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Author Topic: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of the USA  (Read 5579 times)

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AGelbert

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Luther Martin: Representative for Maryland and dissenting Anti-Federalist. Was shocked at the attempt by the elite to overthrow the existing government in secret in 1787, and swore to tell the people what Washington, Madison and Hamilton were up to. The rich were terrified of the people screwed by Hamilton's bank bailouts and after Shay's Rebellion almost saw Philidelphia captured by angry citizens, they were ready to install a police state.

Martin warned we were ill-advised to install a President King who would plot against the people in concert with the Senate: He said we were crazy to put men into a chamber for six year terms instead of the current one-year terms; men who would no longer be paid by their states and move away from their constituents to a corrupt political city, and who could not be recalled for any reason by their state for misbehavior. He said we were going to lose our freedom under the reintroduction of a hated standing army and that we would suffer under the despotism of a Supreme Court with no citizen jury.

He stormed out and refused to sign the Constitution without a Bill of Rights, and broke the convention's signed oath of secrecy that Mad-Man Madison made everyone sign before being admitted. Martin went straight to the press and warned the people not to ratify this powerful central government with a crazy central bank and insane electoral college scheme designed to strip citizens of any meaningful representation.

Before this abomination was ratified, there were 2,000 representatives for the people: One rep existed for about 300 citizens. The Constitution made it one rep per MINIMUM 30,000 to 60,000 but CONVENIENTLY DID NOT STATE A MAXIMUM POPULATION PER REP!

That apparently wasn't good enough for the oligarchs as our population grew so shortly after 1913 a cork was put on the maximum number of representatives. Please note that ALL new voting groups from women to minorities to Native Americans got the "right" to vote AFTER the cork was put on the maximum number of reps .

NOTE: The 14th Amendment right to vote for African Americans after the Civil War became a cruel farce by 1876. The elitist Supreme Court twisted the 14th Amendment to give Corporations personhood as a cruel and cynical vicious slap to the original intent of the 14th Amendment. Even as blacks where being disenfranchised, the courts were busy giving corporations extra privileges along with the license to break the law with impunity called limited liability.

Now, in most states, there is only one rep for 740,000 citizens, and virtually ZERO chance of you ever talking to one. >:( :P

Source: the Actual Anti-Federalist writings...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Anti-Federalist

« Last Edit: October 20, 2018, 02:38:06 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The Folly of Empire
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2013, 07:50:45 pm »
The Folly of Empire


By Chris Hedges

The final days of empire give ample employment and power to the feckless, the insane and the idiotic. These politicians and court propagandists, hired to be the public faces on the sinking ship, mask the real work of the crew, which is systematically robbing the passengers as the vessel goes down. The mandarins of power stand in the wheelhouse barking ridiculous orders and seeing how fast they can gun the engines. They fight like children over the ship’s wheel as the vessel heads full speed into a giant ice field. They wander the decks giving pompous speeches. They shout that the SS America is the greatest ship ever built. They insist that it has the most advanced technology and embodies the highest virtues. And then, with abrupt and unexpected fury, down we will go into the frigid waters.

The last days of empire are carnivals of folly. We are in the midst of our own, plunging forward as our leaders court willful economic and environmental self-destruction. Sumer and Rome went down like this. So did the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires. Men and women of stunning mediocrity and depravity led the monarchies of Europe and Russia on the eve of World War I. And America has, in its own decline, offered up its share of weaklings, dolts and morons to steer it to destruction. A nation that was still rooted in reality would never glorify charlatans such as Sen. Ted Cruz, House Speaker John Boehner and former Speaker Newt Gingrich as they pollute the airwaves. If we had any idea what was really happening to us we would have turned in fury against Barack Obama, whose signature legacy will be utter capitulation to the demands of Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial complex and the security and surveillance state. We would have rallied behind those few, such as Ralph Nader, who denounced a monetary system based on gambling and the endless printing of money and condemned the willful wrecking of the ecosystem. We would have mutinied. We would have turned the ship back.

The populations of dying empires are passive because they are lotus-eaters. There is a narcotic-like reverie among those barreling toward oblivion. They retreat into the sexual, the tawdry and the inane, retreats that are momentarily pleasurable but ensure self-destruction. They naively trust it will all work out. As a species, Margaret Atwood observes in her dystopian novel “Oryx and Crake,” “we’re doomed by hope.” And absurd promises of hope and glory are endlessly served up by the entertainment industry, the political and economic elite, the class of courtiers who pose as journalists, self-help gurus like Oprah and religious belief systems that assure followers that God will always protect them. It is collective self-delusion, a retreat into magical thinking.

“The American citizen thus lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than the original,” Daniel J. Boorstin wrote in his book “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.” “We hardly dare face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories in the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves.”

Culture and literacy, in the final stage of decline, are replaced with noisy diversions and empty clichés. The Roman statesman Cicero inveighed against their ancient equivalent—the arena. Cicero, for his honesty, was hunted down and murdered and his hands and head were cut off. His severed head and his right hand, which had written the Philippics, were nailed onto the speaker’s platform in the Forum. The roaring crowds, while the Roman elite spat on the head, were gleefully told he would never speak or write again. In the modern age this toxic, mindless cacophony, our own version of spectacle and gladiator fights, of bread and circus, is pumped into the airwaves in 24-hour cycles. Political life has fused into celebrity worship. Education is primarily vocational. Intellectuals are cast out and despised. Artists cannot make a living. Few people read books. Thought has been banished, especially at universities and colleges, where timid pedants and careerists churn out academic drivel. “Although tyranny, because it needs no consent, may successfully rule over foreign peoples,” Hannah Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” “it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.” And ours have been destroyed.

Sensual pleasure and eternal youth are our overriding obsessions. The Roman emperor Tiberius, at the end, fled to the island of Capri and turned his seaside palace into a house of unbridled lust and violence. “Bevies of girls and young men, whom he had collected from all over the Empire as adepts in unnatural practices, and known as spintriae, would copulate before him in groups of three, to excite his waning passions,” Suetonius wrote in “The Twelve Caesars.” Tiberius trained small boys, whom he called his minnows, to frolic with him in the water and perform oral sex. And after watching prolonged torture, he would have captives thrown into the sea from a cliff near his palace. Tiberius  would be followed by Caligula
 and Nero. 


