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Panic of the Plutocrats
It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America’s direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.
And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called “economic royalists,” not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.
Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.
Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced “mobs” and “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging “class warfare,” while Herman Cain calls them “anti-American.” My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don’t deserve to have them.
Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor and a financial-industry titan in his own right, was a bit more moderate, but still accused the protesters of trying to “take the jobs away from people working in this city,” a statement that bears no resemblance to the movement’s actual goals.
And if you were listening to talking heads on CNBC, you learned that the protesters “let their freak flags fly,” and are “aligned with Lenin.”
The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.
Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
And then there’s the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Not long ago a YouTube video of Ms. Warren making an eloquent, down-to-earth case for taxes on the rich went viral. Nothing about what she said was radical — it was no more than a modern riff on Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous dictum that “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”
But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you’d think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a “collectivist agenda,” that she believes that “individualism is a chimera.” And Rush Limbaugh called her “a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it.”
What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.
Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.
This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.
So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.
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111 Comments so far
Show All'Money' is the tangible illusion of labor.
By itself, 'Money' has no worth, no value. Gold and other so-called 'precious metals' are valued for the labor it takes to locate and refine these scarce elements. Again, an illusion. Gold, other than a limited number of industrial properties has no other 'worth' than perceived aesthetics. By itself, gold is not particularly attractive. But when worked into jewelry or other art, -via labor-, THEN it becomes valuable.
WIthout the illusion of 'wealth' money creates, we would have little or no way to share or transmit labor.
MONEY IS AN ILLUSION!
WHY HAS SOCIETY BECOME SLAVE TO THIS?
Exactly! Starve the Beast!
Hey Paul, not bad, but where or what school did these oligarchs attend and graduate from , because apparently business classes stressed short term profits over long term infrastructure planing and jobs for Americans.
Rich corporations montras are , stop your wining, your lucky we pay minimum wage or better.
The GOP should start building a museum for their tired old artifacts of social culture. And, they should tell Mitt Romney to stop sucking his thumb in public.
What Krugman points out and what is so interesting and truly revealing here is the overreaction from the right wing mouth pieces to Elizabeth Warren and her recent statements on taxation.
Her statement was actually a statement of long established conservative principles, of the right to achieve wealth in an ecomony coming with the proportional responsibility to support what made that possible. There can be no effective markets or a functional economy without government legal, infrastructure, and fiscal support. If a "free market" without government is what you want, go to Nigeria.
Warren's position seems so terribly reasonable and truly conservative that the hysterical reactions from all the right wing hacks from Will to Limbaugh in response unmasks who these people really are. They are not "conservatives," but faithful toadies and bootlickers to the plutocracy.
Support the occupy movements and participate if you can.
Elizabeth Warren could be an old style conservative, but definitely not a modern one:
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Mr. Can't-er and just what does the t-party represent ? Change GOP to GOH
"Grand Old Hypocrites"
Excellent article.
The oligarchy will try to give appeasing crumbs to the 99% while tightening their economic nooses. Kochs or no Kochs, being a part of the 99%, the Tea Party is likely to join the protests... and bring their guns. Things should get interesting
G-d save our beleaguered, plutocratic "job creators" (a/k/a “economic royalists”). After all, they're people too! Just like the bloodsucking corporations.
P.S. On Fox "News" during the afternoon of Oct. 8, 2011, "contributor" Liz Trotta mocked the participants in “Occupy Wall Street” for being “people who like good weather”, and who spout “the ravings of what sounds like the Unabomber.”
"What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is."
Hmmm...no. Don't bet on that. They are all socio/psychopaths and, as such, experiencing guilt is completely out of their realm. This is more of a symptom of their disease and reflects their utter sense of self-righteousness and self-entitlement. Guilt and wrongdoing are beyond the scope of their twisted psyche.
Hi All:
I would hope that All of the people who post here have moved their money out of the large banks. I hope that Paul K. has also removed his money from the large banks.
Credit Union banking is best, yet local banks that service their own mortgages can be considered.
Credit Unions = one member/one vote
Big Banks = one share / one vote
There is a difference.
