We Search For Leaders When What We Need Are Tools
My Saturday morning epiphany has certainly been a long time coming. Only now, very late into the endgame, do I realize how far behind the curve I have been, and how I have been willingly exploited by people far smarter and more ruthless than me.
I’ve made many joking or ironic comments over the years about the “rabble”, the “great unwashed”, “the little cogs in the big machine”, “the worker bees”, the “W-2s”, the “drones”, the “little people”, etc., in describing the masses of people in our country and the world for whom the greatest concerns are keeping a roof over their heads and food on their tables, obtaining care for their illnesses, and living in an environment where they are not kept down, persecuted, jailed or killed for their religion or skin color or sex and where the poor are not cannibalized and taken advantage of by the wealthy.
But while I speak of myself and the majority of others in these self-deprecating terms, I now understand that terms that I intended to be humorous or sarcastic, are literal truth for those that oppress us. Even using that word “oppression” sounds hyperbolic and over the top, doesn’t it? It’s hard for everyday average Americans to see themselves as part of an oppressed and suppressed population because that’s something many of us would equate with people and causes and times other than our own; we have an innate inability to see ourselves within a historical context. To me that context would be the 21st Century Death of The American Working Class which can be combined with the 21st Century Death of The American Middle Class and we can toss in the 21st Century American Annihilation of the Poor, Sick and Elderly. Years from now, we may be studied alongside the serfs of the Middles Ages as notable victims of a collapsing societal structure. For too many among us, instead of reaping the rewards offered by the Land of Opportunity still touted by our myth keepers, we find ourselves living lives that are increasingly nastier, shorter and more brutish.
So, understandably, we’re pissed. And the questions becomes, okay, what are we going to do about it?
And here’s my big epiphany – we can stop looking for people to lead us out of this wilderness. We don’t need Leaders – we need Tools.
We are in a Post Leader Apocalypse.
We have definitive proof of this situation in that we currently have as the POTUS, one Donald J. Trump. Additional proof is offered by the fact that both major parties in our Two Party duality offered up unacceptable for different reasons candidates who were both under active FBI investigation during the campaign and election process. We were failed by the Candidates, the Partys, and the Process.
All Leaders have Feet of Clay.
They are people, subject to their own personable foibles and history. In our Twittered, scandal driven society, no one will ever be found acceptable again to have moral authority to head The Greatest, Wealthiest, and Most Powerful Nation in the World. In fact, it isn’t even relevant anymore - once again, we have Exhibit 1-A, Donald J. Trump as conclusive proof of that fact. And, if some admirable character did manage to claw their way out of the swamp of our political depravity in the future, they would be subject to the same blandishments, bribes, threats and coercion that has already toppled our system of governance and turned it into a candy and wealth transferal machine for the 1%.
In contrast to a Leader, a Tool offers nothing but furtherance of the agenda set by us . They would be nothing more than a slightly larger cog compared to all the little cogs. We wouldn’t need to love them, or idealize them, or idolize them. And, we wouldn’t need to demand perfection and adherence from them in their personal viewpoints. All we would be looking for is a functionary, simply another cog in the new political machine that we build.
Imagine us ending these stressful situations when our leaders develop cracks in their clay feet and topple over and disappoint and alienate us. When this inevitably happens, we predictably devolve into two camps, the apologists versus the disaffected and engage in long pointless internecine warfare based on protecting or rejecting a personality. And then we also end up rejecting each other based on in which camp we reside.
Unlike our current self-assigned task of finding a new political deity to elevate in order to first worship, then inspect, then reject, a long and self-defeating process, a cog can be swiftly and unemotionally switched out for another cog.
The Cog/Tool concept already exists, we just didn’t know it.
Our Leaders were and are already cogs for the 1% candy machine. Grover Norquist spilled the beans when he said all the Republicans need is a hand that can hold a pen and sign a law. They were willing to run and help elect Donald Trump(!) as proof of that statement.
And Democrats run their own Tools. Barack Obama ironically ran as the Hope and Change candidate which turned out to be nothing more than a marketing slogan. The ACA is his “legacy” and it’s a fitting one. While campaigning on and promoting a healthcare system that was based on a public option and drug negotiation, we got neither and instead received a program designed by the very industries and insiders a new healthcare plan was supposed to supplant. That could be the definition of a Tool Presidency. Run on one thing, deliver another as the best you’re going to get. Hillary ran as a more open Tool, to her own detriment.
Isn’t it about time that we liberals have the strength to remove emotion and idol worship from our political process? We don’t need a symbol of progress, (the First Anything President), we need the actual progress, damn it!
To give credit where it’s due, Justice Democrats seem to have glommed onto the importance of Agenda over Personality, but not to the degree that I am talking and they still run the risk of being subverted by whipped Party loyalty, as has happened to the supposed “Progressive” caucus which rolled over every time. I am not convinced that the fate of a Justice Democrat won’t be exactly the same.
I propose the Cog Party or its equivalent to represent all the little cogs in the big machine. Any citizen could be a Cog representative; to rephrase Grover, all they need is the ability to vote Yes on our party planks.
Comments
Nothing like a good hammer
to ring in the new day.
YES !
Stop believing in the myth of hero to the rescue
and start looking for our own personal solutions to progress. Keep expanding the circle of influence to family (closest loved ones), friends, community, and ever outward. Then each of us has a stronger home base from which we can reach out to asssit others.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Our current mode has been accepting leadership from behind
We keep waiting fruitlessly for leaders to articulate what we already know we want and they keep feeding us the dog food we've already rejected. We need to break our acceptance of that cycle.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
@Phoebe Loosinhouse this is so right. and
this is so right. and it has to do with visibility.
