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I haven't exactly been shy about using the word "Fascist", have I? (tsk tsk) I see no reason to be constrained within the parameters of politeness when what has been done to us by the piggish 1% is so goddam rude. - AIW
Thom Hartmann ~ Probably the first thing we can do is to start calling our ruling oligarchy exactly what it is--fascism. We color coat our language in this nation too much. We are polite when we talk to bullies. We give them the advantage at every turn.
2950-10K ~ Well said! Very well said!!
Loren Bliss ~ You sure do paint an ugly picture. However, if I might remind you of your own axiom 3 - D, we have to go back to that 50-50 revolution and incorporate all the nations, peoples, and groups who are currently--or previously--either under siege by the One Percent, or very pissed off from the One Percents track record. As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Not only would this list likely include both China and Russia, it would also include such localities as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, North Korea, a host of other Pacific Rim and Middle Eastern nations too. Who will support the One Percent who--as their very own controlling metaphor suggests--will continue to sink into ever receding circles of interest and in doing so alienate ever increasing numbers of people?
I seriously question that a final confrontation with this group would be that evenly matched. However, I can certainly see where having accumulated all that wealth and power has its advantages. Perhaps hoping you are wrong is just wishful thinking on my part. It just seems that considering all the feet the One Percent had to step on to get where they are today, the moment the confrontation begins all those previous blood enemies are going to remember how they were once treated and come flying out of the woodwork for the opportunity of vengeance. Just call me a dreamer--I just hope I'm not the only one.
Also, it is true that the accumulation a great wealth has many advantages; however, one big advantage it has in this case is for the 99 Percent...
Is it not true that in every successful past revolution it is the overconfidence manifested by the powers in charge that led to their own downfall? Is it not also true that this overconfidence was a natural manifestation of the accumulation of great wealth? Therefore, is it not also forthcoming that with the ever shrinking concentration of wealth in this nation that the same conditions are being created for history to naturally repeat itself? Finally, was this ultimate confrontation--and it's outcome--also not predicted to occur by Karl Marx himself?
Exactly (hit the ail on the head). This is full blown class warfare. The rich even control the outcome of elections vey flooding elections with money. Last congressional race, Politician nine out of 10 times. Anyone who believes votes determine the outcome of elections is sadly naïve (Determines the outcome in a meaningful sense as intended, that is).
As usual, republicans "project" what they cause to happen, onto democrats (this case death panels).
I don't know if being armed is against the law and intimidation is a hard word to define in a court of law, but i heard one of the armed protesters kicked a dog. If that was my dog he would be in the hospital today. Those militia dudes are all the same. like bamanas, they are yellow and hang in a bunch. I read that law enforcement is not tipping its hand on the next move. You can bet all those militia bullies will regret the decision to go to the protest armed. They went there and illegally stopped traffic and knew they were confronting federal law enforcement. Forget ALQueda, the FBI has a new target right here in our back yard. Time to take out the trash. The old man is going to pay too. He seems to think the federal government and the revenue it collects is somehow an option for him, as opposed to the rest of us taxpaying citizens. The government was smart to back away from the potential shootout scenario and will see to it this will not happen again. Those idiot militia guys are really going under the microscope now. Them and everyone they have been in contact with for the last 20 years.
Loren: I too have finally accepted the "one ruling class party with two names," as the sad truth. The Progressive Caucus is the only shred of hope I continue to cling to. Their recent budget proposal was a good one, but Ryan's nonsense gets all the press, without any details mentioned of course. The private powers that control the, "one ruling class party," have become far stronger than our Democratic State itself, which you know is essence and definition of Fascism. I'm glad to see you use this definition. I've noticed many of the polite Democrats have refused to use this definition in favor of the word Oligarchs, a correct but kinder and less harsh label. The word Oligarch doesn't register to 99% of the poulation, it's simply an unknown neutral word. On the other hand the word Fascist does register, it registers as negative instantly. It's queer how the word "Socialist" gets demonized and misused by the right wing, but Democrats refuse to use the word Fascist in it's proper context for fear of being rude or bombastic...go figure. That soft demeanor is part of the reason it's been so easy for Fascist's like the Koch's to seize power.
