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TechnoratiIf the Russians Did This to Us, We’d Kill ‘Em
What if the Russians invaded?
It's not so far-fetched an idea, you know. We spent half a century and trillions of dollars to make sure that it would never happen, so it's really not such a strange notion.
So what if the Russians invaded?
What if they came and stole all of our money?
What if the Russians invaded and enslaved our children as cheap worker bee drones locked in dismal dead-end jobs?
What if the Russians invaded and excavated all of our natural resources, leaving only mountains of toxic debris in their wake?
What if the Russians invaded and they ruined our infrastructure, thrashed our educational institutions, and stuck us with a grossly inadequate healthcare system?
What if the Russians invaded and incarcerated a huge percentage of our people in for-profit jails? What if they ruined our military by sending it off on big-money colonial expeditions? What if they cut the legs out from under the middle class?
What if the Russians invaded and turned us against each other, tricking this tribe of Americans into hating that tribe, in order to keep any of us from realizing that they were looting our country?
If the Russians did any of these things, we'd kill ‘em. Dead.
If the Russians invaded, we'd send our army to crush them in defense of our country (or, at least, we hire somebody to do it).
If the Russians invaded, we'd be furious and raging and hateful and destructive -- for good reason, too -- and we would bring to them the full measure of American organized violence in order to take back our country from their plundering rampages.
Of course, the Russians haven't invaded. But what's astonishing about the moment we live in is that America has in fact been subjected to all these travails. We have essentially been invaded by those who wish us ill, and our national and private resources are being stripped bare. This country is being looted, and everything in it that isn't nailed down is being carted away and sold off.
Our children are being saddled with enormous financial burdens. Our educational and healthcare systems, sucked dry as mere revenues sources, are falling to pieces. Our infrastructure is approaching ruin.
Our jobs, our industries and our community resources have been bundled up and exported to where the work can be done far cheaper, and the workers are compliant. Increasingly we are scrambling just to survive. Admittedly, our government remains absolutely dedicated to making sure that some of us do extremely well. It's just that that ‘some' doesn't include anyone you know.
What is absolutely astonishing about the moment that we live in is that we have been essentially invaded, we have been absolutely looted, and yet we don't seem to be the slightest bit angry about that.
If the Russians had done it, we would be absolutely furious. But in fact, it was our own overclass that did it, and not only are we not furious at them, we don't even notice the crime. Or, if we do notice, we're furious at some ridiculously inappropriate target, like a ‘liberal' president who isn't even remotely liberal.
America has always been a country with its full and fair share of flaws, but for quite some time during the middle part of the twentieth century, we got one thing reasonably right. There was a bargain then, between elites and the government and the public. According to the terms of the deal, the aristocracy would still be fantastically rich, but there would be limitations on their wealth, because some of that wealth, some substantial amount, needed to be shared with the working people and the middle class, and it was the role of government to make sure that that happened. Many among the well-to-do even shared that consensus.
Since Ronald Reagan rode into town, however, that deal is off the table, replaced by what is essentially a new New Deal -- or, more accurately, simply the Bad Old Deal. Under the terms of this new/old arrangement, the unregulated wealthy grab absolutely everything they can get their hands on, the middle class scrambles for whatever bare existence it can maintain, and the rest of America, the working class and the poor, fall deeper and deeper into third world-style poverty. Under the terms of this new system, the role of the government is no longer to provide for the welfare of the people, nor to ensure that there are limitations on what the plutocracy can liberate from them. Under the terms of this new arrangement, the function of the government is simply to serve as a tool, assisting that plutocracy in depriving America's own people of everything that can be taken from them.
That means that in the last thirty years we've entirely restructured the economy so that the super-wealthy have become obscenely-super-wealthy, and the middle class are lucky to have stood still, and haven't really even managed that. If one examines the destination of the considerable GDP growth that America has sustained over the last three decades, it's gone entirely to the richest of Americans. The middle class has actually lost ground. That's an astonishing fact, but think about it: Despite robust economic growth, workers today actually make less than they did back in the 1970s.
Even more amazing, it wasn't that hard to pull off. All you had to do was to fool the people and divert their attention to other circuses to go along with the remaining crumbs of bread. Meanwhile, unions were decimated by changes in government policy. Jobs were exported -- first to the south, then to Mexico, then to China, now to Thailand or Vietnam, and probably soon to Africa -- in a never-ending search for the cheapest possible way to wring value out of the working people of the world, leaving Americans without any sort of remaining industry or economic base. Tax policy was also deployed, channeling money from current working Americans, and especially from their children, and diverted it to the already wealthy. The upshot of all these policy changes was that the richest Americans became absolutely, astonishingly, fabulously rich, and the rest of us are barely holding on, if that.
If the Russians had come here and done this -- if they had come and stolen our resources, if they come and enslaved our children into inescapable soul-numbing jobs, if they had left us with environmental degradation and a wrecked economy and destroyed education system and a crumbling infrastructure and a sieve-like healthcare regime -- if the Russians had come and done any or all of this, we would've risen up in anger and hostility and patriotism and nationalism, and we'd have loaded up our weapons and killed every last one of them.
But it wasn't the Russians that did it, it was our own overclass. And worse still, it was our own government acting as though they were protecting us from the evil bogeyman du jour, while in fact they were assisting the wealthy in bleeding us dry, until our anemia left us fit only for our profit-seeking hospitals.
Think about how idiotic you have to be to allow yourself to be looted and not even realize the money's been taken out of your pocket. Think about how politically immature you have to be to allow a thief to walk right up to you, take your money, and not even recognize who that thief is. Think about how stupid you have to be to blame it on somebody else -- like gays, or Iraqis, or black helicopters -- and not pay attention to the real rip-off artist who's stealing your money.
I would tip my hat in admiration to these plutocrats for the cleverness of their scheme -- even if a scam this ugly requires the predators to have the moral sensibility of an empty parking lot -- but in fact what they've done isn't really all that clever. The successes of their crimes have lots more to do with the fatuousness of their victims than with the acumen of the criminals.
Worse yet, as if the American public hasn't already been stupid enough, here we are thirty years down the road from the advent of Reaganism, and we still don't get it. Here we are after three decades of being looted, still unable to figure out who's ripping us off. Here we are, even after the implausibly complete failures and disasters and depredations of the Bush administration, and most Americans are still unable to point to the criminals and their ideology, and identify the source of the crime.