Which is something I haven't figured out yet, even in my own head (you know how there's figuring something out conceptually, and then figuring how to put it into practice? I haven't figured this one out conceptually yet).
The point of a leader is the same as the point of this:
The leader IS the beacon.
If I stand up and say something, it means nothing to millions. If a U.S. Senator running for President stands up and says something, it does.
To some extent, if a celebrity stands up and says something, it does.
That's what leaders are good for. We need another way to become visible to each other.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Critical observation and well stated
A Leader (candidate)is a beacon to rally behind or journey towards. The whole "Berner" experience was predicated on "Finally! Someone saying what we already know."
And what was the response of The Entrenched? Bernie is not who or what you think - he is a secret racist/sexist/misogynist and so are you and/or his followers.
The only effective response to this nonsense is "Guess what? If Bernie delivers,we don't care.
Of course, we know in advance that he and we are not the fatally flawed vehicles delivering deliverance to the 99% that TPTB so desperately needs to be true in order to maintain the status quo.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
This is why I'm independent.
The same way I no longer subscribe to organized religion, I no longer subscribe to organized political parties. I rely on myself, my inner voice, my feet to help me walk my talk. I am my own cog.
I have created a shit storm for myself, standing up for those without voice, where I work. The administration is about to do what it can to rid itself of me, I've been foretold. Bring it on, I say. I will speak truth to power every time without hesitation. I am compassionate for those afraid to speak, for they may lose their job. I get that. It makes it easier for me to be their voice.
I will continue to write letters to the local rag, exposing them, at every turn. It is why they loathe me. I welcome their hate because it exposes their fear.
"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
I recently retired:
I proved it can be done. I won. Don't let the bastards get you down.
You know the university system, Pricerip.
The cuts we are facing are astronomical. Faculty are bailing. We are the flagship school.
"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
We are behind the times.
Nebraska lags behind either coast and Kearney lags behind Omaha and Lincoln. So, while we are never high on the totem pole we have never fallen far. That being said, some catastrophic collapsing may be in store for some aspects of this institution.
In general, I think you're on a good path here.
But "feet of clay" is a queer concept (not LGBT) in an era of endemic co-optation and corruption.
A lot of imperfections in a leader can be OK. Working for the people oppressing us can never be OK. The power balance in our society and politics is so asymmetrical, and those in power (who know how asymmetrical it is) so absolutist, so intolerant of dissent, that it can't, for instance, be a winning strategy to ignore Cenk Uygur's contract with Univision, a major Hillary donor deeply connected to her campaign. Perhaps Cenk's contract has run out (the initial run was for 12 weeks, beginning last summer, just as we were moving into the general election campaign, in which pretty much every TYT analyst outside of Jimmy Dore joined the general chorus of Oh She Must Win and Save Us From the Bad Man). However, it would be a good idea, before saying "Oh, well, Cenk is just imperfect like the rest of us," to look into that relationship.
That's just one example.
There are others. For instance, Yves of Naked Capitalism just went to the dark side, and I'm not talking specifically about her policy position on war; I'm talking about her justification for that position, which is awful, and a set of generalized character attacks on dissidents she used to cover up her justification, like drawing a sheet over something dead.
There are some positions you can't take and be part of the solution. There are some relationships you can't have and be part of the solution.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Going down one level into something deeper:
I'm not exactly in opposition to where Phoebe's going here, which is a much-needed corrective to the leader-obsessed politics we have, but we should be very, very careful when we use an idea that is a customary refuge of the elite, a talking point we each run into multiple times every day.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good
Purity test
Purist
Not realistic
Naive
You don't understand how Washington works
Fucking retards
How many times a day do y'all run into those memes?
The idea of imperfection has been weaponized. It is essentially an anti-aircraft gun designed to repel criticism of corruption, bad policy, and bad faith. Therefore, if we use it without great care, we run the risk of giving our assent to a belief system that, if we choose to agree with it, ends the possibility of opposition, political, social or otherwise, and inscribes a monolithic, unquestionable, inevitable political reality where political discourse once lived.
It's fine to acknowledge the imperfections of leaders, and especially it's good not to rely on an idealized vision of any particular leader. However, this must be accompanied by a very clear idea of what is intolerable, both in terms of people we will not work with and policies we will not support. It must be accompanied by the ability to determine who is working for our enemies, because they are our enemies.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
What I am trying to say is The Leader Is Not The Movement
And the Movement Is Not Based On The Leader. It's as simple as that. We don't need to be in a situation where if El Cid falls, we have to strap him into his saddle to continue the battle and maintain morale. What Bernie Sanders unleashed can continue without Bernie Sanders. IMO the Social and Economic Justice Movement exists with or without a Leader.
I think what you are talking about is Co-option and sheep-herding at its base level, and why some people are not deserving to be shepherds in the first place, because their motives may be suspect. I don't disagree with any of that but that's not really my central point. My point refers back to the saying "We Are The Change We Seek". We're already here, we already exist, we don't need a leader to create us or to inform or educate us as to our needs and wants. We're already there.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
@Phoebe Loosinhouse I am really, seriously,
I am really, seriously, in favor of your main point.
Think of my comment not as an attack on your main point. I like the path you're on. I just saw that the path skirts a bog, with bits of skeletal hands poking up out of it, and a nasty smell, and I wanted to say "Right path! But mind that nasty bit of bog there."
