CommentsVIEW FROM HERE--The vast corruption which is destroying Los Angeles derives from the same ethos that supports Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and the hordes of others such as Qanon, who thrive upon lies, deceptions and frauds.
Corruptionism. The underlying problem, which America will never escape, is its unshakable allegiance to absurd myths, A nation which believes that the phrase Jesus died for your sins will believe anything, including that Hillary Clinton is running a child sex slavery ring from a Brooklyn pizza parlor or that Donald Trump got more votes than Joe Biden, or that Nancy Pelosi is not a craven opportunist.
On July 2, 2018, Yasha Mounk, explained how modern American politics turned us into two warring factions in The Rise of McPolitics, From a nation which was governed by consensus and compromise, we became a nation which was intentionally divided into two parties each of whom saw itself as the paragon of holiness and the other as Satan incarnate. Americans fell for this absurd idea because it is fundamentally a nation based upon faith in the absurd. In a faith based society, one’s holiness is based completely on the rejection of facts and the total embrace of falsehoods.
As explained on June 21, 2018, in CityWatch’s, The Dangers of Dichotomy: The Saved vs. The Damned, for millennia Western Civilization has been intellectually savaged by the insane notion that one group of people possesses the exclusive hold on the Truth and everyone else lives in sin — and if need be, the sinners should be burned alive to purify their souls.
Faith Is Never Proved by Facts, but Rather Faith Is Proved by Rejection of Facts
Faith is the antithesis of facts, reason, logic, tolerance, science. The faithful prove their bona fides by loudly proclaiming the most absurd things to be true. Such declarations get them accepted by other faithful and they are then enveloped in the comforting knowledge that they alone are saved. The maskless Trumpers know that they are killing hundreds of thousands of people but proving their faith in Trump swamps rational thought. They invent even more insane narratives, e.g., the death rate is a hoax. They really believe that hospitals from all over the nation including in the deepest red states are all lying about Covid-19 deaths.
A year ago, in November and December 2019, Dems bought the Pelosi Kool Aid that there were no more witnesses to testify to Trump’s impeachable behavior. They accepted the blatant lie while watching Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, Dr. Fiona Hill, Senior Director for Europe and Russia at the NSC, Ambassadors to Ukraine Gordon Sondland, Laura Cooper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, David Hale, Under Secretary of State, Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence testify. There were tons more people willing to testify but the Dems concentrated on the few people who would not testify to obfuscate the many who would testify. When the law professors urged Pelosi not to end the evidence gathering, they knew weeks more testimony was ready, willing and able. They also knew that Pelosi had not gather enough evidence to carry the case in a Senate trial. By closing down the evidence gathering now, Pelosi would guarantee that Trump would stay in office. The mass of Dems ignored the law professors and pretended there were no more witnesses. December 5, 2019, CityWatch, Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman’s Roadmap to Nancy Pelosi’s Subversion of Impeachment
On November 21, 2019, the New York Times admitted that Pelosi was prematurely shutting down the hearing.
“Instead [of calling more witnesses], as the committee wrapped up its public hearings on Thursday, House Democrats have opted for expeditious over comprehensive, electing to complete their investigation even without filling in major gaps in the story.”
Furthermore, some GOP objected to the premature halting of the witnesses.
“But it [halting evidence] leaves some frustrated about the missing pieces. “An impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelmingly clear and unambiguous,” said Representative Will Hurd of Texas, one of the few Republicans willing to criticize the president . . .”
It takes a nation so divided into warring factions that one side will close its minds to facts. Probably more Dems believe the Pelosi Lie that there were no more witnesses than GOP who believe Trump won the election. When a nation is divided into two groups based on faith, everyone is required to abandon integrity in order to kowtow to the leadership.
What Fuels this Massive Faith in the Absurd?
The lust for power and money. Perhaps the most compelling article does not discuss politics but the business WeWork. The bottom line is that the entire business is based on a gigantic fraud and people knowingly perpetuate the fraud because they are making money. November 30, 2020, The New Yorker, Enablers, How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism, by Charles Duhigg.
WeWork is a business which rents outs tons of office space and then re-rents small parts to individuals who cannot afford a regular office. (Los Angeles tried this model in the 1970s’ with something called Fegen Suites. LA Attorney Paul Fegen began his shared “WeWork” plan for attorneys in 1973 and in 1983 with 220 locations in 26 states, Fegen went bankrupt. September 18, 2015 The Rise of the Legal Virtual Office, By Stephen Furnari ) About three decades later, enters Adam Neumann, who based his entire Fegen Suite business on a big lie. In 2012, Neumann claimed that his WeWork was “the world’s first physical social network,” ignoring Paul Fegen and his bankruptcy. As with Pelosi and Trump, reality plays no role in Neumann’s empire.
So How Did His WeWork Become a Multi-billion Dollar Success?
Japanese investor, Masayoshi Son, after a 12-minute tour dumped $4.4 Billion into WeWork based on Neumann’s “energy and spirituality.” Son was not the first nor the last person to finance failure.
The sole reason WeWork did not fold a long time ago is that investors supply it with endless cash in the hope that WeWork, like Airbnb, will have a successful IPO and they will make billions of dollars by bilking the IPO investors. WeWork has never made a profit and its business model has nothing to do with capitalism as Adam Smith or as Lord Maynard Keynes envisioned it. Rather it is 100% corruptionism.
The Role of the Price System
Indispensable to any viable economic system is a reliable Price System where innumerable buyers and sellers make billions of transactions per minute. WeWork, like office and hotel construction in DTLA Los Angeles ignores the Price System. No matter how many millions of dollars per week WeWork loses, more cash is dumped in by modern shysters like Masayoshi Son. If WeWork had to operate according to the Price System, it would have gone bankrupt years ago. WeWork is not like a biotech company which may not show a profit for a decade since it is working on some complex scientific process. WeWork is in the world’s largest business, real estate. There is nothing new to be discovered. If WeWork is not making a profit because its existence is based on lowering its rates far below the fair market value and paying its bills from billions of investment dollars. Yes, it is like a Ponzi Scheme in that the new money supports the founders. It is not that different from Equity Funding in 1970.
Perhaps the most important quote in the WeWork article is “But, once he [Neumann] threatened their personal payouts, they cut his throat.” Unless one were mentally unhinged like Donald Trump who believes he won the November 2020 election, all the WeWork Board Members know that it is financial fraud, but when Neumann’s megalomania threatened to crash the company before they could stuff their pockets full of loot, they booted him. Yep, integrity had nothing to do with it. Like the Right Wing GOP all that matters is to keep the Ponzi Scheme going of raising more money from the suckers. The Senate GOP who oppose certification of Biden’s election have one motive – money. They are being paid. There are trillions of dollars at stake, and it costs only a few million to buy a US Senator.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.)
-cw
