My political gland is begining to secrete things.

[digitaldiscipline]

Capital must protect itself in every possible way, both by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of the government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers.

These truths are well known among our principal men, who are now engaged in forming an imperialism to govern the world. By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance. It is thus, by discrete action, we can secure for ourselves that which has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished.

- Montagu Norman, Governor of The Bank Of England, addressing the United States Bankers' Association, New York, 1924.

Attention, people whose net worth contains fewer than seven digits to the left of the decimal: Mr. Norman, and his modern-day counterparts in boardrooms and trading floors across the country is talking about you. To them, we are not people; we are a resource to be plundered and exploited. They have already fleeced wide swaths of the ignorant into believing that they, too, can somehow partake of this largesse by somehow climbing out of the lower-middle-class, while cleverly omitting the part that they're not going to be allowed too much chance of doing so.

Bundling social conservatism (so-called "family values" and "Christian values" and the whole passel of "we are going to legislate what you can do with your own body and that of someone who consents to do it with you") with wealth-protecting fiscal conservatism (trickle-down economics is a failed experiment; give it the fuck up) was the greatest boondoggle the GOP ever managed. They evoke the "good old days" of post-WWII, pre-Vietnam suburbia, neglecting (or perhaps secretly celebrating) the rampant racism and Communist witch-hunts this country went through, and are utterly ignorant of the tax structure (the highest marginal tax rate was something like 82% under some bleeding-heart liberal named Dwight Eisenhower).

I got some flack this morning for not wanting to extend anything more than a middle finger to the folks on the far end of the political spectrum. There are plenty of folks who have tried to take the moderate tack, and look where it's gotten us: today, Ronald fucking Reagan would be considered left of center, because he actually raised taxes a dozen times during his time in office. Fuck that.

I'm veering hard left, and if I can drag the country that direction with me, so much the better. It's starting to happen here in America's Wang, because Tea Party short bus driver Rick Scott is finding out that the red tide that washed him into the Governor's mansion has left him high and dry in a state where Republicans control both houses by overwhelming, filibuster-proof majorities, and the more sensible folks with an R- next to their names realize that going for the full-court press when it comes to slashing and burning social services is a bad fucking idea.

I am as supportive of a balanced budget, preferably one with a surplus, as the next guy (and probably more so), but there's a really easy way to make ends meet when you've already pared your expenses to the bone, and folks have been kind of slipping when it comes to coughing up the money they ought to have been paying you. Vito and Carmine need to be called up to do some tax collecting, because you can't buy groceries when all you have is a fistful of IOUs.

Comments

[theblackdeer.livejournal.com]

*APPLAUSE*

[happygoth.livejournal.com]

Amen, sister.

[zymergist.livejournal.com]

I enjoy your posts, though we have slightly different political views. You might find this interesting
http://thestrongwatchman.com/disaster-preparation/39-items-needed-in-disaster/768-the-fall-of-the-american-empire-has-begun-an-interview-with-richard-maybury.html

[zymergist.livejournal.com]

BTW, I received the content in an email quoted from the source (which is a subscription service I dont belong to) I did a search and the site linked to was the first/cleanest copy. Ignore the rest of the site, I was only looking to share the article.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I think some of the points he makes are valid, but at the same time, he is very, very obviously cherrypicking his cases (he mentions Mubarak by name, but not Khadafi, for instance; on the edge of that coin is someone like Saddam, who the US helped and then hated and then helped do away with).

He overreaches in some aspects, though his rationalizations for making the connections he does are at least plausible if you're paranoid enough (and, some days, I am).

The absolute best thing Washington could do for the American people – if the folks in Washington were honest – is just announce that the empire is over. “It’s finished, we quit.” We’re going to withdraw our troops from all those countries around the world. We’re going to bring them home to defend America. We’re not going to meddle in other countries anymore.

I've been saying this for twenty fucking years. George fucking Washington was saying this.

[critus.livejournal.com]

Alas, as the flacker, I am sad to say that I still don't think you see my point.

I don't think you should moderate your views at all. I agree with them for the most part. The problem is that you're not going to get anyone to listen to them if you offend them right from the beginning. If you cover the truth in barbed wire you prevent people from getting to it.

I like the Rude Pundit. I really do. I enjoy reading his posts. Thing is, I agree with him already. He's not changing any minds. All he's doing is playing to his base, which is all the other side is doing. The people who make a real difference are able to reach beyond that.

Unless, of course, you're talking about a physical resolution to the problem.

But yeah, I've never once suggested that you change or moderate your VIEWS. What I'm suggesting is that if you really want to make a difference in this country you've got to reach the people who don't share them. If you don't, you're just maintaining the status quo.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I see your point, though... I'm just tired of the other side gaining ground by simply digging in their heels and being intractable assholes.

You think there would have been any kind of popular support for a left-wing fringe movement like the Tea Party? Fuck no, they'd have been derided and laughed off the national stage before getting anyone on the ballot... that is, if they got any media coverage at all. The myth of "liberal media bias" is alive and well and on display every time someone uses the word "socialist" or "Nazi" as an inaccurate epithet.

If I have to beat a busload of morons to death with a fucking dictionary to get my point across, just make sure to hand me the hardcover edition.

The right makes its hay by being such stubborn dickheads that the left eventually capitulates in the name of getting *anything* accomplished. So you end up with "compromise" that is 90% of the way towards where the GOP dug in their heels, every fucking time.

I'm sick of it, so I'm going to paint the far corner with the napalm they so richly deserve and call a spade a spade, and, hopefully, open some eyes in the middle when they realize, "You know what that smell is? It's burning dogshit. I don't think we should step in it; let's go have some of the iced tea that frustrated-looking guy has on his front porch next door instead."

And this, friends and neighbors, is why I will never, ever, get elected to high office. If some fool appoints me, on the other hand, that's their own damned fault.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Jesus-H, that quote is scary in its application to today. Only none of them would ever let such a statement get free today.

Maybe that's what we need: Subversives planted into the halls of power, recording what's going on among the polical and financial elite, then sharing what they learn via a WikiLeaks sort of interface.

I fear that the Far Left will never be able to gain the kind of traction as the Far Right enjoys in this country simply because the Right has religion on their side while the Left has... well, complex and reasonable ideas based on research that requires one to have the capacity to reason and "SHUT UP, SMARTASS! WE DON'T TOLERATE YOU BOOK-LEARNED TYPES!"

Like that. I'm only left more angry and hopeless about the future. Must ponder this more, how we can build a culture that supports intellectual pursuits and seeks to make all people equal and free....

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I am enjoying watching Newt get raked over the coals by GOP talking heads for shit he's said both four days, and fifteen years, ago; the Democrats don't have a monopoly at the circular firing squad... they just have a lot more practice at it.

There's nothing wrong with being crass as long as you're consistent; it's the unmitigated and un-called-out hypocrisy on the right that really ticks me off. John Stewart calls them on it. Olbermann calls them on it. And, every once in a while, the MSM calls someone on it.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I enjoy good ol' schadenfreude when hypocrites like this fella get theirs.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

wow...82% marginal tax rate? I knew it used to be much higher...I hadn't realized how high it had been.