Wolfie
Journalistic objectivity, as defined/practiced by the NYTimes editors/pundits/staff means whoever manages to rise to power/influence gets heard. It doesn't matter if they are right/wrong. Liberalism has no place for absolute truth. So if Hitler were in the Whitey House, Hitler would have a soapbox at the NYTiimes. Of course, the soapbox would be shared by his opponents, but the difficulty is in the legitimacy that liberalism lends to each contestant in the game of influence, as long as the contestant is competitive.
Instead of giving the oppressors and the oppressed both the soapbox, the NYTimes should deny it to the oppressor. The more basic philosophical idea is that oppression is unnatural, that even the predators of the natural world are illegitimate and deserve to be crushed. I've recently arrived at this conclusion, that yes, as interesting as natural predators are, the world would be much better off without them. You may call the idea "moralizing the food chain", of course the result being greatest coherence of philosophy, peace, and peace of mind. Prey species populations will self-regulate by the availability of resources. Imagine such a coherent philosophy, in which it becomes easy to discredit all aggression: human predators/oppressors, hostile guarddogs, and wild predators. A coherent philosophy is strongest. And be assured that the elites will criticize the idea because it clearly targets them.
You have to have a philosophical foundation for your agenda to stand. The case of the NYTimes is simply an application of one's philosophy, a parameter in one's agenda formulation. It's a shared philosophy/agenda, of course.
A latter day Hitler was in the White House, in the sheep's clothing of GWB. It's a minor miracle that the American people elected Obama to take his place. Of course, the rebuilding of the American society will not happen over night but the people must lead in a democracy and the downtrodden American people have forgotten how to do this, except for those in organized labour, the community organizers and the many young, intelligent activists who currently are making us all stand up and take note. My flower child heart goes out to everyone camping out in parks all over the US and Canada, and the world.
You say that even the predators of the natural world are illegitimate and deserve to be crushed, but predation is a natural part of life, and probably a necessary part of any life process that evolves from primitive forms to more complex forms. In any event, eliminating all predators from nature would itself be the greatest act of predation in the history of life on Earth.
But we as humans can strive to pull ourselves out of the muck and darkness of our evolutionary past into the light of mutual understanding and cooperation. We have a very long way to go, however, and the spirit of our brutish ancestors still lurks within every cell of our bodies and brains, always threatening to drag us back under, back into the darkness.
Papers explaining Slick Willie Clinton and the deregulation of the Banking System and Nafta, the deal that outsourced our industrial base to China, should be
printed and passed along to all the Occupiers in the USA.
Time to expose the Clinton Circus.
What world does this author live in? The wealthy aren't, for the most part, even aware of the protests and are fully aware that NOTHING is going to happen to them at all. Talking and walking is fine, but as yet there isn't even a demand for any action! What idiot thinks this process will result in real change? Until there are specific demands, there can't be remedies given, can there? What kind of idiot thinks this is going anywhere at all?
Something tells me that your other job is the guy that Hedges writes about in today's article... you know, the guy who keeps asking the protesters who the leader is? As for the job you are trying to do here - discredit and undermine the OWS movement - it only gives us a wonderful example of a person who loves to pucker up and french kiss the assholes of those in power. One day the taste of their assholes - a taste that has become so normal to you - will start to lose it's appeal... and that will be the day that your conscience decides to poke through that cold, dead heart of yours. Until then... Enjoy those brown lips and tongue of yours.
Glenn beck says he and the rich will be drug into the street and killed by the occupy protesters, if you throw in Limbaugh, I'll put in the first fifty bucks towards cleaning the air waves.
LOL :-D
Anyone who undenstands life as a process.
Yes, Paul, there is "Panic of the Plutocrats" today --- because their previously well disguised, camouflaged, hidden, and Two-Party "Vichy" Empire is now becoming visible for the violent and viscous global Empire that it is, and the Empire is being recognized,exposed and confronted as the cancerous tumor that is the proximate cause of all the issues that Occupy is exposing and protesting against, like; massive economic inequality and oppression of we 99%, global environmental destruction, numerous and growing imperialist wars abroad, a spying lying police-state at home, arrogant authoritarianism instead of democracy, etc. etc.
As Hannah Arendt famously warned from her painful experience with the last wannabe global empire, the Nazi Empire,
"Empire abroad entails tyranny at home".