I really want to address a false perception related to our comments. I'm certain that many believe revolution and widespread unrest is a far fetched notion being spread only by a few alarmists. However when one considers the will of the people is no longer even remotely on the table and that the will of the billionaires is all that matters, it becomes much easier to understand our projections. What the masses need to realize is that the handful of Fascists in control are a highly mentally unstable group of individuals. I don't mean that they are functionally nuts like a Caligula. Their obsessive and reckless thirst for endless money and power regardless of the cost to society, puts them more in the category of Bonaparte and Hitler. These individuals are in full control at the moment and their mental instability is why I'm convinced we are on the verge of violent unrest. They will continue to ratchet up attempts to put down all grassroots movements by appealing to the various cities to violate our first amendment right to peaceably assemble. They were successful quelling the Occupy Movement with this strategy.
I'm convinced the Fascists will resort to violence if the Democratic Socialist movement coalesces as you say it will. They won't be able to stop themselves, their obsessive quest for more money and power will blind them to all rational actions and responses. They won't go down with just nonviolent attempts at correction of their illness. You and I both know what history has shown over and over....we know all too well how Hitler and Bonaparte's stories both ended and the cost to society to "end them." There's no pretty ending thanks in large part to the disappearance of a free press and the Fascist supporters sitting on the Supreme Court.
Is it any wonder that this is the way it is ! Your entire culture comes from the stories we tell ourselves about what life is about .A conciousness of separation and not enough of anything produces that in your reality .
The current reality is a kind of every man for himself as this is the kind of god that most people believe in and is not something that most people want to look at .So this separate god is yesterday,s spirituality.
Life is tough there are at least 3 billion people living in poverty about 1.5 billion live in absolute poverty.This is basic needs people where daily survival is a major task.The reason is because we have a profit survival mentality .From these illusions of insufficiency and Disunity our economy emerges.The idea of not enough to go around and that humans are separate from each other forms the basis of humans entire economic model.
Presently on the planet wealth is defined as possessions and power .The old spirituality encourages you to have dominion over the Earth .You have interpreted this as domination .So you ave imagined that ownership of, or power over ,people places and things is an asset -or part of what you have called wealth.So according to this paradigm ,the more things you owned ,the more POWER you have and the wealthier you are.
So it's obvious why the system is the way it is the problem with the rat race is your still a rat if you win !
Bring on Tomorrow's God who declares that there is enough to go around for everyone scarcity is an illusion and that we are all one so we will devise ways of treating everyone as you would want to be treated,giving everyone what you would want to be given ,and providing everyone with what you would want to be provided .
We are all being payed like a fiddle but to change the music you must change the beliefs that sponsor the existing reality the existing reality is not real we have made it all up based upon our ideas about god and life .
Bring on the New Spirituality this is the only thing that can change the existing reality .Beliefs create behaviours and behaviours create on the ground experience.
namaste
NO Kend. We need to choose between a trillion-dollar war department and rebuilding bridges, roads and schools. DUH.
The elderly have "tremendous wealth"? Not on the planet I occupy. - Alice I.W.
DAnne. I should have been more clear. It not just money, the whole infrastructure is crumbling. America had to make a choice rebuild bridges, roads, schools etc or build solar panels and wind turbines. We all know which way they went. Time will tell if it was the right decession. If earth just had a short warming trend and is adjusting back to normal temps we saddled or youth with a huge debt. If sceince is right they saved the world. Well kinda, China and India will destroy it anyway. Either way the young are going to pay.
The good news for the youth is the elderly have a tremendous amount of wealth and as they pass on their kids will get it and spent it. This I believe will pull the next generation through. If it's left in the hands of Americans only of course if the government gets ahold of it They will just piss it away.
I got a Chinese fortune cookie that said, blessed are the youth for they shall inherit the debt.
Countries laugh at what we have become.
I did keep it for the irony of how sad we are.
2950-10K, the unified ideology described by axiom (3)-(A) is already taking shape amidst the grassroots. It is beyond the domain of the two Ruling Class parties (actually one Ruling Class party with two names), and even beyond the Tea Party and its various overtly fascist subsets, (i.e., the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, the other such groups whose banners are part of the international fascist solidarity demonstrations now taking place in Kiev). This new unified ideology has yet to acquire a name and formal structure, but it is a hybrid of democratic socialism (cooperative and/or public ownership of vital services and the means of production); Marxism (recognition of the historical truth of class struggle and the necessity of disciplined Working Class solidarity); traditional anarchism (healthy distrust of hierarchal organizations) and classical Jeffersonian populist democracy (one person/one vote, fostered by the Internet). It has already made itself apparent in innumerable small ways, particularly as the (failed) Occupy movement and its more localized successes, including the relief efforts of Occupy Sandy in and around New York City, the rapidly growing popularity of the Socialist Alternative Party in Seattle and Minneapolis, and the brushfire-fast nationwide spread of SA's $15 Now! campaign to raise the minimum wage to livable-income levels. When and if this incipient movement coalesces and comes to power, it would be absolutely compatible with the U.S. Constitution and would in fact be its fulfillment. The vital questions are therefore how and when its self-recognition will progress to the point of formalization, and whether it have the solidarity (strength) and courage to withstand the inconceivably violent reaction by which the One Percent and the Ruling Class will try to suppress it, the forces for which are already in place.
