doc wilmot: well said! And that was a very good quote! Thanks!

In Europe before the 1400's, a middle class of merchant city dwellers ("burgheren" in German, "bourgeousie" in French) arose as a result of industrial manufacture (not really the Black Plague), grew strong, as industrial manufacture grew strong, and eventually overthrew the ruling class of the time, the feudal aristocracy - in revolutions as the American in 1776 and French in 1789 - and thus became the ruling class themselves.

When a nominally Marxist revolution succeeded in Russia in 1917 the capitalist powers panicked and militarily attacked Russia on 26 fronts and waged economic war upon it with embargos and blockades. The panic and fear of the prospect of Marxist/Leninist revolution at home in the U.S. and Europe caused those governments to take measures at prevention.

First was repression with "Red Scares" like in the 1920s when communists of both authoritarian and anti authoritarian types (Leninist, Marxist, anarchist) were hunted and jailed and killed. Then, after a crisis of capitalism in 1929, when revolution actually seemed imminent, they tried appeasement. They created "capitalism with a human face" with various forms of quasi socialism with New Deal in the U.S. and "social democracy" (mixed economy) in Europe.

This continued until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today there is no more a fear of communist revoution thus no need for appeasement of the populace with quasi socialism. Capitalism has dropped its human face.

What the Reagan Thatcher era represented was an adjustment to the loss of imperial hegemony with the nationalization by Mid Eastern nations of their oil industry (beginning with Iraq) in 1973. Until then we were a colonial power and all Americans and Western Europeans were as a world wide ruling class. Afterwards the Westerners could no more enslave non Westerners thus the American and Western European upper classes turned on and cannibalized their own working class for that purpose and enslaved them (us) instead.

Mark: Yes, the Black Panthers were hunted down and shot..they were just a few people scattered about at that time. But they scared the police when they put on that little show in Oakland, I believe it was, when they lined up, military style with their weapons, showing that they weren't going to be pushed around. It was just a small demonstration, as was the 100 Nevadan armed civilians, that a show of force back at the authorities can get them to back down...at least for a time.

What I am talking about, however, is not just a few armed people, I'm talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of armed resisters...in numbers greatly outnumbering the police or national guard or even military. We all do greatly outnumber these forces. Let's see what is 98% of roughly 300 million? Well, that's a pretty big number. And all it would take is for millions of citizens to just own, and know how to use weapons, to show the government what they would be up against if they ticked off the people too much. But, now, since they have convinced many citizens to give up their weapons, we are ripe for screwing over. We'll keep electing Democrats that turn out to be turn-coats, no better than Republicans. And they'll keep screwing us. Sending our jobs overseas. Not paying their fair share of the taxes. Continue Wall Street trickery that depletes people's savings and investments. Maybe, even one day, disappearing your savings and checking accounts from your banks. They'll keep herding us down that chute for the slaughter. And they'll get away with it....because we are largely unarmed and unwilling to show massive force against our oppressors.

If we were all armed, as we all should be, we could keep those 1 or 2 percent scared to death that they would not be able to continue screwing everyone else as they have been. The propaganda over the years to keep us all unarmed is part of the big reason why the 1 or 2 percent have gotten away with what they have. They know that, when the people are largely unarmed, all they have to do is convince the people that they might have some say (the hope illusion) through the ballot box..ie: electing one of the two parties to office that are controlled by the ruling elite. They might have even staged incidents to frighten people into giving up their guns...MKULTRA is not dead. Sure accidents do happen, and the forces of oppression, uses that as hyped propaganda to make people want to give up their guns or not get them in the first place. And occasionally, some guy goes berserk and kills a bunch of people. But it doesn't take a gun for that. Just the other day some kid kills and injures a lot of school kids with a knife. So, what are we going to do...ban knives?

Hey Palin, m'bark's worse than m'bite. Relax, buddy!

AIW: #50: You never actually said anything about that, I was just being proactive (paranoid?) that you might. ;-}

Publicly financed campaigns, as were had in Maine and Arizona, took the lobbyists right out of the picture but those and the reforms you suggested, Kend, were struck down by Citizens United.

Thom, I know you know this: before Washington prioritizes the lives of Americans over the interests of Big Chem, Big Pharma, Big Oil ad nauseam, we must take back our representative government via Move To Amend and campaign finance reform. Until then, all this is just wishful thinking. - Aliceinwonderland

Loren, I appreciate your diplomacy. While I can't speak for Thom Hartmann, I'll take the liberty to share my understanding of what his message is. Having listened to Thom quite a bit over the past five or six years, I think I have a good idea where he is coming from. Thom is trying to motivate us to become more politically engaged; not only to vote, but to get active and raise hell when necessary. We are way overdue for a mass movement of resistence against this fascist hijacking of our government. It is imperative we find a way to take our country back, otherwise we are doomed... not just as a nation but as a species.

I agree with your basic assertion that the situation is dire. However I balk at the hopelessness you've often expressed so articulately. And I'm well aware of the cynicism I've conveyed in some of my own posts. It's hard to not be cynical at times. But I refuse to give up hope. We need to find a way to come together and channel all this anger into action. THAT is the choice, I believe, Thom is referring to. Bitching & complaining has its place (like this blog), but we need to do a lot more than that to dethrone these goddam pigs. The stakes have never been higher. We will never prevail without a movement that is focused, strategic and UNIFIED. That means (as Marc has pointed out repeatedly) setting aside our differences and joining forces against a common enemy. Nothing less than that will do. And therein lies our choice.

I also appreciate you acknowledging the "human potential for transcending hopelessness" and "evolving a working solution". Please dear comrade, hang onto that. For yourself and for us. - Aliceinwonderland

"Chuckle8" says "AIW, Palin -- As I have stated before, it seems that you are carrying out the master plan of the oligarchy. Their plan is to make both parties look the same, so the populace will not bother to vote." Chuck- Hey wait a minute! When did I do THAT? Please quote me and prove my guilt. If you can prove it, my apologies. If ya can't, kiss mah grits!

I have, on various occasions, pointed out that Repugs & Dems are not the same; more often than not, citing Project Vote Smart's detailed voting records of congressmen & women from both parties for evidence to back up my claim. If any comments I've made since then seem contradictory, again my apologies. I'm not on fire over the Democrats; they're still way too beholden to corporate interests, as virtually everyone here is well aware. I still think the two-party system blows. But to go from there to the assertion that both parties are identical is quite a stretch. - Aliceinwonderland

Loren B -- Thom does not provide false hope. He implies constantly if no "movetoamend.org" there is no hope. The main hope he preaches is the collapse of our economic system i.e. "Crash of 2016". When that happens, he hopes people would be inspired enough to go to movetoamend.org.

SHFabian -- I hope you do not think MSNBC is progressive media. What is Thom leaving out about the bottom 20%? It is interesting to note that Richard Wilkerson in his book "Spirit Level" about economich quality does not use the gini coefficient. The metric he uses for showing all the ills of our society due to economic inequality is the ratio between the top 20% and the bottom 20%.

AIW, Palin -- As I have stated before, it seems that you are carrying out the master plan of the oligarchy. Their plan is to make both parties look the same, so the populace will not bother to vote. They know the lower vote total, the higher the probabiltiy of the repug party winning the election.