Marianne Williamson is 100% on target with her analysis of the hollowing out of the American middle class over the last 50 years. The USA is now an oligarchy, a plutocracy, but the myth that the USA is a thriving democracy lives on. The only way most people survive now is using credit cards, which charge usurious interest rates. The entire economic system is a corrupt scam, set up to enrich the top 1%, allow the next 24% a more or less comfortable lifestyle, and keep the other 75% scrambling to make ends meet. The vulture private equity firms, like Blackstone and Pretium Partners, are buying up all the single family homes while the super rich hide their trillions of wealth in off-shore tax havens. And yet the appetite of the oligarchs is not yet satiated. Their sadistic dream is to eradicate the last vestiges of the New Deal, in particular Medicare and Social Security. They are heartless vultures. What will it take the finally break the myth that this country is still a democracy? What will it take to make everyone realize this country is now a corrupt oligarchy that has only one goal-- to transfer wealth to the super-rich?
Reading Marianne Williamson's email to you reminded me of that odious term: trickle-down economics. As Carlin noted - language always gives it away. The owners get to keep most of the wealth and what little trickles down is all what we get. And even that is now too much for them.
On Obama, I thought he was going to be different after listening to a number of his campaign speeches; then I read a transcript of one of them, and realized he basically had said nothing. He was a packaged empty suit; that he was awarded Marketer of the Year in 2008 by Advertising Age should have told us what and who he really was.
Appreciate the Obama warning. Yeah, his record is disgusting and disheartening, and I have a hard time with seeing his nice smile or his graceful walk, because of that. To be avoided. :-(
My wife and I were riding our motorcycles in Africa when news came out that Obama was going to be the President of the United States. The natives were ecstatic. In a state of euphoria! Dancing and singing in every town and village.
My wife and I were excited as well. We had voted for him. We got home to find out that Merrill Lynch had lost a huge amount of our 35-years of retirement savings! (Before we left on our trip our financial advisor said to us... You've just got to trust the American system!) Our retirement dreams shattered!
And for the two terms Obama was in office it never got any better. He never achieved any of the things he promised us with his "Hope and Change" campaign. He had both houses and caved in to the Republican plan for healthcare called "Obamacare". A boon to the big Insurance Companies. Single payer discussion lasted about 2-weeks! And we foolishly voted for him again.
Sadly, in New Zealand now, many people in discussing US politics with me will say...."Wasn't Obama the best President America ever had!" I just keep my mouth shut.
I try not to romanticize, Dennis. But in my lifetime, the best president (despite his flaws) was JFK. He grew in office, learning on the job, and his peace speech of 1963 was a masterpiece. A few months later, they killed him. I'll leave the "they" vague. but it sure wasn't LHO acting alone.
Jimmy Carter was a decent man but was in over his head.
The best candidate in my lifetime was George McGovern, a war hero who believed in peace.
Biden/Trump are so deeply flawed and narcissistic as to be unsupportable, IMHO.
Bill, thanks for mentioning George McGovern - one of the most decent candidates ever for President and one deeply worthy of respect for his service to this country in both peace and war. The Nixon campaign should have been ashamed for the way they treated him.
And Jimmy Carter was, and is, a decent man - the best ex-President in recent memory with more accomplishments since leaving office.
Dennis, First sorry to hear about your lost retirement fund; it was a tough decade to know how to invest given first the dot-com bust of 2002 and then the global financial crisis of 2008. The criminal elites should have all gone to jail - except for the cover offered by Obama and Holder.
And we have to thank Obama for giving us "Joe Biden". There's no way Biden would have won South Carolina with all other candidates simultaneously dropping out - except for the guiding hand of Obama. That's all the more surprising when Obama's disdain is so apparent that he upstages Biden every time they appear together.
I do find it darkly amusing that Biden's ability to f--- things up (per Obama) is threatening the legacy Obama sought to protect in what was to be essentially a third-term with his control exercised through all the Obamites in the Biden administration.
Yep Tom, I drank the Kool-Aid when Merrill Lynch came to our company staff meetings to promise us about how our wonderful 401K and IRA savings was going to have us all retire as millionaires! As long as we trusted our money to them! And their fees..pppffft...they would be minimal! Yeah right.
Leave your retirement with us, the experts! And we did. We were sitting on over a million dollars. And retired a year later in 2009 with just over half of it. With no time to recover! Did that financial expert advisor lose a dime? Nope.
But come meet with us - and we will help you with your financial planning in your retirement! The stock market will come back! Yeah right! We could not risk that. We invested what we had left in the only secure investments we could find at 4.0%. Oh dear!
If it were not for Social Security my wife and I would be living the lives of paupers. No shit! The increase in the cost of living is eating our lunch. How do folks survive who had no savings when they retire? >50% of Americans? I dunno. How can a family living paycheck to paycheck save any money? Our Social Security went up a measly 3.2% this year. Insulting after all the money I had put into it!
And to think our last beautiful home we bought for $60,000 and had it all paid off long before were retired! These poor kids buying a $500,000+ house with 10% down - are debt slaves for the rest of their lives. And the banks are making a killing.
EDIT: I am an Engineer. I prepared a huge EXCEL spreadsheet showing our investment growth and spending plan over a 10-year period. Printed it out, 32" x 24", on our big color construction drawing plotter. I took it to show the Merrill Lynch expert..."Wow! Where did you get this?" That should have been a big red flag eh!
I emailed the following to former President Obama September 10, 2018. Naturally there was no computer generated acknowledgement or reply.
President Obama.
As a Canadian, I was very happy when you were elected President. I saw that as a hopeful Sign for America and the World.
You didn't campaign to inherit the Global Financial Meltdown-Economic Pearl Harbour that happened even before you were elected, in the last months of 8 years of Republicanomics of more to the rich, and fighting 2 Foreign Wars on Credit.
The Trump Republican Tax Bill they spin as 'Reform' is the continuation of those Bush Policies on steroids.
Watching from CanaDa, the real danger I see, is if there is another Global Financial Collapse due to more US Economic War on more perceived enemies simultaneously than ever before in US history, complemented by more tariffs on US Allies than ever before Americans will have to pay for.
Removing the few Regulations put in place after the 2008 Global Financial Meltdown-Economic Pearl Harbour to prevent a re-recurrence, the worst possible aspects I would expect you were briefed on at the Time, increases the likelihood what has already happened, could happen again?
Watching these things, I have to wonder if there is a method to Trump's madness?
If there is a sudden, unexpected Global Financial Meltdown-Economic Pearl Harbour like the last one, in the face of the Social Chaos you were warned in 2008 would happen unless you signed onto TARP, it is President Trump who could invoke the use of the worst provisions in the 2012 NDAA you signed into Law.
That would make Trump, with 2 years to go, the 1st to use the Legal Authority in that 2012 NDAA, to have his Bureaucracy/Military get rid of his 'opposition' in some Gitmo/Gulag, by accusing them of being vaguely associated with terrorism as determined by the Trump bureaucracy, in a Time of Social disorder. The right to challenge the government's 'suspicion' in a Court of Law is removed. That's a very real possibility with Trump's temperament he has already displayed.
I always admired the High Ideals in your speeches, hoping and praying Americans would take them to heart. But I also saw you didn't always practice what you preached. On that score, the whole human Race without exception, is guilty.
I appreciated your Grace in dealing with a Congress whose Republican Leaders Declared, even before you were sworn in, their sole goal was to destroy your Presidency, and I saw they did everything within their power to do that.