“At times when the page is turning,” Louis-Ferdinand Céline wrote in “Castle to Castle,” “when History brings all the nuts together, opens its Epic Dance Halls! hats and heads in the whirlwind! Panties overboard!” 

The anthropologist Joseph Tainter in his book “The Collapse of Complex Societies” looked at the collapse of civilizations from the Roman to the Mayan. He concluded that they disintegrated because they finally could not sustain the bureaucratic complexities they had created.

Layers of bureaucracy demand more and more exploitation, not only of the environment but the laboring classes. They become calcified by systems that are unable to respond to the changing reality around them. They, like our elite universities and business schools, churn out systems managers, people who are taught not to think but to blindly service the system.

These systems managers know only how to perpetuate themselves and the system they serve, although serving that system means disemboweling the nation and the planet.

Our elites and bureaucrats exhaust the earth to hold up a system that worked in the past, failing to see that it no longer works. Elites, rather than contemplate reform, which would jeopardize their privilege and power, retreat in the twilight of empire into walled compounds like the Forbidden City or Versailles. They invent their own reality. Those on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms have replicated this behavior. They insist that continued reliance on fossil fuel and speculations will sustain the empire. State resources, as Tainter notes, are at the end increasingly squandered on extravagant and senseless projects and imperial adventures. And then it all collapses.  :o

Our collapse will take the whole planet with it.


It is more pleasant, I admit, to stand mesmerized in front of our electronic hallucinations. It is easier to check out intellectually. It is more gratifying to imbibe the hedonism and the sickness of the worship of the self and money. It is more comforting to chatter about celebrity gossip and ignore or dismiss what is reality.  >:(



Thomas Mann in “The Magic Mountain” and Joseph Roth in “Hotel Savoy” brilliantly chronicled this peculiar state of mind. In Roth’s hotel the first three floors house in luxury the bloated rich, the amoral politicians, the bankers and the business owners.




The upper floors are crammed with people who struggle to pay their bills and who are steadily divested of their possessions until they are destitute and cast out. There is no political ideology among decayed ruling elites, despite choreographed debates and elaborate political theater. It is, as it always is at the end, one vast kleptocracy.




Just before World War II, a friend asked Roth, a Jewish intellectual who had fled Nazi Germany for Paris, “Why are you drinking so much?” Roth answered: “Do you think you are going to escape? You too are going to be wiped out.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/the_folly_of_empire_20131014


God is not mocked, whatsoever you sow, that you shall reap.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2013, 08:15:20 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The madness of capital
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2013, 09:26:18 pm »
The madness of capital
 
World leaders remain wedded to economic metrics that say little about the well-being of humans and the environment.

Last Modified: 13 Oct 2013 14:39 

Jason Hickel

Dr Jason Hickel lectures at the London School of Economics and serves as an adviser to /The Rules. He has contributed political critique and analysis to various magazines. He is currently working on a new book titled 'The Development Delusion: Why Aid Misses the Point about Poverty'.

   


Governments subsidize the fossil fuel industry to the tune of about $2tn a year, writes Hickel (EPA)

Last month the Associated Press reported that the income gap in the United States broke a new record in 2012, with the 1 percent grabbing a greater share of total household wealth than ever before in history.

This news follows on the heels of the fact that the 1 percent not only captured all of the income gains during the first two years of the economic recovery, but also stole a portion of the already-existing incomes of the bottom 99 percent, causing median household income to decline despite overall economic growth.

The American people have not been silent in the face of this injustice. The fall of 2011 brought the biggest protest movement that the nation had seen in decades, with countless sit-ins, rallies, marches, and petitions across the country. How did the government respond to this unprecedented wave of democratic expression?  First they curtailed our freedom of speech and used "counterterrorism" units - in collusion with Wall Street banks - to coordinate military force against us. Then they proceeded to do exactly the opposite of what we asked.

Our voices have been heard loud and clear. Yet the US elite, and the political class that serves them, have moved in the past few years to siphon not less of our nation's collective wealth, but more.

What is so interesting about this continuing heist is that it has been so brazen. There has been little attempt to hide behind the usual justifications. Why? Because no one really believes them anymore.

We all know that trickle-down economics is a farce.

We know that outrageous CEO salaries are not only unnecessary but actively wasteful. We know that raising minimum wages does not cause unemployment.

We know that the bank bailout was an inside job, and, after the Citizens United ruling, we can all see how our political system has been captured by corporate interests.


These are now open secrets. The game is rigged, and we know it.

False consciousness

In a well-known passage from Capital, Marx summarises his theory of false consciousness in the following phrase: "Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es". In English: "They do not know it, but they are doing it". His claim here is that ideology relies on a sort of collective naivete; that people accept a set of illusions that obscure how the system really works. According to Marx, capitalism persists because of this false consciousness.
 
UN: Extremely likely global warming man-made

But our culture today is much more cynical than this. Slavoj Zizek suggests that a more accurate twist on Marx's words might read: "They know very well what they are doing, but still, they are doing it." Zizek means for this to describe the general population, but it seems to me that it more accurately describes our economic and political elites. No one has any illusions about how destructive their pursuit of profit has become. Yet they show no signs of changing course.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the debate about climate change. We have known the math for a long time. We know that we have to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius if we want to avoid catastrophe. To keep from tipping over this threshold, we can only emit another 300 gigatons of carbon globally. Yet right now the world's proven oil and gas reserves contain about 2,700 gigatons. That's how much the 1 percent are presently planning to burn. If we continue at our present rate of consumption, we will blow through our allotment in about 15 years.

There are a number of very vocal people who deny the science behind climate change despite the overwhelming evidence at hand. Yet far more dangerous, and far more illustrative of the cynicism of our times, are those leaders and policymakers who accept the science but nonetheless have no plans to do anything about it. We've watched climate summit after climate summit spin by - Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban, Doha - without any binding plan of action.

In fact, our governments are doing exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. Instead of investing seriously in alternative energies, they are subsidizing the global fossil fuel industry to the tune of nearly $2tn per year. We have been watching Arctic sea ice melt with astonishing speed, but instead of recognising this for the disaster that it is, states and corporations are rushing to extract the fossil fuels that are becoming accessible as a result.

There is a certain madness to our present age. The 1 percent is so devoted to serving the imperatives of capital that they are willing to sacrifice all basic reason.
 As John Lennon once so famously put it, "our society is being run by maniacs for maniacal ends".

