We are all part of an experiment

For months this election has played out like the most incredible and unbelievable reality television show one can imagine. One insane thing after another occurred. Donald Trump ran and won the GOP nomination on a platform of nothing more than his own brand of two parts narcissism and one part crazy. Bernie Sanders, against all odds, nearly took down the Clinton mafia. The establishment elites of both parties have been exposed as puppets for the billionaire class, and the corporate media has sunk to new lows in the extent they are willing to manipulate the news to preserve the status quo. Or so it would seem.

But one could also consider this an experiment. We have all played a part in a scripted show, one where the conclusion was intended from the beginning. The Republicans planned to nominate an establishment figure from the bush family and the Democrats planned to run one from the Clinton family. Obviously, the GOP establishment failed miserably when Trump exceeded all expectations, even his own. He was helped tremendously by a complicit media that gave him mountains of free air time to spread a pseudo populist message that appealed to many in the Republican party, from small business owners to bigots and racists, to many working class whites fed up with the GOP's failure to deliver on its promise of an improved economy based on tax cuts.

The Democratic establishment's script also was almost derailed by another populist insurgent candidate who promoted equality and fairness based on neo-socialist policies, or if you prefer a return to the New Deal ideology that briefly dominated the Democratic Party for three decades. However, in this case, there wasn't a plethora of establishment candidates to split the vote as there was on the GOP side. The field had been cleared for Hillary Clinton long ago, beginning as early as 2011 at the latest, as shown by the recent Band memo disclosed in the Podesta email release by Wikileaks. Thus one faction of the uni-party was able to nominate a candidate that is firmly under the control of the oligarchy that controls our government.

So when the insurgent populist from the left, Bernie Sanders unexpectedly appeared as a serious threat to the neo-liberal Democratic establishment, traditional media deliberately ignored his campaign and cut him off from any legitimate coverage of a canpaign that atttracted hordes of enthusiastic supporters ant his rallies and contributes hundreds of millions of dollars in small increments, most below $30.

However, unlike on the GOP side, there was no other establishment candidates, such as Joe Biden, to pull votes and big donor contributions from Hillary Clinton. And the media and the Democratic establishment made a point of helping her campaign at every turn, as, again, the DNC leaks and the Podesta emails have demonstrated.

There is also more than sufficient evidence of election fraud and voter suppression perpetrated against Sanders' supporters on a massive scale. The actions taken against Sanders' delegates and supporters at the Democratic convention by the DNC and the traditional media only further cemented in the minds of many of us the fact that the Clinton "coronation" as the Democratic party's nominee was intentional and that no voices of protest against establishment policies and actions favoring the rich and powerful would be allowed to be heard.

In effect, this election was never a legitimate exercise in democracy, as the heavy handed actions of both party establishments demonstrated, to the exten that President Obama, Attorney General Lynch and FBI director Comey, willingly or grudgingly, rigged the investigation into the Clinton email server/devices scandal and refused to indict Hillary Clinton for clear violations of Federal law regarding the handling of classified information . Indeed, the Wikileaks releases of the DNC's own documents and the Podesta emails only confirmed what many Sanders' supporters already knew. The race was rigged from day one.

Instead, we are now merely the intended audience of a massive disinformation campaign whoise sole purpose is to provide a facade of legitimacy for what I believe will be an inevitable Clinton victory. A victory that will likely, in my view, be corrupted by many of the same tactics employed against Sanders in the Democratic party primaries, including flipping votes to Clinton through the use of hacked e-voting machines. The establishments of both parties have participated in this "experiment." On the GOP side, they began dropping Trump like a hot potato even before their party's convention, and on the Clinton side, they used coercion tactics and lies to intimidate the left wing of the Democratic Party, even as Hillary went after Republican donors and neoconservative endorsements. The media, of course, which so faithfully performed their role of insuring Trump got all the attention during the GOP primaries now turned on him with a vengence and has conducted relentless attacks to destroy his candidacy while ignoring far greater scandals by the Clintons, as revealed by the Wikileaks releases.

