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I really can’t top this. A Most Excellent Rant from the World Socialist Web Site:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/sep2012/econ-s10.shtml
For those of you here on FDL who know me, you know I don’t throw this out there lightly. This is good stuff; well worth 5 to 10 minutes of your time.
The last two paragraphs, which have an excellent lead up. are:
The cutback on unemployment benefits and the attack on public-sector jobs are component parts of the drive, led by the Obama administration, to use mass unemployment to drive down the wages and benefits of American workers to levels closer to those of workers in India and China.
These measures underscore the deeply reactionary character of this administration and the fact that the Democrats offer no alternative for workers to the Republicans. Whatever differences exist between the two parties are of a tactical nature. Both carry out the dictates of the financial elite.
Basically, our own Federal Government’s figures illustrate quite clearly that at least tens of millions of Americans have been royally screwed. Big time.
I talked to my mom a couple of weeks ago. She was born on a farm in the Texas Panhandle in 1920. She’s still incredibly lucid.
She said 2012 reminds her of 1932, except there is no FDR in sight. She was 11 and 12 then, and lived through through the rest of the Great Depression. I asked her, “So what do you think would have happened if there hadn’t been an FDR?”
She replied, “Well, we’d have gone Communist.”
I asked her what she thought would happen now. She said, ” Well, I’d guess y’all might go Communist. I don’t like it, but I suppose I can’t blame y’all if you do. Or else, well, I don’t want to think about that. Anyway, it’s not up to me. But it IS a lot like 1932.”
I can’t top that, either.
55 Comments
Recd’ I’ll be back tomorrow.
Oh great idea….NOT ! Best way I can think of to bring the who global economy crashing down.
Wow! Rec’d.
Seems to me that the financial elites, along with the rest of the “power elite,” have decided to initiate a multinational austerity movement in order to maximize profits. (create wage slaves)
I hope it ends up biting them in the butt.
There might be something to (one of those) new-world-order/Bildergerg-type conspiracy theories after all.
Salvador Allende, Sept. 11, 1973: “Workers of my country: I want to thank you for the loyalty that you always had, the confidence that you deposited in a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice, who gave his word that he would respect the Constitution and the law and did just that. At this definitive moment, the last moment when I can address you, I wish you to take advantage of the lesson: foreign capital, imperialism, together with the reaction, created the climate in which the Armed Forces broke their tradition [of non-involvement in politics] …”
Neoliberal economics is a coordinated system to reinforce the power of the 1%.
To call it a conspiracy is to demean its current strength and purpose of the neocon economic agenda to reshape the world into owners and dependent slaves.
The South shall rise again. The prophecy of a return to a world wide two class society thats in process today.
Austerity is the choke hold.
I’ve said it once or twice, and now you’ve said it again; all of this crap is part of some kind of master plan to turn us into a “bananna republic” of slave wage earners.
I don’t care how loud I yell, nobody hears me. The “implementation” of the master plan began with the “interest rate bubble”, commonly referred to as the “housing bubble”. There never would have been any “bubble” of any kind if it were not for those “funny loans” and the interest rate increase. Together they wiped out the wealth of “all” relatively poor people in this country. The only wealth poor people have is the family home, and that was demolished, no matter where you live.
Next they “manipulated” the price of all the necessities we have to purchase in order to live. That move drained any excess income the middle class might have. Nobody seems to realize how that totally destroyed the “lower middle class”. When their low incomes were further reduced by the high price of food and gas, the people who would have bought the houses in their neighborhoods couldn’t buy, leaving them vacant when there was a death in the family and they had to sell. Just look at all of the boarded up homes in any “lower middle class” neighborhood.
Commodity price plummeted in June of 08, and bottomed in “January of 09″. That’s very, very important. I’ll let you figure out “why”? After our “White Knight”, Barack Obama was in office, those commodity prices shot back up, some even higher than before.
This website verifies what I’ve written including the dates. These commodity charts are part of “official” records, nobody dreamed these charts up, they are a record of what you paid for a given commodity, and when you paid it. If the price of a commodity has not been much over $1.00 for the history of this country, and goes to $3.50 after 2008, you tell me why? If the price of a commodity has been $3.00, and goes to $8.00 after 2008, you tell me why?
Please go to this website and see the “Master Plan”. http://wp.me/p2vRlu-4
the difference with obama, he does it covertly, pretending to be on the middle class team while working for the financial class
a wolf in sheep clothing does more harm the the wolf baring teeth, a trojan horse does far more damage then a tank with the oponent’s flag painted on, a benedict arnold does far more damage then a soldeir in uniform
Your mom is right, but in a way nothing has ever really changed.
The PTB/MOTU have always thought that allowing the peasants to have more than just enough to barely exist was foolish.
They believed the New Deal was a mistake and they’ve been fighting it since it was created.
