Every few generations (depending on how much or how little attention the folk are paying) the oligarchs get extraordinarily greedy. Just so there’s no misunderstanding---the oligarchs, are the very rich, who don’t just have a whole lot of money---these are the people who have had the money forever---they own the f—king bedrock. That’s an oligarch. (See: Covert Operations)
Oligarchs are often control freaks. Control freaks want things their way only. They do not understand the concept of live and let live---peaceful co-existence. Then again megalomaniacs seldom do.
Naturally, freedom and liberty which are usually associated with the civil liberties have almost no place in the world of the oligarchs. Control freaks have no appreciation for the concept of live and let live---peaceful coexistence.
Those who would foist their views on us deprive us of our freedoms. Civil liberties are always at odds with the intent of those who are powerful by means of either their money or numbers. American’s civil liberties, have been pared down dramatically in recent years despite the best efforts of a few lead by organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union.
It is when those intents become public policy that we’ve been at our very most vulnerable. Presently income inequality in America is leading us to what Arianna Huffington has termed Third World America. Arianna Huffington Sees A 'Third World America’
bush3 sorry ya’ll…….
Establishing a New Normal
National Security, Civil Liberties, and Human Rights Under the Obama Administration
An 18-Month Review
In the eighteen months since the issuance of those executive orders, the administration’s record on issues related to civil liberties and national security has been, at best, mixed. Indeed, on a range of issues including accountability for torture, detention of terrorism suspects, and use of lethal force against civilians, there is a very real danger that the Obama administration will enshrine permanently within the law policies and practices that were widely considered extreme and unlawful during the Bush administration. There is a real danger, in other words, that the Obama administration will preside over the creation of a "new normal."
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/establishing-new-normal
So is it any wonder the founders didn’t stand up a democracy?
The Tea Partiers insist they are voting to throw out those insiders! Why? “Because the ‘insiders’ won’t create jobs” they insist!!
Well listen up Tea Partiers, it is unlikely the “new” people--- you know the “non-insiders” you intend to put in office will be able to affect much “change” or create the jobs everyone wishes existed.
That’s worth repeating, the Tea Party “non-insiders” (if elected) will be very junior in standing and in numbers and thus not in charge of any important committees. “Non-insider” Tea Partiers are going to be insufficient in numbers and additionally will lack the seniority to enable them to make major overhauls to the processes in place presently.
These “non-insiders” will more than likely be marginalized by the “big two.” Regardless they will not have the sway it takes to create jobs--- except of course for one job---the Tea Partiers and apathetic voters gave them.
But if the entire congress were suddently comprised of Tea Partiers---given the Tea Party agenda that looks to dismantle enormous bureaucracies (Social Security including Medicare, Medicaid and the Department of Education, inter alia) questions emerge.
How is dismantling the only safety net most Americans have going to create jobs? Where are those unemployed by all the dismantling going to work? Where will the money come from?
To create jobs on the massive scale being demanded two events must take place; the spending of tax dollars and the creation of large bureaucracies---both anathema to the Tea Party Platform.
All the swagger, mean-spiritedness, anger and vehemence in the world is not going to “change” that. Revolution could---but the diatribe,harangues and derision of Tea Party ontological vacuums are a far cry from a “revolution.” Sorry folks.
Little wonder Alexander Hamilton referred to the masses as “the Beast.” Hamilton most feared that folk armed with emotion charged anger, prejudice and mean-spiritedness--- would also vote. It was and is a well-founded fear it seems.
The real force to be reckoned with is not the puppets in the congress it is the puppet masters a/k/a the oligarchs.
