Falling

"Jackson’s need to caper on stage at age 50 recalls the pathetic spectacle of Isaac Hayes, who driven to financial hardship after resigning from South Park after it came into conflict with Scientology, forced himself to continue performing even though he was physically incapacitated,  even if 'performing' consisted of pretending to play the keyboard, speaking songs or stumbling through interviews.

The process through which a principal is captured by his servants is familiar to students of bureaucracy and even business. Once capture is consummated, the master and servant exchange places. The enterprise is run thereafter not for the benefit of the principal, but for those of the agents, such as when a country is run for the benefit of a government, or when a government is run for the benefit of its officials. In the case of Jackson, he may have been working — and made to keep working — for the benefit of the vast swarm of creditors, suppliers and hangers-on who attached themselves like parasites to failing host.

But the most deadly aspect of having ‘enablers’ is that they throw a veil over your eyes. A cordon sanitaire tells you everything you need to know. How you look; what people think; what foods are good for you; what 'medicines' will make you well; what your prospects are. It tells you everything you need to know; but tells it all wrong. Take Adolf Hitler. Up to the very end he was being treated by the good Dr Theodor Morell, 'well-known in Germany for his unconventional, holistic and alternative treatments', another way of saying he kept Hitler drugged to his eyeballs. But Morell was not alone. Hitler’s decision-making processes were ably informed by soothsayers, mountebanks, toadies and certified maniacs. They collectively did more to mess up the Third Reich’s decision making processes than any Allied disinformation plan. Hitler was 'destined' for victory the way some companies are 'too big to fail'.

But how many people, reflecting on the King of Pop’s fantasies, will ask themselves whether subprime mortgages, unfunded social security or borrowing our way out of debt makes any more sense than that last shot of Demerol? On a day when the House has passed the climate change bill, wouldn’t it be good to ask how much of what the public is being made spend is for the public’s own benefit, and how much for the continued livelihood of the armies of special pleaders who surround society with their policy pills and needles?  Good, but unlikely. It is far easier to believe in promises and rely feel-good nostrums than it is to look in the mirror, even though we know what it will show.  Jackson’s death when it came, wasn’t a surprise; probably not even to him. And the crash of public policy fantasy, when it arrives, will not be wholly unexpected."

-- Richard Fernandez, showing he "gets" how NewAge is disastrously influencing society - without just saying (as I do) it's NewAge that's disastrously influencing society - which is why he qualifies (and I don't) for Pajamas Media.