They see the middle class as evidence that ‘things have gotten out of hand’.
Here comes the ‘solution’.
New York Times Jan 21 2011:
“The number of American workers in unions declined sharply last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday, with the percentage slipping to 11.9 percent, the lowest rate in more than 70 years.
The report found that the number of workers in unions fell by 612,000 last year to 14.7 million, an even larger decrease than the overall 417,000 decline in the total number of Americans working.
“It was a very tough year for unionized workers,” said John Schmitt, a senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “We’re seeing declines in the private sector, and we’re seeing declines in the public sector.”
The number of private sector workers in unions fell by 339,000, to 7.1 million, while the number of public sector union members fell by 273,000, to 7.6 million.
The percentage of private sector workers in unions fell to 6.9 percent, down from 7.2 percent, the lowest rate for private sector workers in more than a century, labor historians said.”
and this is an explanation for the layoff of government employees:
“In 2009, for the first time in American history, government employees accounted for more than half the nation’s union membership, but the percentage of government workers in unions fell to 36.2 percent last year, down from 37.4 percent the previous year.”
they have a union. same as the teachers.
Jan 2011. Probably worse since then.
soon there will be no unions in the USA if this continues.
Precisely!
A lot has changed.
I’m quite familiar with the Bilderberg conspiracy theories and at first, I prayed they weren’t true; but now, I have no other alternative but to believe them.
Their meetings were usually held in Europe, but in 08 they were held in Virginia. It’s rumored that Hilary Clinton, and Borack Obama attended the last meeting. Their meetings are so secret, that people attending elude any and all reporters before attending, and they will never tell you whether they went or not.
Elaborate please.
Thank you for this, Ohio Barbarian – anything that mentions wise counsel from Mom has my vote!
I was thinking that an important function of PBS is to show programs they have from their historical record pre-Reagan. I still remember the one that frequently comes up of the building of the Hoover Dam, and there are so many others that are worth revisiting because they were made in times when corporate influences were not so strong. It really makes a huge difference.
People say that Obama is more rightwing than Nixon was, and they are right. Corporate influence may have been growing but then it was nothing like what it is now. And that is not just starry-eyed oldies looking back on the ‘golden years’ of Camelot – this country was more free before the monopolies took over.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
I think the ones who are going to spoil the game are the Chinese workers. The population of China is aging and China is graduating many engineering technicians and qualified workers and are moving toward robotics. There is also an enormous amount of social tension and historically regimes change in China when the people get really fed up…
One of the biggest problems in the USA is that American workers have been getting poor educational and vocational training for a long, long, time… American workers shouldn’t be competing with Bangladesh and India but with Germany, but they are not being given the skills to do that anymore. We have to take money out of the bloated defense spending and put it into education and training.
I’ll be happy to elaborate. In regard to your statement, you were correct. I’m referring to the speed and magnitude of recent changes. Since as recently as 2008 we’ve gone backwards at “warp” speed. People at the bottom have been affected so drastically that they aren’t even mentioned.
From the posts I read here, it seems most of the people affected “were” in the middle class. The lower middle class is the distinction between living in the “burbs” and living in the city. For my entire life, that hasn’t been too much of a distinction, now it is. Deprived people become “depraved” people, this means an increase in the worst kind of crimes, like those which get press in Chicago. Sociological, and psychological problems associated with extreme hardship are never discussed anymore. “People in the ghetto are just going crazy” is the current take on those problems.
Before, people living in neighborhoods that changed, could simply sell their houses and leave. Now they can’t sell their houses, which means they can’t leave. When the owner of one of those houses dies, the house goes vacant, and is boarded up, further diminishing the value of the homes left.
When the prices of “necessities” such as food and gasoline were increased 3 fold almost overnight, that presented changes too drastic for many to adjust to, and it functioned like a giant Hoover Vacuum cleaner draining the money out of the middle class and putting it into the pockets of a very wealthy “politically connected” group of people.
I hope this is elaboration enough for now.
Totally.
I agree the whole process has achieve ‘warp speed’.
Thank you, I was sort of confused as to your meaning.
Yeah, crapitalism was a nice dream until the nightmares.
Marx was all for globalization (free trade it was called back then). He thought that when it all got hooked up and the world became “flat”. It’s inner conflicts, (“contradictions” is the Marxist usage)would tear it apart… his prediction there looks pretty good, that this would lead to a worker’s paradise looks a bit more dicey.
What’s more frightening than anything, is the fact that “Barack Obama”, not Romney, is part of this “master plan”; and whoever is part of the plan will be the next president.
An anti-system president of the system is an oxymoron.
The important difference between the two men and their parties, is that the Democrats are a civilized, center-right party (in a “European” spectrum) and the Tea Party controlled Republicans are a racist, xenophobic, proto-fascist party. In short if the Democrats win it will be disappointing and if the Republicans win it will be tragic.