Which makes the future looked even more shaky. Now we have a president who most Americans are coming to believe is some sort of far-left Stalinist, while in fact he is every bit the full-measured facilitator of corporate parasitism that either George W. Bush or Bill Clinton were.
And yet, because he is being made out to be some sort of outrageously decadent liberal, and because Americans are too dim to figure out the ruse, this president -- who is failing to address the concerns of ordinary Americans, most especially because he's not working for them in the least -- is bound to fail, and is looking increasingly like the proud owner of a one-term presidency. And what we can expect in reaction to that failure -- ironically and disastrously and jaw-droppingly idiotically -- is a sharp turn to the right. When Obama fails, it will be framed, as it already is being, as some sort of grand failure of liberalism. In fact, of course, just the opposite is true. It's a grand success of the overclass's looting of America.
In this respect, Obama offers precious little "change", even from the crimes of George W. Bush. Look at his healthcare initiative, for example. I don't know about you, but I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that anything that the big pharmacological and big health insurance industries are in favor of is pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster for the rest of us -- you know, we the people of the United States. This bill no more represents an initiative for the purpose of bringing healthcare to Americans than George Bush's prescription drug bill was an initiative to improve the life of seniors. In both cases, whatever vicarious and accidental improvements that exist are simply diversionary window-dressing on what is really another example of legalized corporate colonialism.
In the case of Obama's healthcare legislation, what's happening is that enormous quantities of new customers are being forced to buy expensive health coverage from insurance industry predators who will be vastly enriched by means of this new legislation, which is precisely why they would favor something that ordinarily we would expect them to oppose, and that we certainly would expect them to oppose if Obama was any kind of progressive whatsoever, even if only in his personal fantasies.
The bank bailouts were absolutely no different. What an amazing episode, what an amazing looting of the American public, what an amazing chapter in the destruction of an empire -- and all brought to us by a supposedly liberal president. In fact, Obama was simply extending the tradition of the Bush administration, and the Reagan ideology prior to that, which calls for pillaging the federal treasury in order to divert the maximal amount of money to economic elites, and then leaving the bill for the American taxpayer.
One could go on and on from here. Obama continues to deploy more mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan than there are uniformed American soldiers. He continues to support privatization of everything from American prisons to schools. He asks for the most tepid possible re-institution of regulations on the financial industry, and when the thieves on Wall Street growl back at him, he abandons even those most limited of obstacles to their worst impulses.
The upshot is that today American voters have two choices. They can have the party that represents the maximal plundering of America, at the maximal speed. Or they can have the party that represents nearly the same crime at almost the same velocity.
Either way, the United States has ceased in any meaningful way to be owned by citizens. Its voters vote, but their representatives in Congress and in the administration are beholden to economic elites, and act entirely accordingly. The country's institutions, infrastructure, and social relations are all being dismantled piece by piece and either relocated elsewhere or sold off in order to wring yet another drop of wealth out of the hides of working Americans, so that those who are already wealthy beyond belief can be even further enriched.
If some other country did this to us -- if the Russians invaded and took all our resources, and enslaved us and our children to work in dismal jobs when we could find any work at all sufficient to maintaining a rapidly sinking middle class livelihood -- if those things happened and the perpetrator was a foreign power, we'd rise up and go to war and we'd kill every last one of ‘em.
But we're not doing any of that, even though a very real enemy has invaded this country and stripped it bare.
In fact, this society is pretty busy making sure that we don't even notice who that enemy is.
97 Comments so far
Show AllЗдравствуйте Уважаемый Михаил. Я хотел показать недовольство статью, написанную
вами. "Если россияне сделали это с нами, мы убьют EM". Почему вы
поведения против распространения русского языка в Америке? Мы вам не враги
а когда их не было. То, что мы победили Германию Второй мировой
Война это правда. Но мы не стали атаковать немцев. Нас напали
фашистов. Вы просто боятся русских, потому что мы великий народ.
Поэтому также заявляют, что готовы убить нас. Вс ваша элита
обманывает, я не буду скрывать, тоже само происходит и в нашей стране. Но
В отличие от тебя, русский не влияют отрицательно на Соединенные Штаты
Америка. И вот вы противоположной коррумпированных нашу культуру. Это мы должны пожелать
убить тебя. Но мы не палачами. Мы не делаем этого, и мы не
собрать. Бог вам судья. Все, что есть в вашей стране это
наказание, которое вы заслужили, что и другие страны пытались
угнетать. Не других стран наказать вас. Вы были наказаны
бог.
Прошу прощения за плохое знание языка
i don't read Russian but here is what an on-line translation tool makes of this post:
************************************
Hello Dear Michael. I wished to show discontent clause written by you. "If Russians have made it with us, we will kill EM". Why you of behaviour against distribution of Russian to America? We to you not enemies and when they were not. That we have won Germany the Second world War is the truth. But we did not begin to attack Germans. Us have attacked fascists. You simply are afraid of Russian, because we great people. Therefore also declare, that are ready to kill us. Вс your elite deceives, I shall not hide, too itself occurs and in our country. But unlike you, Russian do not influence negatively the United States America. And here you opposite corrupted our culture. It we should wish to kill you. But we not executioners. We do not do it, and we to not collect. The god to you the judge. Everything, that is in your country this punishment which you have deserved, as other countries tried to oppress. Not other countries to punish you. You have been punished the god.
I am sorry for bad knowledge of language
************************************
There are so many grammatical errors and strange constructions in the passage that it's hard to confidently make sense of it. Russian isn't like English; it's an agglutinating language that doesn't have a lot of redundancy in it. I can't imagine why anyone would write to an English-speaking USAian in Russian to begin with, especially when it's not their native language either. Very weird.
And mairead's reply, via the same tool:
And to whom speak - to David Green? If is not present, who is "Michael"?
Or, in non-mechanistic English: 'Who're you talking to--David Green? If not, who's this "Michael"?'
А кому говорите--Давиду Грину? Если нет, кто это «Михаил»?
If the Russians did all this, then we would call them American elites. Then the government would give them even MORE $$$....
A question please for CD posters. If morality is the right,and necessary path,why are those who act immoral so richly rewarded? Is this behavior analogous with predation? Does greed create a benefit for the human race?
Just who are the real terrorist's here.
Nothing new here. These corpofascist elites (as well as their global business partners) are now "turning against their own home base" doing to the US taxpayers what they have hisorically been doing to poor Latin American countries since the fall of the Spanish Empire in the Americas.
"These greedy scumbags do not respect even their own mother!"
"He is every bit the full-measured facilitator of corporate parasitism that either George W. Bush or Bill Clinton were."