Paul Krugman in his, The Conscious of a Liberal, and now Robert Reich’s, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, as well as recently released examinations of the facts confirm this. (See: Americans Want to Live in Sweden)
Reich Blames Economy's Woes On Income Disparity
Economist Robert Reich isn't surprised at the anemic economic recovery from the meltdown in 2008. His new book, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, argues that the economy isn't going to get moving again until we address a fundamental problem: the growing concentration of wealth and income among the richest Americans.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130189031
Superrich Americans Driving Income Inequality
The 400 people on Forbes magazine's list of the richest Americans saw their combined net worth climb 8 percent this year. The good news for the wealthy comes as the poverty rate has reached a 15-year high and unemployment remains stuck near 10 percent.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130052776&sc=nl&cc=bh-20100929
Once there was a time when sufficient numbers of Americans, were lucid and cared enough to take charge of their own destiny. Now it seems that spirit is elsewhere. The Tea Party thing---not so much. It simply exchanges one set of puppets for another.
D.C., suburbs show disturbing increases in childhood poverty
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/28/AR2010092800465.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Americans Want to Live in Sweden
http://baselinescenario.com/
Americans Vastly Underestimate Wealth Inequality, Support 'More Equal Distribution Of Wealth': Study
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/23/americans-support-wealth-redistribution_n_736132.html
Americans tread water in gulf between rich, poor
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_census_wealth_gap
oh and those samne Americans know even less about the man-made dogma to which they (Americans) say they (Americans) subscribe.
Survey: Atheists, Agnostics Know More About Religion Than Religious
Also interesting is that Black Protestants and Latino Catholics scored at the bottom of the survey.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/09/28/130191248/atheists-and-agnostics-know-more-about-bible-than-religious?ft=1&f=100
What Americans Do and Don’t know about Religion
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/july-dec10/religion_09-28.html
With a Democratic majority in both houses, 41nominated federal judges go without confirmation?
Obama's Judicial Nominees Stalled In Senate
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111343213&ft=1&f=1001
From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…
Hasta Siempre,
More:
American Dream foreclosed
Banks stepped up foreclosures through the summer and will take over a record 1.2 million homes this year, up from around 1 million last year and about 100,000 in 2005 before the housing bust, according to a forecast from the real estate data company.
Nearly one in four second-quarter home sales a foreclosure
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100930/us_nm/us_usa_housing_foreclosuresales
the majority population of Texas Red unhappy with a Democrat? Say it isn’t so……
Texans unhappy with government, too
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/politics/Texans_are_unhappy_with_government_too_103839733.html
what ayn rand and ann coulter and those of their ilk just happened to miss or plain don’t get…..
The Importance of the 1970s
At a high level, the lesson of Winner-Take-All Politics is similar to that of 13 Bankers: when looking at economic phenomena, be they the financial crisis or the vast increase in inequality of the past thirty years, it’s politics that matters, not just abstract economic forces. One of the singular victories of the rich has been convincing the rest of us that their disproportionate success has been due to abstract economic forces beyond anyone’s control (technology, globalization, etc.), not old-fashioned power politics. Hopefully the financial crisis and the recession that has ended only on paper (if that) will provide the opportunity to teach people that there is no such thing as abstract economic forces; instead, there are different groups using the political system to fight for larger shares of society’s wealth. And one group has been winning for over thirty years.
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/09/13/the-importance-of-the-1970s/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BaselineScenario+%28The+Baseline+Scenario%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail
Library of Congress/Religion
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html
Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-18764-San-Antonio-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2009m10d4-Texas-Red-a-cratered-landscape-of-prisons-deplorable-public-education-lack-of-healthcare-and-poli
The Conscience of a Liberal
http://www.krugmanonline.com/books/the-conscience-of-a-liberal.php
Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity
www.amazon.com/Good-Capitalism-Economics-Growth-Prosperity/dp/0300158327/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285203922&sr=1-1
13 Bankers
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307379051
Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
http://www.amazon.com/Winner-Take-All-Politics-Washington-Richer-Turned/dp/1416588698
Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future
http://www.amazon.com/Aftershock-Next-Economy-Americas-Future/dp/0307592812/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1285922323&sr=1-1
Texas Red
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-18764-San-Antonio-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2009m10d4-Texas-Red-a-cratered-landscape-of-prisons-deplorable-public-education-lack-of-healthcare-and-poli
No comments:
Post a Comment