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Author Topic: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of the USA  (Read 5597 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 instal 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

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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Agelbert NOTE: As long as the Successful Persuaders are Ethical, the Populism will be real and for the good. OTHERWISE, the "Populism" will be Orwellian (see: Bernays and manufactured "consent". ).


The role of social media in the election of 2016 cannot be overstated. I think Scott Adams is on to something.

This is very perceptive, I think.

                   
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 Plot Thickens...

RE

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-05/lead-attorney-anti-clinton-dnc-fraud-case-mysteriously-found-dead

Lead Attorney In Anti-Clinton DNC Fraud Case Mysteriously Found Dead

by Tyler Durden
Aug 5, 2016 5:30 PM


Call it conspiracy theory, coincidence or just bad luck, but any time someone is in a position to bring down Hillary Clinton they wind up dead. In fact, as we noted previously, there’s a long history of Clinton-related body counts, with scores of people dying under mysterious circumstances. While Vince Foster remains the most infamous, the body count is starting to build ominously this election cycle - from the mysterious "crushing his own throat" death of a UN official to the latest death of an attorney who served the DNC with a fraud suit.

As GatewayPundit's Jim Hoft reports, on July 3, 2016, Shawn Lucas and filmmaker Ricardo Villaba served the DNC Services Corp. and Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz at DNC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., in the fraud class action suit against the Democrat Party on behalf of Bernie Sanders supporters (this was before Wikileaks released documents proving the DNC was working against the Sanders campaign during the 2016 primary).

Shawn Lucas was thrilled about serving the papers to the DNC before Independence Day...

Shawn Lucas was found dead this week...

According to Snopes Lucas was found dead on his bathroom floor.

    We contacted Lucas’ employer on 4 August 2016 to ask whether there was any truth to the rumor.

     

    According to an individual with whom we spoke at that company, Shawn Lucas died on 2 August 2016. The audibly and understandably shaken employee stated that interest in the circumstances of Lucas’ death had prompted a number of phone calls and other queries, but the company had not yet ascertained any details about Lucas’ cause of death and were unable to confirm anything more than the fact he had passed away.

     

    An unconfirmed report holds that Lucas was found lying on the bathroom floor by his girlfriend when she returned home on the evening of 2 August 2016. Paramedics responding to her 911 call found no signs of life.

*  *  *

This follows the death of 27 year-old Democratic staffer Seth Conrad Rich who was murdered in Washington DC on July 8. The killer or killers appear to have taken nothing from their victim, leaving behind his wallet, watch and phone.

Shortly after the killing, Redditors and social media users were pursuing a “lead” saying that Rich was en route to the FBI the morning of his murder, apparently intending to speak to special agents about an “ongoing court case” possibly involving the Clinton family.

So, to summarize, courtesy of Janet Tavakoli, the Clinton related body count so far this election cycle:  Five in just under six weeks - four convenient deaths plus one suicide...

    1) Shawn Lucas, Sanders supporter who served papers to DNC on the Fraud Case (DOD August 2, 2016)

     

    2) Victor Thorn, Clinton author (and Holocaust denier, probably the least credible on this list) shot himself in an apparent suicide. Conspiracy theorists at Mystery Writers of America said some guys will do anything to sell books. (DOD August, 2016)

     

    3) Seth Conrad Rich, Democratic staffer, aged 27, apparently on his way to speak to the FBI about a case possibly involving the Clintons. The D.C. murder was not a robbery. (DOD July 8, 2016)

     

    4) John Ashe, UN official who allegedly crushed his own throat while lifting weights, because he watched too many James Bond films and wanted to try the move where the bad guy tries to…oh, never mind. “He was scheduled to testify against the Clintons and the Democrat Party.” (DOD June 22, 2016)

     

    5) Mike Flynn, the Big Government Editor for Breitbart News. Mike Flynn’s final article was published the day he died, “Clinton Cash: Bill, Hillary Created Their Own Chinese Foundation in 2014.” (DOD June 23, 2016)

It must be coincidence, right?

If former Secret Service agent Gary Byrne is to be believed, this is business as usual for the Clintons. Excerpt via Zero Hedge:

    BYRNE: I feel so strongly that people need to know the real Hillary Clinton and how dangerous she is in her behavior. She is not a leader. She is not a leader.

     

    SEAN: She does not have the temperament?

     

    BYRNE: She doesn'’t have the temperament. She didn'’t have the temperament to handle the social office when she was First Lady, she does not have the temperament.

     

    SEAN: She’s dishonest.