The Democrats are not what they seem to be. They’re not what they used to be, Barack Obama has changed all the dynamics. He only appears to be African American. In his heart he’s whatever “they” want him to be. Who are “they”? I don’t know. “They” seem to rule the world.
While what you say is true, the racists have never been much more than pawns. “An anti-system president of the system” is a perfect description of Barack Obama.
Great stuff, Barbarian; send your mum some love from us.
Love Seaton’s humor wicked bad, too! ‘OBomba (since he names Democrats, and OBbmba is putatively one) is CIVIL. Lord love a duck, ya gotta howl.
Does he mean O washes his hands before deciding who gets drone-killed today, or writes memos redefining torture as requiring ‘long-term incarceration’ at black ops prisons, so he can say to the public:
‘America No Longer Tortures.’
Occupy!
Second OBomba…blew the spelling, but then…he blows away a lot of women and children and other civilians, so…no harm, no foul…
I’d bet such anticipation was already being taken into account – it surely has been by now.
Anyway, the crapitalist dream is over.
“They”, whoever “they” are have always ruled the world.
What is the difference between Democrats and Republicans? Minimally, for demographic reasons, Dems are less likely to cut entitlements to groups that I sympathize with.
If either Democrats or Republicans win it will be extremely tragic for millions and millions of people. You may find some tragedies personally more or less “disappointing” than others, but they are tragedies just the same.
Can’t argue with you, you’ve nailed… however, morality aside, I would be dumb to help elect people who are going to cut pensions, medicare and medicaid.
Which would include the President (D-Austerity) and (I think you said you vote in IL) the Senator (D-Bowles-Simpson)
I think David Seaton’s comment nailed it, actually. Today’s capitalism is so dependent on Chinese communism to the point where we have corporate communism now, today, in that corporations won’t provide retirement or health care as earned by their employees and put that on the back of big government to provide, all the while coming over here and whining about big government and entitlements. what we have in the form of Romney is a genuine Manchurian Candidate.
marym, in bringing up the Democrats into the mix, you’re correct, too. Chinese dissidents have launched an online “Occupy the White House” on Google + because they see Obama as Hu Jintau’s personal plaything.
That’s what happens when you owe people a lot of money. All presidents will be faced with the problem… A Democrat depends on the votes of people who need entitlements, therefore they are motivated to protect them.
Here is something even more worrisome to worry about:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/10/alzheimers-junk-food-catastrophic-effect
was reply to David Seaton @29
Wow. So you have decided to stop trying to help elect Obama after all?
Good for you.
Nonsense. The growing profits of today’s “capitalism” are dependent on a steady supply of slave-wage workers … just like yesterday’s were before Western populations organized against the predation and unionized.
Third-way types are busy creating pools of these impoverished workers all over the globe. For example, the corporations that make these neoliberals rich, rich, rich also get great benefit from equivalent predation occurring in the agricultural sectors of Central and South American nations who’s workers have been decimated by the terms of our FTA regime. And soon, the central bankers of Europe will have created similar slave camps in Greece and other weaker EU nations to service their internal elites.
There is zero link between the ostensible economic system of one of the West’s suppliers of slave labor and the propensity for Western governments to ensure that the mega-wealthy who buy politicians are protected from ever losing their status or experiencing exposure to the down-side risks involved with their economic machinations. That is simply a product of a deep, deep corruption serviced and perpetuated by the major political parties of The West. The Democrats.
No I still think Obama is vastly superior to Romney… You know, I always compare the American system to Woody Allen’s restaurant, “Such bad food! Yes, and such small portions!”.
Then it seems you need to switch up your rhetoric a bit. This line doesn’t seem sustainable for an Obama supporter to use:
Obama’s very own hand-picked debt commission has demanded exactly this. And every grand bargain that Obama has supported prominently features slashing all of these things. He’s clearly telegraphed (i.e. directly stated) the intent.
A nominal assertion that one politician is better than another politician doesn’t change the fact that you are still supporting something that you yourself assert would be dumb for you to support. That’s called a lack of vision – reducing a wide range of possible actions down to only two, both of which ensure the same outcome that you claim to be opposed to.
Well, it’s a small consolation (very small) but at this point our system is actually doing notably better than the European one … if you can imagine. It’s kind of an Obama/Romney situation though, both systems are so worthlessly rotten that claiming to favor either calls into question core aspects of one’s analytic prowess.
If there was no FDR, then Huey Long would have risen to the top faster. Since there was an FDR and his solutions started to to work, the assassination of Huey Long ended our possible rendezvous with fascism.
