Hubris: the ancient sin of pride.

Part of the intrinsic basis on which the western world has been predicated over the past few decades has been on the idea that the old order should change, yield place to new; and those previously disadvantaged by the discriminatory idiosyncrasies of the past, should be given full license to catch up on lost gains.

Broadly this philosophy of governance has been termed liberal and it meant just that. One interprets all the old established rules relativistically, rather than in terms of highly confrontational absolutes.

Again, broadly speaking, most fair minded people would seem to have accepted these changes to conventional patterns of behaviour in good if grumblesome spirit, on the premise that society would improve over time, and that all citizens would become better behaved, and set aside their violent, abusive and gratuitously indiscriminate rage, in the interests of a better life.

The result has been change on an unimagined scale, as testified by this reality of the blog world with its empowerment of the writer. Galbraith once described the circumstances leading into the Great Depression years of the thirties as a 'dog chasing its own tail. The same circumstance has been true of the conditions prevailing before every crash with which I have been a familiar since the 60’s. Even by the standards of boom and bust however this week has been a seminal one in the male/yang dominant, competitive, take-no-prisoners world spawned by the Liberal ethos.

Abuse. Quite simply: abuse. revealed and spurned. Although we see 'spin' as an essential ingredient of our modern consumer economy there are limits, undefined but nonetheless there... and when the worm turns, as it were, and economies go into their periodic melt downs, from which there is no guarantee of recovery except,perhaps, over a long time frame, then in our mortification at being duped the market takes its revenge as representative of our collective rage.

In some cases abuse is simply revealed in its most naked form and is yet to be denounced; as with China’s ongoing Colonialist oppression of the Tibetans; described accurately no doubt by the Dalai Llama as cultural genocide. This week has seen the oppressed rise, and like those struggling for freedom in Myan Mar, their vouice is stilled with violence and brutality and suppression of news; as though we don't know... ! And because we don't know we can surmise the worst, knowing that no politician on this planet, least of all a Chinese dictator, nor increasingly, leading business persons, have any credibility at all.

The fact that Tibet was a theocratic dictatorship before China invaded it back in the immediate post-war era [WW2] does not make its colonialist oppression any less genocidal today. The country has brutally suppressed its own people for generations, why should it be nice to people it despises. So it may be that China is faced with a similar reality to that face by Moscow in 1980, especially with an American election in the offing in the deep dark shadow of a pending economic slump. It could prove politically convenient for Mr Mc Cain, for instance to use the suspension of USA participation in the games as an election weapon, should he be denied race or gender as he well may be, with which to lie his way to the Presidency.

Retribution however has come swiftly to others who experienced the heady hubris of unimagined success and abuse of prudence over these past halcyon years: and i am not referring to the Governor of New York and terror of prostitutes and other moral crusadfes: busted this past week and forced to resign, for shagging Prossy #9.

No, I refer to the late Bear-Stearns: this week consigned ignominiously to history’s favourite dustbin and, at home, to the infamous Mr Robert Mc Bride, chief of police for a large urban crime riddled region.

Bear-Stearns helped pioneer some of the riskiest lending procedures a liberalised State could conceive of, backed up by a supportive governmental regulatory environment that encouraged the abandonment of accounting prudence in favour of the casino royale. After all if the president was going to gamble with a war in which a single smart piece of munitions represents the 'fire-sale' price of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan this week, then what value does anything have? They certainly contributed to that amazing truth of our times; that the world of video money, which is our world today, has created a casino economy founded on speculation, and the high speed movement of almost unlimited amounts of capital.

Almost. The corresponding truth is that so much of the era spawned by the disingenuous mindsets of Mssrs Clinton and Blair came to a grinding halt last year; [see my blog: September 07 Bureaucracy,August holidays and the old Achilles heel] when the truth of that famous slogan, emblazoned on the back of ‘Zola Budds’ around the city: “TRUST NO ONE”, became blindingly obvious: and banks simply stopped lending money to each other.

In a world in which lying has become a standard response, the only truth become the market. The market judged Bear Stearns: and tossed it.

Back home Mr Mc Bride’s many detractors constantly accuse him, among other things, of being a consummate liar. This is not strictly speaking seen as a weakness. Resistance politics are founded on lying. James Mahlangu, a “struggle hero” and former premier of one of the country’s fractious provincial administrations famously announced some years ago now, that lying was a normal political activity. [ He left office soon after].

Mr Mc Bride is accused of driving whilst intoxicated, a charge he denies. This week, in his court appearance, during the testimony of prosecution witnesses, we have been exposed to an alleged disturbing pattern of behaviour presided over apparently by Mr Mc Bride, in his role as police chief, which, if found true, will go a long way to support the political opposition’s claims that corruption in our society has become systemic.

Mr Mc Bride has always presented himself as a victim of colonialist oppression and has been pardoned regularly by his supporters for his idiosyncratic behaviour. While Mr Mc Bride has demonstrated over and over again that he is not a man to be counted out, it is beginning to look as though “the market” of opinion may yet count reach an unintended tipping point against him.

Like the sins of the electricity company, Eskom, whose machinations in support of higher tariffs [ in SA] border on human rights violations, those who lie to gain preferment are revealed starkly when economies turn.

Hubris: the sin of pride. The sin of our times..