Austerity and Deficit Hawks Say, “Let Them Eat Cake,” The People Will Say, “Off With Their Heads” |
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By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report
The vultures are circling above the debt ceiling, along with the austerity and deficit hawks, ready to pounce on what little remains.
Before I get into the tragic comedy that is the deficit debate, I must say that it is both fascinating and horrifying to watch the global financial elite incrementally destroy the United States. The American people remain passive while enduring a slow death by a thousand cuts. Each year brings another step down in living standards. The efficiency of the Neo-Feudal Technocratic-Fascists is impressive. They always seem to know just how much they can get away with without causing “civil unrest.” They bribe 45 million people with food stamps, 10 million with unemployment checks. They give you just enough to keep you passive and weak, so they can continue their plunder.
They’re masters of slow economically-induced death. They’re like vampires, sucking our blood slowly, turning us into beaten down zombies. You wake up one day and realize that you are thousands of dollars in debt, working harder for much less money, while everything costs more. You’re struggling to get by and make ends meet. Your future prospects are increasingly dire and you don’t have the ability to retire without living in poverty. So you jump on prescription meds or turn to alcohol or other drugs to deal with all the stress and anxiety. You try to escape by watching increasingly trivial and absurd “reality” TV for hours daily, you need to get your soma and delude yourself some more. Next thing you know, you have failing health and can’t afford treatment. At this point, every penny of your Social Security and Medicare counts, but now, as billionaire Charlie Munger recently said, sorry, you’re going to have to “suck it in and cope.”
Yeah, he’s talking to you.
As if a collapsing economy, skyrocketing costs of living and reduced pay weren’t making life hard enough, now vital social programs are getting cut. Social Security and Medicare cuts are going to be very painful for millions of Americans who are already hanging by a thread. As are cuts to food and housing assistance programs. Paid off politicians are using deficit hysteria to implement an austerity program; an attack on social safety nets that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. It is a shame that we squandered trillions of tax dollars on Wall Street, wars and tax breaks for multi-millionaires and billionaires.
No matter how technocratically skilled the ruling class is, at some point soon 250 million Americans are going to become aware that they have been completely screwed and thrown overboard. The naïve propagandized masses are headed for a nasty wake up call. They will finally come to the brutal realization of how depraved, greedy and power-addicted our ruling class truly is.
Wake up Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore. The American Dream is O-V-E-R.
The Obama Illusion, Act II: Countdown to Collapse…
When it comes to the economy, the Obama Administration and their global banking benefactors have been kicking the can down the road by hiding trillions of dollars in losses, “extending and pretending” that things are fine. Recovery is just around the corner. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The economic stimulus and quantitative easing programs were never serious attempts to revive the economy, they were a way of prolonging the charade and papering over reality, to buy more time while pumping even more money into the global banks so they could continue their pillage and set the conditions for the next phase of their assault on the existence of a middle class and democracy worldwide.
The Obama Administration injected a mild stimulus, just enough to keep the dying body from convulsing. They temporarily extended unemployment benefits, food stamp and other “anti-poverty” programs, just enough to keep a suffering population pacified a little bit longer. Just enough to keep our society from rioting, to keep the torches and pitchforks at bay a little while longer, so they can complete their plunder.
Given the way they have played it thus far, you would expect another half-ass stimulus to kick the can a little further down the road to get us closer to the 2012 election without all-out disaster, perhaps. But the vultures are now circling above the debt ceiling, along with the austerity and deficit hawks, ready to pounce on what little remains.
Austerity and Deficit Hawks Say, “Let Them Eat Cake”
Do you know why the deficit hawks want to cut and privatize your Social Security?
It’s because these people flat out stole the money you spent your entire working life putting aside into the system. Excuse me for not being “civilized” enough, apologies, they didn’t “steal” it, they just “borrowed” it and are refusing to pay it back.