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Got it. And you're right, it is a nasty bog and one we've
fallen into many times before. I've reread your comments and I understand the complexity of the issue and how it can be twisted or used to our disadvantage or as a foundation for a Trojan Horse factory.
To restate what I am trying to say again for the benefit of any who are confused by what I am advocating - I am looking for candidates and politicians who are more interested in investing in me than they are interested in getting me to invest in them.
As an example - "I'm With Her" is an excellent summary for the type of representative I'm specifically NOT looking for, i.e. someone who is personal legacy and brand and empire building. I'm okay with an unexciting, non-compelling, off-brand, ACME candidate with zero charisma if they sincerely and passionately support policies that will advance the welfare of the average citizen. They also should not be concerned about whether doing the right thing may result in their losing a later election, since their goal should not be to create a lifetime sinecure based on doling out just enough equity to placate the masses while servicing the masters.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
@Phoebe Loosinhouse I'm okay with an
I'm okay with an unexciting, non-compelling, off-brand, ACME candidate with zero charisma if they sincerely and passionately support policies that will advance the welfare of the average citizen.
that's kind of what Bernie was, prior to May/June 2016, and yeah, I'm for it, but I think there needs to be a foundation of non-electoral politics between us little people in order for anything electoral to bear fruit. Which I think you're also aiming for?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Phoebe Loosinhouse My point refers back to
My point refers back to the saying "We Are The Change We Seek". We're already here, we already exist, we don't need a leader to create us or to inform or educate us as to our needs and wants. We're already there.
This is exactly what I hoped would come out of Bernie Sanders' campaign. An independent movement along those lines.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
"those memes"
No where near as often now as when I was visiting TOP regularly!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@thanatokephaloides Touche!
Touche!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I found the quote ...
that flashed through my mind as I read this article:
This is the best I have yet seen here as a capsulation on where we are and what we need to do. I think this best expresses the foundation of all the discussions and I think it would be very difficult to edit it to fewer words without removing essential elements of principle.
Excellent point, Phoebe!
I'm a broken record on this subject because I found The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom truly enlightening in that it gives us a hint on how we can move forward.
Basically they posit that an authoritative, hierarchical organization shuts down dissent by killing off or imprisoning the leaders of the revolt. There are several examples in the book of decentralized organizations and how hard they are to kill off.
I'll extend their example to the current Middle East. It's what the US keeps claiming it is doing every other day - killing off leaders of ISIS or Taliban or whatever strange sounding "Islamic Terrorist" group name of the day is. But ME insurgence is decentralized, not hierarchical so there has been no progress (unless increasing numbers of insurgents is the desired end). Of course, the book explains the subject much better than can I, but without the ME example.
If we, the would-be dissidents of this crumbling, oppressive nation could stop looking for, waiting for a leader, we could begin to fashion the tools usable by a decentralized organization.
But if the answer is to create a party, don't we have to put forth a leader?
For this reason, I argue we don't need a third party, which is sure to be co-opted by TPTB. We need dissent, civil disobedience that is executed by a decentralized organization of many citizens.
So I would posit that we need to fashion tools with that kind of organization in mind, and the first priority would necessarily be tools of communication that would permit coordination, that would grant the ability to first form the needed organization; tools that can't be hacked or easily traced.
The Cornerstone
Starting with caucus99percent?
What would happen if it got out that we had a clear statement of purpose with a solid plan and starting point? A simple declarative statement to the world would not work, the process must be much more "organic" to be effective.
Agree that it must be more organic.
Besides, all the tools for communicating to the world have been taken over by the powers. Getting a message out at all is a problem.
What about radio? Should we C99'ers all get our Ham radio licenses and start out in that world? They are shooting for controlling the internet next, so shouldn't we have a way around that before it happens?
I'm betting the ME insurgents make good use of CB. They can trace radio, but you can turn a radio off, too. They can also block radio but isn't that only within a limited range? I know so little.
I'm looking at some stuff about Ham radio and why you need a license. They say the FCC gives licensed operators access to limited frequencies, (different license levels give expanding access) but I don't understand how they limit those frequencies. My little bit of googling hasn't turned up much of an answer. I'm no scientist, but I thought radio frequencies were just hanging out there in the universe, waiting to be accessed.
the radio spectrum
The problem arises when two or more transmitters want to use the same frequency at the same time. If this is actually attempted, neither will get to make useful application of that frequency, and it will cease being useful to humans until the dilemma is resolved.
Therefore, in the early days of the radio age, licensing and frequency allocation were invented, reinforced by international treaties to which all currently existing nations are signatory. Prior to this, the old-fashioned "spark gap" transmitters were the norm, and nobody could count on being able to use anything in the radio spectrum with reliable success as the existing transmitter technology was so noisy. (i.e., invasive of spectrum it didn't intend to use)
Specific to the amateur bands: there, one has many transmitters wanting to use all the available frequencies. So a moderately complex set of rules and regulations exist to make sure that all licensees have proportional access to the bands. Fixed-frequency continuous operations like repeaters require specific licensure and are restricted in the bands and operable ranges they use, so that their operating frequencies can be re-used in different areas. Broadcast radio transmitters face the same sorts of regulation for the same reasons. The number of AM broadcast stations with "clear channel" licenses -- licenses which assure their operators that no one else in the entire nation gets to use their frequency -- is less than 10. (The only one near me is KOA in Denver.)