Gross domestic product mania

Behind the madness of the 1 percent in the face of climate change lies another open secret that they are unwilling to face: the contradictions of economic growth. Since the recession began, we have been bombarded with the message that we need to rev the global economy back up to at least 3 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) per year. Anything less, and economists tell us we're in a crisis. But what is this indicator that has come to occupy such a central place in our operating system? What does it measure?



To imagine that we can continue on this trajectory indefinitely is to disavow the most obvious truths about our planet's material limits.
 

Introduced only in the late 1940s by American economists, GDP measures the total market value of all of the natural resources and human labour turned into commodities and sold for money. So if you cut down a forest and sell the timber, GDP goes up. But GDP includes no cost accounting. It does not measure the cost of losing the forest as a future resource, as a home for endangered species, or as a sinkhole for carbon dioxide. In other words, GDP tells a story that reflects only a very narrow set of interests.

As long as we continue churning nature and humans into products, and as long as we do this more each year than the one before, then, according to the world's most dominant measure of success, we're doing well.

But, as David Korten has put it, using GDP as the standard of economic well-being "makes no more sense than taking the rapid expansion of one's girth as an indicator of improved personal health". It's a shallow measurement, and it doesn't measure the right things. Not only does it leave out what is bad, it also leaves out much of what is good. When you take care of your elderly parents, when you grow your own food in a community garden, when you set aside land as a biodiversity preserve - none of this contributes to GDP.

We know that there is something wrong with the logic of this arbitrary measure. Yet our entire political system is organised around it, obsessed with increasing GDP growth each year in perpetuity. Even at only 3 percent, that means finding more than $2tn worth of new investments every year. Consider the sheer scale of the production and consumption that this requires. Each year we have to add the equivalent of the size of the entire global economy of 1970 just to be able to say that we're "progressing".

To imagine that we can continue on this trajectory indefinitely is to disavow the most obvious truths about our planet's material limits.

Yet this model holds such sway among policymakers that even the most supposedly progressive and compassionate factions uphold it, as we can see in the case of the international development community. The UN high-level panel for the new Millennium Development Goals, for instance, has called on the world's governments to eradicate global poverty by 2030. This is a noble goal indeed, but the means by which the panel hopes to get there - namely, through economic growth - relies on some very scary mathematics.

Assuming the existing ratio between GDP growth and the income growth of the poorest, eradicating poverty with this strategy would require that we increase global production and consumption by more than 12 times. And that's using a poverty line of $1.25 per day, which is really more like a starvation line. A more realistic poverty line is about $5 per day. But in order to accomplish even this most basic feat we would need to increase global production and consumption by 175 times.

Even if this were physically possible, what would the consequences look like?  Economist David Woodward has pointed out: "There is simply no way this can be achieved without triggering truly catastrophic climate change - which, apart from anything else, would obliterate any potential gains from poverty reduction."

Willful self-delusion


The growth paradigm - the code at the heart of our system that calls for constant expansion and constant accumulation - is so riddled with contradictions that it beggars belief. During the height of modernist optimism in the 1950s we might have explained devotion to this model as a kind of false consciousness. But today, given what we have come to know, we can only describe it as madness - a sort of willful self-delusion.



The radical position is to imagine that we can carry on as we are ... Yet, as George Orwell knew so well, 'to see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle'.
 

Ultimately, the persistence of this reality - which has been fabricated by elites - relies on the willingness of populations to buy into it. We are now seeing signs all over the world that this consent is straining to breaking point, that people have grown weary of the mad logic of capital and are eager to push their imaginations beyond the limits that have been set for them.

Will this be enough?  We must make it so. We need to find each other. We need to abolish our fear. We need to believe that something else is possible.

There are sparks of hope out there. A number of countries have already begun to reject the dominant economic paradigm. Ecuador's new, path-breaking National Development Plan, for example, refuses the tired call to rev up growth and exploit people and nature in favor of an economy based on the principles of sharing, commons, and bien vivir, or "good living".

In the West, the New Economics Foundation has outlined policies for a zero-growth economy, something even Keynes knew we would someday have to achieve. There is also a growing movement to abolish GDP and replace it with a more realistic indicator, such as GPI, which allows economists to account for resource depletion, carbon dioxide emissions, and income distribution when measuring economic well-being.

Imagine: What if we elected politicians on the basis of their plans to maximize bien vivir or improve GPI?

This is not a radical position. On the contrary, the radical position is to imagine that we can carry on as we are. It's a simple point, really. Yet, as George Orwell knew so well, "to see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle".


http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/10/madness-capital-20131013104914501596.html


 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Hedges and Scheer on American Fascism
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2013, 09:48:07 pm »
Hedges and Scheer on American Fascism

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_and_robert_scheer_discuss_american_fascism_20131011

Listen at the link to The two celebrated journalists discuss the collapse of vital institutions and the rise of demagogues and charlatans in post-meltdown America.

People are getting it. The following truthful comment (clear to most at the DD over a decade ago!) received much approval and no scorn. That is a sea change from just a few years ago.

Quote
Bernard Martin

Gee, awareness at last! Anyone who didn't sleep thru history/civics classes and educated in pre-Reagan days surely has seen this nation sliding into fascism just by merely referencing the characteristics of classic fascist philosophy and the socio/cultural changes which have been occurring in this country.

What we euphemistically call free market capitalism is merely fascism in civilian garb. Corporate oligarchs and government are one and the same, thus the ever prevalent "revolving door" between the ruling and business elite and the progressive exclusion of the average citizen from meaningful civic involvement.

Also, the proliferation of propaganda and fear mongering designed to foster the bigotry, hatred, and insecurity of the more ignorant and insular segments of society serves to keep the people focused on collective negative traits of their cohorts rather than those who systematically work to drain the wealth of the economy for their own purposes.
27 △   ▽ 
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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The Constitution is a pro-slavery document.

Much has been written about the Revolution being, at it's core, an attempt to immunize the colonies from the "disturbing" (to Jefferson
-he was furious years later when Haiti obtained independence and violated even the good parts of the constitution by authorizing to give the French plantation owners money and weapons to quell the rebellion - , many other founding fathers and their wealthy friends) move in England at the time to outlaw slavery



The industrial revolution and how the elite parasitic modus operandi called "capitalism" benefited massively from mass production is the main historical influence that led to our polluted world and the cruel poverty wage structure of today.