In my opinion, without the Wikileaks disclosures, Trump would have already have dropped so far down in the polls that his numbers would have dipped into the mid-twenties. Then again, if any other candidate, i.e., Clinton, had been exposed in in the way she has as an unethical, amoral criminal, his or her candidacy would have imploded long ago. I should add here that without social media, those disclosures of her mendacity and criminality would have had little if any effect, even if at best they are merely forcing the Clintons some anxious moments as the general election race nears its end. Of course, the traditional, corporate controlled media has done its best to ignore and dismiss those scandals, even going to the extent of participating with the Clinton campaign in reviving McCarthyist tactics to simultaneously attack and smear all her opponents (Trump, Johnson and Stein) as traitors and Russian dupes. All this while deliberately increasing tensions with Russia at a time when it is well known Clinton supports a more robust military confrontation with the second most powerful nuclear armed state on the planet.

So, here we are, the citizens and voters of the United States of America watching helplessly as daily we are being lied to by the media, knowing that this election is a sham. In a real democracy, a candidate as extreme (and I might add as incompetent) as Donald Trump, and one as corrupt as Hillary Clinton, would never have attained their positions as the primary standard bearers for the only major parties who have any real opportunity to hold power. It goes without saying that both of the "majors" have been corrupted and captured by the "economic royalists" and the "money power," to borrow the language of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

We, the citizens of America are in effect being treated as lab rats. When the election is over, and all the status quo, neo-liberal, warmongering politicians have been returned to power, what will we do? What will be the outcome of so many people having been exposed to the truth of how corrupt and undemocratic our society really is?

We already know that on the right, a Clinton victory will dramatically increase extremist white supremacists and right wing radicals to form militias and engage in ever more violent actions. What we don't yet know is what those on the left, and those who reject the bigotry and radical ideals of the right wing extremists will do after the shitshow finally closes.

That really is the question. Will we go back into our bunkers and hide and accept our fate. Will we go along with continuing economic inequality and more wars? Or will we organize to counter the wealthy establishment's naked power grab? I don't know the answer, though I am betting that Clinton and her backers are assuming that the majority of us will acquiesce and do nothing (other than sign the odd petition here and there) to oppose her and all the other status quo politicians who have sold out to the big money interests.

Whatever outcome we choose is fraught with danger, but I believe failing to act, failing to find ways to effectively oppose the "uni-party" that controls our lives, poses the greater threat. Active opposition, whether inside the system or outside is essential. Otherwise Hillary and her band of merry neo-liberals and neo-conservatives will beleive they have an unfettered mandate to destroy our livelihoods, kill and murder and risk nuclear war with Russia and allow Wall Street's unregulated gambling to plunge us into another Great Recession, if not a world-wide depression. Unless we bring pressure to bear on these people, we truly will be lost.

Of course, those who act will put themselves and their families at risk. Everyone is being watched these days. All our secrets have been swept up by the surveillance state. We are all being monitored. Stick your head up and you risk losing it, whether figuratively or literally. But what other options do we really have?

More and more of us are slipping into poverty and homelessness. Many continue to be incarcerated thanks to outdated laws enacted to win the "Drug War." The climate of our world is being dramatically altered as we speak, bringing with it severe ecological, social nd economic consequences that will ultimately lead to a breakdown of order and renewed violence as billions flee famine and wars break out over increasingly diminished resources such as fresh potable water. We are running out of time. The failure to oppose the status quo now, will only elevate the risk of deadly consequences for ourselves, and our children, not in the far distant future, but within the next decade.

Well, we shall all see what the results of the experiment that the 2016 election cycle created will be soon enough. No one will be able say they had no reason to know that the election in the US was manipulated and rigged to preserve the status quo. Too much evidence of the corruption of our political system has been laid bare for all to see if they would only look. Those who ignore the evidence are either in deep denial or they are part of the corrupt system itself, hoping that promoting the interests of the .01 percent will somehow save them as well. To paraphrase (and mash up) Shakespeare and Walter Scott, what fools we mortals be when first we practice to deceive.

