A belated but heartfelt Happy New Year to you “all” from RagingBull-shit.com.

In the spirit of renewal a New Year brings, I have posted below a clip of thought (and chuckle) provoking insights from the late, great George Carlin on some of the basic things we, as human beings, all have in common.

Against the current backdrop of worsening economic conditions, growing social divide, inter-religious tensions and escalating military conflict, it is a message that could not be more timely.

As Carlin notes, “all you ever hear about is our differences. All the media and politicians are ever talking about are the things that separate us, the things that make us different from one another. That’s how the ruling class operates in any society. They try to divide the rest of the people. They keep the lower and middle classes fighting each other, so that they, the rich, can run off with all the fucking money. Fairly simple thing, happens to work.”

What better time, then, than the arrival of a new year – especially one as ominous-sounding as 2013 – to put our differences aside and start working together to build a more sustainable, harmonious world? After all, we could hardly do worse than the reverse-Robin Hood financial system currently in place, which takes from the poor and predominantly productive to give to the privileged but predominantly parasitical. The good news is that it is a system whose days are numbered, thanks to the dual pressures of unsustainable, unpayable debt and an out-of-control derivatives market that now dwarfs the global economy by orders of magnitude.

However, as the global economic system continues to unravel, we will need to draw on all our reserves of collective resolve, unity and wisdom to resist the seductive charm of hate-filled demagogues that, as in the 1930s, are just waiting to crawl out of the political woodwork. As Mark Twain warned, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Instead of falling for the classic divide-and-conquer ruse, blaming the weakest and most vulnerable among us (immigrants, religious minorities, single mothers, the poor…) for our own shortcomings and the chronic failings of our current crop of leaders, let’s first try to understand how and where it is that we, as a society, have gone so wrong.

As part of that process, a complete reassessment of the financial and political systems that have brought us to the very edge of financial abyss will be needed – something the leaders in government, business, finance and media will be loath to let happen.

But remember, they are few and we are legion. The problem is that we all too often allow ourselves to be distracted from the real threat in our midst – a near omnipotent system of monetary fascism – and the real culprits in this tragedy – an out-of-control banking sector and its enablers in the central banks and government.

So, let’s begin 2013 with a fresh start. Put it down to naiveté or stubborn idealism – a step up, at least, from my usual cynicism and fatalism – but I believe the only way out of our current mess is to look beyond (at least temporarily) our entrenched racial, tribal, cultural, religious or social differences in order to join forces and work together to reshape our world.

To paraphrase Carlin, it’s time we came back “to those little things we have in common, little universal moments that we share separately…”