There is no such thing as a “coincidence.”
When I was a very young man in the throes of the apartheid public education system in extremely segregationist Virginia, it first occurred to me that the Great Depression was not a spontaneous, unpreventable event. (I had by that point in my life read enough history and current events to know better. I also had a firm grasp on reality. I’ve learned just how rare that is.) There was however, nowhere to turn for assistance with this concept. The group-think of America didn’t allow for that---and I was fortunate to have some very un-group think teachers.
Flash forward many years to the age of in-formation and the Internet and the Great Recession has a difficult time hiding it’s origins and causes. Of course, the oligarchs don’t have to worry about hiding (McConnell still does) because the vast majority of the victims of our apartheid public education system are too busy being consumers to inform themselves of the causes of the Great Recession of 2008. For them---Libertarians, Tea Partiers and others the Great Recession is as great a mystery as the Great Depression.
Did I mention there’s no such thing as “coincidence?”
Though I am deeply committed to our democratic republic I also understand why it was the founders feared “democracy” and why they didn’t stand-up one up.
If in fact it is the minions a/k/a Tea Partiers, Libertarians and all other manner of fringers of the Texas Red national mentality (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…) who on an astro-turf level are about to put the fox back in charge of the hen house---the founders fears about “democracy” were justified.
The same laissez-faire (too much government, “over-reach”, yada, yada, yada) that got us into this financial mess---that did away with legislation (Glass-Steagall Act) that for 80 years kept the financially greedy and irresponsible at bay are at it again in the guise of more “freedom.” In truth, it is less freedom and more control by financial overseers who will see to it that what little real freedom we do have is enslaved along with us.
Gold is at an all time high as fear mongers and the fearful feed off each other. The freshman class of Tea Partiers and GOPers are already looking to un-do the efforts of the past two years meant to curb the excesses of the banking and financial industry. This is likely an unmendable misfortune.
John F. Kennedy in Profiles in Courage states, “…increased intersectional distrust was a new breed of Southern demagogues, intolerant and vengeful sired by Reconstruction out of scalawags.”
The “In-formation Age” notwithstanding, little has changed over the past 150 years.
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,
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Modern-Day US Secessionists: An Interactive Map
From Ganjastan to Independent Long Island, separatists want to quit the United States and go it alone.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/10/ganjastan-texas-secession-map
the oligarchs use your fears to further enslave, oppress and control you
Assessing midterm losses, Democrats ask whether Obama's White House fully grasped voters' fears
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/06/AR2010110604120.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
laissez-faire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire
down in the weeds awareness of the machinations of power in D.C…..
Huffpost Hill
If you're a political drama junkie, this weekend threatened an overdose, with a Democratic leadership contest threatening to tear the caucus apart, pitting the dwindling white southern bloc against African-American Democrats for a seat at the leadership table. Because we couldn't wait until Monday night to chime in, this is a special edition of HUFFPOST HILL for Sunday, November 7, 2010:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hill/signup.html
With 100% of Precincts Reporting, We Are Projecting Corporate Money as the Winner
http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=183
Making The Volcker Rule Work
http://baselinescenario.com/
Essay: The Civil War taught us to fight for the right to be wrong
“If one reads the annals closely, however, it becomes clear that the Civil War legitimized something essential, and dark, that remains with us. Ultimately, the South was fighting for the right to be wrong, for the right to retain (and expand) something ugly and indefensible. It lost the war, and slavery was abolished. But the right to be wrong, the right to resist the progress of freedom, the right to say "no, thank you" to modernity, to leave the fences in disrepair and retreat into a world of private conviction, remains as much a part of the American character as the blood spilled to preserve the Union. Nothing great has been accomplished in America since the Civil War -- not footsteps on the moon, or women's suffrage, or the right (if not the reality) of equal, unsegregated education -- without people also passionately fighting for that dark right, too.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/31/AR2010103105095_2.html?wpisrc=nl_headline&sid=ST2010110503528
Before he became the national icon, Lincoln was a shrewd candidate
“The stakes were high. Slaves constituted a larger piece of the American economy in terms of capital than even the railroads or manufacturing. The richest town per capita in the nation was Natchez, Miss. There were 4 million American slaves, the vast majority of them in the South, and a single field hand was worth anywhere from $1,100 to $1,500 -- roughly $75,000 to $135,000 in today's money. Small wonder Southern barons were so vociferous in defense of the "peculiar institution."
On Election Day, Lincoln sank into an armchair in the Springfield State House to await the results. About 9 p.m., he walked to the telegraph office as the decisive returns spat out rapidly. Lincoln carried just 39.8 percent of the popular vote and did not gain a single elector in the South. But he carried 18 of 33 states, all of the free states except New Jersey, for an overwhelming margin in the electoral college, with 180 of 303 possible votes, to just 72 for Breckinridge. Douglas carried only Missouri.” [emphasis added]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/03/AR2010110304132.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
*The information and quotations in this article were taken from: "Battle Cry of Freedom," by James McPherson; "Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President," by Harold Holzer; "The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue to Civil War, 1859-1861," by Allan C. Nevins; "The Civil War Archive, The History of the Civil War in Documents," edited by Henry Steele Commager; "Three Against Lincoln: Murat Halstead Reports the Caucuses of 1860," edited by William B. Hesseltine; and "Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life," by William H. Herndon and Jesse William Weik
Elections 2010 Post-election, apartheid America…still red after all these years…..
Public Policy
http://www.examiner.com/bexar-county-elections-2010-in-san-antonio/elections-2010-post-election-apartheid-america-still-red-after-all-these-years
Library of Congress/Religion
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html
Women's suffrage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage
John Adams Quotes
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/democracy-while_it_lasts_is_more_bloody_than/212521.html
"Campaign Finance Reform Is on Its Last Legs"
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/09/campaign-finance-reform-its-last-legs
Price: We'll defund health reform
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42015.html
Bill Moyers on Plutonomy
Profiles in Courage
13 Bankers
Winner take all Politics
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field- keywords=winner+take+all+politics
Slavery by Another Name
Illusions of Justice
The Rope, the Chair, and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990
“However, James W. Marquart, Sheldon Ekland-Olson, and Jonathan R. Sorensen offer a more complex thesis. In their book, The Rope, the Chair, and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990,[5] they argue that Texas' execution rate reflects the Southern "cultural tradition of exclusion," and that "[s]uch exclusion was a basic element of the legacy of slavery."
The Conscience of a Liberal
Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity
Elections 2010 Post-election, apartheid America…still red after all these years…..
Public Policy
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