Christmas Shopping

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Wojtek Sokolowski:
>>  That is a very efective weapon against the corporate state.  Most of
>>  their social control mechanisms depend on you voluntarily submit the
>>  whip with which they can flog you (e.g. info on your assets they can
>>  garnish, your driving privilege they can withdraw, etc.).  If you do not
>>  do that, as many people in my hood do, they do not have too many means
>>  to punish you to force compliance.
>
>Hence the utility of the Bismarckian Welfare State.  I
>am wondering whether the ruling class will now attempt
>to reverse the trend toward letting the poor fend for
>themselves, given that they are then less easy to
>observe and control.
>
>-- Gordon

The Bush regime is the sort that believes it can get away with being 
stingy toward veterans of the past wars on the brink of a new stage 
of the war on Iraq, so it's unlikely that more crumbs will fall into 
the hands of the poor in the near future.  What they might come up 
with in the future that may snare even more of the very poor in the 
Panopticon -- in addition to continuation of frequent arrests of the 
very poor already in practice -- is extensive biometric data 
collection through retinal scans, fingerprinting, urine tests, etc. 
at all schools in the name of school safety and the like, the one 
part of the welfare state that the United States does possess being 
public schools.
-- 
Yoshie

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