It has struck me (I'm not quite sure why today) that those who are in charge -- from the White House, through the gleaming halls of Congress, around plump Wall Street, in the upper, corner offices of the conglomerates and banks -- all those folks (deep in their hearts) feel that they are right, that they are good.
I travel enough in their circles to watch them - at the high-end restaurants (I confess I love good food). On their yachts (I have summered in the best places too often), in their hot cars and heavy cars, at their kids' schools (the best schools).
They have beautiful homes and tasteful (generally) summer homes. Why should they not believe they are correct? The stock market is terrific again. There are the "green shoots" of recovery. They barely felt that nasty plunge back last fall, except on paper and now their paper looks great again. Maybe a few friends disappeared as various jobs were lost, but all and all...
Besides, who else can run this difficult world, if not them? Certainly Obama has agreed (he was allowed to join them, after all: Harvard, etc and now he's at the top). And, as we have now all witnessed, Obama has kept pretty much everyone of them in place - his cabinet, the guys at GM AIG, Citicorp, Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve and so forth - at a massive cost to the US Taxpayer. (Is it true that the actual cost - now hidden - has been somewhere between nine and eleven trillion dollars - not the two trillion reported? This is rumor - but what's so awful about so many of rumors -- of the last eight years or so, for example, so laughed at at the time - is that so many of them have turned out to be completely true.)
But whatever the massive costs it has become clear to all of us now that nothing (at the top) has changed one wit even as that nasty tumble last fall indicated things were far from okay with this system. Everything (at the top) is back to normal.
But what has hit me even more deeply now, wandering amidst the elite, is that none of these people want change. None of them believe in it, except to make things "greener" perhaps. Other than that, things are just fine from their perspective. But even with getting things "greener" it's a little dicey. I pulled up to a farmer's market here in Hollywood last Sunday where Chevy was hocking it's newest new green, green car - trumpeting (via a couple of hip looking kids in the 20s - getting paid by the hour) that it got 28 miles to the gallon (on the highway) -- 28 miles to the gallon! Wow! Really green!
How stupid do they think we are over there at GM? I think they think we're very, very stupid and they think that they're very, very smart. How many stupid people get billions even after they've screwed up as badly as GM?
So is anything going to change after what Obama's done? Anything? I'm afraid the answer is all too obvious.
So how are things going to change? It's not a fun thought. How have things changed down through history? That's not a fun thought either. Human history has not been a pretty picture for those cultures (pretty much all of them) where the leaders didn't want change, even as things began to fall apart around them (12% unemployment here in California now - which, like Chevy's mpg, is laughable - it's probably closer to 20% when you factor in those who have given up looking. Everywhere you look everything's spun. Not 12%, not 28 mpg, not 2 trillion dollars.
I read a quote yesterday by Timothy McVeigh (of all people). Remember him - the maniac bomber in Oklahoma? Wasn't he a dull witted idiot of a dishonorably discharged low ranking soldier? Aren't all right wing people dull witted idiots?
When he was on trial he was asked if he had anything to say:
"Well, your honor, I will base my case on Justice Brandeis, one of our most brilliant jurists... There, he writes that when government ceases to lead by example and actually provides a bad example, anything can happen. Government is the last teacher. Everything I did, I learned from my government."
Frightening, for me, for a hundred reasons (here's three): not stupid; violent (he killed 168 people, after all); and correct.
Something better change fast, my very smart friends who I have shared so much luxury with, something better change real fast or it's going to get changed for us -- the results of which we won't like, nor will we like the path to it.
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Arianna Huffington: Keeping the Spotlight on Lobbying Outrages and Economic Hard Times
News stories about lobbyists undermining reform tend to pop up, make our blood pressure rise, then quickly drop off the media radar until the next outrage grabs our attention. Which is why we have launched HuffPost's LobbyBlog, an ongoing, consistently refreshed, collection of the latest information on lobbying, lobbyists, and the tragic impact they are having on our lives.
I met a women that grew up in "Communist" Czechoslovakia. She said, "They pretended to pay us and we pretended to work.."
I don't think there will be any organized mass revolt, just a general natural loss of productivity as people become aware of the fact that hard work will not be rewarded.
Put away the pitch forks boys, some of your neighbors would be only too happy accept money for killing you.
An old Irish saying. Put an Irish man on a spit and you will easily find 2 that will turn him..
"Peace might have worked back when Reagan was just beginning to dismantle the system, but now...
I think that if you want any kind of REAL change NOW you will have to pay for it in blood - and most of that blood will be ours. If our history has shown us anything it is that there are always violent reprisals waiting for those who seek to change things."
So are we ready to go out and demonstrate peacefully and lawfully even with the possibility in mind that we could be killed or injured, or not?
Demonstrating peacefully and lawfully is the American Way. It's who we are and what we do.
I sense a lack of direction and commitment here. Do we lie down and take this, and sentence our chidren to fascism, or do we start demonstrating lawfully and peacefully now? Can somebody just give me a yes or no here?
It's just not clear to me from your comment what you know for sure about that. I suggest we already have the "leadership" in place to do that. What do you think? Could you clarify that?
http://tomhayden.com/
http://www.naomiklein.org/main
IT'S TIME. IT'S TIME TO GET PEOPLE OUT INTO THE STREETS NOW. WE CAN USE RUBBER OR CARDBOARD IMITATION PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES, SOMETHING SAFE AND NONTHREATENING, BUT IT'S TIME FOR PEOPLE TO GET OUT INTO THE STREETS, LIKE THE FRENCH DID IN THE 1960'S.
I HONESTLY AND SINCERELY ADDRESS THIS TO TOM HAYDEN AND MARK RUDD, BECAUSE THEY WERE THE LEADERS OF THE ORIGINAL STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY IN THE 1960'S, AND THERE WERE THOSE OF US THEN WHO HOPED WE COULD GET OUT INTO THE STREETS LIKE THE FRENCH WERE DOING THEN.
IT'S TIME. I'M COMPLETELY SERIOUS. WE NEED TO MAKE CARDBOARD IMAGES OF PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES AND GET HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE OUT INTO THE STREETS.
I CALL ON EVERYONE WHO READS THIS TO TRY TO CONTACT TOM HAYDEN AND ASK HIM TO USE HIS ORGANIZATIONAL EXPERIENCE AND CONTACTS TO ORGANIZE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN THE STREETS. NAOMI KLEIN COULD BE CONTACTED IN THE SAME WAY.
IF GLENN BECK AND FRIENDS CAN ORGANIZE THAT VISIBLY, WHY CAN'T WE?
IT'S TIME, TOM HAYDEN. WE LOOKED TO YOU TO DO THIS IN THE 60'S AND WE LOOK TO YOU TO DO THIS NOW.
IT'S TIME, NAOMI KLEIN. BETTER THAT WE GET OUT INTO THE STREETS NOW THAN AFTER OUR ECONOMY CRASHES AND WE HAVE A REPEAT OF ARGENTINA.
I'M DEAD SERIOUS ABOUT THIS AND INVITE COMMENT. IT'S TIME.
Posse Comitatus? Forget it.
"Our military would never shoot this country's citizens". Watch some youtube of how some of your police behave and reflect a little on that one. Also, try some 60's footage of the national guard in action to remind yourselves.
History, my friend. History is calling. It's the cost of freedom.