We can't un-see what we have seen. What we do about it going forward is the great unknown.

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

ppnortney's picture

up
0 users have voted.

The smaller the mind the greater the conceit. --Aesop

Raggedy Ann's picture

I keep saying the people need to rise up, to mobilize. What if 100,000 showed up at Standing Rock? Can I go? No, because they keep me poor enough that I can't lose my job. When they bring us to worldwide depression, I will be able to participate in any mobilization. How fucked up is that?

However, mobilization must begin now. The status quo must be up-ended. We, the people must not continue to rest on our laurels and expect someone else to pick up the gauntlet. There are 300million gauntlets out there waiting to be picked up. The American people need to stop allowing the distractions, stop shopping and keeping up with the Joneses.

Rebellon will come if we stay this course.

up
0 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

elenacarlena's picture

Do we have to travel to Standing Rock to support them? Can we gather with like minds and hold up signs... where? Government buildings? In front of the newspaper building? Where is the press who would report on us? Do we need to march? Could we write thousands of scathing letters to the editor? I have already petitioned the White House, so did Bernie. The silence is deafening.

up
0 users have voted.

Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

Raggedy Ann's picture

Your reminders keep me grounded.

up
0 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

elenacarlena's picture

Can't do anything that costs money, so I try to think about what I can do.

up
0 users have voted.

Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

riverlover's picture

Many of us older breeders have Millennial offspring. We should not have to view each other as likely demographics. Many essays here recently, natives are restless...

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

elenacarlena's picture

You had us a little startled the other day.

up
0 users have voted.

Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

riverlover's picture

deal yesterday. I will do a Hillary and say "I don't recall". Only ~$100 to have tree removed from driveway (at least that's what I was told, bill later). It was actually 2 trees, one dead-ish hit one living which uprooted. I cannot even bring myself to take pix. I should document. Barter wood! Oak! High BTU with a year of drying!

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

mhagle's picture

. . . the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) Texas branch that said early voting is way up here. HRC will definitely not come close to winning in Texas. And I am still not convinced that she is going to win nationally. I think we will all be surprised at the final count.

Trolls shouting and cursing and the MSM regurgitating garbage . . . those things don't motivate people to vote.

Thanks for the great essay. Smile

up
0 users have voted.

Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

elenacarlena's picture

in fact she has a shot at winning even in Texas.

Let's all vote Jill Stein and grab those liberal votes away from Her Heinous.

up
0 users have voted.

Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

Or did he throw it in the end? He was so meek about Nevada and California, and jumped so enthusiastically on to the Clinton train that I suspect it was just kabuki to create the illusion of choice.

Or maybe I'm just suffering from battered spouse syndrome from 50 years of elections.

up
0 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Benny's picture

Bernie waited a month before suspending his campaign and suspending the roll call for Clinton at the DNC. He did not ask his delegates to go to Clinton necessarily.

Yes, the Establishment knives are already out for him, as Jonathan Capehart has tried to paint Elizabeth Warren as an establishment senator, Bernie is not to be trusted. Esquire'sCharlie Pierce notes about Bernie:

There is no more reliable Democratic establishment mouthpiece than Jonathan Capehart, so I am not surprised he so badly misreads the politics here. Sanders' formal party allegiance doesn't matter a damn. He is a man with a substantial public following who, in the main, supports everything that the progressive wing of the Democratic party stands for and then some.

I think it will take a long time to build a 3rd party, but it is not impossible.

up
0 users have voted.

One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--Tennyson

sojourns's picture

Sander's endorsement speech, it was all he could do to keep from vomiting when going through the motions. Even Clinton's expression was sayin' "Don't you fuck this up, Sanders".

I do believe he genuinely fears both Clinton and a Trump presidency that much. Politics being what they are in the congress, he is trying to build up as much political capital as possible as he continues his service in the Senate.

