all of their commentaries mostly by totally ignoring the contributions of working people, the overwhelming majority of people.

I won't belabor this commentary further, but will cite an obviously biased take on the Zerohedge website which can apply to all old-fashioned conservatives.