As there is a limited amount of radio spectrum and an ever-increasing number of people who want to use it, there's no other way to do that.
In addition, the higher the frequency, the less the radio waves behave like, well, radio waves, and the more they behave like light waves. I don't need to be able to see KOA's antenna to receive its signal just fine; but if I want to receive a microwave signal, I'd best be able to get a nice, clear bead on that transmitting antenna. So this, too, limits the availability of spectrum for traditional radio applications.
I hope I haven't made all of this as clear as mud....
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
No ! , I am Spartacus !
Tracking and individualizing on the internet is becoming more difficult as time goes on. The various security agencies are better at it than we the people know but worse at it than the agency personnel think.
For technical reasons as mentioned the use of the electromagnetic spectrum is regulated. For technical reasons you can be located (with rare exceptions) soon after you go "active" using that technology.
For a different set of technical reasons it is possible to use the internet anonymously. But the investment (mostly technical expertise) provides a large, but not unsurmountable, barrier. A key consideration: We are not legion.
I think anonymity is neither needed nor necessarily desirable. I think a consensus of a very large number of people is both needed and desirable.
Staying focused, while transitioning to a popular (read majority) movement (with a well defined agenda as suggested in this article), will be the major concern.
Ham radio has the problems you cite
But CB radio has an advantage in that it has such a short range.
Drug cartels have used this to their advantage in Mexico by stationing sentries just far enough apart to relay information in real time, or very nearly real time by having many of them on duty. Mexican authorities had no way to counter this communication network because it was so limited in range.
Every move by police was known by everyone within moments of its start. Not just citywide, but sometimes statewide. Kind of like a town crier with a range of several miles.
This is the nearest method of emergency or underground communications that I could imagine other than a covert printing press and distribution network.
I still believe Credexit is the tool we are looking for. It is a damaging weapon to the powers that be. It is a double edged sword in that cuts into their revenue stream and loosens their hold with their tool, debt.
It's something every citizen can do and tptb cannot do anything about it.
Indeed, isn't this what the corporations are doing themselves by buying back their own stock. They are elimating debt and stockpiling cash.
We should do the same.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Credexit
I agree with you here. It's the most important reason I don't have a Bachelor's degree. Even in 1977-1979, I saw that debt ball-and-chain coming. Folks sneered at me for resisting, but I've been proven correct since.
Of course, until we make it "out the other side", it means that those of us who are debt resisters will be allowed little or no lives. We won't own our homes, won't drive vehicles in their manufacturer-stated product lives, and we'll only get to work the shit jobs we can get without Bachelor's degrees. At least, I don't know of a non-degreed licit pursuit which pays enough to allow anything to be other than I just described. A materially decent life costs a certain irreducible amount of money, and that money has to come from somewhere.
It'll be a fight, is all I'm saying. But for those of us who live long enough to see the grip of the bastards broken, it'll be worth it......
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Credexit will only work for a short time
TPTB wants us to be a cashless society and there are some countries in Europe who are doing this already.
They don't want us to keep our cash out of their banks because they won't know how much money we have.
Do a search for this. gs has written a few essays about this.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
It is even more fundamental than that.
All money making schemes are tied to the flow of wealth within the system. Withdrawing money from a banking account is an annihilation event. Money is destroyed. Cash represents un-trackable wealth that can be "spent" back into existence (a creation event) when used to pay for goods and services. Diminish the amount of money (hence its concomitant flow) in the system and the system's capacity to generate wealth diminishes. The concept is simple even if the actual processes are enormously complicated.
This is the systems Achilles heel. This is why civil forfeiture is a thing. Carry large amounts of cash, and you become a target for civil forfeiture.
@snoopydawg
It also gives them total and instant control over citizen access to funds; one power outage in an emergency or a strategic freeze of assets paralyzes everything in that area, or even right across the entire country. The wealthy could prepare for most exigency - while the poorest and most disposable, the bottom 60 or 70 percent of the population at this point and increasing, certainly couldn't possibly.
Since the depositor's money frozen could be re-issued to corporations potentially suffering any loss, would any such outcome seem unlikely in a country where Obama has already 'legalized' the seizure of funds in depositor's accounts to make good any losses banks may suffer from their own hazardous financial schemes?
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.
European central bankers would love to phase out cash
That’s because they’re increasingly resorting to negative interest rates, an idea that up until a few years ago would have been considered absurd.
Negative interest rates soak small depositors in order to bail out the big system players. Under a negative-interest rate regimen, all forms of saving and investment open to non-wealthy citizens become a losing proposition. Rather than a one-shot crisis measure, “haircut” or “bail-in” at depositors’ expense becomes chronic and continuous. But that can only become “the new normal” if simply stashing cash under the mattress is no longer available as an option.
So the bankers are throwing up more and more impediments to using cash. Last year saw drastic measures against banknotes in India. In Europe, use of the 500 euro note will cease at the end of 2018. And in Germany you may now end up paying a fee for getting cash out of an ATM even when that ATM belongs to your own bank.
So yes, the Powers That Be do fear Credexit. They’re working very hard to step up the pace of globalization and centralization in order to tighten their grip — head Credexit off at the pass, so to speak — before too much of the public notices.
You know what?
If the American people, as a whole, started using cash only, everywhere, including the small businesses and retailers, the banks and tptb would go strait to hell. And our economy would continue on without them. As long as we have some kind of physical currency, we can function without them.
Our labor is the basic commodity with which we exchange for legal tender, the greenback. Small businesses CAN pay their employees in cash and still keep records.