No wonder Mr. Green was so easily snookered by Obama. He doesn't know a real Democrat when he sees one. ;)
Consider:
Bill Clinton never poured trillions into the financial sector.
Bill Clinton didn't continue--and expand--policies that can best be called fascist.
Bill Clinton didn't screw our chances for publically-funded elections.
Bill Clinton's fans didn't call their fellow Democrats racists.
Bill Clinton's fans are not foul-mouthed Philistines.
Bill Clinton didn't steal the nomination from the better, more popular candidate, as Obama most certainly did.
Bill Clinton didn't have secret meetings with bankers, insurance execs, and polluters in which he sold out his base
Bill Clinton didn't play the race card every five seconds.
The Clinton campaign never dusted off hoary old right-wing smears against their Democratic rivals.
Bill Clinton did not pose as a progressive.
Bill Clinton didn't destroy the Democratic Party.
Besides the booming economy and reduction in deficit, Clinton cleaned up a record number of toxic waste sites, expanded college opportunity, dismantled thousands of missiles in the former Soviet Union, and cut the rate of rise in healthcare costs form 10% to 3%. Welfare costs were down. FEMA was a crack outfit. The infant mortality rate reached its lowest level ever. The violent crime rate went down for eight straight years.
If this sounds to you like the record of "corporate facilitator," I would suggest a complete neurological work-up. We're never going to get anywhere if we don't know good Democrats from bad.
Not be apologizing for Obama's inaction, but Bill Clinton didn't inherit the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression.
But I wonder if some of Obama's problem might be that old adage about not electing Senators as president. Governors usually (obviously as shown over the last eight years, not always), make better presidents because they are more adept at making and pushing policy. Senators by nature, are blow-hards.
You forgot about WTO, NAFTA, shredding the remains of the safety net, anti-union legislation, 'wagging the dog', increasing the police state, Hillary's attempt to make the medical-insurance industry even less accountable, anti-privacy laws.... The list just goes on and on. It's not for nothing that he was called "the best GOP president" only partly in irony.
The "effective death penalty act", the "anti-terrorism" bill, "end welfare as we know it", the "financial modernization act", on and on and on - i know Clinton when i see him. Got MORE of Reagan's agenda through than Reagan did.
Sure he didn't pour trillions into the banks etc, he didn't have to, the casino was HUMMING when Bubba was Prez, that's how he "balanced the budget."
Thank you, Webwalk, both to you and Mairead for rebuffing Perry Logan's insane assessment of the Clinton years. Yes, of course, welfare was down ... Clinton signed the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act" in 1996, throwing literally hundreds of thousands of people (about half of whom were CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF TEN) off of welfare. That certainly seems to qualify as "selling out his base."
Also, Clinton certainly did "pour trillions into the financial sector." He signed the law repealing the Glass Stegal Act (keeping commercial and investment banks separate) as well as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, making derivatives - such as CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS - unregulated by the federal government.
Those laws were HUGE BOONS to the financial sector and helped lead to the formation of companies that are now deemed "to big to fail" and the beginning of the financial crisis we are in the middle of today!
And, while we're at it, let's not forget about Clinton's abandonment of gays in the military (speaking of selling out your base!), his passage of the Telecommunication Act of 1996 (opening the door to media monopolies) and the aforementioned NAFTA (screwing people in the United States AND Mexico).
You're right, Perry, "We're never going to get anywhere if we don't know good Democrats from bad." Though, we may have to start looking outside the Democratic party, if we're aspiring to find good politicians.
Respectfully,
MariusP
While the article is written tongue in cheek as it is/was unlikely to occur, and the trillions spent to prevent the Soviets (who had difficulty making toothpaste) from occupying the US was simply another way to enrich the enriched, Americans have done all this and much worse to many countries and CONTINUES to this very day.
Self reflection and realisation is the alcoholics first step to recovery.
I guess what I left out of my comment is that the lack of wealthy hate crimes and the prevalence of the others shows how effective their divide-and-conquer strategy has worked.
This article brought this realization to my mind:
In the USA, it is not surprising to hear of blacks being killed just because they are blacks. (The last I remember hearing about was in the south, perpetrated by military personal as some sort of sport.) It is not unusual to hear about gays being killed just because they are gay. (e.g.- Matthew Shepard). People are killed because they are hispanic, white, poor, or homeless. I have never heard of anyone here being killed out of hate for the wealthy. Odd that. I don't think things will start getting better until we do. Fear is what prods the elite to enact ameliorative measures, a few extra crumbs, like an 8 hour day, a five day week, some vacation time. And, now they have taken a lot of those crumbs back so they can use them to mollify the masses again in the future on so it goes, on and on.
C. Wright Mills:
A power elite, in political and sociological theory, is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, and access to decision-making of global consequence. The term was coined by Charles Wright Mills in his 1956 book, The Power Elite, which describes the relationship between individuals at the pinnacles of political, military, and economic institutions, noting that these people share a common world view.
The power elite are the true invaders. Prison is too good for them.
Say they are removed from power... would that solve anything if the system remains the same? Of course not, others will come... But if the system is corruption-proofed, we don't have to even punish them. They can go about their lives as long as nobody (including them) can mess around with ours. Building effective defenses against corruption is the order of the day. The task requires some consensus and some good ole ground work, but even that seems impossible.
I'm all for capitalism. . . to me where the problem lies is with fact that when you allow private (read: corporate) contributions to political campaigns and agendas (under the guise of 'freedom of speech') you're giving voice to greed.
Greed is delusional and self-serving. They may truly believe that they are doing right for the people but are hard pressed to face the negative realities and consequences of their ideologies.
You're all for capitalism but recognize that greed is delusional and self-serving? Um, capitalism is fueled by, and fuels, greed. As long as people are materially rewarded for acting in ways that are exploitive of people and resources--they will do so. And that is what capitalism rewards.
as Adam Smith put it :
GREED is translated in capitalism's dogma , euphemistically as
"enlighted self-interest"..
sounds very REASONABLE , doesn' it?
at bottom it is GREED. and GREED is NEVER enlightened.
PERIOD.
what has capitalism , based on a philosophy of supposed "enlightened self-interest" as another moral justification for PLAIN OLD GREED...