It astounds me how people constantly debate the fiscal condition of Social Security but they never seem to notice or mention that the Social Security Trust Fund has been looted. Guess what? Between Wall Street, wars and tax breaks for multi-millionaires and billionaires, the $2.5 trillion surplus that was supposed to be used for your retirement has already been used. Forgive me for being blunt, but one-tenth of one percent of the population is giving you the finger and telling you to “suck it in and cope.”
The looting of the Social Security Trust Fund is about as funny as Wall Street executives crashing the economy and then using trillions of our tax dollars to give themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses.
Speaking of the joke being on us, the late great comedian George Carlin once prophetically warned:
“You know what they want? They want obedient workers… Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your f#ckin’ retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it… they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this f#ckin’ place.
It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
You and I… are not in The big club.”
When you hear all these talking heads and politicians saying that they want to cut “entitlement” programs that we have already paid into, they are literally saying that they do not intend to payback money that they owe. While they cry about the national deficit that they created and demand austerity measures to cut back on vital social services, they have the audacity to demand debt increasing tax cuts for themselves and their corporations.
Tax breaks for the rich and budget cuts for the rest of us.
That’s what I call a recipe for revolution.
Austerity and deficit hawks say, “Let them eat cake.” The people will eventually say, “Off with their heads!”
One-tenth of one percent of the population is drunk with arrogance and blinded by shortsighted greed. Instead of providing affordable healthcare to hardworking Americans; instead of creating employment programs and improving our educational system; instead of building vital infrastructure, our tax dollars have ended up in the obscenely bloated pockets of the richest people to ever walk the face of this planet.
Deficit Hawks Vs. Keynesian Stimulus Supporters – They’re Both Wrong!
The debate between those who are calling for deficit cuts (austerity) and those who are calling for stimulus spending (debt) is yet another perfect example of how the mainstream media sets the agenda and controls public opinion by limiting the range of acceptable debate and reducing the “spectrum of thinkable thought.” This is a bullshit debate that exposes the sham that is the Democrat Vs. Republican dynamic. Both of these choices will not fix our economic crisis and will only reinforce the status quo dominance of the ruling class.
The debate boils down to this: How should we make the working class pay for the crimes of the ruling class?
Should we:
A) Cut vital life-sustaining social programs that keep society functioning.
or
B) Keep the programs in place and pour more money (debt) into them, which will ultimately have to be paid for by the working class through rising taxes.
Call me crazy, but both of these choices screw hardworking Americans and will only make our problems worse.
While the media endlessly debates between deficit cuts and spending, how come we are not discussing a third and much better option? How about we seize the assets of the criminals who stole our money and stop all the enormous subsidies that we are giving away to the most profitable corporations and obscenely wealthy individuals?
We have such a huge national deficit because the economic top one-tenth of one percent of the population has made off with trillions of dollars in national wealth, and the looting continues, unabated.
How about we tell the paid-off puppet politicians, “economists,” and “regulators” to step aside and bring in criminal investigators?
At the root, this is not an economic crisis, this the breakdown of law and order. We are in this mess because global bankers have rigged the system with an organized criminal racket that has robbed trillions of dollars from the American working class.
If you are serious about fixing the economy, first and foremost, we need to stop the ongoing looting and seize the assets of the organized criminal class who have robbed us. Until that’s done, this crisis will never be solved.
Now, just to be clear, I know it is an extraordinarily difficult task to purge a system that is, at its core, hardwired into organized criminal activity without causing further damage, but it must be done. You can talk about financial reform and economic theory all you want, but anything less than taking the vampire’s fangs out of the neck of the global economy is an absolute waste of time.
Until the criminals are held accountable for their actions, removed from positions of power, have their assets seized and their companies placed under temporary receivership until they are efficiently unwound, our economic crisis will never be solved.
The Federal Reserve board must also be held accountable and broken up just like the “too big to fail” banks. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Bank of International Settlements must be dealt with in a similar fashion. How can anyone claim a free-market based on fair competition when it is obvious that the system is rigged to serve this global banking cartel?
