Reporting and opinion By Mathew Carr

Nov. 4-5, 2024 — There’s a scene in the Netflix drama series “The Gentlemen” where the hero, an officer in some sort of east Europe UN peace-keeping force, is trying to play off American drug-lord gangsters against British ones.

The hero, who’s also a violent aristocratic English son, is trying to exit the drug business he inherited from his corrupt father.

The American drug lord, sitting in some smoke-filled “gentlemen’s club” in London, says this:

“Do you know what I love about the British aristocracy? They’re the original gangsters. The reason they own 75% of this country is because they stole it. William the Conqueror is worse than Al Capone. When he came over from France, he grabbed hold of everything he gets his hands on, and then he set up a system so that he and his friends got to hold onto it, forever. Taxation, education, the judiciary …was all designed to help the aristocracy hold on to their land and their money.”

The hero responds, sipping on something amber-coloured and strong: “Well, I think I may agree with you, but … I prefer to leave the criminality to my ancestors.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mathew Carr (@carrzeesustain)

Will Americans leave the gangster culture forever tomorrow? That’s an open question.

This global gangster culture has run its course, yet, unfortunately for the world, it’s going to take some wise and difficult choices to end it completely.

Tomorrow, November 5, 2024, marks one of those stark choices. And yet, is it really a proper choice?

Both sides of the American presidency race are offering vague change. Neither are offering too much by way of specifics.

The violence under Joe Biden’s administration has been staggering.

Everyone — 8 million of us — has watched in horror as defenceless women and children are slaughtered, in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine (and numerous other places).

The problem is the supposed people’s representatives, the press, are not “pressing” much at all. They are not making either side promise more specific solutions as a condition of winning the people’s USA vote.

Beholden to advertisers and governments, they are instead meant to scrutinize…the media is pretty much pretending the two sides are different, when they don’t vary that much at all (depending who you speak to).

Kamala Harris says she will stand up for the people, yet there’s only limited evidence she’s done so …so far while Vice President, about the same time as Donald Trump.

Yet the Washington DC swamp remains almost full of reckless, greedy creatures (according to reports about their behavior and that of their Israeli handlers – yes each elected official has a handler from AIPAC — America’s pro-Israel lobby.)

My statement about bad US leadership is not an outlying opinion, any more. But calling it out is not enough. These people need to be voted out.

Jeffrey Sachs, the scholar on geopolitics, economics and finance, set it out neatly last week at the Cambridge Union.

Gangster Game Theory

He said it was true that the west stoked the war in Ukraine …”and we’ll do the same with Taiwan, and we’ll lose any war that happens. But maybe the world will end also — over this stupidity. And the people in Washington are stupid. I’m telling you, I know them. [Nervous laughter here from the intellectuals in the audience] This is not my surmise,” he said.

The whole meeting is worth watching:

Sachs put the global violent culture down to a deep belief among the ruling classes of “game theory” … where everyone reckons it’s better to not cooperate because, if you do that, you might end up being played for a “sucker.”

The result is brutality, where losing is deemed worse than cooperation, pretty much every time … just because the fear of being taken advantage of prevails.

It prevails not just in peace negotiations, but also in talks to save climate and nature….This tactic is what the US (and other western countries and some others) has been doing to the rest of the world for the past nine years — since the world agreed in Paris in 2015 to cooperate to save the climate. More accurately, the world pretended to agree.

It’s going really badly, as people in Spain found out last week in a horrifying and deadly way. So are millions of people who have had family members killed, homes ruined, crops flattened, futures ruined.

Under the climate-talks game theory, the US and EU know it’s better to cooperate with China, India and Russia etc, yet they have decided the risk is too high of being played for a sucker.

What the heck?

Sachs: “The fact is, [if] you put real people …into an experimental game, they cooperate, half the time, three quarters of the time. And wonder of wonders, you let the two people talk beforehand, not to make a binding agreement: ‘Hey, why don’t we just cooperate.’ In game theory that’s called cheap talk [and so it’s not valued]. But if you put two people [in a negotiation game*] …and let them have pre-play communication, they cooperate more than 90% of the time.”

Wow!

There’s a further problem. World leaders are not placing value on the demonstration of trustworthiness, Sachs said. They play on intimidation, fear and anger instead.

Indeed, many people currently with the money and power simply do not even pretend to be trustworthy. They don’t enter sincere negotiations, at all.

They might instead launch an investigation, for instance, to perpetuate an unfair situation that’s enriching them…for a longer time.

NATO said it would not expand eastwards. It did. Is this gentlemenly behavior?

While the US said it would help save the climate as it cheerled the Paris deal, it instead massively expanded in oil and natural-gas production…not just under Mr Trump, but Mr Biden, Mr Obama etc etc. Gentlemen? No.

[The USA, with some reasonableness, might argue that it needed to increase its oil output in order to keep prices at reasonable levels. OPEC, without the consent of the world’s people, are corrupting the price for oil by withholding supply.]