REALLY done to the world? it is so simple:
it has SPREAD the GOSPEL of greed and PROMOTED GREED and SELFISHNESS as "normal and natural and inevitable".......
the very things that TRUE ENLIGHTENMENT has always described as
RUINOUS - not just to the "greedy" person, if nothing else but SPIRITUAL and HUMAN RUIN ..but to so MANY OTHERS for the sake of the greedy...and caused WARS and FAMINE and POLLUTION ....and untold suffering..that is SO UNNECESSARY!
to euphemistically translate greed and selfishness as somehow the BASIS of civilization - capitalism from adam smith, whatever good analyses he has of "markets" and "wealth of nations" (which there are many good analyses from him)
he was FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG, philosophically and moraly and ethically ,
in achieving a FALSE correlation between "enlightened"
AND "self-interest".
there is no such thing.
if anything - they are Contradictions. and should NEVER even be acceptable as ONE self-sustaining phrase or reasoning or justification for plain OLD GREED and selfishness.
as John Kenneth Galbraith, the great canadian commentator and writer said:
"CAPITALISM IS THE MODERN WORLD'S WAY OF FINDING MORAL JUSTIFICATION FOR A VERY OLD GAME: GREED".
"a very real enemy has invaded this country and stripped it bare"
DMG is correct. But the enemy is us, pasty white skin, merkan english accent, full of funny jokes and loaded with economic, political, social power. We worship the shithead!! We wanna be him!!! heh heh heh.
"And what we can expect in reaction to that failure -- ironically and disastrously and jaw-droppingly idiotically -- is a sharp turn to the right."
Fantastic. We need a sharp turn to the right. Even though we're already flailing in the extreme right gutter, we need to slam the far right wall, really really hard.
Why? Cuz neither the libs nor the cons have learned their lesson. The libs are asleep at the wheel today. More specifically, they are under their cozy covers fondling their 2010 Lexus SUV brochures and don't give a rats' ass about the public interests - in the face of disaster - they still don't care.
The cons are writhing in their swamp of petro-delusions just the same as during the reign of the chimp. None of the libs or cons will wake up until they hear the screeching of metal against the far right wall of the extreme right gutter. This will happen after the next set of rightwing demons enter the Whitey House. Personally I can't wait to hear the screech. That's the signal to commence our far-left revolution.
Good article. One important but elusive question stems from the fact that if the Russians were the invaders, we would know who the enemy was.
Just who are the invaders now?
Giving a wrong answer to this question would be deadlier than any invasion - Russian or otherwise. Some of the dead wrong answers are "capitalism", "the Conservatives", "greed", "polluters", "the rich", to list just a few. Until the perpetrators are identified and a consensus is developed about their identity, no improvement can take place.
Rothschildren?
Arktig,
You are inexplicably passing up an opportunity to enlighten the benighted souls who are "dead wrong" about who the "perpetrators" are of the "invasion" that you refer to.
For the love of God, man, stop toying with us, and tell us - WHO?
David Icke is in my part of the world this week to out the interstellar genetically-engineered shape-shifting Lizard-Humans who are at the heart of the global conspiracy. Is that whom you refer to? Please let us know.
Oh sure, I'd love to share my opinion, it's not new, I forgot to do it...
Corruption is the enemy. The checks and balances are not working. They got defeated by institutional corruption. Large institutions with fraudulently made money glued themselves to the government and bought out he whole thing along with the separation of powers, elections and the media. This needs fixing, badly. Corporate personhood is something that contradicts the spirit of the Constitution but the Supreme Court appears to be way too corrupt to figure it out.
Now if we manage to develop a consensus about getting rid of corruption, we would have to study in detail its forms, the structure of the government and financial institutions. That's where most corruption occurs these days. Are we capable of putting the other differences aside (at least temporarily) until we find some effective defense against corruption? Before we have a responsive government which has a vested interest in the well-being of the country as a whole, we can't hope to resolve any other problems.
No, it's the system. Capitalism is itself corrupt. In various, irreparable ways. Focusing on trying to root out the corruption that exists within corrupt structure, seems, at best, misplaced. I haven't seen the Moore film and i assume it will be as flawed and counter-productive as the rest of his work. But at least he seems to understand that the problem is systemic. The patient doesn't need an antibiotic. It needs to be allowed to die.
I am supposed to agree with you because of your hand waving? "at best" you provided not a single argument. Only criminals would want us to close our eyes before corruption. It's the fundamental problem of society and government. Abuse of power is the ultimate tool of the criminally minded. Shifting blame back and forth between government and private sector solves nothing - both can and do get corrupted. "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Capitalism is not based on greed as much as the government is based on greed for power. Capitalism can do just fine with improving life day by day. If it doesn't do so, it's because it was overrun by corruption, including government's.
Dear Mr. President,
Here's another really cool idea to help save the 'finance sector' and, thus, cure all the world's problems:
Why not a Bankster Mandate? Seriously - make it mandatory for all Americans to buy at least, say, 100 shares of Goldman Sachs - or any TooBig2Fail on the approved list - per year?
It's okay if we can't afford it, Mr. President - you can just put it on our tab...
Patriotically,
Whatever.
Some of the comments to this article are light-hearted.
That's so very wrong.
All decent and patriotic Americans should be
very, very, VERY ANGRY (! exclamation mark, times a hundred)
Any decent, patriotic American who doesn't absolutely hate Right Wingers is so very misguided.
The Right Wingers have done incredible damage to our country.
And those who had the main jobs in The Bush Administration (of course, Bush, Cheney, Rove, Gonzales) should be prosecuted and sentenced to the rest of their lives in prison. For it is they who have done more ACTUAL damage to America than anyone else, EVER.
David Michael Green, you have written a SUPERB article.
You are a fine man.
Now, you are one of my heroes.
You're undoubtedly entitled to your opinion, and it's regrettable that you find "light-heartedness" so disturbingly inappropriate.
However, your own expression of inchoate anger itself undermines your assertion that it is the superior reaction, much less the standard for "decent and patriotic" Amerikans.
· Yr Obd't Servant
I don't know about anyone else, but all of a sudden I want to watch "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" again.
It really is a charming and funny film, and its message remains fresh and relevant.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Great movie. Came to mind when those two Russian nuclear submarines were off the East Coast in August. I believe at one point they were off the Long Island coast and I couldn't help but chuckle and think, boy, that is the least of our problems right now.
Again, David Michael Green gives powerful voice to our exasperation with American ignorance and Obama’s shortcomings---or worse, betrayals.