     

    BYRNE: She’s dishonest, she habitually lies, anybody that can separate themselves from their politics and review her behavior over the past 15 years…



I don't call it a conspiracy theory; I call it par for the skullduggery mens rea modus operandi course for the elite bastards in US politics.   

Tyler isn't posting this because he is bothered about these murdering crooks and liars. He is posting it because he wants his Wall Street Darling Trump to win. Considering how bought and paid for Hitlery is, I think Tyler just wants Trump style massive racism on top of massive corruption TOO! 

Tyler is right about Hitlery. But he is one of the first people I would prosecute for pro-Wall Street propaganda and perpetual defense of polluting pigs and perpetual attacks on Renewable Energy.

PRISON is too good for Tyler and his s h i t throwing monkey pals from the empathy deficit disordered Wall Street crowd.


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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Potty mouthed, Trailer Trash Trump is going to "make America great again" by making sure everybody knows the truth, the whole truth, and nuttin' but da trut (SEE BELOW ).


I wish to apologize to all readers for being so sure this engineered horse race for the two Selected candidates acceptable to the US Fascist Corporate Oligarchy would result in a Hitlery "win".  :-[

The presstitute propagandists did too good a job jacking up a pseudo populist. The white backlash from 8 years of an African American President, regardless of the fact that he did the bidding of elites, was too well stimulated by the manufacturers of consent. It's not real hard to get white folks riled up against the "librals" and minorities when their jobs are gone. Scapegoating is a presstitute propagandist specialty. The USA is, and always has been, thoroughly racist. Dog whistling the baser instincts of the electorate is easy to do, but hard to control once you have stirred up the previously controlled mob hatred for the other.   

The white folks that are frustrated by their lost jobs and gross corruption in our government had no choice. They were herded into a position to shoot themselves in the foot either way.

NOW, these people will feel appeased for about 6 months. Once whites hungering for decent jobs and the retirees that voted for pseudo-populist Trump realize that the cost of living calculations will be further watered down to irrelevance along with seeing no jobs returning, no wall being built between the USA and Mexico AND see absolutely no enforcement of the environmental quality laws or, worse yet, the outright elimination of them, all hell will break loose.

And it will NOT just break loose for minorities through more frequent police and whitey violence against them. Sure, the KKK will try to make a resurgence, But the  government does not like that. It costs money when too many racist loose cannons in the police and the populace are visiting "the other" with mayhem and murder. It's bad for business.

The government WILL THEN crack down on whitey. And whitey is not going to take it because Joe six pack whitey, who was dog whistled into voting for more pro-Wall Street job destruction, expected the gooberment to look the other way when the minorities are "put in their place" or run out of town. THEN whitey will wake up to the fact that he has been suckered AGAIN. Things will get REAL UGLY as soon as that realization sinks in.

The upside is that relations with Russia will temporarily be cordial. But considering pseudo-Christian Pence was Cheney's water boy, that will not last. Those who think Trump is not a business as usual fascist will be sorely disappointed. Have a nice day.
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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There are the promises that wont happen, then there is a moral victory which I think is what GO is happy about.

1. Border Wall. Its a thousand miles or so? Im skeptical. Taxing Western Union or bank transfers to pay for some showcase construction for about a hundred miles of it,  yes.

2. Scrap NATO and other defense treaties. If only,  no chance the MIC willingly downsizes.

3. De escalate v russia and china. This is not up to him and his advisors chosen are not ghandi and john lennon. If there is a sane faction in the top brass, a slim chance.

4. Restore american manufacturing. If new factories are built they will be state of the art robotic and wages 10$ hr max for what workers are needed. This can happen effectively with 25$ hr after the USD loses reserve status.

5. Scrap NAFTA and TPP. Those forces are bigger than him and he would need to convince the mega corps he can keep up their bottom line,  not much chance.

6. Drain the swamp. I so hope so, the revelations from the emails in the last few days are so disgusting Im just glad I dont have to see and hear hillary for four years, because with the satanism and child trafficking, it would really break my stride and make me lose my mojo. Lock em all up, pursue and prosecute every last conflict of interest if u do nothing else. That would actually MAGA.

7. Vindication of free speech vs PC gone crazy. Not a policy but a turning of the tide. They are still in control but have suffered a loss of legitimacy, just look at the media already burning their uniforms. Universities will start upholding free speech or losing the smart students. The govt will keep hiring indoctrinated drones until their budgets are cut and they are forced to produce results, if it ever happens.

8. I still dont trust the Donald, am sure he is full of **** and says whatever he thinks will get votes. Like looking at a gear inside a wind up watch,  you cant tell if it is driving or being driven. His hairstyle, spraytan, and me me / I I I instead of us / we, are nothing like "presidential". It put me off but bothers me less now. I preferred Ben Carlson or Bernie to the Donalds con artistry, but Killary made him look like a choir boy.