Let’s also restore Glass-Stegall and rework the markets to eliminate dark pools, shadow banking, casino gambling, high frequency trading, front-running, accounting gimmicks and any other tricks that cause market rigging, economic instability and suck the lifeblood out of the real economy.
Until we restore the rule of law and take these steps, the stock market and global economy will continue to increasingly serve the interests of the few, at the devastating expense of everyone else, and will eventually crash again, sometime soon – no matter how much the Fed, Treasury, CIA and the plunge protection team artificially prop it up.
Countdown to Rebellion…
The jig is up. The global Ponzi has been exposed for all to see. Either we dismantle it and start anew, or we all drink the Kool-Aid and go lay down.
Clearly, the paid off politicians and bankers are willing to throw us all to the wolves to keep the scam rolling. For those of you out of the loop, global bankers used financial derivatives to turn the global economy into an elaborate Ponzi scheme. They created a bogus economy ten times the size of the entire global economy. No matter how audacious, complex and complicated their Ponzi was, eventually reality was going to catch up with it. When the derivative Ponzi began to collapse in 2007, law enforcement and politicians should have held the Ponzi players accountable. Instead, the Bush and Obama Administrations have doubled down on the side of the criminals. Allowing them to not only get away with it, but to make even more money while throwing tens of millions of people into poverty. For anyone paying attention, it is obvious that we now live in a banana republic run by a global banking cartel, or a financial terrorism network, whichever term you prefer.
To sum this all up, a bold fact, that cannot be argued, is that our tax dollars have been funneled into the pockets of the very people who caused this crisis. The money that we need to live a secure and healthy lifestyle has been looted. The people responsible for this crisis must be held responsible for their actions. No one, no matter how much money they have, and no matter how politically-connected they are, should be above the rule of law.
Either we have a nation of justice and law, or we have a nation of chaos and war.
A very wise man once made this point clear when he said, as long as “justice remains the tool of a few powerful interests; legal interpretations will continue to be made to suit the convenience of the oppressor powers…. When forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken.”
That’s a quote from a man who knew something about taking on the global financial elite, his name was Che Guevara.
Viva la revolution!
- David DeGraw is the founder and editor of AmpedStatus.com. His long awaited book, The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III, will finally be released on September 28th. He can be emailed at David[@]AmpedStatus.com
~ We are fighting to remain 100% independent, completely free from partisan influence. If you respect our work, please donate to support our efforts here.
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Previous Comments:
Austerity and Deficit Hawks Say, “Let Them Eat Cake,” The People Will Say, “Off With Their Heads” | AmpedStatus | TRUTH4USA said:
[...] via Austerity and Deficit Hawks Say, “Let Them Eat Cake,” The People Will Say, “Off With Their Hea…. [...]
July 21st, 2011 at 7:52 pm
Derek said:
niiiiiice! ton of great points and quotes in this one.
i’ve been waiting for the day a critical mass realizes they’ve been shafted. Waiting and waiting, it will come some day, that’s for sure. Just hope it comes soon!
July 21st, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Danny said:
Ah, a feisty and intelligent chap. Cheers!
Couldn’t of said it better meself.
To the guillotine with the tyrants!
July 21st, 2011 at 8:12 pm
George C said:
DeGraw is a f#ckin’ truth warrior!
Go on tour and unleash this material on the sheep. Wake the flock up. The force is strong with you.
July 21st, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Janis said:
“You can talk about financial reform and economic theory all you want, but anything less than taking the vampire’s fangs out of the neck of the global economy is an absolute waste of time.”
Amen
July 21st, 2011 at 8:52 pm
OldDog said:
FINALLY, someone besides my self has published my opinion that the bankers need to be taken down, regardless of the masses being responsible for their lack of diligence in their own affairs.