If we allow them to vaccume up all the physical currency we will be screwed.
Credexit is the tool we have been looking for. They have no power in a cash society. IMHO.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Yep! It would naturally follow that you buy books at a bookstore
face-to-face with people from your community, rather than online from Amazon.
Viewed in this light, as strange as it may seem, every time you use cash you’re striking a blow for Main Street (and the brick-and-mortar businesses still on it, employing your neighbors) over Wall Street.
As I understand it, ironically, in many of the states where marijuana has been legalized, the stores and dispensaries are forced to use cash exclusively anyway. Why? Because pressure and draconian regulation by the federal government deters banks from allowing pot-related businesses to open an account.
Washington DC lets big banks get away with laundering millions in illegal drug money on behalf of organized-crime networks and cartels. But local small banks live in so much fear of the feds that they won’t risk handling legal money transactions on behalf of a legal local marijuana trade.
Shell companies take more than cash for some dispensaries
thanks, I always paid sales tax, and sometimes used a credit card to buy medicine at a cannabis dispensary south of here, it is banned in the city where I live in California, for now.
Not all, but some dispensaries have multiple shell companies, it is the only way to get banking services, which is way more secure and easy for the urban green rushers. Prop 215 passed ages ago, it's not new. Sarcasm follows; Bank accounts are a big deal for employees! Who would have known? LOL I think it's been known for a long time, around here anyway.
Now the Bigs are coming, the venture capital, more housing displacement, woo! can't wait. My dreams for the wine-grape bad actors going to jail disappear now, with all the anti-cannabis environmental propaganda being spewed by the pols, it is the new criminals will pay for death of the (Russian River) watershed. Lots of finger-pointing going on, as the world burns, and the fishery dies. No wonder the local rag shows headlines from the Washington Post, about Pennsylvania or somewhere else not here, effective distraction template achieved.
Peace
That is the case in Washington state.
The recreational marijuana industry has to deal in cash only. How they pay their employees is in violation of Federal law whether they pay in cash or payroll check.
I was told by a pot store manager tax receipts are delivered to the state in bags of cash. Not sure if this is true or not, but for sure, the state gets its money one way or the other.
With regard to legitimate businesses, there is no reason Powell's Books cannot pay their employees in cash. The small business community has to understand that a cashless society will have the same damned effect on their money too, both their business profit dollars AND personal pay to themselves.
The same for medium and even privately owned large businesses. The TBTF banks are NOT their friends either.
I don't know how to convince all the parties involved that we are being herded into a financial trap. All of us. All the working men and women of this country, whether we are businesse owners or wage earners, are faced with game set, checkmate if we allow a cashless all digital monetary system to be inflicted upon us.
May the FSM have mercy on our heirs.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
@PriceRip We can use
We can use caucus99percent but I'm with gustogirl in that we need a backup plan for if they shut us down/pull the plug. Most of you I'd never talk to again if I couldn't get on here: we don't even know each others' names.
Also, I think most plans are better made face-to-face than online, and no, I'm not talking about violence; I just don't think it's a great idea to broadcast all our plans directly into the NSA's tin ear.
caucus99percent is an awesome place to meet and talk and share information; not so sure about using it as a place to discuss nuts-and-bolts of what we're doing next.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I will just have to set up a dead drop at my place.
Spy Craft 101: Anyone here has access to me, you just might not have figured it out.
@PriceRip Well, also, it
I think I have figured it out for you, but there's more people I don't have access to than those I do.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I followed your link gustogirl
Good stuff! Plus it's only logical - cut the head off of a spider and it dies, cut off an arm of a starfish and it re-generates. Great metaphor for de-centralization as an almost Darwinian survival tactic for political/strategic advantage.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
@Phoebe Loosinhouse This is why Occupy was
This is why Occupy was on the right track. One serious problem, though; most encampments I visited had the same problem making decisions that every other consensus-based organization I ever was part of did: endless discussions and arguments, easily sidetracked into every bad feeling anybody ever had, easily manipulated by bad-faith actors, a lot of exhausted unhappy people listening to hours of why somebody felt that somebody else did or said something bigoted or unfair or mean and somebody else didn't agree it was mean...and nothing, nothing happening pertinent to why people came out in the first place. In short, the GA process was treated as a magic cure-all and adherence to it was the closest thing to a faith that we all had--but we were all wretchedly inexperienced in dealing with any consensus-based process. So we were putting all our faith into a process we weren't even very good at!
I understand they did NOT have the same problem at Zuccotti, because there were enough anarchists there to spread the word that you did not have to achieve consensus at a GA BEFORE doing something. I never got to Zuccotti, sadly. Everywhere I was, people treated the GA like Congress, or like a town hall, except imagine a Congress running by a modified consensus model rather than majority rule; everyone had to come to agreement before we did anything. That made doing things rather rough, and was not helpful at the moment when our encampments were attacked and our movement needed to change, quickly, from being based around the encampments to being something else. There was no way to quickly decide much of anything.
In fact, where we were, we only managed to get people shelter and keep their belongings from being confiscated (and recovering those that were), and feed them, etc., because Occupy Faith, a support organization for the encampments, did NOT run exclusively on GA-based or consensus-based models, and thus were capable of making the quick decisions and talking to the right people to deal with the immediate problem of people having been traumatized and their tents trampled and their stuff taken and a cold night coming.