9. I was dissapointed the bernie bros didnt do anything about him getting shafted out of the presidency, but they obviously bided their time and got their revenge today.

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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I figure the Donald's first executive order will be to legalize meth for the people who voted for him.

GOOD ONE!  :emthup:

His team might come up with a (electronic only - mailing stuff costs money, ya know) graphic sent to his base showing an equal sign between his loyal supporters and, uh, 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

AGelbert

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Quote
If GO is happy about this (S)election, he will soon be very disappointed. 

Your analysis of my feelings and future outlook of our situation are as accurate as your totally wrong analysis of the election Agelbert, which was presented with your usual manner of factual pseudo scientific BS material.

One with half a brain would realize that a religious Gold Bug zealot and Lite Doomer are not the makeup of a happy camper.

My only satisfaction comes from the end of the **** Clintons.

Don't come **** on me again AG, my future responses will not be so kind nor generous in my understanding of your anger at being conned by the Leftist MSM and their total Bull **** Propaganda that you swallowed hook line and sinker.

Kindly vent your anger at them in the future, not me.
       

 
                                                       
                                                   

My, my, what vitriol. All I said as that I believe you will sorely be disappointed. Please feel free to describe exactly what part of what I posted was "BS". I was disagreeing with you, not attacking you. I am not angry at you.  If you are not happy about a Trump win, all you need to do is say so. There is no need for such overt hostility.

I urge you to calm down. You are a good man that wants the best for the USA. So do I. Peace, brother
.

Sorry Agelbert. This election has angered the geezer and made him very testy.

Never have I witnessed so many mediocre evil people in a horrible never ending cacophony of lies and skullduggery. Realizing they are actually the countries leaders has made it all the worse for me.  I feel as if I expired and am in Hell of late.

A thousand apologies for misreading your posting.

Will take your splendid advice and stop posting for a while until I recover my cool.                                     Regards, GO



Thank you, sir. Times are hard and we are all distressed by the increasing number of cracks in the road of our lives when we are increasingly in need of less misfortunes.  The picture below is a metaphor of this (S)election.


Personally, I am not so much angered by the (s)election results, as saddened by them. Besides the Trailer Trash Trump thing, we've got a Governor in Vermont now that is going to make life very difficult for wind and solar Renewable energy growth by vowing to VETO ANY RE subsidies while ADDING lots of Republican red tape baloney for RE project site approval and Organic agriculture while simultaneously working diligently to protect fossil fuel subsidies and other pollution product vested interests along with GMO crops and commercial pesticide use on Vermont farms. As if that wasn't enough grief, the white supremacists here are VERY happy with the new governor.

Here's a map from 2015 showing the racist demographic in the USA. Compare it with the map of Trailer Trash Trump's wins. I may be wrong, but I thing that corroboration and causation are linked.


The most racist areas in the United States



This lady, although she does not reference any map, sees the link too:
White Supremacy wins—for now.  

By Denise Oliver Velez   

Wednesday Nov 09, 2016 ·  3:40 AM EST

 732   Comments

KKK cross burning (graphic at article link)
attribution: Confederate till Death - English Wikipedia 

Time to wake up, you white people of good faith.

Look in the mirror.

See Amerikkka for what it is without the gloss.

See something black folks have been trying to tell you.

It’s not “populism” or “economic anxiety.”

Call it by name — White Supremacy.

I thought the black and brown firewall, with a little help from our white friends would hold back the tide.

I was wrong. My bad.

Thanksgiving is coming.  A time many of you gather with friends and family.

Killing racism starts at home.

Maybe it’s time for you to start speaking up and fighting back.

Lord knows we black folks have been doin’ it for centuries.

My people survived slavery and Jim Crow.

We’ll survive Donald Trump too — though I’m sure there will be deaths — there always are.

America has a white supremacy problem.

You are either part of the problem, or part of the solution.

Choose.

P.S. I ain’t leaving. The bones of my enslaved ancestors are buried here. They helped build this place with blood, sweat, tears, and laughter.  I’ll fight on.  In their name.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/09/1594035/-White-Supremacy-wins-for-now
 

I'm not leaving either. The only way I leave Vermont and my keyboard is feet first. Thanks again for your cordial apology and reply.
 
God Bless you and yours.  

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 Founding Fathers of the USA did NOT believe in democracy. And the so-called "Representative Republic" they founded ONLY REPRESENTED LESS THAN 10% of the population. IOW, the UPPER CLASS was the only cohort being REPRESENTED.