I hold the maxim that it takes two to tangle, and there would be no crime without a victim and a perpetrator. My personal thanks to David DeGraw for putting forth the cry for the banker’s assets, as with out their money they are helpless to continue screwing the ignorant masses. Where do we find an honest prosecutor, and a grand jury to accomplish this without having to wait until a default enrages the public and they take matters in their own hands? It will not be possible to confiscate their assets without the law, as it is scattered all over the world. A mob of murders has never been my call for action. I want them prosecuted then burned alive by the law. The death of hundreds of millions of people is on their shoulders, and they should be paid back with all possible vengeance. Surely they will burn in hell for all eternity, so let us get them acclimated to the fire. Note: We may have to kick some politicians ass’s to get this done!
July 21st, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Nick said:
Blistering Truth
Like a blowtorch. A laser guide missile. no, a neutron bomb.
KA-BOOOOOOM
July 22nd, 2011 at 12:09 am
sneezy said:
The people shopping grocery stores
don’t get it.
The people attending church don’t
seem to get it.
The people watching game
shows damn sure don’t seem to
get it.
The…..zzzz…..zzzz…zzzz
Thank you David DeGraw you
get it and tell it like it is.
July 22nd, 2011 at 1:13 am
Jean Jearman said:
I just wrote to my MoveOn rep that I do not want to place nice and it feels like war to me. I am ready to fight the fight in any way. What can I do?
July 22nd, 2011 at 2:27 am
sam ditshego said:
The article is elaborate. Have readers of this website considered the role of The Bilderberg Group and the intricate web of secret societies and private organisations such as The Skull and Bones, Knights of Malta, Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission in this scheme of things? Both the President of South Africa Jacob Zuma nad his Deputy Kgalema Motlanthe addressed the Council on Foreign Relations in October 2008 and April/May 2011. I don’t think they understand what these organisations stand for. Zuma also hosted David Cameron yet Britain, USA and other western countries are waging a war of aggression against Libya, an African country. Prior to South Africa’s 1994 elections, Nelson Mandela went to fund-raise at the Rockefellers. These are not genuine leaders of the African revolution. Where on earth have western countries canonised African revolutionaries such as Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrukah, Amilcar Cabral the way they canonise Mandela? South Africa is going the way of the USA.
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:18 am
Cordley Garmany Coit said:
The only choice we will see is: “upper or lower bunk?” at the forced labor Camp.
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:31 am
bahmi said:
David DeGraw has hit the nail on the head. The elaborate global conspiracy against the common man must come to an end. Stop the financial tarantulas NOW.
July 22nd, 2011 at 9:47 am
Austerity and Deficit Hawks Say, “Let Them Eat Cake,” The People Will Say, “Off With Their Heads” | Independent News Hub said:
[...] DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report July 22, [...]
July 22nd, 2011 at 1:20 pm
annakis said:
We are literally the frog in the pot of water on a low heat.
But you’re not allowed to quote the Red Queen. Big brother is listening.
And as always only a few politicians are speaking any kind of language that means moving into reality away from this nightmare. All the Dems and Repubs are demanding for the people to pay for our problems.
I have to agree with you. They will force the American public into rebellion just as has been done in other countries. The only problem is that the US has sunk even increasing amounts into the military with this scenario in mind. They have developed weapons systems that make mass revolt a moot point. They can passify large amounts of people with non-lethals and if it comes to it kill millions without putting a soldier in jeopardy.
Don’t think our future has been well spent to protect the wealthy elite and the rampant nationalists?
July 22nd, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Austerity and Deficit Hawks Say, “Let Them Eat Cake,” The People Will Say, “Off With Their Heads” said:
[...] David DeGrawAmped Status [...]
July 22nd, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Jeff said:
When the derivative Ponzi began to collapse in 2007, law enforcement and politicians should have held the Ponzi players accountable. Instead, the Bush and Obama Administrations have doubled down on the side of the criminals. Allowing them to not only get away with it, but to make even more money while throwing tens of millions of people into poverty. For anyone paying attention, it is obvious that we now live in a banana republic run by a global banking cartel, or a financial terrorism network, whichever term you prefer.