I hate seeing the Republican hypocrisy/duplicity now that the Pendulum has swung to the other side.
My deepest personal disappointment in you is, as a Constitutional Scholar, you did not VETO the 2012 NDAA even in the face of the overwhelming VETO-proof majorities in both Houses of Congress.
At least, you would have started the Real Debate on American Democracy.
Now that you have entered the Current Political debate, you can still redeem yourself, admitting you made a mistake signing the 2012 NDAA.
Ray Joseph Cormier
It's interesting for me to note, with this emphasized on CNN & MSNBC daily, it's a constant theme these 6 years later Trump could do this, "That would make Trump, with 2 years to go, the 1st to use the Legal Authority in that 2012 NDAA, to have his Bureaucracy/Military get rid of his 'opposition' in some Gitmo/Gulag, by accusing them of being vaguely associated with terrorism as determined by the Trump bureaucracy, in a Time of Social disorder"
Ukraine itself is not a foe, but Western elites backing it are, the Russian president has said
Ukraine is a mere tool in the hands of the collective West which is using it to fight Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. He was speaking at a military hospital in Moscow where he met servicemen wounded during the ongoing conflict.
Asked about the enduring Western support for Kiev, the president said the elites of the collective West were actually the true enemy of Russia, rather than Ukraine itself.
“The point is not that they are helping our enemy, but that they are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with [Ukraine’s] hands, that’s what it’s all about,” Putin stated.
The conflict between Moscow and Kiev was orchestrated by Western elites, who seek to defeat Russia, he suggested. However, the collective West has been unable to achieve its goals, with the failure already showing in the change of its rhetoric on the conflict, the president explained................
Israel escalated the Gaza WAR targeting a specific apartment in Beirut with a precise drone attack. That is Israel's 1st attack in Beirut since the 2006 WAR with Hezbollah, killing several Hamas Leaders holding a meeting. Israel had the Intelligence to know exactly which apartment in which building and when.
Tiny Yemen has throttled the Red Sea and Suez Canal disrupting International Trade over the Gaza WAR. US-Israel WAR Propaganda increasingly, deliberately mentions "Iran backed" Hamas, Yemen and Hezbollah. Israel has been after the US to attack Iran for a long Time.
In 2007, US General Wesley Clark blew the whistle on US WAR PLANS brought out within weeks of 9/11, to remake the Middle East in the US-Israeli Image, changing the Regimes of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, and at THE END, Iran.
In a single move, Yemen’s Ansarallah has checkmated the west and its rules-based order
By Pepe Escobar
Whether invented in northern India, eastern China or Central Asia – from Persia to Turkestan – chess is an Asian game. In chess, there always comes a time when a simple pawn is able to upset the whole chessboard, usually via a move in the back rank whose effect simply cannot be calculated.
Yes, a pawn can impose a seismic checkmate. That’s where we are, geopolitically, right now.
The cascading effects of a single move on the chessboard – Yemen’s Ansarallah stunning and carefully targeted blockade of the Red Sea – reach way beyond global shipping, supply chains, and The War of Economic Corridors. Not to mention the reduction of the much lauded US Navy force projection to irrelevancy............................................................
Imagine you’re in mid-flight on a passenger jet, and the captain flies directly into a Category Five hurricane.
The flight attendant calmly says, “The captain has turned on the ‘Fasten Seat Belt’ sign, as we may be expecting some turbulence.”
Of course, the above situation is absurd, as no passenger jet pilot would ever put his passengers in such danger.
But, tragically, governments sometimes do exactly that.
Sometimes, they do it on a small scale, such as when a small country adopts collectivism, only to discover, decades later, that collectivism doesn’t actually work and, eventually, as Maggie Thatcher said, “You run out of other people’s money.”
Then, there’s a period of depression, followed by a rebuilding period, during which the electorate decides whether to be sensible and dump collectivism or whether they choose to be foolish and begin the collectivist conundrum anew.
(As absurd as this latter choice might seem, it is all too common. Argentina, in particular, has been doing it for nearly eighty years.)
But the larger the country, the greater the catastrophe when it all falls apart. And it, therefore, stands to reason that when it’s the world’s foremost empire that’s passed its sell-by date, the damage will be catastrophic. The damage from the hurricane will be centred on the empire itself and those within the empire will be most directly impacted, but the effects will be felt well outside its borders.
The more closely a country is connected to the empire economically, the greater, the lesser country will feel the damage. For example, at the present time, if the US is a country’s major trading partner, that country will experience damage significant enough that its economy might well collapse along with that of the US.
But why should we be talking about this now? Yes, the US is indeed troubled, both internally and externally. Still, the news media have regularly presented national leaders and other pundits who assure us that the storm that’s being flown into will only result in temporary turbulence and that “Category Five” is a gross exaggeration.
Well, let’s have a look at that for a moment.
In the last half-century, the US has gone from being the foremost creditor nation to the foremost debtor nation. At that same time, its wage level has risen so high that the US can no longer sell American-made goods, even to Americans, and its factories, predominantly in China and Mexico, are producing the vast majority of goods. Unfortunately, relations are on a steady decline between the US and these countries. The US has even been engaged in sabre-rattling with regard to China.
But the US empire has always had an ace in the hole with Europe. Although it’s self-destructively on a campaign to end fossil fuel production domestically, it has for decades provided liquified gas to Europe, shipping primarily into Hamburg harbour and distributing from there.
In the meantime, Germany formed an alliance with Russia, from whom it also receives gas to power the German industry. In recent years, Russia has been building a direct pipeline from Russia to Germany to provide gas more cheaply than any other country can provide (at roughly 11% of what US gas can be provided for).
With the understanding that this gas line would come on stream in 2022, Germany foolishly shut down all of its nuclear power plants, thus painting itself into a corner.
Clearly, the opening of the Nord Steam II valve would have been a major, major event, as it would not just mean cheaper gas for Europe, but an end of US hegemony over Europe and a shift in the balance of trade to Russia.
But the pipeline was sabotaged before this could happen.
It would seem that US hegemony would be saved, as Europe would fall back on US gas, even though it was cripplingly expensive.
But an unexpected wrinkle occurred. Germany went shopping and found that they could buy gas from China, India, and Saudi Arabia. It was more expensive than the Nord Steam gas, but still cheaper than the American gas.
Odd, though, as neither China, nor India are gas producers. So, where was this gas coming from? Well, as China, India, and Russia are BRICS countries, the gas was the very gas that Germany was to have received through Nord Stream, but now quite a bit pricier, as it had to be piped quite a lot further and there were also now middlemen to be paid.
So, how did the situation play out? Well, the US gas is still the most expensive and, therefore, least desirable, and Russia, instead of being economically crippled, was now selling more gas than before and experiencing a boom at a time when much of the world was sliding into economic turmoil. And, in the ensuing eighteen months, Germany would find that it could no longer sell its products internationally, as the cost to produce them was now even higher than before. Recently, there have been rumblings in the Bundestag that one out of three German industrial companies is hoping to leave the country, with the majority choosing China as their destination.
Unless the US could salvage the situation, its hegemony over Europe (and its claim to empire) was soon to end.
It was, however, true that there were significant oil and gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean. If they could be taken hold of, the US might stand a chance. But the rights to those fields were held by Palestine, and the US was known to staunchly support Palestine’s arch-enemy, Israel.