That is called an OLIGARCHY.

And then it just got MORE oligarchical. 


Quote
Alexander Hamilton QUOTES

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy  , but in moderate governments 

The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right. 

Power over a man's subsistence is power over his will.

To all general purposes
we have uniformly been one people, each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.  

It's not tyranny we  desire; it's a just  ;), limited, federal government.        

Alexander Hamilton
Quote
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.  There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.  John Adams

Agelbert NOTE: If you haven't figured it out the code language about the word "people" and the word "we", let me spell it out for you. The phrase "We the People" in the hallowed documents of the founding of the USA had NOTHING to do with the "PEOPLE" mentioned in the above quotes about democracy and it's allegedly self destructive "extremes". The word "WE" is defined as the CITIZENS, a tiny subset of the "people", NOT the "turbulent" subset of the "people". These fellows knew how to spin a yarn, didn't they?

Also, the alleged "certain" cause of the "failing" of democracies is an interesting point of selective lack of knowledge among these Founding Fathers back then.

The fact is that the common historical CAUSE of the downfall of any attempt by we-the-people on earth, in any country, to institute a democratic form of government back then, and to this day, is NOT what the Founding Fathers were crying crocodile tears about. THAT IS, democracies DON'T "commit suicide", unless you want to call it SUICIDE BY oligarchy COP! 


Consequently, there is only one thing to be said for much of the erudite, polished, stirring, colorful, heart string pulling, loyalty inducing, patriotic oligarchy self serving prose by the Founding Fathers then, and most people that claim the USA is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people today (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

AGelbert

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Impeach the U.S. Constitution

Posted on Jun 10, 2017

By Paul Street

I am always darkly amused when I hear one of my fellow Americans call for a return from our current “deep state” plutocracy and empire to the supposedly benevolent and democratic rules and values of the nation’s sacred founders and Constitution. Democracy was the last thing the nation’s founders wanted to see break out in the new republic. Drawn from the elite propertied segments in the new republic, most of the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention shared their compatriot John Jay’s view that “Those who own the country ought to govern it.”

As the celebrated U.S. historian Richard Hofstader noted in his classic 1948 text, “The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It”: “In their minds, liberty was linked not to democracy but to property.” Democracy was a dangerous concept to them, conferring “unchecked rule by the masses,” which was “sure to bring arbitrary redistribution of property, destroying the very essence of liberty.”

Hofstader’s take on the founders was borne out in historian Jennifer Nedelsky’s comprehensively researched volume, “Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism,” in 1990. For all but one of the U.S. Constitution’s framers (James Wilson), Nedelsky noted, protection of “property” (meaning the people who owned large amounts of it) was “the main object of government.” The non-affluent, non-propertied and slightly propertied popular majority was for the framers “a problem to be contained.


Full EXCELLENT article:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/impeach_the_us_constitution_20170610


Agelbert RANT: 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.




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


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.

Hope for a viable biosphere: Why fossil fuels were NEVER cheap or cost effective

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 "commoditization 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 offered 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 bullshit 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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The U.S. is Not a Democracy, It Never Was

June 6, 2018 Posted by Addison dePitt


HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

One of the most steadfast beliefs regarding the United States is that it is a democracy. Whenever this conviction waivers slightly, it is almost always to point out detrimental exceptions to core American values or foundational principles. For instance, aspiring critics frequently bemoan a “loss of democracy” due to the election of clownish autocrats, draconian measures on the part of the state, the revelation of extraordinary malfeasance or corruption, deadly foreign interventions, or other such activities that are considered undemocratic exceptions. The same is true for those whose critical framework consists in always juxtaposing the actions of the U.S. government to its founding principles, highlighting the contradiction between the two and clearly placing hope in its potential resolution.

The problem, however, is that there is no contradiction or supposed loss of democracy because the United States simply never was one. This is a difficult reality for many people to confront, and they are likely more inclined to immediately dismiss such a claim as preposterous rather than take the time to scrutinize the material historical record in order to see for themselves. Such a dismissive reaction is due in large part to what is perhaps the most successful public relations campaign in modern history. What will be seen, however, if this record is soberly and methodically inspected, is that a country founded on elite, colonial rule based on the power of wealth—a plutocratic colonial oligarchy, in short—has succeeded not only in buying the label of “democracy” to market itself to the masses, but in having its citizenry, and many others, so socially and psychologically invested in its nationalist origin myth that they refuse to hear lucid and well-documented arguments to the contrary.