The mass production factories created a new type slavery without the pejorative connotation of being race linked but it was still slavery.

When enslaving African Americans was no longer cost effective due to farm machinery, new ways to enslave them and the poor whites as well as any other ethnic poor had to be invented.

After all, the elite did not like one bit the idea that the increased efficiency of a laborer could provide that laborer with more free time and a better life. The 1% had conniption fits thinking about all those people out there having the time to sit, think and figure out how TBTB were gaming them.




No, the elite developed a plan to "keep em' busy". The guilt trip sermons from pulpits all over America went out after the Civil War to demonize leisure and glorify "nose to the grindstone" work as being "God's Will". Few evils in human behavior exceed that of the act of conning people that trust you into willingly allowing themselves to be exploited based on the claim that it's what the are OBLIGATED to do because the person IN AUTHORITY speaks for GOD. There is a special place in hell for these elite predatory capitalist water carrying apologists that wear the cloth.  >:(






Factory owners displaying their "work ethic"
 


The elite's "work ethic" includes years of "sabbaticals", "learning experiences", "naval gazing" and "introspection" that translate to long stretches of time doing absolutely nothing productive. I think that's wonderful and should be available to all of us as a means to a healthier and happier mindset. That's why the elite do it. For them to then turn around and unleash their propaganda water carrying lackeys solemnly mouthing the "don't be lazy, work your fingers to the bone for us" bull**** on the populace is the epitome of duplicity.

It is said the word "saboteur" derives from the Netherlands in the 15th century when workers would throw their sabots (wooden shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the cogs, fearing the automated machines would render the human workers obsolete.

Notice how the word "saboteur" has a negative connotation. This shows who controls the historical narrative. I believe the Dutch laborers weren't just concerned about obsolescence; they were concerned about controlling how much they got paid for their labor.

Mass production was the beginning of a massive concentration of wealth by greedy machinery owners that refused to pay equitable wages.

This is what "Capitalism" is really all about. It is sold as free market this and that but, in practice, it is nothing but elite parasitism.

When the English gentry wanted to corral the peasants into working in the factories, as well as use more of their land to grow sheep for fleece free from peasant interference, they came up with a pack of thinly justified herding mechanisms (Enclosure Laws) that stripped the peasants of their ability to live off the land.

The peasants were not buying the con that working in a factory was a better deal than living off the land. They had to be forced.

They knew damned good and well that the factory owners were not going to pay decent wages or provide adequate working conditions.

Today, all this disguised tyranny called capitalism is festooned with gooblygock terms like competitive advantage and arbitrage along with a plethora of terms from the crooked imaginations of bored economists but it continues to be about elite parasitism.


In the financial area the vampire proboscis is usury but that is not the whole story by a long shot. Patent law is another huge part of RHIP that was NEVER there to protect inventors UNLESS those inventors were from the upper class.

The bottom line is the control of the populace for the power, profit and pleasure of the TPBT.

Quote
Enclosure

In English social and economic history, enclosure or inclosure[1] is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land formerly held in the open field system. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the process that ended the ancient system of arable farming in open fields. Under enclosure, such land is fenced (enclosed) and deeded or entitled to one or more owners. The process of enclosure began to be a widespread feature of the English agricultural landscape during the 16th century. By the 19th century, unenclosed commons had become largely restricted to rough pasture in mountainous areas and to relatively small parts of the lowlands.

The process of enclosure has sometimes been accompanied by force, resistance, and bloodshed, and remains among the most controversial areas of agricultural and economic history in England. Marxist and neo-Marxist historians argue that rich landowners used their control of state processes to appropriate public land for their private benefit.

This created a landless working class that provided the labour required in the new industries developing in the north of England. For example: "In agriculture the years between 1760 and 1820 are the years of wholesale enclosure in which, in village after village, common rights are lost".[2] "Enclosure (when all the sophistications are allowed for) was a plain enough case of class robbery".[3]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-3"[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

The following video tells the real story of capitalism's birth and growth through the power the elite obtained in the industrial revolution, how the poor were demonized as being "lazy" for attempting to avoid the horrors of factory work by staying and living off the land. They had to be forced, along with their children, to do so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0nM5DU4ADI&feature=player_embedded

The only proper economic system that humans should engage in is the egalitarian socialism that the early Christians engaged in as shown in the Book of Acts in the New Testament. The Apostles were the top dogs but they received no special privileges and had to work as hard as anybody else.

The elite despise egalitarianism so they invented all sorts of euphemisms for tyranny like capitalism, as well as 20th century Soviet Communism. It's six of one and half a dozen of the other. They all end up with a few reptiles in the catbird seat making life miserable for the rest of us.

That is one of the reasons why, in my articles on Renewables, I am adamantly opposed to scaling up renewable energy sources into centralized power generating facilities UNLESS they are nationalized.

Privatization of centralized power leads to pollution and illicit profits which are then used to buy the government. Decentralized renewable power generating facilities provide stable, secure and long term jobs free from the feast or famine fun and games so favored by predatory capitalism.

Capitalism REQUIRES an insecure labor force so they can be fleeced and set to fight against each other for jobs. Sustainability eliminates all this tyranny and returns the proper view of human existence that everyone should be entitled to a decent lifestyle.

The 'cog in the wheels of industry' view of humans and their labor as commodities is WRONG and has must be rejected by civilization.'Creatively destroying' human quality of life for profit is good psychopathic criminal behavior, not good business.

« Last Edit: June 21, 2014, 05:22:37 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwaNZgY9PCQ&feature=player_embedded

The Tragedy of the Commons is a (false) ASSUMPTION that EVERYONE is GREEDY and will exploit nature to the point of exhaustion even though it will ultimately destroy nature AND bring about starvation of the "greedballs". It's the old, "EVERYBODY is going to do it so I might as well do it before they do!" predatory capitalist RESPONSIBILITY DODGE.

The TRUTH about the ACTUAL COMMONS in England was QUITE different. When viability, NOT MAXIMUM EXPLIOTATION (as in modern predatory psychopathic capitalism) is the ruling principle, the COMMONS works quite well as it did in England for centuries until the land owners got super greedy with the dawn of the industrial revolution and DELIBERATELY began to overgraze the land (that had hitherto been shared by the poor commoners) with backing by the bought-and-paid for parliament that invented the land grab called the enclosure laws.

The video explains all this better than I do but the main thing for you to remember is to yell BULLSHIT the next time you hear some libertarian or predatory capitalist cry crocodile tears about the "Tragedy" of the Commons. >:(
« Last Edit: October 26, 2013, 01:18:48 am by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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How the Poor got Poorer - The Bitter Truth
« Reply #6 on: October 26, 2013, 01:24:31 am »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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How the Wealthy Wage War on Democracy Itself
« Reply #7 on: October 27, 2013, 01:48:15 am »
Published on Thursday, October 24, 2013 by TruthDig.com       

How the Wealthy Wage War on Democracy Itself
 
by Sonali Kolhatkar   

If the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling was not devastating enough for American democracy, a new case could wipe away any remaining vestige of election integrity. The nation’s highest court heard oral arguments in McCutcheon vs. Federal Election Commission this month. If the court rules in favor of Alabama mining CEO Shaun McCutcheon, rich Americans could make unlimited amounts of campaign contributions directly to political candidates and parties. Currently, the federal limit for individual contributions is $123,000 over two years, a figure that the majority of Americans don’t even earn as basic income during that time span.(Image: Shutterstock)

The conservative National Review recently published a critique of what author Ammon Simon called “the Left’s fear tactics” over sounding the alarm on this new potential deregulation of money in elections. Simon begins by making the case that money does not in fact influence elections, citing several questionable studies that, according to him, prove “the evidence just doesn’t lend itself to the ‘legalized corruption’ theme.”

But he then contradictorily laments “the misguided belief that we can regulate away money’s influence over the political system.” The conservative admiringly points out that, “Historically, campaign-finance laws have always been undermined by innovative workarounds.”

Simon’s argument therefore could be summarized thus: Rich people should be able to influence democracy simply because they are rich, but don’t worry, their money doesn’t have any effect. But if you do try to curb the influence they say they don’t have they will simply acquire it by other means so just give up trying.

In an interview about McCutcheon vs. FEC, University of Texas journalism professor Robert Jensen told me, “The argument that it’s a violation of my free speech rights if the government restricts in any way the way I spend my money on campaigns has a kind of curious logic to it. There’s a kernel of truth to it, that when we spend money we’re engaging in a form of speech. But when you don’t take the real world into consideration, you don’t realize the incredible disparities in wealth will undermine anything approaching a democratic political sphere. We need to reframe this not as a ‘free speech’ case but as a ‘big money’ case."

That the rich influence elections with their money is as obvious to most of us as the fact that rich people game the justice system by being able to hire the best lawyers, or that rich people are healthier because they can buy the best food and health care.

Many examples of big money’s influence on politics abound, one of which is California’s attempt at labeling genetically modified organisms last year. While Proposition 37 had the backing of 60 percent of voters, according to polls taken early in the election season, the last-minute infusion of huge sums of money by corporate food conglomerates like Monsanto, PepsiCo and Hershey’s shifted the balance of voters who were originally in favor of the proposition.

By the time of the election, the “No on 37” vote had gathered $45 million to spend on advertising, while the “Yes” campaign had brought in only about $7.3 million. The result should come as no surprise. With a 53 to 47 percent margin, California voters walked away from an opportunity to become the first state in the nation to label GMOs.

Leading media reformist and Nation magazine correspondent John Nichols has co-authored a new book with his longtime colleague Bob McChesney called “Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America.” In an interview about the book, Nichols told me, “More than half a billion dollars was spent on California’s initiatives [in 2012] and so this state saw ‘Dollarocracy’ on steroids. Money flowed into this state and it defined elections.”

Another example of the corrupting influence of money in California’s elections—even before the Citizens United decision—that had a greater human impact, particularly on poor communities of color, was the failure of a 2004 ballot measure to amend the state’s notorious Three Strikes law. Proposition 66, if passed, would have eased some of the harshest sentencing aspects of the original 1994 law that sentenced third-time felons to a minimum of 25 years to life, no matter how minor that third infraction. The law affects black and brown communities disproportionately. Six months before the election, polls found that 76 percent of likely voters favored the amendment, but after then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spent $2 million of his own money fighting the measure, opinions shifted and the measure narrowly lost.

Citizens United does not allow corporations and rich individuals to contribute directly to campaigns—it requires third parties like political action committees to accept the donations. But if the Supreme Court rules in favor of deregulation in the latest case of McCutcheon vs. FEC, even that last, weak barrier will be cast aside. “The reason why rich people are interested in this,” said McChesney, “is that those third party groups that they can now give unlimited amounts to, have to pay a higher rate for the TV ads than candidates. Candidates are always at the lowest rate on the rate card. So they [the rich] can get more bang for their buck if they give directly to the candidate’s campaign.”

Nichols put it into perspective, saying, “even if the court doesn’t go with McCutcheon, this system is such Swiss cheese now, that money can flow in. They’re just going to have to pay a little more. For the super-rich donors, we’re now at the cleanup stage. They’re like, ‘Oh, this is a little inconvenient to us. Can we just write the big check without having to go through all these different routes?’ ”

In other words, said McChesney, “This is basically more open season for rich people to buy government and to buy democracy.”

One of the most insidious effects of money flooding our political system is the turnoff factor. As people are exposed to greater and greater numbers of political ads, they are less likely to vote at all rather than to change their vote. Nichols explained in an example, “Let’s say you’re a militant feminist and you say ‘I’m going to back this candidate.’ The other side puts on ads that say ‘that candidate has been horrible in all these ways.’ You don’t switch over to the right-wing candidate. You stand down. The whole point of the negative ads is to make people who care, people who actually are interested, step back and say ‘a pox on all your houses.’ ” Nichols added, “Negative political ads are a form of voter suppression. They effectively tell people ‘don’t vote.’ ”

In fact, voter turnout in 2012, which was the first big test of the Citizens United decision, was less than 60 percent. Fewer people voted than in the last two presidential elections in 2008 and 2004.

Sadly it is not just conservatives on the Supreme Court who want the dollar to dominate elections. Having done his damage with the government shutdown over Obamacare, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz wasted no time in turning his sights to a new target this month: the nomination of Tom Wheeler as head of the Federal Communications Commission. Wheeler is no progressive—he is a former lobbyist and venture capitalist—but Cruz’s opposition to Wheeler is based on his insistence that any future FCC chair must refuse to enforce laws requiring disclosure of political ad funders. Currently, one of the few ways in which ordinary Americans can judge the veracity of a political ad is by examining who has funded the ad. Cruz would like to see even that democratic right taken away from the public.

Not surprisingly, National Review author Simon’s solution to the corrupting influence of money in politics mirrors what conservatives like Sen. Cruz and Justice Roberts want. His “answer is to limit government, not free speech.” And that is quite convenient because after all, conservative ideological opposition to “big government” is based on a highly skewed worldview that ordinary Americans who benefit from government via so-called entitlements ought to fend for themselves, even if they are drawing from programs they fund through taxes. Simon quotes the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro, whose logic is stunningly perverse: “Shrink the size of government and its intrusions in people’s lives and you’ll shrink the amount people will spend trying to get their piece of the pie.” In other words, once rich Americans achieve their goal of cutting vital programs, they won’t need to spend as much on campaigns. And voilà, our problems with campaign finance regulations will be irrelevant.

None but the very tiniest fraction of a percent of Americans have the kind of disposable income that McCutcheon, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and their ilk have to pervert elections. And most ordinary Americans recognize that. As Jensen pointed out to me, “This is one issue where the public is pretty clear, that flooding the political system with money in even more direct ways is not good for democracy.”

A post-election poll in November found that more than 60 percent of all voters, both Democrat and Republican, are concerned about the level of money in politics. An incredible 85 percent want the names of political ad funders disclosed. To that end, a number of progressive organizations are working to overturn the Citizens United decision by building a movement to amend the Constitution. More than a dozen states, including California, and many cities and municipalities have passed resolutions in support of such an amendment. The all-important question is whether a mass movement will emerge strong enough to force a reversal of campaign deregulation and take on America’s rich in the battle over elections, and ultimately, democracy.

© 2013 TruthDig.com
 
 Sonali Kolhatkar   


Sonali Kolhatkar is Co-Director of the Afghan Women's Mission, a US-based non-profit that supports women's rights activists in Afghanistan. Sonali is also co-author of "Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence." She is the host and producer of Uprising, a nationally syndicated radio program with the Pacifica Network.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/24-7
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Russell Brand is a Consummate Truth Teller
« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2013, 02:01:07 am »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk&feature=player_embedded

Published on Thursday, October 24, 2013 by Common Dreams       

Russell Brand: 'Revolution Is Coming... I Ain't Got a Flicker of Doubt'

British comedian goes off on failed paradigm, talking egalitarianism, consciousness, and filthiness of profit with the BBC


- Jon Queally, staff writer

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/24-6
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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CULTURE AND CAT VIDEOS 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx56Kvpaqho&feature=player_embedded
Agelbert NOTE: Television didn't just make us observers and consumers of "culture" instead of creators and contributors, it was a cleverly used tool to force feed lies and myths to the populace that were (and ARE  >:() far more effective than radio and newspapers in the predatory service of corporate profit over planet.

We were lulled to sleep by entertainment laced with propaganda while our democracy was co-opted and the biosphere was getting trashed for profit over planet.

The internet can CHANGE ALL THAT! Become ACTIVE, not passive. Post and give your opinion.    Support those you agree with and debate those you don't agree with using facts  in order to provide a more perfect union with rich cultural diversity.

There are many opinions but just one truth on any specific subject matter. Our culture is enhanced by truth and reasoned debate; it is degraded by propaganda and profit over planet.

Don't remain silent.    Be a contributor to the culture. Otherwise the Orwellian propaganda masters will be the ones that OWN your thoughts and those of your children.  :(


By the way, is there a U-tube video of that movie called  "The Naked City" (New York in 1947 before television destroyed the culture)? I'd like to see it if anybody can find it.  ;D
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The "Real World" of "Representative Democracy" and "Freedom of Speech", along with all the other "freedoms"  brought to you by the SAME PEOPLE that coined the term "Noblesse Oblige" for themselves in typical ORWELLIAN fashion. 


ALL THE NEWS THAT IS FIT TO PRINT (for the mushroom masses).



Don't forget to bring some Coke (sold to Nazi Germany THROUGHOUT WWII) and GMO popcorn to your Hollywood brainwashing session. 




Sine Qua Non Scumbag Elite Ruling Principle: "The people must always be provided with an enemy".


It REALLY WAS a good ride, not for you and me, but for TPTB. So expect them to do WHATEVER to prolong their RIDE, against all scientific evidence that EXPLOITATION WITHOUT REFLECTION OF FELLOW EARTHLINGS OF ALL SPECIES (not just humans) AND THE BIOSPHERE FOR PROFIT OVER PLANET is deleterious (i.e. SUICIDAL/abysmally STUPID) to the Homo SAP species.

     

J.C. Ponders the MO of TPTB.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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VIDEO: Chris Hedges to Robert Scheer: Why Do You Respect America’s Founding Fathers? (Part 5/7)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z3A0F9zGHE&feature=player_embedded
Quote
In the fifth installment of Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges’ interview with Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer about Scheer’s new book, “They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy,” Hedges challenges him on his reverence for America’s founding fathers—a group of elite, white, property-owning males who amassed great wealth and treated many people terribly.
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_to_robert_scheer_why_do_you_respect_americas_founders_20150530

Quote
"This is part five of my conversation with Robert Scheer, the author of They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy.

I love the book. It’s brilliant. You’re a great writer. And it’s an important book.

I wouldn’t say they are destroying democracy; I would say they have destroyed democracy. You have held up throughout this conversation the founding fathers. 

And I want to go back to Thomas Paine, who was the real radical, who called for—he didn’t use the word socialism, but a type of socialism, who was an abolitionist, who was a proponent of direct democracy, which the founding fathers were not, who opposed the genocidal campaigns against Native Americans, which all of the founding fathers embraced with relish, ho wanted rights for women.

And I think Zinn points out that all of these freedoms that you talk about were reserved for a very small, select group of largely slave-holding white males, our aristocratic class, who replaced the aristocratic class of Britain, and that it was—Washington, by the time he was president, was the wealthiest person in the United States, largely by seizing Indian lands with land speculators and selling it for profit—of course, he himself was a large slaveholder—And that through the constitutional conventions that were held after independence, you really saw a rolling back of that populism and radicalism that Paine, who himself became a pariah, spoke so eloquently about, and of course Common Sense and his journalism were used to fuel—most of the people fighting the revolution were yeoman farmers.

So they created mechanisms by which we would never have a voice—the Senate, the Electoral College.
That’s how you had Al Gore win 500,000 more votes than Bush and Bush still wins or Nader did not lose the election.

Everything was built into the system to create a kind of protection of rights for a very select few. And we saw throughout American history—and Zinn does this in his book—the struggle by labor, by women, by African-Americans, the Communist Party.

We have erased the importance of the Communist Party in this country all through the ‘20s and ‘30s. These radical movements that opened up that space in American democracy, all of those movements have been shut down in the name of anticommunism, starting with Wilson but running right through, past McCarthy.

Labor is a spent force. You talk about labor, where you have less than 12 percent of the American workforce is unionized. Only 6 percent of the labor force in the private sector is unionized. We have created an oligarchic state, a form of neo-feudalism.

You have half this country living in poverty or near poverty. We have a looming climate crisis, especially since we are not—and Barack Obama drills like Sarah Palin—we are not able to stop the ravaging of the planet, whether it’s the tar sands or dropping drill bits up into the summer Arctic sea ice by Shell Oil, profiting off the death throes of the planet. These people are barreling forward in terms of the impoverishment of the working class, the destruction of the environment.

And they have created mechanisms—they certainly are prepared for unrest. They have run scenario after scenario after scenario, and they have created mechanisms—militarized police, drones, security and surveillance—an evisceration—Obama’s assault on civil liberties is worse then, as I said before, anything Bush has done. They’re ready to go. They know something’s coming, and they’re totally prepared.

And I don’t see in that mechanism that they have put into place—and what they have done in terms of creating both a legal, a judicial, and a security system that is so powerful, so pervasive, and, as you said, far beyond anything the Stasi ever dreamt of—I don’t see how at that point appealing or believing that the system is reformable is anything but futile." --Chris Hedges

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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Quote
"The US is an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery" President Jimmy Carter

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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How did we get to this MESS?  ???

The Constitution and the attitude towards people and property that the founders learned from their European history is a good place to start. The Industrial Revolution and the fossil fuel empire accelerated the decay and degradation of the government and the environment.

The Constitution is a pro-slavery document!

Much has been written about the Revolution being, at it's core, an attempt to immunize the colonies from the "disturbing" (to Jefferson and friends) move in England at the time to outlaw slavery. But the industrial revolution and how the elite parasitic modus operandi called "capitalism" benefited massively from mass production is the main historical influence that led to our polluted world and pissant wage structure of today.

It is said the word "saboteur" derives from the Netherlands in the 15th century when workers would throw their sabots (wooden shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the cogs, fearing the automated machines would render the human workers obsolete.

Notice how the word "saboteur" has a negative connotation. This shows who controls the historical narrative. I believe the Dutch laborers weren't just concerned about obsolescence; they were concerned about controlling how much they got paid for their labor. Mass production was the beginning of a massive concentration of wealth by greedy machinery owners that refused to pay equitable wages.

This is what "Capitalism" is really all about. It is sold as free market this and that but, in practice, it is nothing but elite parasitism. When the English gentry wanted to corral the peasants into working in the factories, as well as use more of their land to raise sheep for fleece free from peasant interference, they came up with a pack of thinly justified herding mechanisms (Enclosure Laws) that stripped the peasants of their ability to live off the land.

The peasants were not buying the con that working in a factory was a better deal than living off the land. They had to be forced. They were cognizant of the FACT that the factory owners were not going to pay decent wages or provide adequate working conditions.

Today, all this disguised tyranny called capitalism is festooned with gobbledygook terms like competitive advantage and arbitrage, along with a plethora of terms from the masturbatory imaginations of bored economists, but it continues to be about elite parasitism.

In the financial area the vampire proboscis is usury but that is not the whole story by a long shot.
Patent law is another huge part of RHIP that was NOT put there to protect inventors UNLESS those inventors were from the upper class. The bottom line is the control of the populace for the power, profit and pleasure of the TPTB.


Enclosure

In English social and economic history, enclosure or inclosure[1] is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land formerly held in the open field system. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the process that ended the ancient system of arable farming in open fields.

Under enclosure, such land is fenced (enclosed) and deeded or entitled to one or more owners. The process of enclosure began to be a widespread feature of the English agricultural landscape during the 16th century. By the 19th century, unenclosed commons had become largely restricted to rough pasture in mountainous areas and to relatively small parts of the lowlands.

The process of enclosure has sometimes been accompanied by force, resistance, and bloodshed, and remains among the most controversial areas of agricultural and economic history in England. Marxist and neo-Marxist historians argue that rich landowners used their control of state processes to appropriate public land for their private benefit.

This created a landless working class that provided the labour required in the new industries developing in the north of England. For example: "In agriculture the years between 1760 and 1820 are the years of wholesale enclosure in which, in village after village, common rights are lost".[2] "Enclosure (when all the sophistications are allowed for) was a plain enough case of class robbery".[3][4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

The following video tells the real story of capitalism's birth and growth through the power the elite obtained in the industrial revolution, how the poor were demonzed as being "lazy" for attempting to avoid the horrors of factory work by staying on, and living off, the land. They had to be forced, along with their children, to do so.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0nM5DU4ADI&feature=player_embedded      
      

Then things got worse when the USA got going with its fossil fuel based industrial Revolution.   

The mass production factories created a new type of slavery without the pejorative connotation of being race linked but it was still slavery. When enslaving African Americans was no longer cost effective due to farm machinery, new ways to enslave them, and the poor whites as well as any other ethnic poor, had to be invented. After all, the elite did not like one bit the idea that the increased efficiency of a laborer could provide that laborer with more free time and a better life.

The 1% had conniption fits thinking about all those people out there having the time to sit, think and figure out how TBTB were gaming them. No, the elite developed a plan to "keep em' busy". The guilt trip sermons from pulpits all over America went out after the Civil War to demonize leisure and glorify "nose to the grindstone" work as being "God's Will". BALONEY! The elite's "work ethic" includes years of "sabbaticals", "learning experiences", "naval gazing" and "introspection" that translate to long stretches of time doing absolutely nothing productive.

I think that's wonderful and should be available to all of us as a means to a healthier and happier mindset. That's why the elite do it. For them to then turn around and unleash their propaganda water carrying lackeys solemnly mouthing the "don't be lazy, work your fingers to the bone for us" baloney on the populace is the epitome of duplicity.