Green does not suffer fools easily, but more moving to me is the spiritually grounded anger expressed in Michael Moore’s love story, “Capitalism”, which does not pour out equal wrath on predator and prey alike but rather allows compassion for those who, under the spell of propaganda and pain, truly “know not what they do”. Moore’s anger is humanely centered with brilliant, joyful humor that cuts BS effortlessly without taking itself too seriously, while also avoiding the hate trap of our becoming the mirror image of those we have every right to despise. Most interesting are the compelling voices of liberal Christian clergy (seldom heard in public) who so clearly and rightly denounce the false gospel of the 'Churchian' right wing. There is a time for anger, even a time for violence as King Solomon said, but Moore’s opus is uplifting and hopeful about moving mountains through speaking truth in bold faith. To paraphrase his ending(as he wraps crime-scene tape around Wall Street) “I refuse to live in a country that treats its own people so cruelly----and I’M NOT LEAVING!”
Go see the movie and invite a neocon friend.
What is the common belief as to the cause of the collapse in the Soviet Union?
General consensus is that we out spent the Soviets in a cold ward bidding auction that eventually bankrupt them. (Personally I have always claimed that both of us lost the "cold war" as we both wasted so much money. Money that could have been used to build a partial reality of the "great society.")
So what happened when "they" lost." It was considered a failure of the communist/socialist system and the country began a rapid change to market capitalism, albeit through the dozen or so oligarchs that inherited the commons from the people.
Score:
People lost (their common wealth)
Elite oligarchs win.
So now some two decades later the great capitalist machine (America) has self destructive through the capitalistic pathology of gluttonous greed. Did we admit that the great capitalistic juggernaut was systemically flawed and return to the drawing boards for a revised system that included some populist socialism with strict control on the corporate elite's. No what we got was a socialist bailout by the common people for the survival of the elite and their profligate capitalist system.
Score:
People minus zero both now and in the future.
Corporate elite not only survive (but through a last minute hail mary pass from the working class)..... get big win.
Common consensus is wrong.
Perestroika and glasnost heralded the end of the cold war and the old regime.
Reagnites will have us believe that America "won" the cold war by driving them broke.
+1.
I always find it amusing -for some very small, twisted value of 'amusing'- that everyone thinks Reagan and El'tsin were the big heroes rather than Gorbachev, who actually ordered the changes at the risk of his life.
So powerful was the MSM propaganda that even most of the Russian people, who actually *lived* through it all, thought El'tsin did all the heavy lifting on their side of the water.
There's a cheesy little Soviet-era pin I picked up at a barrow stall that shows the Red Banner with Perestrojka, Glasnost', Demokratiya on it. I treasure that pin as a powerful symbol of bloodless revolution. The criminals came out on top that time too, but at least it was a near-run thing. Maybe the next revolution will be here, and there'll be enough of us who are actually Makers rather than Fakers that we'll swamp the Takers and finally get it right.
(for them wot don't know, the late Robert Heinlein, whose politics I didn't at all care for, did say one thing that's painfully true: "no matter where or what, there are makers, takers, and fakers". It's to our credit that we lefties include very few Takers, but we have an abysmal number of Fakers who shamelessly claim they're building socialism by their posturing at sites like CD.)
Sometimes I think I dreamed perestroika and glasnost, barely anyone remembers.
So thanks,Mairead,for the affirmation. :D
true - the USA outspent the USSR for decades - and that led to the collapse for the neglect of its internal economy. it is clear it could NOT pay proper attention - socialist or otherwise - to the economy when its financial focus was on keeping the military might.
THIS was of course EXACTLY what the USA continued to provoke by UPPING the arms game since the 1950's.
this was WHY nikita kruschev made a bold proposal to cut the arms raise - because he KNEW the soviet union would NOT be able to survive it.
the USA KNEW IT - being more advanced economically and relatively undamaged by the second world war.
but instead the USA took advantage of THIS position to continue and escalate the "cold war" to drive the USSR eventually into its ruin.
it was BRILLIANT.
but it had nothing to do with the "triumph of capitalism as an economic system" that supposedly was :better: than socialism.
if anything -- the USSR never REALLY got to practice PROPERLY socialism since its efforts were eaten up in maintaining a police state MERELY to KEEP UP with the USA outspending it in MILITARISM .
so - how could the "socialism" actually have had any chance ot prove itself to begin with?
it's a FAKE claim that "capitalism" defeated "socialism" since there was NO socialism to begin with as an economic system except as a means to increase what became in the USSR a STATE CAPITALISM focused on the cold war to defend itself FROM the USA's own fomenting of the cold war with the intent of destroying russia - and eventually - as revealed by the Oligarchy, and western friendly thieves - SACK and PILLAGE russia..as was the USA's OLD DREAM anyway.
this is the reason why PUTIN has become another "evil" man to the USA ...for kicking out western domination just when the USA had begun celebrating its "invasion" of russia after its collapse as an empire.
people should NOT forget:
it was KRUSCHEV that first proposed curtailing the Arms Raise -- KNOWING his country could not sustain it. which WAS wise.
it was the USA that REFUSED it, knowing the inherent weakness of the USSR.
it is the same as the USA REFUSING the IRANIAN offers until recently (pending more developments) for decades to be able to KEEP painting IRAN as a "rogue nation"...the same way the USA REFUSED HUSSEIN's OFFER for even more international control ...in order to pave the way for the Iraq war and invasion...
basically - US foreign policy is to "offer" what are REALLY conditions towards other countries that are IMPOSSIBLE for them to meet, if nothing more than out of self-respect..but even more so because the USA has NO BUSINESS demanding anything from them .
and that is USED as a "reason" - a "measurement" of "civilized behavior" - so that when they "fail" - the USA proclaims that it "did our best" and gets to justify its wars and isolations, economic sanctions. blah, blah, blah
and then the BOMBS come raining down.
NO NATION is more ROGUE than the USA. it REALLY IS like a MAFIA. pushing its "toll" system and its "protection racket" and its money racket to the rest of the world.
Ah yes but 9 out of 10 Americans will not believe this. They are convinced that the USA and its Military stationed in Japan and Europe dfended the Free wrold from the Ruthless Communists who were just itching to invade all those countries with thier immense and merciless armies.
They continue to this day to advance the absurd notion that they pay for the rest of the Worlds defense from these "monsters".
They are convinced that Russia, having lost over 25 million people in the war against the Facists some One Fifth of its entire population to a nation that had a population a quarter her size, were willing and eager to go to war against all of West Europe and all the United States .
The Cold war was a farce from the day it started and from the day Winston Churchill spoke of the iron Curtain going down acorss Europe. It was ALWAYS the desires of The UK and their new allies Germany and of the United States to CHECK the power of Russia and to dismember that State in order to access her resources.