To begin to peel the scales from our eyes, let us outline in the restricted space of this article, five patent reasons why the United States has never been a democracy (a more sustained and developed argument is available in my book, Counter-History of the Present). To begin with, British colonial expansion into the Americas did not occur in the name of the freedom and equality of the general population, or the conferral of power to the people. Those who settled on the shores of the “new world,” with few exceptions, did not respect the fact that it was a very old world indeed, and that a vast indigenous population had been living there for centuries. As soon as Columbus set foot, Europeans began robbing, enslaving and killing the native inhabitants. The trans-Atlantic slave trade commenced almost immediately thereafter, adding a countless number of Africans to the ongoing genocidal assault against the indigenous population. Moreover, it is estimated that over half of the colonists who came to North America from Europe during the colonial period were poor indentured servants, and women were generally trapped in roles of domestic servitude. Rather than the land of the free and equal, then, European colonial expansion to the Americas imposed a land of the colonizer and the colonized, the master and the slave, the rich and the poor, the free and the un-free. The former constituted, moreover, an infinitesimally small minority of the population, whereas the overwhelming majority, meaning “the people,” was subjected to death, slavery, servitude, and unremitting socio-economic oppression.


Founding Fathers: as plutocratic oligarchs, they harbored deep reservations if not outright hostility to the idea of genuine democratic rule.

Second, when the elite colonial ruling class decided to sever ties from their homeland and establish an independent state for themselves, they did not found it as a democracy. On the contrary, they were fervently and explicitly opposed to democracy, like the vast majority of European Enlightenment thinkers. They understood it to be a dangerous and chaotic form of uneducated mob rule. For the so-called “founding fathers,” the masses were not only incapable of ruling, but they were considered a threat to the hierarchical social structures purportedly necessary for good governance. In the words of John Adams, to take but one telling example, if the majority were given real power, they would redistribute wealth and dissolve the “subordination” so necessary for politics. When the eminent members of the landowning class met in 1787 to draw up a constitution, they regularly insisted in their debates on the need to establish a republic that kept at bay vile democracy, which was judged worse than “the filth of the common sewers” by the pro-Federalist editor William Cobbett. The new constitution provided for popular elections only in the House of Representatives, but in most states the right to vote was based on being a property owner, and women, the indigenous and slaves—meaning the overwhelming majority of the population—were simply excluded from the franchise. Senators were elected by state legislators, the President by electors chosen by the state legislators, and the Supreme Court was appointed by the President. It is in this context that Patrick Henry flatly proclaimed the most lucid of judgments: “it is not a democracy.” George Mason further clarified the situation by describing the newly independent country as “a despotic aristocracy.”


Ruling class collaborator Obama: a master public relations stroke—pure symbol and no substance— when the oppressors needed to recharge their legitimacy.

When the American republic slowly came to be relabeled as a “democracy,” there were no significant institutional modifications to justify the change in name. In other words, and this is the third point, the use of the term “democracy” to refer to an oligarchic republic simply meant that a different word was being used to describe the same basic phenomenon. This began around the time of “Indian killer” Andrew Jackson’s presidential campaign in the 1830s. Presenting himself as a ‘democrat,’ he put forth an image of himself as an average man of the people who was going to put a halt to the long reign of patricians from Virginia and Massachusetts. Slowly but surely, the term “democracy” came to be used as a public relations term to re-brand a plutocratic oligarchy as an electoral regime that serves the interest of the people or demos. Meanwhile, the American holocaust continued unabated, along with chattel slavery, colonial expansion and top-down class warfare.

In spite of certain minor changes over time, the U.S. republic has doggedly preserved its oligarchic structure, and this is readily apparent in the two major selling points of its contemporary “democratic” publicity campaign. The Establishment and its propagandists regularly insist that a structural aristocracy is a “democracy” because the latter is defined by the guarantee of certain fundamental rights (legal definition) and the holding of regular elections (procedural definition). This is, of course, a purely formal, abstract and largely negative understanding of democracy, which says nothing whatsoever about people having real, sustained power over the governing of their lives. However, even this hollow definition dissimulates the extent to which, to begin with, the supposed equality before the law in the United States presupposes an inequality before the law by excluding major sectors of the population: those judged not to have the right to rights, and those considered to have lost their right to rights (Native Americans, African-Americans and women for most of the country’s history, and still today in certain aspects, as well as immigrants, “criminals,” minors, the “clinically insane,” political dissidents, and so forth). Regarding elections, they are run in the United States as long, multi-million dollar advertising campaigns in which the candidates and issues are pre-selected by the corporate and party elite. The general population, the majority of whom do not have the right to vote or decide not to exercise it, are given the “choice”—overseen by an undemocratic electoral college and embedded in a non-proportional representation scheme—regarding which member of the aristocratic elite they would like to have rule over and oppress them for the next four years. “Multivariate analysis indicates,” according to an important recent study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, “that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination […], but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy.”