Now a growing percentage of Americans realize what the tortured masses in the Empire's oil territories have long known:
"Globalization" is just a PR cover-term for violent 'global Empire' --- so the elite "Plutocrats" of this deadly global Empire are indeed "in Panic" today, Paul.
Alan MacDonald
Liberty & democracy
over
violent/Vichy
empire
As Krugman makes clear, the right wing's verbal attacks on the protesters are so lame they're laughable. If the GOP and its backers in the corporate state media were all there was to worry about we'd be home free, or at least well on the road to defeating the fascists.
But it's not all there is to worry about. The greatest danger to this nascent movement is not the Republicans but the Democrats. They'll trot out their "We're the party of the people. We feel your pain! We stick up for the little guy!" rhetoric in an attempt to co-opt and divert the movement for their own political gain, eviscerating it in the process. Taming the beast/people has been the role the Democratic Party for many decades, and they will not miss this opportunity. They'll have to do some fancy footwork at first, since they've embraced fascism more overtly than they did in past times, but that's hardly going to stop them. It's just a grander version of the little dance they do every day.
Playing an equally important role in the Democrats' insidious and cynical game will be its supporters in the phony-Left media. People like Paul Krugman, and, for instance, most of the people who write for The Nation, will openly speak the truth, accurately, justly, and fiercely criticizing the Republicans ...while quietly failing to note that the Democrats are as much a part of the problem as the Republicans. It's quite a brilliant tactic, because it doesn't rely on overt falsehood, only hypocrisy. It's a strategy that has and surely will continue to fool a good many well-intentioned people. And when the Democrats are given control through the ballot box, they'll quickly revert to full fascist mode, even as they continue to mouth their populist rhetoric - more loudly than ever.
We need to remove the ability of money to buy political power. If we don't, no matter how powerful the movement becomes, it'll ultimately be for naught.
This is one of the best articles that I have ever read by Paul Krugman. Yes, Mr. Krugman, the system is fixed and the sheeple are waking up to that fact and the Plutocrats will soon be in a panic and hysterical mode. And the way we will know is when they cause the #OWS protests to turn violent, because violence is the M. O. of the Plutocrats when they are cornered and up against the Wall ( pun intended )!
Agents provocateur will get the ball rolling. In retaliation, the SWAT teams will roll in, beating defenseless elderly people and kids and blasting the crowds with their hyper noise and pain-ray machines.
Considering the corruption in D.C, the choice is the lesser of two evils in November 2012, there being no other political parties of note.
So, is everybody here getting ready to vote Democrat next year?
The awakening of Amerika's workers scares the living shit of the one-percent parasites, who have been looting the nation and the world for the past 30 years.
Tom, you hit the pins right on their heads.
Best,
Alan
Liberal Dems are like battered spouses. They get punched in the face, kicked, slapped around....And they say, "I know he really loves me. He doesn't really want to hurt me. I can make him change."
Listen to Thom Hartmann. He knows the depth of the corruption of the Democratic Party, he is perfectly aware of their war-mongering credentials and their corporate whoring, and STILL he refuses to get a divorce. Perhaps he believes that he's not lovable enough to find a new political home.
Sad, really.
I still say that the reason that the filthy rich are being so obvious about their hoarding of the money and power that they have pilfered from the rest of us.....is that they KNOW THAT PEAK OIL IS REAL AND IS HERE AND THAT CLIMATE CHANGE WILL ALSO BRING SOCIETY DOWN.....they are positioning them selves with as much power and money as possible.....so they can make their own little kingdoms when the sh*t really hits the fan....
Nicely put, Paul! Too bad Rush Limbaugh didn't realize that when he described Elizabeth Warren as a parasite sucking the life out of its host, he was actually describing himself. Ever seen a fully engorged tick on a dog -- it looks just like Rush! You have to admit, it's kinda fun watching the plutocrats squirm!
You nailed it, Paul Krugman.
Now what do we do when they finally come out of their little holes?
I say we do the American thing.
Since they're criminals, let's put them in jail.
Any CO who's worked the Main Line knows that execution is the easy way out.
Although we'd love to see them roast, we may have to settle for (short) prison time. But a lot can happen in a few weeks in lock-up when you're fat and smooth and stuffed with money like a Christmas turkey.
And hated.
And you guys ARE hated. Not because you're rich, but because of how you GOT rich.