The USSR had every reason to be paranoid of Western Intentions. The trillions wasted on the Cold war on to fight "Communism" was simply monies pissed away and fed to that revenous beast the MIC.
absolutely on point!
since more than a decade ago - back when I was not nearly as informed as today - my "rough" guesses or suspicions were always that :
THE USA and ENGLAND - or whatever they considered their "alliances" ALWAYS - historically LUSTED after Russia ITSELF...for all the OBVIOUS reasons:
LARGEST country on earth - ALL that real estate...ALL that "undeveloped" national resources:
Forestry of such immensity, tundras, valleyes, mountains, uranium, diamonds, the world's largest collection of running fresh water and corresponding estuaries and fisheries, gas, oil, all waiting to be exploited and controlled and "opened up" ....
one can look back as far as the rivalries and even family connections, distant ones, between Russian royalty and members of the british royalty..or the german royalty..
. i had always argued with friends that if there is ONE country the USA REALLY lusts after - and i mean actually WANT to OWN and invade and occupy and "turn american"
IT IS Russia. and that even "encirclement" or "containment" is NOT enough - they have always been the opening gambit to EVENTUALLY invade - dominate and OWN.
and that if anything:
the american obsession about "the russians are coming" is really and always has been a COVER for the OPPOSITE....
it is AMERICA that ALWAYS wanted to "GET RUSSIA" .
people might recall that a long time ago -- ALASKA actually was Russian Territory. russia simply conceded it to the USA.
what is in Russia's EASTERN tip? OIL and GAS.
DUDE you really GOTTA STOP capitalizing certain WORDS for emphasis. especially SINCE you don't USE capitalization ELSEwhere in YOUR WRITING.
We're not morons and fully capable of discerning the important parts of your posts when typed properly. I started reading your last post, but had to stop because I was so annoyed. Would you hand in a paper to a professor written in that style? If not, then why do you do it here?
If the Russians would kill 45000 people /per year, like health insurance companies do/, we would nuke them!!!
Why should the Russians bother? GOD is already punishing America for f***ing and raping Iraq and the rest of the world for resources and money.
Actually, America already invaded itself. Al Quaida doesn't even have to bother. They can count on the relatives and friends of slain civilians to retaliate and Al Quaida can count on the CIA and Saudi royals to cause more trouble.
Speaking of Russia, I find it hilarious that the same punks who call Russia "commie" are the same dudes seeking mail order brides from Russia more than dating women here at home. God knows what's making those lizard brains malfunction !
Teddy, "superiority" has been a very American trait for a very long time. Check the US last century's history and there are quit some 'bad' wars, that were more like colonial conquests.
Har Davids:
to be FAIR. there is probably no country , or few cultures, immune to notions of "superiority"...
but NONE seems to have elevated that mentality - which in other countries seem to at least be "controlled" BY the knowledge that there are OTHER countries ....and the realities of such ....
to the point of being in COMPLETE DENIAL that there ARE other countries and peoples involved.
there seems to be NO nation that has elevated it to such a national hysteria and paranoia and obsessiveness throughout its SHORT history (showing how LITTLE america REALLY knows or has learned lessons) -
PRECISELY because there ARE other peoples, cultures and countries against whom it CAN measure itself and SAY "we are SUPERIOR".
other countries' mentalities of "superiority" are inherently CONTROLLED by their knowledge that they , somehow, because of realities, REGARDLESS of how much they do things for their self-interest, are only PART of many other entities collection.,
the USA maintains this "superiority" complex DESPITE that reality.
other countries , one way or another ACCEPT compromises..and trad-offs...
the USA BROOKS NO SUCH COMPROMISES.
Here's the difference:
If the Russians invaded, the Assimilated Press would rise up en masse to stoke the outrage of the populace and fan the violent resistance.
Currently, however, the "invaders" own the press, whose job is to cheerlead imperial expansion and stoke outrage against truth.
You nailed it Goebbels. A Russian invasion also wouldn't be an ostensibly altruistic and gradual 30+ year process, but we get the author's point despite the weak analogy.
Okay, everyone agrees that we're chin-deep in that well-known creek, with neither paddle nor boat in sight, and the creek is *rising*.
What are people willing to *DO* ABOUT IT? Anything?
That's the problem: everyone says 'Ain't It Awful?' And everyone answers 'No It's Worse Than Awful'. And that's. where. it. stops.
Does anyone really think that's a sufficient response? If not, then what are people willing to DO? How much of *your* -yes, YOU- personal life are you willing to give up to create change? Are you willing to drop out of school? Cut back to part-time work? Give up evenings and weekends? Anything?
Someone -maybe Sam Smith at prorev- just recently wrote that in the US today, waaaaay too many lib-leftists seem to think "activism" means being on mailing lists and sending checks. Was he talking about *you*? If so, are you happy with the results you're getting? If not, are you willing to do anything to change that situation?
"Desiring something strongly enough to fight for it doesn't guarantee success. But it changes the odds."
Hi Mairead, you put your finger on it, and that was my reaction, too. What can we do? What can be done? Green's article isn't eye-opening. It's affirming, but my reply to Mr. Green is "So what?" Is he hinting at an armed revolution? Come on, we're all locked into our own insular lives, working two jobs, trying to support our families, escaping into the entertainment culture: television, the internet, video games, best-sellers, beer, drugs & food. Look at how the corporate media and government contemptuously manipulate and misdirect the people's discontent: wedge issues and tea parties. The truth is the establishment is more powerful than its detractors, and I can see nothing on the horizon that will change that. And that's why my answer to your question is: despair. I wish someone could give me a more satisfying answer, but there it is, and that's all that I suspect Professor Green has to offer, too. He's right, the Russians have invaded. So what?
Sioux Rose
ED: For all the reasons you cite, immediate change is unlikely, particularly with respect to a remedy for the disease that ails U.S.
However, these thoughts help mitigate the sense of powerlessness that sentient, aware persons should feel:
"This, too, shall pass."
"There is a Divinity that shapes our ends."
(And related to disaster-capitalist via rabid resources depletion)
"Consumed by that which it was nourished by."
"In the fullness of time..."
And so forth. There are cycles that go way beyond what individuals alone can summon. It's easy for us to note them when we look back over the arc of history; harder to recognize we are ensconced in such a cycle shift NOW. After all, it's tough to sense one's ultimate course when their canoe is negotiating life-threatening rapids.