I do not doubt for a second that some representative from the Clinton crime family has made unveiled threats against his person, his family and whatever it takes to render him ineffective in the Senate.

up
0 users have voted.

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

jwa13's picture

that Bernie/family (Jane) were threatened.

"Nice wifey ya gots here -- be a real shame if sumpin' were to -- 'happen' to her --"

up
0 users have voted.

When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

Wink's picture

Bernie won it, beat her. DWS and Team Hillary stole it. There were two weeks after Cali where Bernie disappeared. I suspect he was weighing his options. Go it alone, Third Party (Greens), or suck it up and embrace the suck that was the Hillary win. I believe he chose Door #3 becuz he concluded it was the best option that would keep him in the game for 2017 and beyond. Whether or not that was the best choice remains to be seen, but I believe it was. We'll see "The Return of Bernie" - Bernie 2.0 - after Her Highness crashes and burns after her honeymoon.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

I need a President with more guts.

up
0 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Sorry, unintentionally recced when I actually didn't mean to. My recs, often a swine to get on in the first place, keep coming off and I tend to refurbish them on auto when skimming down looking for comments I haven't seen yet.

Bernie actually won the Dem nomination, as demonstrated by numerous experts/experts/reality, although you could never tell this by the blatant propaganda, (including the character smears intended to discredit Bernie's life-long record and to discourage those seeking actual democracy, sanity and survival,) making the mistake natural.

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Bisbonian's picture

up
0 users have voted.

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Even with this Comey plot twist, the whole thing is getting a bit stale.

A few surprise twists are what are needed.

It could go like this:

1) Cancel that silly election. Nobody believes that bullshit anymore anyway.

2) Everybody is sick to death of Obama, so we have to get him out of the White House and into his new corner office in the Silicon Valley.

3) The Hillary vs. Donald thing still has some legs, just not in that boring election narrative. Let's split the White House down the middle and put the Clintons and the Trumps in there. It would be "Big Brother" meets "The Borgias." Donald would bring that essential WWE vibe.

Even MSDNC would see its ratings pick up.

up
0 users have voted.
Bisbonian's picture

up
0 users have voted.

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

ZimInSeattle's picture

the point of my signature line:

up
0 users have voted.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

They are Idiots that have failed to learn the lessons of history where there has been a massive accumulation of wealth and power by a small number of people with a system tipped drastically in their favor...

It doesn't end well...

"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"

up
0 users have voted.
"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Wink's picture

who and what's behind the curtain - thanks, Hillary - I don't get the impression that very many of the under $45K crowd pay much attention, or give a flying fuck if they do. And the cozier $45K to $65K crowd even less.
And, to beat the Status Quo is going to take bodies. The question is how do we wake that crowd - the under $65K crowd - before it's too late? Becuz I suspect if time hasn't yet expired it's very soon about to. Talking months, maybe a couple years. And if it runs out we're looking at Mad Max time sooner than expected, sixties commune time, time to join the Preppers.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Shockwave's picture

But Dr. Franketrump may let them out of the cage;

5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win by Michael Moore

Are we headed to a "ratocracy"?

Fear not. Hillary will keep the rats in the lab.

up
0 users have voted.

The political revolution continues

Older and Wiser Now's picture

It's almost iconic, or at least it will be in just a few months.

up
0 users have voted.

~OaWN

riverlover's picture

Expensive scope there. Lab looks too clean. Trust me. Wink

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Speaking of experiments, that'll be Hillary hanging out with Monsanto/Big Pharma, since they help run/fund her campaign and provide many of her policies.

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Call me cynical. My guess is that you are right about right wing rage and militia bands as well as single actor eruptions of violence. I suspect that the establishment, headed by Hillary, will call upon us to stand with reason and rally around her and the rational, while they speak of incremental, reality based changes that she whole heartedly endorses and which can be possible if we stay calm and work through our democratic institutions for those changes, rather than give in to the anti democratic Trump or Putin or ISIS stoked violence that Hillary and company will claim is trying to disrupt our way of life and curtail our freedoms. And people will rally, once more, to stand with her because the opposite is too fear inducing. The oligarchy will make sure the choice is Hillary or anarchy or martial law.
We need to build local resilience. I believe it is the hope.

up
0 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

I guess I'm a lot more cynical than you are.

