S. Korea is having a nice little witch hunt right now, dredging up some of the past wrong doings, bribes and misdemeanors of some major S. Korean companies like Samsung and Hyundai motors. Of course, bribery is the norm in all of politics. How else do public "servants" like the Corrupt Clintons become worth more than $100 million? Usually they get away with it because the sleepy population doesn't care what anyone else does as long as the herd gets what it needs.
But when times turn down, the herd becomes restless, unsatisfied and it begins to develop a taste for blood. If you don't give the herd what it demands you will have a stampede on your hands so this trotting of big names out into the walk of shame is predictable and was predicted in detail by me in these very pages long before there was any hint that it was going to happen. In fact, most people had almost given up in thinking that the elite would ever get reined in or held accountable in any way for their obvious transgressions. But now we will see the elite scurry for cover because they are just figure heads. The real power is with the people. Always has been, always will be. As long as the herd is looking the other way, elite can act like they are running things and be as corrupt as the day is long but when the herd decides to self organize and to do the accounting for all the past sins, the elite run scared.
As well they should. Some of these "hearings" are for show. In fact, as many as possible are for show. But if they trot some big name out and the people begin chanting "hang him, hang him" then only a fool will believe there is no danger that he might get hanged. This is starting in the smaller countries but trust me when I tell you that it is coming to the corrupt states of America. Lots of big names are going under the bus before we are done with this cycle.
There are probably 100 corrupt politicians for every honest one, perhaps a constant throughout history. Yet, corruption is tolerated most of the time, until it isn't, at least for a moment.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the peoples willingly tolerate corruption as long as they can afford it. Whatever the reason that people have to tolerate it, it seems that, whenever the cost of a corrupt elite becomes unbearable, either because of an economic downturn or because of overreaching corruption, the peoples revolt and heads roll, sometimes literally.
This is happening all over the world. In Brazil, politicians are being removed from office and jailed every week; in Britain, the people seceded from corrupt Brussels; in Italy, the people denied an overarching Rome; in America, the people told the Beltway to eff off. This is a historic moment, probably similar to the European popular revolts of 1848 (the original People's Spring). Then, it was the beginning of the industrial revolution, which was reshaping the economy and the power players, away from land owners towards industrialists. Could it be that the internet is the factor reshaping the economy and the centers of power? Regardless, however the economy worked before, it's working differently and workers are anxious and experiencing hardships during this transition period. In other words, their fuse is short and, if regarded as mere deplorables, they're willing to take up pitchforks.