"Desiring something strongly enough to fight for it doesn't guarantee success. But it changes the odds."
"What are people willing to *DO* ABOUT IT? Anything?"
Exactly what we need to hear Mairead. and often. Our activism is sporadic,uncoordinated and not very effective. We are not even minimally organized. What we need is a central site for discussing, planning, organizing and action. But where is it? Google says there are over a trillion sites on the internet. Is there not even one that treats this important subject?
Green: "this society is pretty busy making sure that we don't even notice who that enemy is." Of course, its been a 30 year 'invasion' which doesn't help when your typical American has a 3 min attention span. Also, our democracy results in one voter in Wyoming having 80 times the value of a voter in California (in the Senate, the ratio is 1 to 3 for the presidency), so corporate America knows exactly where to put its money to effect policy: rural, red-state America. Hence, red-state America is kept carefully ignorant as to the real issues. They think the real issues are God, Country, and morality. They look around and note that things aren't so bad in THEIR america, and their morality must be the reason. They can't be expected to understand that red-states typically get 1.5 to 2 times as much money FROM the federal gov't as they give back in taxes, and that this tax shortfall is made up by the blue states whose voters don't count. Hence, they continue voting for 'morality' which helps the same corporate forces destroying the country, but are carefully kept ignorant as to the connection. When a democrat-majority finance committee can reject TWO public options for healthcare but overwhelmingly vote to APPROVE abstinence funding, it's obvious how powerful the red-states have become.
As long as our democracy is written so that urban blue-staters are fleeced by the federal government to send welfare to rural red-staters, who are then kept ignorant as to the real consequences of their votes, (they vote for 'morality' which coincidentally is a vote for corporate plundering), this country is not going to recover soon.
The sheep have been fleeced - and for the most part don't even realise they have been taken to the cleaners. One of the sweetest scams ever, even to the point of getting the victims to cheer it on. How sweet is that?
Excellent article.
Great Article!
Non-Partisan
With The level of representation in the House At 770,000 Per representitive this kind of junk politics will only get worse. more elite in office and the wealthy controling all the strings. What we need now more than ever is a representation level of 100,000 per representitive or better. I cant explain it all here But you can get the Idea of what I say at http://www.thirty-thousand.org find out why the House is out of order.
I know the theory, that's the level of representation that is extant in the commonwealth parliaments (for the most part). You do realise that if you do have a rep for every thirty thousand or so, you'll end up with a house of reps that has over 11,000 politicians in it. (given that the population of the usa is over 350 million...) At one hundred k/ rep you'd still have 3,500 politicians, and you'd still not be well represented in the house.
SUPERB way of making america "LOOK IN THE MIRROR".
a great way of expanding on the cartoon:
TOTO (or POGO?) tells his friend: "I have met the enemy and he is US".
or better "HE's AMERICAN".
not russian, not chinese, not afghan, not iranian, not iraqi, not venezuelan, not brazilian, not french, not british, not german, not turkmenistani, ....nooooooooo--they're not the ones that ENSLAVED americans....
the ones that ENSLAVED americans have been
AMERICANS ALL ALONG!
If the Russians invaded and occupied America we would all get our guns and defend the country we love, but instead of being called freedom fighters we would be called terrorists by the Russians or maybe insurgents!
Fantastic article! The power elite has managed to infect the general populous with a mental aids virus. most are completely unaware that they are infected, while rotting away from within. In all fairness, some of the public have voluntarily infected themselves.
How about we take to the streets as in Seattle or Miami or Pittsburgh. Show them we will no longer be victims. And good luck with that. We have been running the world since the end of WW2 accumulating all the necessary expertise to do that and with the recent accumulations of the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and the like, it is now rather easy, isn’t it, to apply our external expertise internally. We might resist but coherence is problematical inasmuch as we largely don’t cohere and if we attempted we couldn’t hide it from those who would now thwart it to the degree necessary. Ninja troops advancing in formation on American streets, thumping their truncheons against their shields in unison is the future unfolding.
Oh sure DMG, it's the fault of our local boogeymen again.
Why are you people always ragging our fatass MIC capitalist?
He bathes fairly frequently, wears nice suits, drives a nice car and hardly ever sodomizes lower life forms or does adultery in broad daylight with an audience. And unlike many of you, he goes to church every Sunday.
Sure he has bases all over the world and is always robbing and pilling people by accident all over the place, and screws the local population whenever he can, but he keeps Wall St humming, and as we all know from our tvs, that's all that really counts.
How can we ever expect to spread democracy throughout the world if not with a little local sacrifice and his humanitarian bombs and missiles? Even third graders know there's no other way.
Sure he gives and takes bribes and shit and that's not good. So write to your congress critter and ask it to plead with him nicely to stop doing that. That's all it takes. That will surely reform him.
Lighten up a little, DMG - he's only trying to make a buck to feed his family and buy a few harmless toys, just like you.
George Babbitt lives!
· Yr Obd't Servant
... and wishes you will remind all your friends that the correct term is 'realtor' and not 'real estate salesman'.
We urgently need a new political party that embodies the ideals of "a government of the people, by the people and for the people." It certainly isn't going to happen with the Democrats and Republicans we have today, both of whom feed from the same troughs of corruption. They are different in name only, but are beholden to the same masters of greed.
For our part, we need to get off our complacent butts, become informed and become active participants in our fragile democracy.
This is one of Green's best in a long time. Not as much clever sarcasm as usual, just heavy layers of exactly how low we've fallen, thanks to American gullibility, the easy triumph of Reaganite propaganda carried forward to the present, and the popular need to see Obama as some kind of liberal savior when he's in fact the opposite.
Yes, we'd kill the Russians if they had done to us what our own elites have done, and we'd kill them if they'd lied to us systematically and relentlessly the way our media has for 40 years. Instead we're mesmerized by this same lying media and most of us have a grudging affection for the thieving, criminal class that comprises our economic elites. Or, enough of us do so that we're unable to create a large enough movement to squash the bastards.
There are untold thousands who ought to be in the same prison as Bernie Madoff, but instead they've made off like the bandits they are with billions in stolen loot, while dumbed down Americans are busy with moron TV, lottery tickets and liberal- hating. The brilliant Obama may begin to figure some of this out after his one term comes to a farcical halt and the Palinites take over in 2012.
A tug of my forelock to Mr. Green whom I disagree with as often as not. He hit the bull's eye here.