This is all reminding me, horribly, of one of my favorite SF series, the Rissa Kerguelen novels. The background is, the Corporate State has taken over most of Earth (and has tentacles into most off-Earth colonies), and imposed a grim serfdom on the 99%. Rissa is thrown into this serfdom as a young child, but has a lucky break and manages to escape, with the assistance of the largest and strongest holdout organization. The story continues through three novels as she works out how to fight back, gains allies, and eventually wins. But the portrait of Corporate Dystopia is both believable and terrifying.

up
0 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

sojourns's picture

Methinks we've been experimented on for some decades now, but this one backfired like no other.

We cannot hide. Not after all this. The more of us that stick our necks out, even just a little, the better.

More individually written letters to your congress monkey! And let's not forget your state legislator monkey. Petitions don't do squat. Oh. Another petition. In the bin, Jeeves.

up
0 users have voted.

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

jwa13's picture

"More individually written letters to your congress monkey! And let's not forget your state legislator monkey. --
Petitions don't do squat. Oh. Another petition. In the bin, Jeeves.
"

... none other than Princeton ($hill Krugman'$ ol' stomping grounds) recently published a stratified, multi-level controlled analysis which demonstrated (fairly conclusively) that the overwhelming majority of popular opinion/voting preferences had NO EFFECT on U.S. policy decisions --

Now, enough of this horse-shit -- back to work, serf --

up
0 users have voted.

When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

Not to mention that we'd noticed this.

I've been asking why people have to fight their own democratic governments - existing specifically to serve the public and country's interests - over even basic survival issues - for a very long time now, even though I know why already.

Edit for missed punctuation - I'm on a roll again!

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

jwa13's picture

"... (a) victory that will likely, in my view, be corrupted by many of the same tactics employed against Sanders in the Democratic party primaries, including flipping votes to Clinton through the use of hacked e-voting machines."

Can't hack the voting machines in the House of Representatives or the Senate (directly wired to the Sgt-at-Arms'/Clerk's desk). Because the House WILL remain in Repug hands (and the Senate appears likely to do so), it seems possible that The $hill will be impeached, convicted, and removed from office before her first POTUS anniversary --

up
0 users have voted.

When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

Any more than that removes the intended potency. What we'll have is another four years of nothing, a la Obama. Or, like her husband, she'll pass all the RW priorities just to show how well she can get along with the other side of the aisle. Frankly, I think we'd have more of a Dem if we elect Trump. But Trump is crazy, and we have no way of knowing what he'll do. Speculation has gone the entire spectrum. My solution: don't vote for president.

up
0 users have voted.
elenacarlena's picture

If you don't like Hill or Trump, what do you have to lose?

up
0 users have voted.

Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

divineorder's picture

....because seemed so much to be gained!

up
0 users have voted.

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Lenzabi's picture

Things cannot stand as they are.

[video:https://youtu.be/YV4oYkIeGJc]

up
0 users have voted.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

Good (if depressingly true) video choice, thanks!

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Lenzabi's picture

Yes, it fits and still works well for today's situation.

up
0 users have voted.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

What, indeed do we do? I think Bill Clinton is the mastermind of this disheartening circus, controlling the oligarchs, the media, the psy-ops, the Obama administration, Hillary, The Donald, Bernie - in other words - all the elements of the three-ring shit show that maybe forty percent of voters truly saw through. My take on this reads like a Russian novel: Bill is a morally twisted hillbilly sociopath with enormous appetites and intellect but no off button, who early on found a Third Way to use government positions to become enormously rich and powerful on a global scale. Hillary is a shy, googly-eyed, Tracy Flick with cankles and psychopathic tendencies who made the mistake of falling in love with Bill, who repeatedly done her wrong. If she hadn't met Bill, she would have become a CEO, in the Carly Fiorina mold. But, because of their money, power, and influence, we are stuck with these two, like glue. And Chelsea is waiting in the wings with her failed hedge fund husband.