What to do?
Well, although the Gaza/Israel border is the one of the most protected in the world, Hamas somehow breached it in multiple locations and went on a killing spree in which, it is claimed, horrendous inhumane acts were committed. Proof of such acts have not been provided, but they’ve been well-publicised and have led to a “self-defense” retaliation by Israel in which Gaza is being systematically destroyed and its people being decimated. In spite of worldwide objection to this retaliation, and repeated warnings from the UN and others that Israel must not take over Gaza, Israel’s President insists that if Israel does not complete the destruction of Gaza and take over the control of its rubble, Israel will never be safe from Hamas.
In the bargain, the oil and gas fields will have a new owner.
At this point, it would be advisable for the world, particularly Americans, to sit back and observe such events from a distance. Although Israel is charging ahead, the majority of the world is dividing into BRICS vs. First World Globalists camps. The former is already in the majority and growing rapidly.
In describing his Israel/Palestine position, the US president appears to be changing from a black hat to a white one and back again, repeatedly. While this makes the White House appear to be both hypocritical and untrustworthy in the extreme, there’s little else the President can do. He’s squeezed between a rock and a time bomb.
I rarely write on current events, preferring to focus on the overview – the Big Picture – but this may be a moment when it’s important for the reader to sit far back from the present noise from the media and assess the degree to which his own future is dependent upon the outcome of these events.
The jet pilot has turned into a Category Five hurricane, and, for those who are on the flight, this would indeed be the time to fasten seat belts.
i have two bottom-line, bullet-hits-the bone questions that i wonder if anybody here at BV can and will answer:
1. What is the ultimate, root cause of the decline, demise, and destruction of America’s Middle Class?
Does the fact that we have a system of government and governance that enables the highest bidder among Vested Special Interests to gain easy access to that government’s legal power, administrative authority, and, above all, its spending capacity and capability so as to advance the agendas of those VSIs have anything to do with it?
2. What is the fix, the solution to the problem?
Is it to seize the wealth of that top 1% [or 5%, 10%, 25%, or whatever] and redistribute it to the remaining 99%, 95%, 90%, 75%, or whatever?
And if that is fix and solution, exactly Who is going to do that and, more importantly, exactly How do they intend to do it?
Jeff, I think you answered your own question (#1) correctly.
The fix will likely require a bottom-up revolution that will likely be bloody, because power will not concede its prerogatives and perks unless directly threatened or overthrown.
How and when (or even, if) this will happen, I don't know.
i agree with You completely, Bill ~ as in "112%" ~ that the only way this system of government and governance is going to be changed and terminated is by a revolution.
However, if that revolution is "bloody," it will fail completely, and pave the way for the birth of the deadliest totalitarian dictatorship in human history: One that will make Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, and Mao's China look like kindergarten classes.
My guess is that those who own, operate, command, and control that government would love nothing better than a violent, "bottom-up" revolution so as to implement, establish, and enforce that dictatorship.
And, given the number of Americans who are totally and completely directly or even indirectly dependent upon that system of government and governance at the federal, state, and local levels for their livelihoods, lifestyles, and, in some case, their very lives, a very significant number of Americans will completely and totally support any action by their governments to deal with any violent revolution.
But before anybody can even think about any kind of a revolution in America, they need to determine exactly what sort of system of government and governance they plan to replace the current one with.
Jeff, you start off your comment...."the only way this system of government and governance is going to be changed and terminated is by a revolution." Quite a claim! The ONLY way eh? What evidence do you have for that claim?
And in your last sentence you say "THEY need to determine exactly what sort of system of government and governance THEY plan to replace the current one with".
If YOU are claiming the ONLY way this system is going to be changed is by a revolution, isn't the burden on YOU to come UP with a system YOU plan to replace the current one with as a result of YOUR revolution? Otherwise, your suggested method is incomplete and worthless.
Given that i was agreeing with Bill about what would be required to change this system of government and governance ~ ie, a revolution ~ i find it interesting, Dennis, that You direct Your question only to me, and not also to Bill. Or is that because he used the term “likely” as opposed to my using the term “only”?
In any event, my start point on this is my statement that “we have a system of government and governance that enables the highest bidder among Vested Special Interests to gain easy access to that government’s legal power, administrative authority, and, above all, its spending capacity and capability so as to advance the agendas of those VSIs.” Which, You will note, Bill agreed with.
So my first question for You is: Do You agree that the America does in fact have a system of government and governance that caters primarily toward all those Vested Special Interests, particularly the ones who are the highest bidders in terms of contributions and donations to elected politicians?
And if that is not the system that we have, then how would You describe it? And if that is not the ultimate, bottom-line root cause of America’s ~ and thus, the whole Planet’s ~ Crisis, then what is?
And if that in fact IS the system that we have, then it is quite evident to me that ~ if that system of government and governance is in fact that ultimate, bottom line root cause of the Crisis ~ then the place to start dealing with, resolving, and moving beyond that Crisis is by changing that system of government and governance. And that is exactly what a “revolution” is, isn’t it?
So the question obviously becomes: Change that system of government and governance to what? With WHAT is it to be replaced?
In my opinion, the current system needs to be replaced with one that takes Government completely out of the business of Meeting Human Needs and Satisfying Human Wants, and is limited solely and exclusively to protecting Human Rights and facilitating the fulfillment of Human Responsibilities.
At which point the immediate Question becomes: What are Human Needs and Wants, on the one hand; and what are Human Rights and Responsibilities, on the other?
The most obvious and immediate examples are contained in the Question: Are, for example Health and Health Care, Education, Housing, and Employment Human Rights? Or are they Human Needs and Wants? And where do Human Responsibilities fit in?
But that is a separate rant.
In any event, i’m curious: What’s Your solution to America’s and the Planet’s Crisis: Make Trump Dictator For Life?
We don't need to reinvent the wheel. A representative republic is a good form of government, assuming the officials elected truly represent the will of the people, not the richest and most powerful.
How to do this? Campaign finance reform is perhaps the first step. Public funding of elections. Term limits for politicians. Enforcement of laws against corruption. A major revival of independent journalism.
I'm sure smart minds can come together and come up with reforms -- the problem is getting a thoroughly corrupted system to pass them and enforce them. This will likely require a major uprising by a large number of people. People willing to go on strike, protest, shut things down. People willing to sacrifice: get arrested, lose their jobs, get denounced by the rich, get shot at by police. Grim stuff, I know, but writing blog posts like I do sure isn't going to get it done.
Bill: Your solution to getting a thoroughly corrupted system to pass and enforce the first four proposed changes is much, much better ~ and far more likely to succeed ~ than any kind of “bottoms-up bloody” revolution, discussed in an earlier BV. And i’m not sure how independent journalism can be legislated back into existence. Any thoughts on that?
And when You speak of “a major uprising by a large number of people” doing all those things, You are describing what the Indian Peoples did that ultimately resulted in their independence from the British Empire. That is certainly one model that Americans seeking to change this nation’s system of government and governance can use for reference.
And writing blog posts can certainly help to get done what needs to be done. Is that not what Thomas Paine did back in 1776 with COMMON SENSE?
Exactly Bill, and if we do reinvent the wheel, what "invention" is that invention going to be? Examples? Jeff seems to be suggesting we all live in hippy communes! Oh dear!
I like your list. Campaign Finance reform, funding of elections, and term limits can be done with the stroke of a pen.
Your last two - not so easy eh?