"America has always been a country with its full and fair share of flaws, but for quite some time during the middle part of the twentieth century, we got one thing reasonably right. There was a bargain then, between elites and the government and the public. According to the terms of the deal, the aristocracy would still be fantastically rich, but there would be limitations on their wealth, because some of that wealth, some substantial amount, needed to be shared with the working people and the middle class, and it was the role of government to make sure that that happened. Many among the well-to-do even shared that consensus."
This is the America that worked and needs to be restored.
" in the last thirty years we've entirely restructured the economy so that the super-wealthy have become obscenely-super-wealthy, and the middle class are lucky to have stood still, and haven't really even managed that. If one examines the destination of the considerable GDP growth that America has sustained over the last three decades, it's gone entirely to the richest of Americans. The middle class has actually lost ground. That's an astonishing fact, but think about it: Despite robust economic growth, workers today actually make less than they did back in the 1970s."
People are waking up to the fact. Obama's election proved that, remember what he promised, not what he has done.
"he is being made out to be some sort of outrageously decadent liberal, and because Americans are too dim to figure out the ruse, this president -- who is failing to address the concerns of ordinary Americans, most especially because he's not working for them in the least -- is bound to fail, and is looking increasingly like the proud owner of a one-term presidency."
Here Greens usual academic elite attitudes show through. Americans are not to dim to see anything. Its a typical failing of an isolated class. They see Obama is not working for them, quite clearly for many it seems, check the poll's. He has already failed and is a one term President.
Obama is trying to establish a Statist Capitalism and that makes him look like a Socialist to most people. He is simply a wannabe European Statist apparently.
American's are far smarter and far better than Mr. Green's opinion. And they are far, far better than their leaders.
I too , Henry8 would really like to believe americans are BETTER than that.
however the REALITY is that - as Green puts it - THIS IS THE SITUATION and has been all along.
it is NOT the russians, not the chinese, not anyone else outside, since the USA became a nation -- that has done ALL these things that Americans BELIEVE "others will come to get us" -
it IS AMERICANS. regardless of how and why and who of the question.
THIS IS AN AMERICAN MADE - SELF-INFLICTION.
this is in fact the BED AMERICANS MADE FOR THEMSELVES and they are lying in it.
this is THE america AMERICANS made.
PATRICK BUCHANAN - the conservative whom i detest in many of his "nativist" nonsense (that is: WHITE, ANGLO-SAXON)
says a few things correctly:
"WE AMERICANS HAVE MANY FINE QUALITIES.....seeing ourselves as OTHERS see us ....is NOT one of them".
Americans didn't make this criminal syndicate. The syndicate did what all similar enterprises do. It promised protection and payoffs to those who cooperated. It threatened, it cajoled. It paid off politicians. It drugged the populace through sophisticated mental manipulation (especially through the almost perfect medium of manipulation - television). It also studied archetypes and the fundamental psychological and biological orientation and expectations of humans and put them to use for its benefit.
U.S. citizens can be excruciatingly dense and benighted (and systematically shell-shocked), but they are not the villains in this melodrama. To consider them so is to dim and disperse what should be a bright light shining on the true villains which comprise a distinct class always and compulsively working toward its own consolidation and enrichment.
yes, thanks...I was going to go down this road, too...with all the evidence available, it is difficult to understand how anyone could be confused about the fact that the society in which we find ourselves was very intentionally created by specific individuals with vicious agendas, using a number of distasteful methods, up to and including killing on various scales, from individual murders to wars...
the average joe, concerned primarily with personal affairs, never had a physical, mental or emotional chance against the systemic assaults launched by the wealthy and cruel...never even knew, in most cases, as the manipulations were, and are, often highest-level and covert...
also, most people don't tend to casually consider, as they go about their daily lives, that those they have trusted may be actively working against them...that would make one paranoid...wouldn't it?
I agree with you we are responsible because we allowed it to happern, just as Green says....I'd liken it to the old frog in the cold pot of water analogy. Thats how they got us. And of course by buying Congress...most of it anyway.
Americans are better as a whole than portrayed.....see it all the time, but Pat is most definately right. "WE AMERICANS HAVE MANY FINE QUALITIES.....seeing ourselves as OTHERS see us ....is NOT one of them". But I sincerely believe we are seeing things more clearly now. We'll see though.
Green writes:
"We have essentially been invaded by those who wish us ill..."
Or as GWB phrased it:
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Sorry, i couldn't resist...
Whyever would this get flagged?
Sioux Rose
Like a virtual "Murder She Wrote" episode, there must be a Bush fan in the house! Quick, duck and cover!
You should be flagged for referencing Murder She Wrote :p
I support this comment and cannot find any rationale for flagging it. Perhaps we could have 'recommend' and 'hide' buttons, like the KOS site, that way more people could weigh in. I would only flag a comment for existing beyond the boundaries of civilized discourse. Disagreement with a comment isn't a justifiable reason to flag it.
i wonder if there is any way to get the report on the "reason" given by the person who flagged it.
But all "flagged" means is that one reader clicked on "report this comment", it does not mean that the CD editors have decided anything.
it was probably george wanker bush who did it............(whatever happened to him?)
btw, how do you know when you've been flagged?
'reason'? forget it.................(there's no reasoning in this world any more)
keep 'em coming webwalk...............
hahaha! The W really did stand for wanker.
Webwalk typed a verbatim quote that is on the record, and he properly cited the source. The Ministry of Truth apparently objects.
Whats going on here? Webwalks comment is flagged? For what? I agreed with him and mine isn't.
Webwalk has done nothing to get flagged for here and is a valuable contributor here on CD, please ignore this uncalled for flagging.
Don't delete webwalks comment! It's the truth!
It's funny how when anybody criticizes their nemesis; their words usually describe themselves!
Why on earth would your comment get flagged?
And I wish I had posted what you wrote...
You shouldn't have resisted!
good idea david - let's do the world a favor and kill ourselves
after all the damage we've done it would be nice to go out on an up note
None of this could have happened in an educated, thinking country. That 1% elite has systematically destroyed American education and reinforced it with total control over the greatest propaganda tool ever devised by mankind. That is the television set you have in several rooms in your houses. Getting rid of television in America is step one. Getting rid of the rich elites is step two. There was a time, a few years ago, when the approach could have been softer, but not any more. And the vast majority of Americans are too afraid of their own shadows, too afraid of not having two pounds of steak apiece for dinner, to do anything about it. Franklin said it two hundred odd years ago: those who are willing to give up freedom for security shall have neither. We've given it up, convinced by the delightful little devil's tube in the living room.
MichaelC