That's the reality. However, there are many more of us than them. And they still need our electoral consent, at least for now. But how can we defeat them when they have global control of everything - police and military, surveillance systems, banking, natural resources, infrastructure, communications, media, transportation? Robots are almost ready to take over what jobs remain.

What comes to mind is Malcolm Gladwell's book, David and Goliath, which talks about asymmetric warfare as the only means by which the little guy, David, can sometimes defeat Goliath. Ho chi-Minh, Mao tse-Tung, FDR, Ghandi, American colonists, French peasants, Cuban guerrillas, civil rights fighters, consumer advocates, and many others, all used asymmetric warfare and won. Why can't we do the same?

Buying local, keeping chickens, collecting rainwater, organizing and communicating via online groups, economic boycotts, barter, using credit unions, supporting Julian Assange and progressive websites, growing your own food, going solar and, most important: Grow a Viable THIRD PARTY.

Going deeper and further towards war: Employ hackers to disrupt power plants, military installations, surveillance systems, transportation systems, communications, and especially banking systems. Would love to see a merry band of twenty-first century Robin Hood Hackers transfer trillions of dollars from the secret oligarch accounts to the poor peasants.

up
0 users have voted.
Mark from Queens's picture

the poor.

Isn't it creepy that we're all in fealty to this system which really just reduces us to slaving away for digits on a ledger at some bank, completely untrustworthy and devious institutions? Not to mention how this framework only reflects one's ability to siphon money from one place, usually from the unsuspecting or defrauded or bamboozled, and add it to yours, which is essentially the fundamental fraud of the "free market" deity that Americans reflexively bow to as part of both the purposely elusive American Dream and outright propaganda of American Exceptionalism.

I envision a day of radical international reckoning. When we finally succeed in convincing the world's population that global socialism is the only sane, humane and dignified solution to the rampant and unnecessary poverty, homelessness, debt enslavement and hunger part and parcel of unbridled capitalism, all bank accounts over a certain amount must be clipped.

The truism is that no one earn the kind of money we've permitted hedge fund and Wall St Economic Terrorists to routinely take home. It can only come from ill-gotten gains, and nothing else. Furthermore, it's impossible and unnatural.That can be explained simply: if we agree that the minimum wage is not even ten dollars an hour, and worse yet we acknowledge that at this very moment some migrant worker is in S. California picking fruit for even a fraction of that, there is no way in hell anyone can defend CEO's taking home tens of millions of dollars in salary each year. The relativity is beyond obscene.

Cap all bank accounts at a certain amount (what that is should be determined by progressive economists). Then distribute the massive excess throughout the world so that no person is hungry, or lives without a roof over his head, or proper medical attention, or in debt, or without nourishing regular food, etc, while also filling the public coffers of socialist government to ensure our infrastructure is sound, as well as renewable and sustainable energy becoming the norm.

up
0 users have voted.

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

I'm afraid that you've nailed it, and are giving good advice.

And I suspect that we need to start our own currencies (independent from the internet, which could be taken hostage at any time, so bitcoins are not feasible) in order to retain any semblance of a reality-based economic system (based on labour/goods, I suppose, as has been suggested) - since the entirely unregulated financial sector under corporate coup 'trade deals' will repeatedly and endlessly crash and seize public/private invested/deposited monies until the public goes bankrupt and falls, like Greece, into the clutch of international financial interests - in order to completely separate from and globally refrain from supporting the globalizers wherever possible.

Don't ask me how this is done; just start and spread, I suppose. Some are, of course, already doing this.

Edited for some missed words and clarification. And re-edited for scrambled punctuation. No idea what I've missed this time, lol.

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.