G. Washington overseeing slaves. A routine task of all white colonial masters.

To take but a final example of the myriad ways in which the U.S. is not, and has never been, a democracy, it is worth highlighting its consistent assault on movements of people power. Since WWII, it has endeavored to overthrow some 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected. It has also, according the meticulous calculations by William Blum in America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy, grossly interfered in the elections of at least 30 countries, attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders, dropped bombs on more than 30 countries, and attempted to suppress populist movements in 20 countries. The record on the home front is just as brutal. To take but one significant parallel example, there is ample evidence that the FBI has been invested in a covert war against democracy. Beginning at least in the 1960s, and likely continuing up to the present, the Bureau “extended its earlier clandestine operations against the Communist party, committing its resources to undermining the Puerto Rico independence movement, the Socialist Workers party, the civil rights movement, Black nationalist movements, the Ku Klux Klan, segments of the peace movement, the student movement, and the ‘New Left’ in general” (Cointelpro: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom, p. 22-23). Consider, for instance, Judi Bari’s summary of its assault on the Socialist Workers Party: “From 1943-63, the federal civil rights case Socialist Workers Party v. Attorney General documents decades of illegal FBI break-ins and 10 million pages of surveillance records. The FBI paid an estimated 1,600 informants $1,680,592 and used 20,000 days of wiretaps to undermine legitimate political organizing.” In the case of the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (AIM)—which were both important attempts to mobilize people power to dismantle the structural oppression of white supremacy and top-down class warfare—the FBI not only infiltrated them and launched hideous smear and destabilization campaigns against them, but they assassinated 27 Black Panthers and 69 members of AIM (and subjected countless others to the slow death of incarceration). If it be abroad or on the home front, the American secret police has been extremely proactive in beating down the movements of people rising up, thereby protecting and preserving the main pillars of white supremacist, capitalist aristocracy.
Elections are run in the United States as long, multi-million dollar advertising campaigns in which the candidates and issues are pre-selected by the corporate and party elite. The general population, many of whom do not have the right to vote or decide not to exercise it, are given the “choice”—overseen by an undemocratic electoral college and embedded in a non-proportional representation scheme…

 Rather than blindly believing in a golden age of democracy in order to remain at all costs within the gilded cage of an ideology produced specifically for us by the well-paid spin-doctors of a plutocratic oligarchy, we should unlock the gates of history and meticulously scrutinize the founding and evolution of the American imperial republic. This will not only allow us to take leave of its jingoist and self-congratulatory origin myths, but it will also provide us with the opportunity to resuscitate and reactivate so much of what they have sought to obliterate. In particular, there is a radical America just below the surface of these nationalist narratives, an America in which the population autonomously organizes itself in indigenous and ecological activism, black radical resistance, anti-capitalist mobilization, anti-patriarchal struggles, and so forth. It is this America that the corporate republic has sought to eradicate, while simultaneously investing in an expansive public relations campaign to cover over its crimes with the fig leaf of “democracy” (which has sometimes required integrating a few token individuals, who appear to be from below, into the elite ruling class in order to perpetuate the all-powerful myth of meritocracy). If we are astute and perspicacious enough to recognize that the U.S. is undemocratic today, let us not be so indolent or ill-informed that we let ourselves be lulled to sleep by lullabies praising its halcyon past. Indeed, if the United States is not a democracy today, it is in large part due to the fact that it never was one. Far from being a pessimistic conclusion, however, it is precisely by cracking open the hard shell of ideological encasement that we can tap into the radical forces that have been suppressed by it. These forces—not those that have been deployed to destroy them—should be the ultimate source of our pride in the power of the people.

 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 Gabriel Rockhill is a Franco-American philosopher and cultural critic. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University and founding Director of the Atelier de Théorie Critique at the Sorbonne. His books include Counter-History of the Present: Untimely Interrogations into Globalization, Technology, Democracy (2017), Interventions in Contemporary Thought: History, Politics, Aesthetics (2016), Radical History & the Politics of Art (2014) and Logique de l’histoire (2010). In addition to his scholarly work, he has been actively engaged in extra-academic activities in the art and activist worlds, as well as a regular contributor to public intellectual debate. Follow on twitter: @GabrielRockhill 


https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/06/06/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-never-was-2/
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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Excellent article. Thank you, RE. 