So on the one hand, Occupy's leaderless quality was fucking brilliant, and we should all emulate it. On the other, we really need a better way of deciding to do things than the way we did it, or tried to do it, in the DC encampments.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@gustogirl We may, eventually, have
We may, eventually, have a political arm of a larger organization, like the Black Panthers did. To me, that's a later development.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@gustogirl Agree with you on
Agree with you on communication as top priority. I am also strongly in favor of redundancy, and layers within layers. IOW, build some things hoping that they won't be taken down, but prepared for it if they do; build the failure of certain things into your plans.
Am I being too vague?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I found Carne Ross's book "The Leaderless Revolution," written
just before Occupy to be pretty invigorating on this subject.
Don't have the kind of time I'd like to add to the conversation because I have to eat and leave for a job very soon. But in a nutshell I think your essay is a good fundamental reminder of the things many are feeling viscerally but can't articulate.
Here's the summary:
There's an excellent interview with him by Bill Moyers here (couldn't embed).
Haven't seen this one yet, but from the others I've seen with him tell me he's exceptional and taking a very refreshing look at taking agency in one's life outside the confining parameters of institutions (of which he was at high levels in the British gov't), etc.
To me, a big impediment lies in the indoctrination of our education systems, which seed us with false mythical narratives of history being simplistic, child-like stories of being saved by the Knight In Shining Armor swooning in and the Good vs. Bad ideology that sets us the equally pernicious American Exceptionalism.
We've become a soft people: disengaged in civics and politics, entertained 24/7 and molded to be reliant on an odious system of others "knowing better" (i.e. Neoliberal meritocracy, etc) and ceding our better instincts to fraudsters and the promise of achieving the American Dream (i.e. lots of money and things).
"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
@Mark from Queens I see it as similar to
I see it as similar to cooking: people who think that cooking dinner is buying a pre-made microwavable dinner and sticking it in the microwave. Prepackaged, premade politics. As opposed to chopping up vegetables and meat for a stew that you cook all day, a masala that you grind from spices you roast yourself...
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Great comment as per usual Mark FQ
My essay this morning was the direct result of my internal fulmination on the broad and sweeping failure of not just leadership but even basic competence in just about every agency of our government, and realizing in a flash how a simple traditional desire for better leaders was not going to solve a problem this mammoth. The non-functionality of our government is too broad and pervasive to be an accident. There is no Justice, there is no oversight, there are no ethics, all that there is is sound and fury. The government may as well pass out pillows for us all to scream into.
Someone in this community made one of the most insightful comments about our present state that I have read in a long, long time. I wish I could credit them for this observation - that we live in a country that is unable or unwilling to distinguish between private enterprise, natural resources and public utilities. In other words, our leaders can no longer determine what is public and what is private, except in ways that work to their advantage, as in privatizing their profits while socializing their losses and using the exact reverse of that formula when it comes to the public. What is theirs is theirs and what is ours is theirs as well.
The fatal flaws of our nation have at their base the same motivations - exploitation and greed that overpower and overwhelm basic human decency. That was what excused and allowed slavery to be introduced here from the beginning, culminating in the Civil War and that is the underpinning of the current wealth and resource transfer that allows a deformity like the Republican healthcare bill, which TAKES 800 billion from Medicaid and swallows it up in a GIVE of 600 billion in tax cuts to the wealthy, to be offered without apology.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
This is so damned right.
I've spent enough time squawking about potential pitfalls; this is so goddamned right:
realizing in a flash how a simple traditional desire for better leaders was not going to solve a problem this mammoth.The non-functionality of our government is too broad and pervasive to be an accident.
And I'm entirely in favor of shifting to a model of many many "little people" using tools and away from a movement with an idealized leader.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Think that quote was Pluto's.
I'm on an iPad right now and can't check for sure, without some difficulty while also writing this comment. But I think it was in an exchange we were having about socialism or something. Can check later...
Excellent thread, by the way. Good to see you again Phoebe.
"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'd like to offer some personal perspective
I see the same thing you do, but from a different and (I think anyway) more positive viewpoint.
(for the record, you can all thank me. this touches on areas of fascination with me so my original response was about 60,000 words give or take. I reconsidered).
I'd make a few points.
You are taking a critical role in pretty much any human social unit and starting to cast it in a pejorative light. That's a dangerous thing. I'd argue it's better just to cast it in it's proper light. The term "leader" is fine. The problem is not in the role or the label but rather how in how we select them.
We need to pick leaders who seek responsibility rather than ones who seek privilege and authority. There is an perfectly good old-school term for this, "Public Servant". Rather than make up new terms, I find it easy enough just to ask people if they think they current crop of public servants are serving the public or themselves. With most you get a laugh. Then I work from there.
This problem begins and ends in the mirror. We don't care who we pick so long as it looks like it might make our team win. So we get leaders who seek authority because they sound all "fightey" and then we get what we deserve.
Regarding "feet of clay", all humans are fallible as you say but there is actually such a thing as a good human. There are limits to how much "badness" I could get up to if I was made god-king. I'm just not inclined or interested in that direction. You could not bribe me with anything... including the torture of my wife and children... to get me to slaughter a million innocent civilians in the Mideast. My excesses would be much more modest. I'm hardly alone in that.
So for me, what I want is leaders who serve and then I want to heap acknowledgement and accolade on them because that role is truly lonely, thankless, and scary as hell. I'm content with having leaders. I just want good ones and I recognize that authority to rule flows from me.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
Or.......