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Westcoastliberal said:
I’m with you, David, and you state the case very well. The “Chicago School” boys are now pointing their “Shock Doctrine” at Americans and the won’t stop milking this cow until it’s absolutely dry.
Makes me wonder, though, just how deeply this runs (i.e false flag attacks resulting in martial law, political prisoner camps, overt genocide, etc.)
Seems to me the majority of our “elected” representatives are in on and support this. Question is, what can we do beyond bitching on blogs (bob)?
July 22nd, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Austerity and Deficit Hawks Say, “Let Them Eat Cake,” The People Will Say, “Off With Their Heads” | Real News Reporter said:
[...] Austerity and Deficit Hawks Say, “Let Them Eat Cake,” The People Will Say, “Off With Their Heads” Posted by Real News Reporter on July 22nd, 2011 var addthis_product = 'wpp-261'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};David DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report [...]
July 22nd, 2011 at 8:43 pm
Complete List of David DeGraw’s Reports | David DeGraw said:
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July 22nd, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Austerity and Deficit Hawks Say, “Let Them Eat Cake,” The People Will Say, “Off With Their Heads” « InvestmentWatch said:
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July 22nd, 2011 at 11:45 pm
Austerity and Deficit Hawks Say, “Let Them Eat Cake,” The People Will Say, “Off With Their Heads” | David DeGraw said:
[...] By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report [...]
July 23rd, 2011 at 1:14 am
Chris Rodgers said:
In answer to Fred Ruiz,
Please understand, we do not include small business owners or even doctors and lawyers, accountants and scholars in with the top 1% of the population that has taken all the money and is using it for their own power. Many if not most successful individuals, value their part in our community and DO NOT seek success at the expense of their fellow citizens.
This country was built by regular, common people in order to create a place where each person could discover what they had to offer their neighbors, community, town, city, state, country and by working hand in hand with their fellows they could build a just, secure, safe, healthy life for self, family and neighbors. Success was finding the place where your skills were valued, doing your part, raising a decent family or neighborhood, contributing to your community and always working to create the kind of world you wanted to live in.
Originally, we were a nation of the self employed; farmers, craftsmen, tradesmen, even professional people. You trained by working for someone who had already succeeded, a doctor or lawyer or merchant or you became an apprentice or you learned from experience. It wasn’t too hard to save up and open a store or put up a shingle. The risk was fairly small. You could fail and try again or try something else. You were always part a bigger community that needed you and what you had to offer. Working for wages was something that you did when your options were limited. You got out of it as soon as possible.
It is a long story, how we came to see ourselves as we do now. Read some books or articles. Think about it.
We the common people, built this country. Everyday people living full, generous, helpful lives are the successful human being and are the ones with the most satisfaction. Every laborer, every farm hand, every seamstress, teacher, clerk, nurse, laundry person, trash hauler, parent, factory worker who did the best job they could, followed community laws, loved their family, helped their friends and neighbors, volunteered to do what needed doing, or made something of beauty or played music at church, or taught someone to read, each one made it possible for a rich person to get rich we should NOT forget!
We invent, we accumulate knowledge, we design, we build, we improve, we grow things, we have built a legal system, created art, built our infrastructure, communications, scientific knowledge, trained workers, secured systems of skills and knowledge, we teach and learn, we write and think and share our insight, we developed education systems, the universities, the libraries, the freedom, the flow of information, the connections, the networks. We also found the resources and developed them, cared for the soil, fed our country, mined and drilled and cut and extracted. Possibly we did too good of a job in this area. We managed the water, studied the weather, listened for earthquakes. We do it because we want it, we want to, it is needed and we don’t need rich people to make us.
We provide the web of interconnected systems within which the rich are able to get rich.