Today I filled my gas tank, it cost $60.00. That was for 16 gallons of gas. 60/16= $3.75. In 2004, that same tank of gas cost $1.50X16=$24.00. Going back to 1988, according to the records I’m looking at, that same tank of gas cost about the same amount of money in 1988 as it cost in 2004. $60.00-$24.00=$36.00. Where did that $36.00 go. The Arabs didn’t jack up the price of oil. They make “less” money when oil is $100. a barrel and gas is $4.00 because they sell so fewer barrels as a result of the worlds economies being in a deep funk when that happens.
The price of oil and gasoline is controlled by the market manipulators at the “New York Mercantile Exchange”, not by the Arabs. While I know about the commodity markets, I don’t know where all that money came from that gave the manipulators the power to manipulate. There were also some rules or “legal technicalities” that had to be overcome. All of this occurred between the years 2005, and 2008. In three short years, they turned us into slaves, and “NO ONE” has tried to find out how they did it. “NO ONE” has even acknowledged that it’s been done.
Every time anyone fills their gas tank up, an awful lot of that money is going into the pockets of the “market manipulators”. They are part of the “THEY” who rule this world. They are part of the “THEY” who decide who the next president will be. They are part of the “THEY” who chose Barack Obama. While they are quite racist, they made an exception for “Barack Obama”. If you stop and think about it, you can answer “WHY”? for yourself. Did you notice how Barack changed the day after he took office. When his Black friends came to call and celebrate, they found that their only entrance was at the back door and it was pad locked.
Has Barack made any effort to discover who’s manipulating the commodity markets? Could it be that “THEY” are the same they, he’s relying on to keep him in power?
… interesting comment and stated view…leading to….
…leading to …. yes….this….good for you…
….no? … so you support a warcriminal…because Warcriminal Obama is superior to Romney…superior?…it would be in line over the next few weeks as you post your ongoing pro Obama/pro D stuff here at FDL to be upfront about Warcriminal Obama…actually stating that you support Warcriminal Obama…”I support Warcriminal Obama” as that is what you are advocating is is not?. Explaining this position further by defining Warcriminal Obama as being superior to Romney.
This appears to be what is being advocated then does it not?
… X 2
Thanks, lakota, I’ll do that.
Yes, China does have a historical tendency to expand to just about its current size, have some good boom times, and then blow itself apart when its ruling class gets too greedy and arrogant. You may be right on this one.
Man, that’s good, Lakota. Spot on(pun intended). The actions of the commodities brokers has shown up in the M$M, though they are usually treated as something inevitable, like the weather.
Of course, what they have been doing has never been inevitable. It HAS been allowed.
It’s nice to see so many great replies. My thanks to all of you.
Indeed he has, Rahm is totally all over it. (*somebody* has to fund his SuperPAC!)
Thanks Ohio Barbarian. Recommended.
And I’ve added WSWS to my favorites list.
Recommended, but I don’t agree we will go Communist.
Americans seem to be the biggest sheeple in the Western world.
Even rigged and stolen elections don’t move us from our couches.
I don’t know what would have happened without FDR, but I do know we did not go Communist under Hoover, nor when FDR bowed to the deficit hawks of his era.
And that was before we had such important things to do with our time as watch TV six hours a day and post for another six.
No, not “vastly” at all. He is not even vastly better than Shrub. He is slowly, uncomfortably, almost grudgingly, better on on a couple of social issues.
The people on whom his re-election depends, like fundraisers, bundlers and liberal voters, demand at least that.
And what we got in Obama was a fucking Trojan horse.
Democrats seem to believe that they beat Republicans by voting for Republicans who, for whatever reason, find it in their political self interest to put a (D) after their names.
No, that is not a win.
Bingo. He is not the lesser of two evils.
I hasten to add, though, that it is not only about Obama.
The Democratic Leadership Council has completed its takeover of the Democratic Party to the degree that there is now no need for the DLC to exist as a separate entity.
We have no Democrats in the Senate who are not DLC, or New Democrats or Third Way, whether they label themselves that way or not.
In the House, the Progressive Caucus dwindled from about 100 members in 2008 to about 70 after the 2010 mid-terms.
In so many ways, today’s Democratic Party and the DNC make sure liberals do not run and, if they do run, they don’t win. Democrats are at least as responsible for eliminating liberals as Republicans are. (In fact, sometimes they work together toward that end. For examples, see the mayoral election of Bernie Sanders before he ran for the U.S. Senate and the 2006 Senatorial election of Joe Lieberman.)
The last liberal President was probably Johnson. Soon, people will not even know what a liberal is (or was). Even now, people are comparing Obama with FDR, which is ludicrous.
But, again, it’s not only about Obama. The populist Democratic Party of FDR, Truman, JFK, RFK and Johnson no longer exists. We sat by and let it morph into the Republican Party–and not even the Republican Party of Nixon or Rockefeller, but the Republican Party of the Bush crime family.
um, what’s so civilized about the beheading of the rule of law?