We need to quit calling them "leaders". They are our representatives. They do as we tell them, which is Phoebe's points. The video below will piss some of you off, but Sane Progressive makes Phoebe's point and a few others. It's about 30 minutes long, but it is worth the listen. She takes Bernie apart, and her reason reasons are hard to argue.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Thanks for posting her video
I agree with everything she says about Bernie, especially his silence on the voting fraud. He knew that it was happening and he did nothing about it. And he continued to let people send him their money even though he knew that so many people were living on the edge financially.
I have no words to describe how I feel about the sarin gas attack. I've been telling people this and asking how they could still see Obama and Hillary as they do.
They keep saying that he had a scandal free presidency, but he let us down in so many ways, but what he did to the people in the Middle East is far worse.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
"She takes Bernie apart" Wow no kidding
thanks for that, she is right I think. To me Bernie acted just like Gore in 2000, standing up there caving in completely to Bush, choosing to "unite" rather than cast a vote for recount. Then Kerry in 2004, after Ohio didn't say shit about Diebold, why not? Heinz 57, still waiting ... heh.
California primary was the straw that broke me, so totally in the tank for Clinton from the beginning it was disgusting. She was declared winner of our district CA-02, Jared Huffman super-delegate, and after all the votes were counted weeks later, Bernie flipped it and won with 54%. As far as vote counting goes, I tuned out just couldn't take it. This kind of shenanigans: Primary concerns: Mendocino County election observers file complaint, nothing happened as far as I know, no remedy.
Thanks
@dkmich
As is actually remarkably consistent, I agree with the Sane Progressive; however, I don't think that she's fully absorbed the implications of the very circumstances she so passionately and typically accurately describes.
The entire Dem Primary Selection was packed with an almost ludicrous degree of amazingly blatant cheating in uncountable ways;
the utterly corrupt DNC has argued in court that as a private organization, they form one of two 'private clubs' entitled to select one of the two candidates for which the American public is to be permitted to vote;
the entire US political apparatus, including the judicial branch and various agencies, is riddled with corruption and is absolutely ruthless in achieving totalitarian and ultimately global corporate/military control;
one such agency - an illegal and highly 'privatized' one engaging in unconstitutional abuses on a global basis as well as throughout their own country - has taken control over all US electoral apparatus and has taken all information regarding such under the spiked Top Secret umbrella where it may only be discussed between Homeland Security and 'interested private parties', the American public to be provided with only what information they choose to release and with any hope of independent/public electoral oversight thereby made impossible and potentially making public discussion of/cries for inquiry into questionable electoral results illegal;
the corporate media has a monopoly and pumps out corporate-government propaganda which has been 'legalized' for use, by ex-President Obama, against the American public.
Think about that, and imagine how rapidly Bernie would have been shut down had he spat defiance and demanded justice from those declaring themselves above the law in what the Sane Progressive accurately describes as a police state.
Think about who would be speaking on the corporate media to whom so many Americans are restricted and on the town hall circuit to validate and keep alive the notion of democratic government existing for the purpose of working for the public interest, rather than against it, and that change must come from the people, if they want government of, by and for the people, if Bernie was not there to do it and to provide a still-living contrast between a politician willing to sacrifice almost anything he most values in working for a potential increase toward a public good and the corporate Dems he's supposedly 'sheepdogging for'.
The first thought in the minds of the better informed when Bernie repeats the propagandist talking-points, which I suspect he's been told that he must mouth in order to reach the public with the basic message that they deserve a decent life within the most wealthy 'democracy' in history, one in which the only legitimate government is one of, by and for the people, is that those talking points are BS; we may rail against him, or wonder about brainwashing or isolation within the bubble or whatever - but the result is always the same; nobody informed believes the talking points and reacts against them.
This is a good result - it fires people up and makes them wish to be active.
Bernie has always said: 'not me - us'. Don't listen to me if I say stuff like 'vote for Hillary'. I think this is a strategy he thought he'd likely have to adopt because an electoral win might not be permitted, although he did, indeed, try and succeeded against incredible odds.
And now people are finally beginning to understand that they cannot depend upon some savior coming to rescue them, that they must act to free themselves.
They cannot find the 'Glorious Leader' who can be 'all things to all people' - they must act themselves.
But it's also true that people need to feel that their government is being run by someone they feel will care about serving the public interest and who has a life-long record of doing so, which pretty much means Bernie - and, unlike the corporate party picks, whatever Bernie may be, he's not evil.
As well, the fact is that the only time an American political party has been replaced by another has been when some widely popular leader has left one of the two major parties and taken a large chunk of voters with them. Between this and the fact that Indies/dissatisfied Two-Faced Corporate-Party voters are far and away the largest voting group, this explains the fear the corporate Dems have of the Bernie who's used their attempt at using him to continue to fire up the people to do something for themselves, themselves.
It does not appear likely to me that the Psychopaths That Be are willing to allow a pacific political revolution, and that the bloody revolution every sane person wishes to avoid may become necessary, to have any chance of survival for any life on the planet to survive.
However, we can take some grim comfort in the fact that the world's largest military has failed to subjugate numerous invaded countries as long as people keep fighting the invaders. Those aware that they are fighting for their lives and those of their families, as well as their freedom and country, will fight long and hard because they have been left nothing to lose and at least something to gain by so doing. Where there's life, there's hope.
And this, I suspect, may be why The Psychopaths That Be are so eagerly killing off and hazarding life on the planet, in the belief that they themselves can somehow survive to cannibalize each others among the wreckage, with only each other to dispute their supremacy. They are pathologically greedy and power-hungry and not sane even where their own survival pertains. This, together with a bizarre profit motive in virtually all life being genetically engineered and owned, seems to be to be the only potential explanation fitting all of the facts, although I'd be rather more than delighted to be proven wrong. Perhaps by life and the global life-support system continuing past the next decade, however unlikely that may now appear.