Fossil fuel backed corporate tyranny has been going on for over a century and has its roots in the gilded age and fossil fuel FAKE cost effectiveness which enabled the oil corporations to concentrate wealth and steal our democracy from under us while offloading all the environmental costs on the people and the biosphere.

Renewable energy sources are not new. They were crushed in the late 19th century through fossil fuel energy oligarch co-opting government subsidies for oil and coal and also through profits from slave wages for miners and many others while, all the while, the claim was made that fossil fuels were "cheaper". This article covers all this and more:

Hope for a viable biosphere: Why fossil fuels were NEVER cheap or cost effective.
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2012/07/17/hope-for-a-viable-biosphere-of-renewables/


In the article you will learn the REAL reason for Prohibition. Hint: it had NOTHING to do with people drinking booze and EVERYTHING to do with eliminating ethanol (ethyl alcohol) as a competitor for Rockefeller's gasoline fuel.

It is no coincidence that, right after ethanol, a higher octane fuel than gasoline (115 vs 93-95), became illegal in the early 1920s, Rockefeller came out with the poisonous tetra-ethyl lead additive to raise the octane of gasoline to ethanol's level so gasoline could now be burned in high compression, more powerful engines. He destroyed the competition with Prohibition and added more poisons to our atmosphere to boot.

Also you will read about how, before automobiles came out in the late 19th century, Rockefeller's refineries would flush gasoline (19 gallons are produced for every 42 gallons of crude oil refined) in the rivers at night because it was a waste product.

 This article explains why fossil fuels were NEVER cheap or cost effective.
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2012/07/17/hope-for-a-viable-biosphere-of-renewables/

I firmly believe that a corrupt hierarchy that gained enormous power during the gilded age by using the force multiplier of the industrial revolution to garner their wealth became so arrogant that they began to view absolutely all human activity as a commodity along with natural resources as well.

This morally repugnant rationalization enabled them to justify their despotic practices because, with this "commiditization of everything" meme, they had divorced themselves from the responsibility for good stewardship of the earth and humane behavior to employees.

Noblesse oblige, or whatever small amount of it remained when the industrial revolution began, died with the gilded age in a sea of greed.

The power of the 1% has enabled them to defend the claim that energy, land and labor are not fictitious commodities even though they are fictitious. The 1% are controlling the narrative and they continue to shove it down our throat. The Federal Reserve and their banking friends couldn't run a lemonade stand successfully with their brand of economics policies, but there they are, claiming to be experts. It's Orwellian.

Human nature is what it is, BUT, the industrial revolution allowed an oligarch to garner wealth for 10,000 while he had been previously limited to lording it over a handful of serfs and slaves while sparring with the other small time tyrants.

The people that came to America from England were, according to what I have read, from different areas in the UK that predicated their behavior patterns before they stepped off the boat (four distinct areas I believe). Some argue the Cavaliers that went to run the Southern Plantations were the worst of the lot but they were ALL rapaciously willing to exploit the land and the "wrong" people without reflection.

The US constitution is a rhetorical masterpiece because it applied to a VERY tiny group of the population. In practice, everyone but landed white men were excluded, while the "all men were created equal" rhetoric was "piously" positioned in the document. It was breathtaking in its hypocrisy.

A free black, who built his own working clock out of hardwood parts, became an astronomer and computed the ephemeris used by mariners in the day. He wrote to Jefferson demanding that Jefferson stop insisting that blacks were mentally inferior to whites and offerred to debate him and have a mathematical contest. Jefferson flat refused to even acknowledge him. Jefferson was a great writer but a ruthless opportunist, as were all the founding fathers.

The constitution has never, even to this day, been applied across the land and I am fully aware of the Calvinist doctrine in the US after the civil war that maintained that "The people must be kept poor so they will remain obedient".

If the industrial revolution had improved the lives of everyone across the board, as was promised, we would have a different world. But no, the people with access to capital deliberately made life worse for the poor and used divide and conquer tactics to create Jim Crow strife to sucker the poor whites into not looking at who was REALLY impoverishing them.

All this is as old as human nature. For that reason I tend to look with a jaundiced eye at any claim to greatness or foresight by the founding fathers of the US Oligarchy with Representative Republic lipstick..

I continue to believe the force multiplier of the industrial revolution increased the power of these oligarchs and decreased, in an equal proportion, the small amount of democracy we had.

I know how England and Europe operated even before the industrial revolution. They wanted everything not made in England (machinery and crafted goods) to have zero competition and everything coming from the colonies to be agrarian goods (commodities). The North and South had a different spin on how to make a buck but they were both equally complicit (at the elite level) in fostering tyranny for profit.

I realize the main decision makers involve a smaller percentage than 1% and the 99% suffer from a serious infusion of fecal coliforms in their glial cells resulting in colonization of their  amygdala and their prefrontal cortex. IOW they are being continuously brainwashed with bullsh it so their base urges are amplified and their critical thinking skills destroyed. But nevertheless, I see more virtue and hope in the 99% than the soulless reptiles in the catbird seat.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Yep. That is the fascist bastard that de-democratized towns so a "manager", rather than a Mayor, ran the places for the local pig corporation (SEE: Whirlpool      at Benton Harbor ). Anybody that got in the way with petitions and other democratic actions was promptly imprisoned. Fascism is here. Snyder is part of that.

Reverend Pinkney, an American Patriot and man of good will, got in the way of the American Fascists... 


http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/11/02/give-67-year-old-rev-edward-pinkney-a-presidential-pardon/

And what do the "Capitalists" (see:  'greed is good'   ) say about all the above? SEE BELOW:

 


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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Future Earth by AGelbert
March 30, 2022, 12:39:42 pm

Key Historical Events ...THAT YOU MAY HAVE NEVER HEARD OF by AGelbert
March 29, 2022, 08:20:56 pm

The Big Picture of Renewable Energy Growth by AGelbert
March 28, 2022, 01:12:42 pm

Electric Vehicles by AGelbert
March 27, 2022, 02:27:28 pm

Heat Pumps by AGelbert
March 26, 2022, 03:54:43 pm

Defending Wildlife by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 02:04:23 pm

The Koch Brothers Exposed! by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 01:26:11 pm

Corruption in Government by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 12:46:08 pm

Books and Audio Books that may interest you 🧐 by AGelbert
March 24, 2022, 04:28:56 pm

COVID-19 🏴☠️ Pandemic by AGelbert
March 23, 2022, 12:14:36 pm