Apropos a civil war, I too see that, but probably not as you do. Assuming a successful revolution -- note again its four prerequisites -- a situation would probably evolve similar to what obtained in the old Russian Empire after 1918, with the One Percent trying (with the support of various overseas allies) to regain power, and the revolutionaries equally determined to hang on to the "liberated" parts of the U.S. The One Percent, in keeping with the lavish funding it is pouring into establishment of theocratic governance, would no doubt declare its territories ruled by Biblical Law, thereby ensuring the fealty of the South and the Midwestern interior, but both coasts and no doubt Alaska too would side with the revolution. The nation as we know it would cease to exist (as it nearly has anyway), and the land would be sundered in such ways that, combined with terminal climate change, would probably take at least a thousand years for recovery. Hence my vision of "the violent anarchy of Somalia, the toxicity of Fukushima (as the One Percent would not hesitate to nuke rebellious cities), the poverty of post-earthquake Haiti." The global power center would of course shift far eastward: China unquestionably, Russia more than likely. As to what remained of the former United States, part of it would be absorbed by expansions of Mexico and Canada and probable Russian reclamation of its former Pacific Northwest possessions; the remainder would either be uninhabitable due to the lingering toxicity inflicted by CBR (chemical, biological, radiological) warfare or so impoverished by isolation its habitable lands would be realms of famine and disease.
Were the One Percent to win -- and I believe the odds are 50-50 -- most if not all of the same conditions would apply save that the residents of lands under One Percent control would be no better than slaves...which is of course what the One Percent already intends for all of us in the Working Class anyway.
As I said, I'm damn glad I'm old.
Loren, As you know, economic injustice spawned by the concentration of wealth and power has the misery index into unbearable territory for many already. I'd like to think that revolution would become inevitable as this number continues to grow. The problem is, how does axiom number (3)- (A) fall into place given the propaganda tools currently in use. The same private powers that have overthrown our democracy control the media and thus the minds of enough citizens to make a unifying ideology next to impossible.
With groups like the Tea Party unknowingly being controlled by billionaires to the extent they are willing to vote themselves into poverty I see civil war breaking out before revolution. It's reminiscent of Confederates willing to die by the thousands in a foolhardy charge directly into grapeshot, this to simply protect a few wealthy neighbors desire to enslave their fellow man for the same old pursuit of money and power. I'm sure just like the Tea Party most impoverished Confederates had no idea who or what they were fighting for either.
Unification of ideology will require overcoming the lies spread by Fox, Sunday morning talk shows, Rove ads, right wing radio, and more. Despite the lack of axiom (3), In my opinion widespread unrest is still relatively near. Throw in the shock and panic that climate change will eventually cause and the decline of our empire will be complete. The billionaires will hire their version of the Varangian Guard, but even this will be futile. No one will respect those with wealth at that point anyway. Money will mean nothing. In fact the billionaires may well be the first targets of the unrest.
I think we need to get rid of campaigning; for example...
One year before an election, candiates would have to submit their resumes to a NON-PARTISAN Candidate Validation Committee (CVC). The CVC would verify and/or correct the information in the resume and add additional information such as age, marital status, general health, and, in the case of incumbants, legislative voting history (and probably any other information voters should have a right to know about a candidate), creating a Candidate Information Report (CIR) for each candidate.
Then, one month before the election, the CIRs would be published, probably on the internet, and made available for all to see. There would be no campaigning, no mudslinging, no political ads and no PACs. Voters would have to make their decisions based on the contents of the CIRs. Hopefully, most voters will vote with intelligence and logic, instead of emotion and passion.
Wow, what a fantasy...
Kend ~ Bless your little heart!! You are starting to make more and more sense every day. Thank God! Keep up the good work my friend!!
