Obscene Wealth Inequality Calls for a Global People's Revolution
Let's see, how can I express my rage any differently than I already have?
According to a new Oxfam report, 82% of the wealth generated last year went to the richest 1 percent of the global population. The poorest half, that would be about 3.5 billion, saw no increase at all.
According to the report, 42 people own the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 percent on planet earth. There are now well over 2000 billionaires on the planet with more being added on a weekly basis. The ones half way there are even more numerous.
Oxfam is a "confederation of international charities". It cited tax evasion, the erosion of worker's rights, cost-cutting and businesses' influence on policy decisions as reasons for the widening inequality gap. I would certainly add stock markets and other financial systems the rich have created through the political system they own to multiply their wealth beyond their wildest dreams and their control of the central banking systems in virtually every country.
"The charity also found the wealth of billionaires had increased by 13 percent a year on average in the decade from 2006 to 2015. Last year, billionaires would have seen an uptick of $762 billion — enough to end extreme poverty seven times over. It also claimed nine out of 10 of the world's 2,043 billionaires were men.
Booming global stock markets were seen as the main driver for a surge in wealth among those holding financial assets last year. The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, saw his wealth balloon by $6 billion in the first 10 days of 2017 — leading to a flood of headlines marking him as "the richest man of all time."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/world%E2%80%99s-richest-1percent-...
There are critics of some of Oxfam's statistics and methodology but that's like wondering if the shark in front of you is 40 or fifty feet long. Not to mention the critics are invariably of the 1 percent, and who you going to trust, your own eyes or the greedy bastards who want more, more and fucking more.
Oxfam called for action to address the growing global wealth inequality and appears to have timed their report to come out just prior to the World Economic Forum to take place in Davos, Switzerland next week. Where all the rich fuckers gather to scheme amongst themselves on how they can get even more rich.
About seven years ago now I started my own blog and named it Global Revolution Center. I had reached a conclusion that there needed to be a global "working class" revolution in order to change the incredibly unjust and immoral growing wealth inequality and militaristic violence and control by the rich bastards with all the power.
Since then, it just keeps getting worse and worse with absolutely nothing being done about any of it. This country had the utter gall to elect a fucking billionaire as it's president, a poster child of greed, arrogance and capitalist cruelty.
This country is so completely divided by the duopoly political system and the control of information via the corporate media monopoly that it's hard to have much hope for a socialist revolution taking place here. Perhaps the better approach, and more appropriate considering the common plight of people of all nations, is a global revolution.
Wars and poverty, immigration and refugee issues, climate change, fascism, imperialism, oligarchy and plutocracy, the "common" people of the world are being used as pawns in a global game of greed and lust for power. It's an unbelievable situation that no ones knows how to change. The only possible answer is in numbers. The more people that commit to ending this madness, the closer we can get to doing just that.
That kind of solution is mind boggling, almost impossible to envision. But so is the problem. They aren't going to give it up on their own, we're going to have to make them.
Comments
To hell with your global revolution.
I'm putting my belief (aint got no money) on global war.
Same thing really.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Eat the rich, man.
They asked for it.
Eat the rich indeed.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pMVfpKBuyI]
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
I agree
they will not stop their greed fest, nor give up on any of their activities that are robbing us all of things and our environment. Not willingly, they must have it pried from their cold dead hands. They are out and out parasites, and they needed to take a chance and allow us our "revolution " with Bernie, but no, like the nobles of Versailles, they are too greedy as well as stupid to let wealth circulate more so that all may have some comfort and less stress, but we do all see how they prefer to act like parasites and suck everything dry.
Work for a major company? they work you until stress burns you out, and then get rid of you to replace you with another hopeful to ride on the Journey Of the Broke, J.O.B. for short.
Want some alleged fast track to career but can't afford college? they want you if healthy to join any branch of the war machine.
The list is long and disgusting.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
I agree with this
Austerity is a global plan by the PTB. European countries are in the process of creating its effects. Greece has been called the austerity laboratory." The IMF kept hitting them with loans that the government knew it couldn't repay and the banks are making the citizens repay them. We saw the first bail-in there and the effects on retirees was devastating. I saw many older people sitting outside banks and crying because they couldn't get their money out of the banks. We know that congress gave the banks the power to do that here
whenif they crash the economy again.I'm seeing quite a few people saying that they thought that we'd be in the streets already and I think they are just waiting for someone to come up with a plan of action and they will join in. It's long past time for us to tell them that we're done with what they are doing. It's building up because you can feel that people are holding their breath.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Big Al, I think, if people can't do it, nature can and will ...
... in the end I have this image in front of my eyes. The bones you put into the earth and the pee you piss on those bones' graves, both end up to fertilize the soil and trigger the seeds and plants to grow. Everybody tries to do what he/she can. And that will be it. And that's your global revolution. One bone and one piss at a time.
https://www.euronews.com/
This doomsday article one should read ... for those who ...
(may be this is Off Topic to your essay, but to me the doomsday scenario would be a reason to have a global people's revolution)
...who didn't panic, because you happen to not live in Hawaii when the false nuclear missile alarm and the human error of pushing that damn wrong button occurred.
But, then, I can't forget this either. Within a decade or so, years after a volcano erupts, some little plants start growing on the torched volcano rock earth. A fact that always fascinated me, when I learned about that.
ok,
Doomsday Panic In Hawaii
I went back into my life's timeline and listed all geographical locations me and my son lived. Berlin, Germany, (a couple of hundred yards near the Berlin Wall, ICBMs always on Germans' minds), Great Falls, Montana AFB,(nuclear missile silos within a couple of hunded yards), Seoul, Korea (close to the border between North and South Korea) - who knows where the missiles were there, Kawaii, HI, hiking in the forests there, being stopped by something in uniform, saying that one can't hike here any further, because those missiles' facilities (mentioned in the article) were just a couple of hundred yards away.
Weird. How come I was not scared? Am I stupid or what? I don't get it.
Now I wasted my Tuesday Morning on wrong button issues again. I am pushing another button now. To log off from my laptop, so that my brain can stop thinking.
Thanks, Big Al, no matter what, I value all efforts to bring light into the darkness of humans' minds.
https://www.euronews.com/
You bring up some good points, Mimi
What if a missile from Hi. were fired off in retaliation for the supposed incoming alert? Even if by mistake, it could have triggered a massive event.
I read somewhere that a Russian warcraft came incredibly close to firing numerous missiles recently over a perceived threat. The commander ultimately refused to follow orders to fire.
It turned out to be a false alarm.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
let's all have a good time before the great divide
Just fifty more years we're all gonna know
Why, when, where, how, and who get's to go
So let's all have a good time before the great divide
'Cause things will start separating come 2025
So look for the subtle clues
It won't make the front-page news
That depends upon which side that you choose
There's a crack, there's a crack in the world
--Sammy Hagar, 1975
USGS quake map, today
Surf's up Alaska! I did have a happy day yesterday, despite everything. It helps to not be starving. duh
Oxfam is great. I agree BA, time to even it up.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
I would welcome a world wide season of reckoning.
It's probably happenstance, but it is odd how the parties have "traded" presidencies over the past few generations. Giving the "outs" just enough hope until it's time to change to the other guys.
First Carter. Then Reagan/Bush. Then Clinton. Then Geo W. Bush. Then Obama. Now Trump. As long as we have this insane tribalism, "rotating" presidents from the parties goes a long way towards keeping the disaffected from building up the momentum to unleash an American storming of the Bastille.
"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey
FDR should have finished the job.
Seriously. It's partly because he refused to execute the porkies that tried to have him assassinated that we're in this position to begin with.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
The rotation since I started voting
thanks for the "rotating presidents" comment. Started voting in 1980, so:
Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Obama, Obama, Trump!
Let us not complete the sequence, or else... ? I don't know. Does it really matter? NOPE
there is no GandhiCon
president zero, for life
As Prof. Wolff
explains; globally, the working people are feeling the squeeze. We are the residue the capitalist system leaves behind in search of bigger profits.
yes !!!
we can...
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
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Another intertwined target for Global Revolution: Imperialism
When recently I 'mused aloud' in a comment about finding a substitute for 'imperialism' while thinking about how to inform people I know about endless war, you correctly argued against not using the word. I thought about that when tonight I read excerpt joe featured in the Evening Blues, then went and read the whole article. There are some good reasons people are not familiar with the concept: corporate media, bought politicians, and more.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.