I would add reforming the first-past-the-post and Electoral College election system. And dump Citizens United.
What incentive do I have to debate with you Jeff when you throw out that my solution would be to make Trump Dictator for life?
Thanks for the ad hominem insult. Immediately disqualifying you in any Oxford Union Debating Society debate.
And in your long diatribe you never answer the question of what system YOU plan to replace the current one with as a result of YOUR revolution.
"...replaced with one that takes Government completely out of the business of Meeting Human Needs and Satisfying Human Wants, and is limited solely and exclusively to protecting Human Rights and facilitating the fulfillment of Human Responsibilities".
That's a GOAL. Not a SYSTEM. What's your system? Examples? Maybe hundreds of communes like they had in Italy 1,000-years ago?
Question: are electricity, running water, sewage system, a legal system and highways Human Needs?
Yes, right?
Aren't these ONLY providable to everyone with a system of governance that includes the DOT for roads. And the DOJ for the legal system. The Corps of Engineers for dams and Building Codes promulgated by Federal and State Government Agencies?
A government limited SOLELY and EXCLUSIVLY to protecting Human Rights (a Police State?), and facilitating the fulfillment of Human Responsibilities (The Department of Human Responsibilities? LOL) is not going to be able to build interstate highways and dams and provide air traffic control eh? The Military?
As usual you have answered the question with more questions, eh?
Where do I have this all wrong my friend? Am I making any sense at all?
First of all, Dennis, i wasn’t aware that we were playing by Oxford Union Debating Society rules.
And second of all, what incentive You have to continue this conversation is Your problem, and not mine.
And You are correct: my long diatribe provided a “GOAL” ~ or a “Mission Statement” ~ and not a “SYSTEM,” The next step is to put together a new Constitution that creates, implements, and enforces that new system of government and governance.
But before that is a Manifesto: A Statement of Intent as to exactly What this Revolution is all about, What it intends to accomplish, and How and Why it intends to accomplish that. Which is being worked on, even as this response is being written.
But before even that, there is a Prolegomenon to that Manifesto, which has been written, and, if You or anybody else is interested in reading it, send me an e~ at vaw.sitka@gmail.com.
As regards the economic system that would be put in operation to meet the Goal of creating and establishing a government whose sole business is observing and protecting Human Rights and facilitating the fulfillment of Human Responsibilities: The simplest and easiest description of it is laissez-faire free marketism, also known as “capitalism,” which has never been tried on a national level in history.
Which almost always ~ and in this case did ~ raise the Question: “(A)re electricity, running water, sewage system, a legal system and highways Human Needs?”
Yes, all those things are very definitely Human Needs.
You then conclude: “Aren't these ONLY providable to everyone with a system of governance that includes the DOT for roads. And the DOJ for the legal system. The Corps of Engineers for dams and Building Codes promulgated by Federal and State Government Agencies?”
Just like You asked me the other day about my declaring that this system of government and government will ONLY be changed by a revolution, let me ask You: On what basis do You declare that these things are provided ONLY because of governments and governance?
That may be the ONLY way that those things have been are provided in the past and are now, but is it the ONLY way that those things Could be made available?
You then ask: “A government limited SOLELY and EXCLUSIVLY to protecting Human Rights (a Police State?)…
No, Dennis: A Police State does not exist to protect the Human Rights of Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, the Pursuit of Happiness, and Truth of its Citizens. It exists to protect the meeting of the Needs and the satisfaction of the Wants of those who own, operate, manage, and control the government.
And if a government would not build interstate highways and dams or an ATC system, who could? And just mite would. Nobody?
And finally, if the function of the government is to protect the Human Rights of its Citizens, that would include a Military Force capable of defending that nation’s borders and its Peoples from acts of aggression by other nations, or other entities external and internal.
A quick scan of her website reveals that her plan is essentially to exponentially increase the taxes and other money paid by "the rich" to the government, and to redistribute their wealth in the form of just about free everything to the "non-rich": education, health care, housing, etc.
How does she plan to do this without a Congress that goes along with it? By Executive Order?
i also notice that she has nothing to say about this nation's $33.97 TRILLION National, Sovereign Debt [or the looming $1 TRILLION annual interest payments on that Debt] or America's $212.89 TRILLION in Unfunded Government Liabilities [Social Security, Medicare, Interest on the Debt held by the Public, or Federal Employee and Veterans' Benefits].
But then no politician or politician Wannabe ~ starting with Trump and Biden ~ in 2024 does either; so nothing new there.
Deficit? What deficit? We'll produce our way out of it by stealing the world's resources (oil, lithium, intellectual, etc.). Maybe mining asteroids in space is the answer. Can you say: precious metals?
The great Aussie journalist just died at 84-years-old.
"China is ringed by 400 US bases...China once again is challenging the very notion of Western and white superiority...and that is unacceptable" - John Pilger (1939-2023) on Going Underground, discussing the US’s coming war on China.
James Howard Kunstler in his blog "Clusterfuck Nation" today....
The Great Clarification
"It was fitting that the last extravagant political act of ’23 was Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows chucking Mr. Trump off the ballot there because. . . she felt like it. To save our democracy, you understand. That might be the terminal absurdity of the derangement we are leaving behind, the signature for much that has gone down in this country the past three years: women on the verge of a nervous breakdown throwing the crockery of law around the room at Daddy.
All this accomplishes, of course, is to disgrace authority in general and to turn America into one big broken home, making us a population of frightened runaways clinging desperately to a few square feet of ground, alone under the freeway ramp in the rain.
That is no way to live. The way to live is to make yourself useful to your fellow humans and to get paid for it, and to find some joy and meaning in that human fellowship based on fair, consensual transactions - a pretty simple formula..."
Marianne Williamson is 100% on target with her analysis of the hollowing out of the American middle class over the last 50 years. The USA is now an oligarchy, a plutocracy, but the myth that the USA is a thriving democracy lives on. The only way most people survive now is using credit cards, which charge usurious interest rates. The entire economic system is a corrupt scam, set up to enrich the top 1%, allow the next 24% a more or less comfortable lifestyle, and keep the other 75% scrambling to make ends meet. The vulture private equity firms, like Blackstone and Pretium Partners, are buying up all the single family homes while the super rich hide their trillions of wealth in off-shore tax havens. And yet the appetite of the oligarchs is not yet satiated. Their sadistic dream is to eradicate the last vestiges of the New Deal, in particular Medicare and Social Security. They are heartless vultures. What will it take the finally break the myth that this country is still a democracy? What will it take to make everyone realize this country is now a corrupt oligarchy that has only one goal-- to transfer wealth to the super-rich?
I remember when George Carlin said "They're coming for your social security--and they'll get it." Once again, he was a prophet.
Reading Marianne Williamson's email to you reminded me of that odious term: trickle-down economics. As Carlin noted - language always gives it away. The owners get to keep most of the wealth and what little trickles down is all what we get. And even that is now too much for them.
On Obama, I thought he was going to be different after listening to a number of his campaign speeches; then I read a transcript of one of them, and realized he basically had said nothing. He was a packaged empty suit; that he was awarded Marketer of the Year in 2008 by Advertising Age should have told us what and who he really was.
BINGO, Tom!
Appreciate the Obama warning. Yeah, his record is disgusting and disheartening, and I have a hard time with seeing his nice smile or his graceful walk, because of that. To be avoided. :-(
My wife and I were riding our motorcycles in Africa when news came out that Obama was going to be the President of the United States. The natives were ecstatic. In a state of euphoria! Dancing and singing in every town and village.
My wife and I were excited as well. We had voted for him. We got home to find out that Merrill Lynch had lost a huge amount of our 35-years of retirement savings! (Before we left on our trip our financial advisor said to us... You've just got to trust the American system!) Our retirement dreams shattered!
And for the two terms Obama was in office it never got any better. He never achieved any of the things he promised us with his "Hope and Change" campaign. He had both houses and caved in to the Republican plan for healthcare called "Obamacare". A boon to the big Insurance Companies. Single payer discussion lasted about 2-weeks! And we foolishly voted for him again.
Sadly, in New Zealand now, many people in discussing US politics with me will say...."Wasn't Obama the best President America ever had!" I just keep my mouth shut.
I try not to romanticize, Dennis. But in my lifetime, the best president (despite his flaws) was JFK. He grew in office, learning on the job, and his peace speech of 1963 was a masterpiece. A few months later, they killed him. I'll leave the "they" vague. but it sure wasn't LHO acting alone.
Jimmy Carter was a decent man but was in over his head.
The best candidate in my lifetime was George McGovern, a war hero who believed in peace.
Biden/Trump are so deeply flawed and narcissistic as to be unsupportable, IMHO.
Bill, thanks for mentioning George McGovern - one of the most decent candidates ever for President and one deeply worthy of respect for his service to this country in both peace and war. The Nixon campaign should have been ashamed for the way they treated him.
And Jimmy Carter was, and is, a decent man - the best ex-President in recent memory with more accomplishments since leaving office.
Dennis, First sorry to hear about your lost retirement fund; it was a tough decade to know how to invest given first the dot-com bust of 2002 and then the global financial crisis of 2008. The criminal elites should have all gone to jail - except for the cover offered by Obama and Holder.
And we have to thank Obama for giving us "Joe Biden". There's no way Biden would have won South Carolina with all other candidates simultaneously dropping out - except for the guiding hand of Obama. That's all the more surprising when Obama's disdain is so apparent that he upstages Biden every time they appear together.
I do find it darkly amusing that Biden's ability to f--- things up (per Obama) is threatening the legacy Obama sought to protect in what was to be essentially a third-term with his control exercised through all the Obamites in the Biden administration.
Yep Tom, I drank the Kool-Aid when Merrill Lynch came to our company staff meetings to promise us about how our wonderful 401K and IRA savings was going to have us all retire as millionaires! As long as we trusted our money to them! And their fees..pppffft...they would be minimal! Yeah right.
Leave your retirement with us, the experts! And we did. We were sitting on over a million dollars. And retired a year later in 2009 with just over half of it. With no time to recover! Did that financial expert advisor lose a dime? Nope.
But come meet with us - and we will help you with your financial planning in your retirement! The stock market will come back! Yeah right! We could not risk that. We invested what we had left in the only secure investments we could find at 4.0%. Oh dear!
If it were not for Social Security my wife and I would be living the lives of paupers. No shit! The increase in the cost of living is eating our lunch. How do folks survive who had no savings when they retire? >50% of Americans? I dunno. How can a family living paycheck to paycheck save any money? Our Social Security went up a measly 3.2% this year. Insulting after all the money I had put into it!
And to think our last beautiful home we bought for $60,000 and had it all paid off long before were retired! These poor kids buying a $500,000+ house with 10% down - are debt slaves for the rest of their lives. And the banks are making a killing.
EDIT: I am an Engineer. I prepared a huge EXCEL spreadsheet showing our investment growth and spending plan over a 10-year period. Printed it out, 32" x 24", on our big color construction drawing plotter. I took it to show the Merrill Lynch expert..."Wow! Where did you get this?" That should have been a big red flag eh!
I emailed the following to former President Obama September 10, 2018. Naturally there was no computer generated acknowledgement or reply.
President Obama.
As a Canadian, I was very happy when you were elected President. I saw that as a hopeful Sign for America and the World.
You didn't campaign to inherit the Global Financial Meltdown-Economic Pearl Harbour that happened even before you were elected, in the last months of 8 years of Republicanomics of more to the rich, and fighting 2 Foreign Wars on Credit.
The Trump Republican Tax Bill they spin as 'Reform' is the continuation of those Bush Policies on steroids.
Watching from CanaDa, the real danger I see, is if there is another Global Financial Collapse due to more US Economic War on more perceived enemies simultaneously than ever before in US history, complemented by more tariffs on US Allies than ever before Americans will have to pay for.
Removing the few Regulations put in place after the 2008 Global Financial Meltdown-Economic Pearl Harbour to prevent a re-recurrence, the worst possible aspects I would expect you were briefed on at the Time, increases the likelihood what has already happened, could happen again?
Watching these things, I have to wonder if there is a method to Trump's madness?
If there is a sudden, unexpected Global Financial Meltdown-Economic Pearl Harbour like the last one, in the face of the Social Chaos you were warned in 2008 would happen unless you signed onto TARP, it is President Trump who could invoke the use of the worst provisions in the 2012 NDAA you signed into Law.
That would make Trump, with 2 years to go, the 1st to use the Legal Authority in that 2012 NDAA, to have his Bureaucracy/Military get rid of his 'opposition' in some Gitmo/Gulag, by accusing them of being vaguely associated with terrorism as determined by the Trump bureaucracy, in a Time of Social disorder. The right to challenge the government's 'suspicion' in a Court of Law is removed. That's a very real possibility with Trump's temperament he has already displayed.
I always admired the High Ideals in your speeches, hoping and praying Americans would take them to heart. But I also saw you didn't always practice what you preached. On that score, the whole human Race without exception, is guilty.
I appreciated your Grace in dealing with a Congress whose Republican Leaders Declared, even before you were sworn in, their sole goal was to destroy your Presidency, and I saw they did everything within their power to do that.
I hate seeing the Republican hypocrisy/duplicity now that the Pendulum has swung to the other side.
My deepest personal disappointment in you is, as a Constitutional Scholar, you did not VETO the 2012 NDAA even in the face of the overwhelming VETO-proof majorities in both Houses of Congress.
At least, you would have started the Real Debate on American Democracy.
Now that you have entered the Current Political debate, you can still redeem yourself, admitting you made a mistake signing the 2012 NDAA.
Ray Joseph Cormier
It's interesting for me to note, with this emphasized on CNN & MSNBC daily, it's a constant theme these 6 years later Trump could do this, "That would make Trump, with 2 years to go, the 1st to use the Legal Authority in that 2012 NDAA, to have his Bureaucracy/Military get rid of his 'opposition' in some Gitmo/Gulag, by accusing them of being vaguely associated with terrorism as determined by the Trump bureaucracy, in a Time of Social disorder"
http://rayjc.com/2019/10/17/leaked-us-military-manual-for-policing-homeland-internment-camps-for-political-dissidents/
Putin names Russia’s real enemies
Ukraine itself is not a foe, but Western elites backing it are, the Russian president has said
Ukraine is a mere tool in the hands of the collective West which is using it to fight Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. He was speaking at a military hospital in Moscow where he met servicemen wounded during the ongoing conflict.
Asked about the enduring Western support for Kiev, the president said the elites of the collective West were actually the true enemy of Russia, rather than Ukraine itself.
“The point is not that they are helping our enemy, but that they are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with [Ukraine’s] hands, that’s what it’s all about,” Putin stated.
The conflict between Moscow and Kiev was orchestrated by Western elites, who seek to defeat Russia, he suggested. However, the collective West has been unable to achieve its goals, with the failure already showing in the change of its rhetoric on the conflict, the president explained................
https://www.rt.com/russia/590003-putin-names-russia-real-enemies
Why was or still is anybody surprised or disappointed by what Obama did once he became President?
Here are the Top 20 donators to the Obama 2008 Presidential campaign. They might be better termed “investors.”
University of California….$1,799,460
Goldman Sachs……...……..$1,034,615
Harvard University…...………$900,909
Microsoft Corp……………......$854,717
JPMorgan Chase & Co…….$847,895
Google Inc……………….......….$817,855
Citigroup Inc……………......….$755,057
US Government………...….…$638,335
Time Warner……….....…….….$617,844
Sidley Austin LLP…….....……$606,260
Stanford University…..….…..$603,866
National Amusements Inc.$579,098
Columbia University……...…$570,839
Skadden, Arps et al.…………$554,439
WilmerHale Llp……….....…… $554,373
US Dept of Justice…..……… $540,636
IBM Corp………………...............$534,470
UBS AG………………...........….…$534,166
General Electric…......……….…$532,031
Morgan Stanley……....………. $528,182
Source: https://www.opensecrets.org/PRES08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638
Happy Days Here Again?
Israel escalated the Gaza WAR targeting a specific apartment in Beirut with a precise drone attack. That is Israel's 1st attack in Beirut since the 2006 WAR with Hezbollah, killing several Hamas Leaders holding a meeting. Israel had the Intelligence to know exactly which apartment in which building and when.
Tiny Yemen has throttled the Red Sea and Suez Canal disrupting International Trade over the Gaza WAR. US-Israel WAR Propaganda increasingly, deliberately mentions "Iran backed" Hamas, Yemen and Hezbollah. Israel has been after the US to attack Iran for a long Time.
In 2007, US General Wesley Clark blew the whistle on US WAR PLANS brought out within weeks of 9/11, to remake the Middle East in the US-Israeli Image, changing the Regimes of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, and at THE END, Iran.
Here is the video in the General's own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mNr1aaDiNw
for those who haven't seen it.
Has the THE END finally arrived?
'How Yemen changed everything'
In a single move, Yemen’s Ansarallah has checkmated the west and its rules-based order
By Pepe Escobar
Whether invented in northern India, eastern China or Central Asia – from Persia to Turkestan – chess is an Asian game. In chess, there always comes a time when a simple pawn is able to upset the whole chessboard, usually via a move in the back rank whose effect simply cannot be calculated.
Yes, a pawn can impose a seismic checkmate. That’s where we are, geopolitically, right now.
The cascading effects of a single move on the chessboard – Yemen’s Ansarallah stunning and carefully targeted blockade of the Red Sea – reach way beyond global shipping, supply chains, and The War of Economic Corridors. Not to mention the reduction of the much lauded US Navy force projection to irrelevancy............................................................
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/01/02/how-yemen-changed-everything/
FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT by Jeff Thomas 010123
Imagine you’re in mid-flight on a passenger jet, and the captain flies directly into a Category Five hurricane.
The flight attendant calmly says, “The captain has turned on the ‘Fasten Seat Belt’ sign, as we may be expecting some turbulence.”
Of course, the above situation is absurd, as no passenger jet pilot would ever put his passengers in such danger.
But, tragically, governments sometimes do exactly that.
Sometimes, they do it on a small scale, such as when a small country adopts collectivism, only to discover, decades later, that collectivism doesn’t actually work and, eventually, as Maggie Thatcher said, “You run out of other people’s money.”
Then, there’s a period of depression, followed by a rebuilding period, during which the electorate decides whether to be sensible and dump collectivism or whether they choose to be foolish and begin the collectivist conundrum anew.
(As absurd as this latter choice might seem, it is all too common. Argentina, in particular, has been doing it for nearly eighty years.)
But the larger the country, the greater the catastrophe when it all falls apart. And it, therefore, stands to reason that when it’s the world’s foremost empire that’s passed its sell-by date, the damage will be catastrophic. The damage from the hurricane will be centred on the empire itself and those within the empire will be most directly impacted, but the effects will be felt well outside its borders.
The more closely a country is connected to the empire economically, the greater, the lesser country will feel the damage. For example, at the present time, if the US is a country’s major trading partner, that country will experience damage significant enough that its economy might well collapse along with that of the US.
But why should we be talking about this now? Yes, the US is indeed troubled, both internally and externally. Still, the news media have regularly presented national leaders and other pundits who assure us that the storm that’s being flown into will only result in temporary turbulence and that “Category Five” is a gross exaggeration.
Well, let’s have a look at that for a moment.
In the last half-century, the US has gone from being the foremost creditor nation to the foremost debtor nation. At that same time, its wage level has risen so high that the US can no longer sell American-made goods, even to Americans, and its factories, predominantly in China and Mexico, are producing the vast majority of goods. Unfortunately, relations are on a steady decline between the US and these countries. The US has even been engaged in sabre-rattling with regard to China.
But the US empire has always had an ace in the hole with Europe. Although it’s self-destructively on a campaign to end fossil fuel production domestically, it has for decades provided liquified gas to Europe, shipping primarily into Hamburg harbour and distributing from there.
In the meantime, Germany formed an alliance with Russia, from whom it also receives gas to power the German industry. In recent years, Russia has been building a direct pipeline from Russia to Germany to provide gas more cheaply than any other country can provide (at roughly 11% of what US gas can be provided for).
With the understanding that this gas line would come on stream in 2022, Germany foolishly shut down all of its nuclear power plants, thus painting itself into a corner.
Clearly, the opening of the Nord Steam II valve would have been a major, major event, as it would not just mean cheaper gas for Europe, but an end of US hegemony over Europe and a shift in the balance of trade to Russia.
But the pipeline was sabotaged before this could happen.
It would seem that US hegemony would be saved, as Europe would fall back on US gas, even though it was cripplingly expensive.
But an unexpected wrinkle occurred. Germany went shopping and found that they could buy gas from China, India, and Saudi Arabia. It was more expensive than the Nord Steam gas, but still cheaper than the American gas.
Odd, though, as neither China, nor India are gas producers. So, where was this gas coming from? Well, as China, India, and Russia are BRICS countries, the gas was the very gas that Germany was to have received through Nord Stream, but now quite a bit pricier, as it had to be piped quite a lot further and there were also now middlemen to be paid.
So, how did the situation play out? Well, the US gas is still the most expensive and, therefore, least desirable, and Russia, instead of being economically crippled, was now selling more gas than before and experiencing a boom at a time when much of the world was sliding into economic turmoil. And, in the ensuing eighteen months, Germany would find that it could no longer sell its products internationally, as the cost to produce them was now even higher than before. Recently, there have been rumblings in the Bundestag that one out of three German industrial companies is hoping to leave the country, with the majority choosing China as their destination.
Unless the US could salvage the situation, its hegemony over Europe (and its claim to empire) was soon to end.
It was, however, true that there were significant oil and gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean. If they could be taken hold of, the US might stand a chance. But the rights to those fields were held by Palestine, and the US was known to staunchly support Palestine’s arch-enemy, Israel.
What to do?
Well, although the Gaza/Israel border is the one of the most protected in the world, Hamas somehow breached it in multiple locations and went on a killing spree in which, it is claimed, horrendous inhumane acts were committed. Proof of such acts have not been provided, but they’ve been well-publicised and have led to a “self-defense” retaliation by Israel in which Gaza is being systematically destroyed and its people being decimated. In spite of worldwide objection to this retaliation, and repeated warnings from the UN and others that Israel must not take over Gaza, Israel’s President insists that if Israel does not complete the destruction of Gaza and take over the control of its rubble, Israel will never be safe from Hamas.
In the bargain, the oil and gas fields will have a new owner.
At this point, it would be advisable for the world, particularly Americans, to sit back and observe such events from a distance. Although Israel is charging ahead, the majority of the world is dividing into BRICS vs. First World Globalists camps. The former is already in the majority and growing rapidly.
In describing his Israel/Palestine position, the US president appears to be changing from a black hat to a white one and back again, repeatedly. While this makes the White House appear to be both hypocritical and untrustworthy in the extreme, there’s little else the President can do. He’s squeezed between a rock and a time bomb.
I rarely write on current events, preferring to focus on the overview – the Big Picture – but this may be a moment when it’s important for the reader to sit far back from the present noise from the media and assess the degree to which his own future is dependent upon the outcome of these events.
The jet pilot has turned into a Category Five hurricane, and, for those who are on the flight, this would indeed be the time to fasten seat belts.
Source: https://internationalman.com/articles/fasten-your-seat-belt/
i have two bottom-line, bullet-hits-the bone questions that i wonder if anybody here at BV can and will answer:
1. What is the ultimate, root cause of the decline, demise, and destruction of America’s Middle Class?
Does the fact that we have a system of government and governance that enables the highest bidder among Vested Special Interests to gain easy access to that government’s legal power, administrative authority, and, above all, its spending capacity and capability so as to advance the agendas of those VSIs have anything to do with it?
2. What is the fix, the solution to the problem?
Is it to seize the wealth of that top 1% [or 5%, 10%, 25%, or whatever] and redistribute it to the remaining 99%, 95%, 90%, 75%, or whatever?
And if that is fix and solution, exactly Who is going to do that and, more importantly, exactly How do they intend to do it?
Jeff, I think you answered your own question (#1) correctly.
The fix will likely require a bottom-up revolution that will likely be bloody, because power will not concede its prerogatives and perks unless directly threatened or overthrown.
How and when (or even, if) this will happen, I don't know.
i agree with You completely, Bill ~ as in "112%" ~ that the only way this system of government and governance is going to be changed and terminated is by a revolution.
However, if that revolution is "bloody," it will fail completely, and pave the way for the birth of the deadliest totalitarian dictatorship in human history: One that will make Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, and Mao's China look like kindergarten classes.
My guess is that those who own, operate, command, and control that government would love nothing better than a violent, "bottom-up" revolution so as to implement, establish, and enforce that dictatorship.
As GW Bush once put it in December 2000 shortly after "winning" that election: "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier... as long as I'm the dictator." [https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-president-elect-following-meeting-with-congressional-leaders]. And all those Congressional leaders did was laugh... .
And, given the number of Americans who are totally and completely directly or even indirectly dependent upon that system of government and governance at the federal, state, and local levels for their livelihoods, lifestyles, and, in some case, their very lives, a very significant number of Americans will completely and totally support any action by their governments to deal with any violent revolution.
But before anybody can even think about any kind of a revolution in America, they need to determine exactly what sort of system of government and governance they plan to replace the current one with.
Jeff, you start off your comment...."the only way this system of government and governance is going to be changed and terminated is by a revolution." Quite a claim! The ONLY way eh? What evidence do you have for that claim?
And in your last sentence you say "THEY need to determine exactly what sort of system of government and governance THEY plan to replace the current one with".
If YOU are claiming the ONLY way this system is going to be changed is by a revolution, isn't the burden on YOU to come UP with a system YOU plan to replace the current one with as a result of YOUR revolution? Otherwise, your suggested method is incomplete and worthless.
Take care
Given that i was agreeing with Bill about what would be required to change this system of government and governance ~ ie, a revolution ~ i find it interesting, Dennis, that You direct Your question only to me, and not also to Bill. Or is that because he used the term “likely” as opposed to my using the term “only”?
In any event, my start point on this is my statement that “we have a system of government and governance that enables the highest bidder among Vested Special Interests to gain easy access to that government’s legal power, administrative authority, and, above all, its spending capacity and capability so as to advance the agendas of those VSIs.” Which, You will note, Bill agreed with.
So my first question for You is: Do You agree that the America does in fact have a system of government and governance that caters primarily toward all those Vested Special Interests, particularly the ones who are the highest bidders in terms of contributions and donations to elected politicians?
And if that is not the system that we have, then how would You describe it? And if that is not the ultimate, bottom-line root cause of America’s ~ and thus, the whole Planet’s ~ Crisis, then what is?
And if that in fact IS the system that we have, then it is quite evident to me that ~ if that system of government and governance is in fact that ultimate, bottom line root cause of the Crisis ~ then the place to start dealing with, resolving, and moving beyond that Crisis is by changing that system of government and governance. And that is exactly what a “revolution” is, isn’t it?
So the question obviously becomes: Change that system of government and governance to what? With WHAT is it to be replaced?
In my opinion, the current system needs to be replaced with one that takes Government completely out of the business of Meeting Human Needs and Satisfying Human Wants, and is limited solely and exclusively to protecting Human Rights and facilitating the fulfillment of Human Responsibilities.
At which point the immediate Question becomes: What are Human Needs and Wants, on the one hand; and what are Human Rights and Responsibilities, on the other?
The most obvious and immediate examples are contained in the Question: Are, for example Health and Health Care, Education, Housing, and Employment Human Rights? Or are they Human Needs and Wants? And where do Human Responsibilities fit in?
But that is a separate rant.
In any event, i’m curious: What’s Your solution to America’s and the Planet’s Crisis: Make Trump Dictator For Life?
Have a Great day and first week of the New Year.
We don't need to reinvent the wheel. A representative republic is a good form of government, assuming the officials elected truly represent the will of the people, not the richest and most powerful.
How to do this? Campaign finance reform is perhaps the first step. Public funding of elections. Term limits for politicians. Enforcement of laws against corruption. A major revival of independent journalism.
I'm sure smart minds can come together and come up with reforms -- the problem is getting a thoroughly corrupted system to pass them and enforce them. This will likely require a major uprising by a large number of people. People willing to go on strike, protest, shut things down. People willing to sacrifice: get arrested, lose their jobs, get denounced by the rich, get shot at by police. Grim stuff, I know, but writing blog posts like I do sure isn't going to get it done.
Bill: Your solution to getting a thoroughly corrupted system to pass and enforce the first four proposed changes is much, much better ~ and far more likely to succeed ~ than any kind of “bottoms-up bloody” revolution, discussed in an earlier BV. And i’m not sure how independent journalism can be legislated back into existence. Any thoughts on that?
And when You speak of “a major uprising by a large number of people” doing all those things, You are describing what the Indian Peoples did that ultimately resulted in their independence from the British Empire. That is certainly one model that Americans seeking to change this nation’s system of government and governance can use for reference.
And writing blog posts can certainly help to get done what needs to be done. Is that not what Thomas Paine did back in 1776 with COMMON SENSE?
Exactly Bill, and if we do reinvent the wheel, what "invention" is that invention going to be? Examples? Jeff seems to be suggesting we all live in hippy communes! Oh dear!
I like your list. Campaign Finance reform, funding of elections, and term limits can be done with the stroke of a pen.
Your last two - not so easy eh?
I would add reforming the first-past-the-post and Electoral College election system. And dump Citizens United.
What incentive do I have to debate with you Jeff when you throw out that my solution would be to make Trump Dictator for life?
Thanks for the ad hominem insult. Immediately disqualifying you in any Oxford Union Debating Society debate.
And in your long diatribe you never answer the question of what system YOU plan to replace the current one with as a result of YOUR revolution.
"...replaced with one that takes Government completely out of the business of Meeting Human Needs and Satisfying Human Wants, and is limited solely and exclusively to protecting Human Rights and facilitating the fulfillment of Human Responsibilities".
That's a GOAL. Not a SYSTEM. What's your system? Examples? Maybe hundreds of communes like they had in Italy 1,000-years ago?
Question: are electricity, running water, sewage system, a legal system and highways Human Needs?
Yes, right?
Aren't these ONLY providable to everyone with a system of governance that includes the DOT for roads. And the DOJ for the legal system. The Corps of Engineers for dams and Building Codes promulgated by Federal and State Government Agencies?
A government limited SOLELY and EXCLUSIVLY to protecting Human Rights (a Police State?), and facilitating the fulfillment of Human Responsibilities (The Department of Human Responsibilities? LOL) is not going to be able to build interstate highways and dams and provide air traffic control eh? The Military?
As usual you have answered the question with more questions, eh?
Where do I have this all wrong my friend? Am I making any sense at all?
Have a Great day and first week of the New Year.
First of all, Dennis, i wasn’t aware that we were playing by Oxford Union Debating Society rules.
And second of all, what incentive You have to continue this conversation is Your problem, and not mine.
And You are correct: my long diatribe provided a “GOAL” ~ or a “Mission Statement” ~ and not a “SYSTEM,” The next step is to put together a new Constitution that creates, implements, and enforces that new system of government and governance.
But before that is a Manifesto: A Statement of Intent as to exactly What this Revolution is all about, What it intends to accomplish, and How and Why it intends to accomplish that. Which is being worked on, even as this response is being written.
But before even that, there is a Prolegomenon to that Manifesto, which has been written, and, if You or anybody else is interested in reading it, send me an e~ at vaw.sitka@gmail.com.
As regards the economic system that would be put in operation to meet the Goal of creating and establishing a government whose sole business is observing and protecting Human Rights and facilitating the fulfillment of Human Responsibilities: The simplest and easiest description of it is laissez-faire free marketism, also known as “capitalism,” which has never been tried on a national level in history.
Which almost always ~ and in this case did ~ raise the Question: “(A)re electricity, running water, sewage system, a legal system and highways Human Needs?”
Yes, all those things are very definitely Human Needs.
You then conclude: “Aren't these ONLY providable to everyone with a system of governance that includes the DOT for roads. And the DOJ for the legal system. The Corps of Engineers for dams and Building Codes promulgated by Federal and State Government Agencies?”
Just like You asked me the other day about my declaring that this system of government and government will ONLY be changed by a revolution, let me ask You: On what basis do You declare that these things are provided ONLY because of governments and governance?
That may be the ONLY way that those things have been are provided in the past and are now, but is it the ONLY way that those things Could be made available?
You then ask: “A government limited SOLELY and EXCLUSIVLY to protecting Human Rights (a Police State?)…
No, Dennis: A Police State does not exist to protect the Human Rights of Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, the Pursuit of Happiness, and Truth of its Citizens. It exists to protect the meeting of the Needs and the satisfaction of the Wants of those who own, operate, manage, and control the government.
And if a government would not build interstate highways and dams or an ATC system, who could? And just mite would. Nobody?
And finally, if the function of the government is to protect the Human Rights of its Citizens, that would include a Military Force capable of defending that nation’s borders and its Peoples from acts of aggression by other nations, or other entities external and internal.
Have a Great day.
Has Ms Williamson ever bothered to explain exactly how ~ if elected ~ she plans to make what "has got to stop" to actually stop?
Or is she just another candidate blowing smoke and looking for donations?
Don't know, Jeff. You might check out her campaign web site and various interviews she's done.
A quick scan of her website reveals that her plan is essentially to exponentially increase the taxes and other money paid by "the rich" to the government, and to redistribute their wealth in the form of just about free everything to the "non-rich": education, health care, housing, etc.
How does she plan to do this without a Congress that goes along with it? By Executive Order?
i also notice that she has nothing to say about this nation's $33.97 TRILLION National, Sovereign Debt [or the looming $1 TRILLION annual interest payments on that Debt] or America's $212.89 TRILLION in Unfunded Government Liabilities [Social Security, Medicare, Interest on the Debt held by the Public, or Federal Employee and Veterans' Benefits].
But then no politician or politician Wannabe ~ starting with Trump and Biden ~ in 2024 does either; so nothing new there.
Deficit? What deficit? We'll produce our way out of it by stealing the world's resources (oil, lithium, intellectual, etc.). Maybe mining asteroids in space is the answer. Can you say: precious metals?
Heh. Nailed it.
Off Topic,
The great Aussie journalist just died at 84-years-old.
"China is ringed by 400 US bases...China once again is challenging the very notion of Western and white superiority...and that is unacceptable" - John Pilger (1939-2023) on Going Underground, discussing the US’s coming war on China.
RIP John
Our time in history is not unique.
For sure we are barreling headfirst into conflagration and collapse but it’s not inevitable.
Peter Turchin gives a good overview of cultures that have avoided destroying themselves and ones that haven’t.
https://books.google.ca/books/about/End_Times.html
Glenn,
James Howard Kunstler in his blog "Clusterfuck Nation" today....
The Great Clarification
"It was fitting that the last extravagant political act of ’23 was Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows chucking Mr. Trump off the ballot there because. . . she felt like it. To save our democracy, you understand. That might be the terminal absurdity of the derangement we are leaving behind, the signature for much that has gone down in this country the past three years: women on the verge of a nervous breakdown throwing the crockery of law around the room at Daddy.
All this accomplishes, of course, is to disgrace authority in general and to turn America into one big broken home, making us a population of frightened runaways clinging desperately to a few square feet of ground, alone under the freeway ramp in the rain.
That is no way to live. The way to live is to make yourself useful to your fellow humans and to get paid for it, and to find some joy and meaning in that human fellowship based on fair, consensual transactions - a pretty simple formula..."
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-great-clarification/
This offered no insight or understanding of our predicament.
I remember when minimum wage in Montreal in the early 60s was $1.50/hour. In those Days, a Canadian Dollar was worth more than an American Dollar.
You could rent an apartment, buy food and pay utilities.
After work, workers could go to a men only tavern, put down $1 and get 10 - 8oz. glasses of draft beer.
Morning Jazzme in Massachusetts
Have you watched this short YouTube® video?
When the poop hits the fan in 2024!
2023 Was Rough, 2024 Is Going To Be Rougher: Hold On Tight, Prepare for What’s Coming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOfYIalXl00
How come Jazzme's comment got deleted?
I deleted it cause I made a ny resolution not to use the "f" word this year.
PS watched the video and ya. Guess lots of folks are worried about coming events.
Thats a great resolution. I need to do the same!