By the way, you are going to get a lot of flack for the "debt we are accumulating" statement. Obviously, we are accumulating this debt because of a long term initiation of debt accumulation policy and not simply because of the current administration. Not that I am inferring that the current administration is completely innocent of anything. They certainly are not!! However, partisan bickering is not resolving anything. You might want to make it crystal clear that this problem is a bipartisan problem--which is exactly what it is.
Until we break free of the partisan "point your finger" policy we are never going to end any of these easily scapegoated issues.
America already chose the "let 'em die" agenda for those pushed into poverty. The Medicaid expansion would be upward.
Cynical indeed. All we've heard for years is an ongoing pander-fest to the better off, the middle class -- the very people whose choices gave us the policies and politics we enjoy today. This isn't the first time the richest few gained too much power over government, to the harm of the country. This time, we can't push back because the "masses" - the poor and middle class, workers and the jobless - have been deeply divided, pitted against each other. Seriously, think about it -- We looked at the policies that were in place from FDR to Reagan, which took the US to its height of wealth and productivity, and chose to reverse course. Instead of legitimately addressing how we reached this miserable point, libs and Dems (with VERY rare exception) just have pep rallies for whatever remains of the middle class.
Loren Bliss ~ Very sad! Very sad, indeed! Yet I cannot help but relate to your sentiment. It is the same sentiment I've had since I was 5 years old. You are surely not alone. Nevertheless, never forget that the likes of you will be sorely missed amongst the ranks of the survivors. Please hold tight to that which you have as long as you can.
I think you need to get rid of the lobbyist. Then it would be difficult for special interests to get to the politictions. as a Canadian it is insane how long the election runs down there. It would help if politictions only had 3 months to campaign like in Canada . you can only spend so much in short of time and it evens things out.
Dianhow I fear for future generations as well but for different reasons. they are the ones who are going to get stuck with the massive bill are going to get for all the debt you are accumulating.
Five axioms concerning capitalist governance:
Definitions: The One Percent is the hereditary capitalist aristocracy that owns the nation's wealth. The Ruling Class consists of the politicians, bureaucrats, police commanders, military officers and business executives who serve the One Percent. The purpose of capitalist governance is absolute power and unlimited profit for the One Percent, total subjugation for everyone else.
Hence:
(1)-The non-responsiveness of the Ruling Class to the popular will is directly proportionate to the extent the Ruling Class is indebted to -- and therefore effectively owned by -- the One Percent.
(2)-The probability of revolution is directly proportionate to the non-responsiveness of the Ruling Class.
(3)-The probability of successful revolution is based on the presence of four historically proven prerequisites. These are (A)-a unifying ideology; (B)-effective leadership and disciplined organization; (C)-mastery of extant technologies; (D)-support by one or more foreign powers.
(4)-The probability of violent revolution is directly proportionate to the Ruling Class capability of violently suppressing non-violent revolution.
(5)-The negative consequences of violent revolution -- death, famine, disease, destruction -- are directly proportionate to the refusal of the One Percent and its Ruling Class to yield to the popular will.
(In other words, no matter who wins, life in a post-revolutionary United States would be no more or less wretched than life in a land that combines the violent anarchy of Somalia, the toxicity of Fukushima and the poverty of post-earthquake Haiti. Which is why I am so very glad I'm old -- so old I probably won't be alive when the revolution happens.)
As a garden designer, I believe political posters are on the list of Things That Should Not Appear in the Streetside Landscapes of Residential Zoned Areas. Stick them in the rear, if you must.
As Al Gore observed, the TV has completely reshaped modern elections.
To combat the imbalance the rich will exert on the public mind with their unlimited spending,
put restrictions on when TV political ads can be aired: time of day, which days before an election.
Just as porn shops have their freedom of speech yet are restricted to certain parts of town, so
too should political ads be allowed in unlimited quantities at well posted times and places.
cccccttttt
The ONLY answer is to vote.
Everyone must vote.
THEY can spend $millions, $billions, it doesn't matter - we have to get out the vote.
VOTE
I greatly fear for future generations. I pledge to do all I can to Prevent any more far right judges on US Supreme Court. I hope its NOT too late for all voters to realize the Roberts Court is giving complete control to powerful Corps - Billionaires / Lobbyists .. Robber Barons of the 21 st Century People must think long term. Using logic and reason Not anger or hate . Speak out now & often www.whitehouse.gov www.congress.gov Money is NOT speech ! Corps are NOT persons ! End Citizens United
If the current levels of corruption and greed in Washington remain unchecked,
My former representative Mike Thompson would not even acknowledge constituent issues unless he received $1,000 from them.