Eat the Rich

I was reading a diary at the Daily Kos website that both disturbed and intrigued. You can read it here

The Diary itself was interesting but the comment thread was what got me to thinking.

The premise in short was that the top 1% have recovered and while the rest of society is still reeling from the great recession the rich are doing fine.

The comment thread shifted quickly to apocalyptic calls for overthrow hearkening back to the rise of fascism in Europe and the Bolshevik Stalinist revolution in Russia. The term tipping point came up a lot and the dominate sentiment was that all that stood between the rich and the “Terror was the populace's respect for the rule of law and that anarchy was just around the corner.


I do not think so. I look back to the great depression for my evidence that 70 % of the population is all that is necessary for society to continue apace. Even with the bonus wars, bread lines and migration of the, “Okies” civil order never broke down. People rightly fear the anarchy that an Authority represents.

The marchers of the, "Bonus Army" in Washington never believed that MacArthur would have his troops open up on veterans but they were wrong and the Hoover Ville that they had built was burned to the ground as troops opened up on their comrades from the past. The Democracy movement in China experienced a similar miscalculation when the soldiers marched into Tienanmen square. In both instances the true account of the casualties is lost to history.

The status quo is such that inertia is tough to overcome and revolution is a messy business. The anarchists need to look at places like Yemen and Somalia to get an idea of what life is like when things break down.

The Tea bagger right is agitating for revolution as well but they seem to think it is the social safety net that is crashing the economy and if we could just get rid of those pesky bureaucrats life would be paradise. They are ignorant of history but Carlin explains that quite eloquently.



Then I listen to right wingers that want the ten commandments in every wall in the world outraged that some other group would dare to exercise their freedom of religion. The real owners are not going quietly and they are using all of the usual suspects. Racism, religious bigotry, fear of the other in all of its forms. The reptile calling to the lizard brain.

I would like to see the rational triumph and we accept government based on rational principals rather then superstition and ancestor worship but I am a privileged entity, white, male, American and while not in the club that bias colors my desire to avoid total destruction.

The Shirley situation.

This is to give a historical perspective for My comments on the smearing and firing of Shirley Sherrod.

Segregation was fought in the fifties and sixties changing the laws.
In the seventies forced integration was used by the courts to try to do what the forces of society would not and they achieved one of the desired results; young people today have lost the racial prejudice portion of their tribalism in vast numbers.

In the seventies the expansion of women into the work force as well as minorities effectively crushed the upward mobility of labor. The combination of loss of ego structure created a serious backlash in the eighties leading to Reagan being elected and the strange relationship of poor rural people voting for the interests of the rich against themselves in the vain hope that they would regain their superior position.

The nineties presented the one percent at the top with the unprecedented opportunity to pit third world labor against the American working class. As they had pitted the poor blacks against the poor whites. Further reducing the pie for the no longer rising working class now some what integrated.

Allowing the education system to erode was a factor in that ability to shift labor overseas. When the courts forced the schools to integrate in the south the whites fled to private schools. There were similar flights in the north but they created a different style of problem, the suburb. As a result the public school system in the south received inadequate funds as did the city schools in the north and the bottom half of the populace was left with effectively no education.

With the removal of trade protection in the free trade agreements and the ability of computer directed machines to simplify the work requiring one skilled programmer to supervise less and less skilled workers doing more complex tasks.

The speaker at an event for the NAACP, Shirley Sherrod was relating her experiences over this period to demonstrate the evolution of her thinking on economics. I personally find this type of speech a waste of time. I find anecdotes to be bullshit, give me the facts to make the general case. I am not part of the aggrieved class and I understand that lots of people need a narrative.

There is value for the aggrieved to tell their stories. It makes them feel better if nothing else. I think if your father is murdered and you don’t get justice you have the right to at least be heard honestly on the subject. . In this event she was simply abused by the powerful a second time.

The right wing desperately wants to roll back the civil rights movement. They feel that enforcement of the equal protection clause was the beginning of the end of limited government in the modern era. They may or may not be racist in their motivation they simply want all restrictions removed from private property.
To that end they have persons that believe that, “the end justifies the means” and a propaganda piece was created to counter the accusation that there exists a racist element in the far right. The only counter the racist’s seem to be able to muster is that the Obama administration and black people are reverse racists.

