I watched a new movie called "99 Homes". It's about a guy who lives with his mother and his son in their family home and they're evicted by the bank, represented by the Sheriff's department (of course) and a real estate broker representing the bank. They're thrown out onto the street with five minutes notice, all their furniture and personal belongings are taken out of the house and placed in the yard (for 24 hours before removal) and they're on their own. The guy and his mother truly believed they could work something out with the bank even though they received multiple notices of eviction and they were totally unprepared to move out on such a moment's notice.
They end up in a cheap hotel inhabited by others suffering from the same or similar misfortune with little opportunity to dig out of their hole. The guy ends up working for the real estate agent that helped evict him which requires him to do the same thing to others that was done to him.
He flourishes in the job although not without some anguishing over his role in doing dirty deeds for the banks. Some of the scenes are heartbreaking (assuming the presence of a heart). The guy gets his house back, with the help of the bankster's real estate agent, and takes a more direct role in the eviction operations.
It's not an easy movie to watch at times and purposefully causes introspection regarding the practice of humans preying on other humans for personal gain. The moral of the story goes straight to the moral dilemma caused by working and personally profiting from a system that causes misery and hardship for others.
How deep that introspection goes depends on the person. I've always like to "extend" things when analyzing an issue. A good example is "lesser evil" voting. Most democrats practice lesser evil voting when voting for someone like Hillary Clinton for President over the likes of a republican Donald Trump. Most republicans think they're doing the same damn thing when voting for Trump against Clinton. As one that doesn't believe in lesser evil voting, let alone voting in this absurd representative system as a whole, I've often extended that lesser evil voting practice out to the option of Satan vs. Satan's brother. In other words, how far will you go?
This movie resonates because it's at the ground level, the one we the Serfs have always been at, i.e., banks vs. the common people. So the moral dilemma focuses on those doing the dirty work for the banks. The banks represent the rich, the upper class, the aristocracy vs. the Serfs. It's an easy target for moral and ethical analysis. But extend that out and we get can easily get into cognitive dissonance territory.
The moral dilemma is the hurting and profiting off other people in the service of the rich, the bankers. Those doing the dirty deeds for the bankers are asked "how can you do this"? How can they dare do this kind of work when it results in such despair?
But extend that out. What about the U.S. military? What about those that work for the Government? What about those that vote for politicians that wage war and kill people? That's where the cognitive dissonance come into play. That's where consistency in moral and ethical practices are put to the test.
Our government has been waging war across the planet resulting in millions of deaths and the displacement (eviction) of many millions of innocent people, people who don't even owe money to a bank. The misery and despair being caused by U.S. imperialism is off the charts, there is no available comparison since Roman times. Think about all those working and facilitating U.S. imperialism. Think about all those who vote for politicians who wage U.S. imperialism.
How does that compare to a single real estate broker along with his desperate and confused former evictee that conjure up the moral and ethical feelings in this movie? The real estate broker and his evicted guy are called every name in the book by those affected by their "work" for the banks. They're called scumbags, sellouts, and dirty bastards. The people affected largely focus their angst on them and not the banks, for they are the ones doing the dirty work. They are the ones in front of them, not the suits in the banks and the shareholders profiting from it all.
Perhaps it's just an example about how we eat our own, how we focus our anger on those like ourselves, not on those who are really pulling the strings. It's the blacks, it's the illegal Mexicans, it's the Muslims, it's the Russians, it's the "terrorists" in Burns, OR, it's the republicans, it's the democrats, it's the dirty fucking hippies. It's all of you man, can't you see it's YOU?!
While those that create the conditions for illegal immigration, those that create the conditions for war, for racism, for militancy against the establishment are bypassed as too far up the food chain to bother. Untouchable. The serfs scream with rage at each other but accept that the ruling class has their own rules. They can steal and kill and lie and deceive but that's just the way it is. They're rich people. We're forced to hope that they hold each other accountable because they own the systems and we're supposed to accept that as American democracy.
Why do we do that? Why do we eat our own while allowing the real criminals, the primary ethical and moral violators to continue their assault on all of us? I suppose it's another "human nature" kind of thing. That's the way we are, the way we can be manipulated and controlled like the part of the animal kingdom we are.
Who do we blame? Those working for the "man", or the "man" himself? Is there a difference?
Are we all to blame?
Nah, it's the banksters, they own the place.
Revolution is Evolution
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