But we do not have the decades required for party-building, of which the Sane Progressive speaks; I believe that she knows better, but the truth is too devastating for us to hold long within our minds, hopes and attempts at planning strategies.
This is not merely a political battle; this is life versus an evil of a sort (albeit now much enlarged and even more insanely detached from reality) which has been, although at the time thought impossibly, overcome once before. At that time, various countries around the world joined in to fight it - this time, it must be the people within the countries, fighting it each within their own, by whatever means necessary, and ideally, pacifically, politically and economically.
And many among the public have no idea at all of what's at stake; even if they understand it intellectually, the emotional grasp doesn't seem to be there - and as long as we cling to the hope of an 'outside savior to be all things to all people' to fend it off for us, we'll likely remain in the pot until the flesh boils off our bones.
We cannot afford to cast off those allies who agree with us upon the most essential basics, especially where they potentially will listen to fact and reason and have the capacity to understand and admit where they may have been mistaken, misled or lacking consideration of important facts, whether because of political brainwashing or other circumstance.
I'll admit that if this involved anyone but Bernie and knowledge of his character and tactics, I'd have a different view myself, but we, the people and life of the world, haven't many options or political allies within the US political structure, and I suspect that this is more typical Bernie playing the long game in the manner of Resistance members faking collaboration to work and get information out from within where possible, as occurred the last time this global fascist take-over attempt was made, although a number of the best of these were executed as collaborators by those patriots unaware of their real role, over and above those unfortunately discovered and exterminated by the Nazi's.
Any chance we throw away may be our last. We just can't count on that 'all things to all people saviour' or, ever again, vote for evil, to be used to justify their 'win' over us.
We, the people of each country of the world, have to form our own governments and occupy them forever afterward, if there ever is to be either of these things.
It comes down, quite literally, to 'do or die'.
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.
Great discussion, everybody.
Thanks, Phoebe, for starting it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Grover Norquist circulated a contract
and demanded Republican politicians to sign it to get the support of his organization.
Can't we do the same?
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Yes, I think it's time for liberals to
"to remove emotion and idol worship from our political process." While they're at it they should end their cognitive dissonance about imperialism. But I don't expect liberals to do that, they're still fighting over Hillary and Bernie.
Al, somehow I read your GBCW diary last night on DK
and looked at your one on Taibbi and the deal that Obama made with the republicans on the budget. And there were the same people defending him for making that deal. Just insane.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Wow, oldies snoopydawg.
Ya, they aren't changing. They're the opposition in that they support the lies of the establishment. They say people become more conservative as they become older. Not me, I'm becoming more radical. I think the conservative part comes from money. Money makes people more conservative because they want to protect and justify it. Most people I should say.
My dad used to say to his republican friends
"You don't have enough money to be a republican. There are a lot of names in it that I haven't seen anywhere.
Good ole deadhead, he always had great comebacks against them.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
I used that exact sentence once to one of my close friends
who happened to be a Republican. He never forgave me.
There are people who are Republicans in an almost aspirational sense, that they hope to one day have enough money to make being a tax dodging sociopath a necessity so they're getting an early jump on it.
More charitably, when Democrats fail to deliver on promises to level the playing field, even some should be Democrats will turn to Republicanism as the last resort because the ever popular Republican ploy of lowering taxes at the very least will allow them to keep a couple more of their paltry sheckles.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
@snoopydawg I miss DeadHead.
I miss DeadHead. One of several people I miss from those old days.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
good essay
wanted to "bookmark" it for later reference. thanks
Thank you so much for this
Thank you so much for this brilliant essay, which makes plain the concept of 'government of, by and for the people' on which the more enlightened of America's Founders intended that the country be founded.
That's what government is supposed to be - a reasonable and reasoning function of the united needs and voice of the totality of the general public, staffed by public servants serving the public interest which is, by definition, the interest of the country itself, which must, obviously, be run in a sustainable and non-destructive manner.
And you've cut through the 'confusion strategy' propaganda tactics so beautifully simply by modernizing the terminology/framing into words replacing a now-rote phrase which has long since been dulled/twisted into meaninglessness for most Americans by the PR machine.
To the point where corporate politicians who regard the US Constitution as 'a piece of paper' and their party platform as eminently ignorable because they do whatever the highest bidder desires and can say so out loud without outcry or uprising merely by framing the public interest as rainbow unicorn farts and worthlessly unprofitable in 'real money' (for The Right People, with yellow rain to follow) returns - despite their swearing to uphold The People's rights and the limitations of government in the Constitution as a job requirement and taking the public's money themselves to serve that public - furthermore stealing much of the rest of the public's money to further enrich their additional Big Paymasters at public cost in all respects.
The important thing is that the tools must provably have integrity and understand their purpose as being to serve the public good - something exceedingly rare among politicians in such a corrupted system.
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.
OMG Ellen, your responses in this essay
deserve their own space. I wish we had some way to address that - it happens so often that the comments within an essay need some kind of highlighting or attention drawn to them on their own merits.
I am so sorry I wasn't diligent about watching for new comments in this thread, your comments occurred when I thought it had gone dormant.
But your words :We, the people of each country of the world, have to form our own governments and occupy them forever afterward are so resonant and inspirational. Thank you.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "