The Daily Bell on why the show trial of Goldman (albeit a worthy target, in my opinion) is most likely to be just another ruse of the powers that be:

“The progressive press, in our estimation, tries to blame individuals or certain corporations (Enron comes to mind, and now Goldman) to distract from the larger issue, which is the corruption of civil society itself by this horrid, pernicious mercantilism.

The world (certainly the West), when one gets to know it – or has the misfortune of contemplating it for too long – is corrupt from top to bottom. The culture of corruption has been ongoing for at least a century or longer and has enveloped the world’s international organizations and treaties, its corporations and even some of its private industry, its academies and think tanks of note, its military endeavors, its legislators and legislatures, its media and even much of the Internet (though not all, thank goodness).

All of the entities just mentioned have become instruments of propaganda, at least to a degree. They seem to be tools – bought and paid for – to be wielded in the implementation of the power-elite’s dominant social themes, the great, fear-based promotions that regularly sweep over the globe like vast, turgid surges of volcanic ash. Here’s a suggestion: The idea that one firm (Goldman) or one small group of implementers (Goldman financiers) can be behind the Western world’s woes is a distraction from serious analysis.

Woe to West, dear readers! The eloquent, existential angst of the 20th century (expressed by brilliant philosophers) was a direct result in our opinion of the visceral psychic comprehension that something had gone badly wrong with instrumentalities of civil society. No one knew, though many suspected. Money power was mentioned, but only in a whisper. Today, thanks to the Internet, it is in fact shouted about.

Conclusion: There is (just so we don’t leave anyone in suspense) an Anglo-American elite with European roots, a supposed intermingling of royal and industrial families and Venetian bankers probably tracing their antecedents back to Rome and beyond, perhaps even apocryphally to Babylon. These families and individuals apparently believe they are born to rule and that normal human laws do not apply to them. They may have their own forms of worship, certainly their own exclusive customs, and likely don’t work for a living (not in the traditional sense), not even at Goldman Sachs.

If anything, Goldman Sachs works for them.”

My Comment:

I was glad to see this piece take apart the misuse of the Goldman meme (using some quotes from me) to pursue predetermined and quite unexamined regulatory changes.

As for those ancient aristocratic families going back to Roman times, I enjoy reading about them as much as the next person, but for my part find it hard enough to substantiate the connections between various parties in the here and now, let alone centuries ago. Not that I find the thesis implausible.  I just think we have enough on our plates accepting a conspiratorial view of history in the teeth of the last hundred years of a very deterministic and materialistic understanding of it, without adding to the complications. Reintroducing the language and symbolism of myth and prophecy into our everyday language is mind-shattering enough.