Just who is itthen, in this system that does not deserve a decent, safe, healthy, just, secure life after doing their part to make our way of life work? The person who chose or was forced to clean your office at night, cannot decently and securely care for the tiniest family or obtain healthcare for them. One accident, illness, car wreck, flood, loss of job can ruin everything that person tried to accomplish in life. Not to mention, this simple person who didn’t ask for much, just a place to contribute and some respect is told every day that they are losers in a game where the winners take all and those at the bottom do not deserve a place at the table.
Most of us don’t have any desire to play that high stakes game the rich play. We find it unsatisfying and not fulfilling. We and our ancestors did our part. We made this country possible and we wanted people to have choices about what had value for them. We did a really good job and there is more than enough wealth for all of us and we want what we created to provide for each of us the basic, simple lifestyle we each deserve for what we have done. There is enough! WE did this!
Those we call the rich in this discussion, do not create. Not now. They invent ponzi schemes to make money, ways to bet against others or jocky with financial systems to create bubbles etc. They even make the money. To them success results from making the most money without expense. Success for them means you don’t actually work or bother with real people and physical objects if you can help it. And you NEVER NEVER pay anyone for a cost you can avoid. These people don’t create jobs anymore. That would be to much trouble, too risky.
If all the rest of us stopped playing with them and they disappeared from the face of the earth, we would go on pretty much as we do, because we are the ones who really make things happen. They, however do not do anything. They must have people to push around or pay for what they need done. They must use us, but we don’t need them. Now who exactly is really successful? Who will create the new sustainable economy that might save the world? It won’t be them. They are holding us up, hanging on to our wealth, ignoring the real value in this country and they are willing to destroy the earth to keep playing their stupid games.
July 23rd, 2011 at 6:19 pm
JMDEMAT said:
Really easy to blame the Banks and Bankers who have been demonized in all the by the very people responsible for the mess – YOUR ELECTED FEDERAL OFFICIALS! Wake up – they love blaming others – the Wall Streeters, who are easy to dislike because of the money they make. Not everyone on Wall Street are billionaires. Many are hardworking folks like everyone else, with mortgages, to pay, taxes to pay, kids to send to college, and decreased security and benefits for those still around.
Thank the LIBERALS who are fiscally irresponsible, continue to create an ENTITLED society where people think others owed them a living. You jerks voted – next time pay attention and do not voted these idiots into government service. Look at other countries with similar programs, like France, and tell me if they work. Meantime your healthcare programs go down the toilet, and we pay higher and higher premiums and taxes for less! Next time when you get up at 5 AM to take the train to work and get home at 8 – think of all the folks we are supporting with our hard earned money and work – still happy!
Place the blame where it belongs and vote the BUMS OUT of office.
Cut expenses and waste, versus raising taxes..cutting the abuses in medicare and medicaid alone can go a long way to support better programs for people who paid in to the programs all their lives and deserve good coverage.
July 24th, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Gregg said:
I have yet to dis agree with one of David’s articles. He is always spot on and loaded with factual evidence. We seem to think alike on these issues. Chris Rodgers also makes very solid arguments of what America use to be and has been guided off track from what we could be today.
We agree the wealthy, bankers, corporate leaders and puppet politicians are destroying our country. We want to fight back, but we are a very fragmented country. No one seems to want to unite in a full middle class revolt against the wealthy and their puppets. If we all agree we need to replace upper level government, no one here is proposing how. All I hear is anger and frustration. Building up steam to the point that someone fires the historic first shot. I would like to see if it is possible to pull off a peaceful revolution and firing of Congress before we resort to a violent and typical historic human response to oppression. If an honest peaceful effort fails, then let’s consider the final option.