I tweeted the other day about the Senator from Virginia and his fail on why blacks should just get over being treated like crap. His earlier works of misogyny were overlooked by many in the attempt to get to 60 votes but he is treading close to Mel Gibson land for my taste. When the propaganda is released this is the type of ignorant mind set that is predisposed to believe it. The Media seem to be predisposed to the same view as they accept this tripe at face value. The disturbing reaction is how afraid the White House and cabinet are of the reverse racism meme.

If you take seriously the idea that the NAACP is part of a wave of oppression washing over white people in America you are divorced from reality to an extent that it is pointless for me to respond. All the data shows that it sucks to be poor but to be nonwhite makes poverty more likely.

The ease with which all those involved accepted the lie points to the sad truth that still have a vast chasm to bridge on the path to equality for all.

“This has all happened before”

We are coming the penultimate moment of the health care reform battle. We are given the false choice between no bill and a very bad bill and the ides of March are some mystical deadline. Why the President even delayed his vacation and disappointed his little kiddies to make it happen.
“This has all happened before”, a cheesy line from a Sci-Fi series sets the scene. In the first years of the Clinton presidency the health care reform bill cobble together by one bribe after another failed to pass. It was at that moment that the right wing had succeeded. They had claimed the Clinton presidency was illegitimate from the jump. Right wing radio was calling it America held hostage and started a countdown reminiscent of “Night Line” and the Iranian hostage situation. It had worked for the right to take power before. Now that they had defeated his signature agenda item they claimed that the people were on their side and Clinton turned so hard right that he signed into law the repeal of the banking regulations that had protected us since the depression. While Clinton did slow defense expansion he took an axe to social spending and sucked up to the corporations as hard as Monica was sucking him.
In 2008 the same whack jobs took to the streets and demanded to see the presidents birth certificate. When Bush was appointed by the supreme court that his party had stacked not a peep from these warriors for freedom but a black man elected by an overwhelming majority, he can’t run my country. Then came the screams of socialism as the bailout for the banks outraged the formerly employed populations. Quick factual note, The financial rescue was passed under W. revisionist history not withstanding Obama did not stop the great depression 2.0, it happened under the Democratic congress. Nancy, and Harry saved the world, not Barry. It was George signed the Tarp bill.
The hated Ralph Nader has proven right again, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” or was that Pete. Maters not the facts speak for themselves. The president who now flat out lies without even trying to be subtle about it claims that everything he said in the campaign was just a mirage. He never wanted the public option. Here is a mash up of his campaign videos talking about the public option. He thinks we are so stupid that we will not remember what he said. He used this before on his FISA vote. Just pretend it didn’t happen and move forward. Evidently most of us are.
The conservatives have already won. The health care reform act or whatever other bullshit name they will call it in the end will do nothing to reform health care. The devil is in the details and the details are all in favor of the corporations. There is no lifetime cap, it is replaced with a yearly cap. It trades no exemptions for preexisting conditions for a mandate to buy insurance from a private company. This will not pass the legal challenges in my opinion. This is the one thing that the right is right about. You can’t make a citizen give his money directly to the corporation. The government has to be the middle man in the form of taxation. The car insurance argument is a straw man as I can opt out. I do not have to own a car so I am not forced to buy the product. If it does get through the courts the rich get staggeringly richer. When the bill goes up in flames they get the status quo. Either way the cost of health care is not contained. They gave away all the cost cutting measures before the negotiations even started in backroom deals with corporations. No importing of drugs from overseas and no Medicare negotiating for lower drug prices. No single payer, no public option so no price controls on insurance rates.
The remaining question is will the Democratic leadership fail by passing a bad bill or by not being able to pass any bill. Regardless of the outcome the media corporations will sell the corporate line and for those of us outside the 1% life will get worse as we continue to aggregate all the wealth at the top. If you want to see how our grandchildren will live and work look not to Europe but to China. The modern incarnation of the capitalist state.