And yes, of course the U.S. was never a democracy. If you have any doubts, just look at the ORIGINAL Constitution and, to add plutocratic insult to injury, all those "Amendments made along the Orwellian mindfork way.

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" bullshit 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.


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 07, 2018, 04:52:38 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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Quote from: Eddie
But that hardly makes the process of stealing a citizen's own money  morally or ethically right. All my life I was taught the burden of proof  when people were charged with a crime is on the government. Civil forfeiture is an end-run around that.

It. Is. Not. Right.


Civil Forfeiture is the "legal" equivalent of a mob shakedown. I am ABSOLUTELY convinced that these practices are put into place to discredit the very idea of government, the better to "drown in the bathtub" per the Norquist ideal, and fully and finally realize the Randian divine condition. Libertarian governance is, at the end of the day, a war of all against all with bigger fish eating smaller.


True.

I have often pondered the genesis of the use of the term "Liberty" to define license, as in, "libertine". They are two different words, but I long suspected the libertines, who eschew any and all standards of morality in their "dog-eat-dog" world view, co-opted the term "liberty" early on in this nation's history.

My suspicions were confirmed in a recent article by a historian about the tumultuous history of the "Liberty" issue in the early years of the USA (that almost destroyed the country at the start!).

It is quite interesting, as it sheds light on much that is going on right now. The "Liberty" thing, for too many, actually means the freedom to avoid the constraints that responsible government imposes on citizens for the common welfare. To hide this fact, these proclaimers of their right to "Liberty" always paint the government as "abusive" and themseves as "victims of tyranny".

In fact, they are mostly ravenous wolves out to fleece whoever they can with as few laws as possible between them and the routine plundering of their fellow man.

That doesn't mean they don't like laws! Oh no! They engage in routine conspiracies and corruption to GAME the laws for their benefit. Despite what they claim, they do not mind government as long as THEY are the invisible hand controlling the government. All the while, they, like the Kochroaches today, hypocritically claimed that "government was tyranny attacking their liberty".

They are still at it, pushing the con that they "just want to be left alone and have their property respected". In truth, they want all the rest of us to NEVER be given a moment of peace from their predations.

Check it out.
   
JUN 02, 2018 TD ORIGINALS


SNIPPET:

Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” —John Adams in a letter to his wife, Abigail (1775)

“[A social division exists] between the rich and the poor, the laborious and the idle, the learned and the ignorant. … Nothing, but force, and power and strength can restrain [the latter].” —John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson (1787)

Two quotes from the same person. Barely a decade between the two utterances. How can a man be so conflicted? John Adams, who helped lead the revolution against British “tyranny,” would later become a president apt to suppress dissent and restrict a free press at home. Well, Adams was a complicated man, and the United States was—and is—a complicated nation.

Full article:

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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However, considering what the Bilderbergers consider to be a 'Present-Truth' world, I think it is rather Orwellian of them to be concerned about a 'Post-Truth' world. Their concern has always been about making sure the TRUTH was NOT known about how elites have irresponsibly and mindlessly plundered the people and the environment for centuries. That has not changed, despite the headline.

The "truth" being, of course, what the Bilderbergers  define it to be.

Orwell lives. 
 

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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Did the Founding Fathers Lead the American Revolution for the Pursuit of Liberty — Or Personal Greed?

Two political scientists are that the founding of the United States was less idealistic than we were led to believe.
By Cody Fenwick / AlterNet

July 3, 2018, 5:45 PM GMT

Americans, like citizens of countries around the world, celebrate their country's Independence Day with pride and reverence for the people who founded the country. In the United States, we tell a powerful story of the country's founding as a break from the tyranny of the British crown and away from King George III's relentless taxation without representation, a break which led to the Revolutionary War.

But is this merely a myth meant to inculcate patriotism? Political scientists Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith have argued that we should question the American founding story as a noble crusade.

Instead, they see the founding of the United States as the result of the unabated greed of the founders.

In their book The Spoils of War, Bueno de Mesquita and Smith expand on their theory of political action as deriving largely from the personal ambitions of rulers and politicians in power. They apply this theory to the American presidents, and they begin their case with no lesser figure than President George Washington.

Washington, they argue, had deep financial interests in land. One estimate ranks him as the 59th richest man in all of American history, and he died with 60,000 acres to his name across Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky, Maryland, and West Virginia, the authors write.

But the market for land that Washington would use to become so rich was under threat from the British government prior to the war. In 1763, the king issued a proclamation restricting the colonization of the Ohio Valley, where the Ohio Company — to which Washington was tied — had sought to profit handsomely. The proclamation dimmed the prospects for profit.