I would like to urge David and all his followers to investigate GOOOH.com. This is a well thought out approach to replace government according to the rules of our country. It is a way that could logically work to unite the middle class in a grass roots effort to fight the elitist the way our founding fathers intended. This effort is a peaceful effort. It is a way to test the system to see if even our election system is also rigged. Let’s see if we can unite the people to make the system work as intended to throw off corruption in our leadership. Bear in mind that ANY attempt at revolution will be dependent on the masses of the middle class uniting for a common cause and approach, no matter what that cause or approach may be. If the masses do not unite, our numbers do us no good and we WILL fall prey to the monetary powers of the world. So I say we make our first effort to unite the people, an effort according to the rules of our country. If this is successful, we can then demand that our new leaders seek out and prosecute ALL who were involved in the numerous acts of treason against our country. This justice will never come from the current leaders. Only a completely new leadership group will seek this justice. If we cannot unite the masses (including our soldiers and law enforcement organizations) to peacefully fight our corrupt leaders, then we will NEVER be able to organize the masses to revolt in war against them. If this gets violent, it will be violence among the middle class people who are most oppressed and those middle class people who are working as law enforcers for the corrupt leaders of the country. This battle will go on while the most wealthy leaders sit protected in their ivory towers watching their puppet middle class soldiers and law enforcement people battle with the oppressed middle class citizens. A battle of middle class against middle class while the real enemy sits and watches from their safety zones. When the dust settles, the wealthy elitists will have the left over worker middle class people clear the bodies from the battle field so they can continue their theatrical performance for the naive masses to serve them and allow them to continue their oppression.
Go to GOOOH.com and learn what you can do to try to fire ALL of Congress. If this does not work, I think we will see much darker days before the U.S. sees a true light at the end of the tunnel.
Take your money out of the bank, stop supporting incumbent politicians, stop supporting large corporations, and start working to make the GOOOH.com effort a success!
United We Stand! Divided We Fall! Never have these words rang so true and clear to me!!
July 25th, 2011 at 12:16 am
DavidB said:
Don’t you already realize, the down fall of the USA, and the western world in general, is deliberate. This is not about greed, although greed does play a part of course.
No this is about destroying freedom and liberty, destroying the western system of the individuals right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
There does need to be a revolution, that much is certain, because there is no way we can continue down this path. But unless the we fully know and understand what we are fighting against, we only fight to enable another corrupt and despotic system to enslave us. For example, don’t forget that Che Guevara was a socialist, good buddies with Fedal Castro. Socialism leads to Communism, about as far from life, liberty and happiness as a system can get, except for Islam and Nazism, both particularly nasty totalitarian ideologies to be sure.
I only warn that we be careful what we wish for, for in the process of attempting to fight for liberty and freedom, we may inadvertently fight to bring about the very thing we wish to avoid.
July 25th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
Chirs said:
How can you not know that the social security trust fund had no money on it? LBJ started looting this a decade before I was born. I knew about this as a teenager. It wasn’t the “bankers” that spent the money it was the politicians and ultimately the voters that put them in place from the 60s until now. You can blame the big bankers for the 2008 collapse but you can only blame the the voters for the social security debacle. Which means you can only blame yourself. Its time to buck up and take some respnsibilities for your inaction Baby Boomers!!!!
July 28th, 2011 at 2:35 am
Conjury said:
The article is right on. It cites the United State’s predicament exactly and enumerates the causes as well as the solutions. I just hope the revolution comes sooner rather than later.
July 29th, 2011 at 7:09 am
Stuart Sneed said:
A short and worthwhile read that I borrowed from Michael Parenti:
What Do Empires Do? by Michael Parenti
(posted in 2010)
When I wrote my book Against Empire in 1995, as might be expected, some of my U.S. compatriots thought it was wrong of me to call the United States an empire. It was widely believed that U.S. rulers did not pursue empire; they intervened abroad only out of self-defense or for humanitarian rescue operations or to restore order in a troubled region or overthrow tyranny, fight terrorism, and propagate democracy.
But by the year 2000, everyone started talking about the United States as an empire and writing books with titles like Sorrows of Empire, Follies of Empire, Twilight of Empire, or Empire of Illusions— all referring to the United States when they spoke of empire.