The establishment is now being questioned, as I’ve never seen before. Spain’s king felt threatened yesterday as he surveyed climate damage.

Prince William is being attacked for his mouldy rentals.

One writer said this yesterday, I suspect, with irony: “I can’t see anything wrong with people who inherited stolen land charging the people they stole the land from, to use it. And then being exempted from tax. If it were wrong, god wouldn’t have anointed them.”

The “William the Conqueror attitude” still pervades throughout economies, in rich countries, poor ones and medium-wealthy ones.

It’s also across industries.

Let’s take the drug lord’s examples, for starters.

Taxation

Real people get penny pinched by the tax office while massive tax evasion by the wealthy is shrugged off as too difficult to address. Not at all gentlemanly.

Education (and health)

In the UK, universities are being starved of cash and academics that speak out are being fired. Teachers and headmasters suffer hugely stressful ratings events where schools are rated good or bad (when we all know such institutions all have good and bad in them). The same in hospitals, where the ratings system creates such fear, anyone speaking out about problems are targeted as the main problem. Victims of bad blood transfusions in Britain have suffered for decades until the new UK government finally set aside almost £12 billion of money last week. Many have died. America’s health system can be even more brutal.

Gentle? really?

Judiciary

When you are fighting wrongdoers in courts run by nation states that can create money out of thin air, how can you win? asked one whistleblower who has been trying to deal with the system for years.

Other sectors – entertainment

This is one of the worst industries for abuse of workers. I’ve been in touch with Ms Charles Seven, for instance, a London worker who says she’s been attacked by multiple organizations for two decades because she has tried to stick up for her own value as a person. Her complaints seem credible.

I could put hundreds of pages of legal documents from other whistleblowers in here.

The revelations of abuse of young women and girls are truly shocking. This podcast showing Germany as the main buyer of trafficked girls via countries led by Bulgaria … seems to have some credibility and the data is shocking.

Far from gentlemanly.

Banking

A big one. I’ve had personal experience of being victimized by my bank HSBC, which refuses to deal with companies improperly taking money from my account.

Technology

A huge one. Near everyone has had their human rights to peaceful and private living abused by tech companies, who will readily steal the time of their customers because their technology is shit…or sinister.

Transport

I’ve been told by a credible source that Transport for London employees get promoted based on the recommendations of Free Masons, and even by those with links to the Church of England, instead of based on merit. Secret societies still hold inordinate sway, even in 2024, as they protect the aristocracy and establishment. So even the transport of the people — the famous London tube — isn’t run by the people for the people.

The gentleness of the world depends on America’s vote.

The future

Some writing Xeets seem to think there is a “good side” to the military and that will save the people from the non-so-gentle establishment.

Even in my small corner of London, there does seem to be a surge in enforcement action.

Eg, see this chap, apparently a UK navy guy, last Sunday, walking our streets:

A more sustainable system is possible.

One that does not ruin nature and the climate and does not impinge on all of our human rights as people …we are supposedly in charge of our government representatives, after all.

The USA, with about 4% of global population, has about a quarter of global GDP. That’s why this moment is important.

Jeffrey Sachs says he gave up on the US government about 10 years ago, though he’s clearly still blowing the whistle.

He says he simply won’t vote tomorrow…out of disgust (see You Tube above).

I disagree with his position. We can’t leave it to some vague military operation.

Most ballots have other options other than the two main candidates. My advice would be (totally understand if you don’t care for my advice) don’t vote for a party that you think will be bad. If you think both options are bad, write “I don’t consent to the current system”. This sends a message, yet the message might not be counted and noted. Some say Sachs’ abstention is better, indicating lack of enthusiasm for the choices.

The news media earlier this week was filled with reports that the USA is entering a few weeks of deep uncertainty.

That may be true.

It’s worth some short-term angst in order to get some long-term, sustainable thinking and strategy and policy.

If you believe there is no planned strategy to retain and prolong the current corrupt system, then, with respect, you are wrong.

The 0.1% most wealthy, the aristocracy, are feeling threatened, and so they should be. They are probably surprised how long their exploitative strategy has prevailed.

I believe that, we the people, are fighting back after being attacked in a highly sophisticated fashion.

And American voters can help the fight back, as they vote. Or at least they might have. Had the candidates been better.

In the Netflix drama, the heads of the UK and US drug syndicates are sitting in some English jail. But it’s not justice.

It’s not a jail that you might imagine. It’s some type of luxury wing, with the implication the evil men are still overseeing their corrupt empires while under lock and key — and now they are working together to keep drug prices high, as they sup on expensive booze and delicacies. It’s a clear expression of the stickiness of the current system, as it works against the people. The gangster game theorists are strong.

(Nov. 5 — I smoothed language and earlier made it a little more clear and concise)

---

*prisoners’ dilemma game