The king's imposition became even worse in 1767 when he proclaimed that all land west of the Alleghenies belonged to the crown, completely nullifying the Ohio Company's land acquisition ambitions.

"For Washington, however, all future paths, whether as a landowner, a canal builder, or a military hero, lead back the benefits he derived from the Ohio Company," the authors write. "It was a catalyst for his success."

So while many average colonists may have little quarrel with the king over these seizures of land — land which was, quite often, inhabited by Native Americans — men with ambitions for wealth and power saw these proclamations as an affront.

The authors note that the king's effort to restrict colonists' use of uncolonized land is even mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.

Two other famous decrees from Britain are also commonly cited as part of the incentive for revolution: The Currency Act and the Stamp Act. But both these laws, passed by parliament, had exaggerated effects on wealthy colonists, like the founders, compared to their effects on the rest of the people.

Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were also both, like Washington, historically wealthy men who engaged in land speculation. John Hancock was another founding father from elite stock: he is reportedly the 56th wealthiest man in American history.

Bueno de Mesquita and Smith write:

Through tough business dealing, prudent spending, and a superb eye for opportunities in land acquisition and other businesses, George Washington turned himself into a phenomenally wealthy man. And then the economic world around him was turned topsy-turvy by new policies emanating from Britain. These policies and the threat they represented to his, and many other founding fathers', personal interests were a great impetus for revolution.

In the end, it's not clear that the authors develop a knock-down argument for their case. While they persuasively show that the founding fathers may have had compelling financial interests at stake at the time of the revolution, they don't argue conclusively that war was the most efficient or reasonable tactic for them to increase their wealth.

And they aren't able to show that, even if financial interests were a motivating factor for many of the founding fathers to go to war, these interests were necessarily the deciding factor.

However, the authors' argument that going to war was the wrong decision, on the other hand, is much more persuasive.

One of the major reasons to regret the war is the effect American independence had on Native Americans.

Despite their claim in the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers and early colonists did not have a right to take the land from Native Americans who already lived in the Ohio Valley and beyond — and the coming conflicts over this land would spill much blood.

So had the colonies complied with the king's demands on this front, much of this unjustified theft and violence might have been avoided.

Vox's Dyland Matthews makes a similar point:

American Indians would have still, in all likelihood, faced violence and oppression absent American independence, just as First Nations people in Canada did. But American-scale ethnic cleansing wouldn't have occurred. And like America's slaves, American Indians knew this. Most tribes sided with the British or stayed neutral; only a small minority backed the rebels. Generally speaking, when a cause is opposed by the two most vulnerable groups in a society, it's probably a bad idea. So it is with the cause of American independence.

Moreover, the taxation without representation issue could have been solved, Bueno de Mesquita and Smith argue, had the king and British parliament simply allowed the American colonies to have representation. And if the American colonies stayed a part of Britain, they would have then abolished slavery in 1833 under the Slavery Abolition Act, many years earlier before the United States, in fact, achieved that end of the abominable institution.

The authors contend that had the southern colonies attempted to rebel to preserve slavery as the southern states did in 1865, they would have faced not only opposition from the north, but also from the British empire. This superior force could have reduced the chances of a bloody civil war.

Without the Revolutionary War, the United States would have likely ended up following a path much more similar to that of Canada. That is, while vestiges of imperial rule would linger, the country would have eventually won its independence without resorting to armed conflict.

So was it greed that drove our founding fathers to go to war? Perhaps, though it remains uncertain. But whatever the motivation for the war that led to American independence, it was probably a mistake.

Bueno de Mesquita and Smith's argument reminds us that it is always worthwhile to examine leaders' motivations for bringing nations to war and to question a country's founding myths. As an apocryphal James Madison quote warns: "The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted."

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/did-founding-fathers-lead-american-revolution-pursuit-liberty-or-personal-greed
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 Senate Is an Institutional Barrier 😈 👹 💵 🎩 to Democracy

BY Sohale A. Mortazavi, Truthout

PUBLISHED November 9, 2018

Even though Democratic candidates for the Senate won millions more votes than their Republican challengers, it's the Republicans who will maintain control of the Senate. This is now the sixth out of the last 10 Congresses in which the GOP has controlled the Senate without representing a majority of voters, raising questions about whether this legislative body needs reform -- or abolition.

Even entirely excluding the more than 6.4 million votes cast in California, where no Republican senatorial candidate appeared on the general ballot, Democrats still secured 6.4 million more votes nationally, an 8-percentage point lead.

Excellent article:

https://truthout.org/articles/the-senate-is-an-institutional-barrier-to-democracy/
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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