Even conservatives started using the word. Amazing. One could hear right-wing pundits announcing on U.S. television, ìWeíre an empire, with all the responsibilities and opportunities of empire and we better get used to itî; and ìWe are the strongest nation in the world and have every right to act as suchî—as if having the power gives U.S. leaders an inherent entitlement to exercise it upon others as they might wish.
ìWhat is going on here?î I asked myself at the time. How is it that so many people feel free to talk about empire when they mean a United States empire? The ideological orthodoxy had always been that, unlike other countries, the USA did not indulge in colonization and conquest.
The answer, I realized, is that the word has been divested of its full meaning. ìEmpireî seems nowadays to mean simply dominion and control. Empire—for most of these late-coming critics— is concerned almost exclusively with power and prestige. What is usually missing from the public discourse is the process of empire and its politico-economic content. In other words, while we hear a lot about empire, we hear very little about imperialism.
Now that is strange, for imperialism is what empires are all about. Imperialism is what empires do. And by imperialism I do not mean the process of extending power and dominion without regard to material and financial interests. Indeed ìimperialismî has been used by some authors in the same empty way that they use the word ìempire,î to simply denote dominion and control with little attention given to political economic realities.
But I define imperialism as follows: the process whereby the dominant investor interests in one country bring to bear their economic and military power upon another nation or region in order to expropriate its land, labor, natural resources, capital, and marketsóin such a manner as to enrich the investor interests. In a word, empires do not just pursue ìpower for powerís sake.î There are real and enormous material interests at stake, fortunes to be made many times over.
So for centuries the ruling interests of Western Europe and later on North America and Japan went forth with their financiers—and when necessary their armies—to lay claim to most of planet Earth, including the labor of indigenous peoples (both as workers and slaves), their markets, their incomes (through colonial taxation or debt control or other means), and the abundant treasures of their lands: their gold, silver, diamonds, copper, rum, molasses, hemp, flax, ebony, timber, sugar, tobacco, ivory, iron, tin, nickel, coal, cotton, corn, and more recently: uranium, manganese, titanium, bauxite, oil, and—say it againóoil (hardly a complete listing).
Empires are enormously profitable for the dominant economic interests of the imperial nation but enormously costly to the people of the colonized country. In addition to suffering the pillage of their lands and natural resources, the people of these targeted countries are frequently killed in large numbers by the intruders.
This is another thing that empires do which too often goes unmentioned in the historical and political literature of countries like the United States, Britain, and France. Empires impoverish whole populations and kill lots and lots of innocent people. As I write this, President Obama and the national security state for which he works are waging two and a half wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, and northern Pakistan), and leveling military threats against Yemen, Iran, and, on a slow day, North Korea. Instead of sending medical and rescue aid to Haiti, Our Bomber sent in the Marines, the same Marines who engaged in years of repression and killings in Haiti decades ago and supported more recent massacres by proxy forces.
The purpose of all this killing is to prevent alternative, independent, self-defining nations from emerging. So the empire uses its state power to gather private wealth for its investor class. And it uses its public wealth to shore up its state power and prevent other nations from self-developing.
Sooner or later this arrangement begins to wilt under the weight of its own contradictions. As the empire grows more menacing and more murderous toward others, it grows sick and impoverished within itself.
From ancient times to today, empires have always been involved in the bloody accumulation of wealth. If you donít think this is true of the United States then stop calling it ìEmpire.î And when you write a book about how it wraps its arms around the planet, entitle it ìGlobal Bullyî or ìBossy Busybody,î but be aware that youíre not telling us much about imperialism.
After reading about this Governments secreted 120 ongoing Special Ops “engagements” around the World at present, I found the second to the last paragraph foreboding and accurate…No good can come from Imperialism and Empire for the 99.9% of us that are the disenfranchised… majority…
August 14th, 2011 at 8:47 am
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