We all know this is going to end badly for you.
You know it too. Say hello to Bernie Madoff for us.
Who's being UnAmerican? That's simple...the protestors. Not because they are protesting, but because of what they are demanding. They aren't demonstrating against power...they merely want to aim it where they want it aimed, and that is against other people.
"They aren't demonstrating against power...they merely want to aim it where they want it aimed, and that is against other people."
You're too funny PeterP and don't even know it. The above words you wrote exactly describe today's conditions where a particular group of Americans and their international allies aim their power at other people in order to exploit and worse, which you seem to think IS American because "the protesters" want to change that equation. Furthermore, since by definition Plutocrats gain their power immorally, then you are also saying it's unAmerican to be moral and All American to be immoral. I think that's a great contribution to our discourse since we now know who to support if we want a moral, civilized future instead of an immoral, barbaric future if we allow the status quo to continue.
PeterP:
You are one ignorant S.O.B. for the above statement...
I remember when war profiteering was considered a heinous crime--now it's part of the doing business in America. When we the people are made to bail out failed venture capitalists, we are no longer talking about capitalism, but fascism. In a capitalist society, those banks would have been allowed to fail. The 99% are not against capitalism--or the rich having iPads--but against taking the people's money for the business of exploiting labor, stealing resources and killing the darker-skinned.
Extremely well said, Mr. Krugman. Very reasonable and moderate.
Not only must those with ill-gotten gains realize, deep-down, the moral reprehensibility of their actions; they must also realize the poverty of their humanity.
Wall Street is a plague on the commons. It needs to be dismantled. Period. It is a drain on the rest of the country. Break up the fed. Institute state bank on the pattern of the Bank of North Dakota. Move your money to credit unions or small local banks.
Do not beat up veterans protesting. Such as viewed in Boston recently. You are playing with fire here.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
This is one of Krugman's better articles this year.
I've been busy on the media group of an Occupy encampment in the Deep South that neither Counterpunch.org nor Free Speech Radio, nor Democracy Now, nor Commondreams.org will cover because they are overwhelmingly fixated on the Occupy movements in northern and western parts of the country.
I submitted an article of my first person account of the start of this occupation of a park in a southern city of six million to Commondreams and then, after no response overnight, submitted it directly to two of CD's editors and never received a reply--only fundraising emails. Thanks for getting our backs, CD.
Almost all the local corporate press has been continually and heavily spun or insulting.
The movement here is mostly young people who come and camp in the park full or part-time and work in the various work groups when they can. Then there are regional supporters who come in for bigger events. It's still pretty chaotic, but the spirit, commitment and eloquence of the full and part-time participants is very moving and uplifting. This is democracy at its most raw, down-to-earth and experimental. It is also a test of whether or not the present failed democratic experiment can and will tolerate a new democratic experiment led by young people within its calcified ruins.
We have a solid list of demand goals and I am working on compiling specific policy ideas to address several general demands. We have expressed solidarity with local labor unions who are coming to more and more of our events. We are considering what type of event we can work directly together with them on to show broader unity in the city and we are having a march against a "too big bank" headquarters tomorrow.
More later. Got to hit the sack - been up since early Monday.
We have some very gifted thinkers and speakers,
Your work has a fan here, metal. Keep telling us what is going on in the South.
Will do the best I can. We are still trying to get organized and build effective internal lines of communication and trust in a situation where we never know who all is available to work on which work group when, and which has government infiltrators in among us who are well-dressed to infiltrate, and in-person eavesdroppers who walk around listening in to various conversations in the park (that second group being more easy to spot).
There are also several egoistic right-wing libertarian groups who show up at our press related events to try to use our movement to get their "End the Fed because that will restore the 'free market' which will solve all our problems" BS out via local corporate media. On the night of the very first general assembly in the park about 25 of them marched in a circle around the assembly carrying their little Ron Paul posters trying to milk TV coverage. Other than them and a few scattered loner flakes, our protest event unity has been good.
We have many homeless older men living in the park next to the tent area and some with obvious psychological problems. We let them come and speak in the assembly if they want to tell us their stories and ask for help (and we try to aid them as best we can). They are often capriciously brutalized by the police, court & jail system and struggle to find timely medical or dental treatment. I live with the additional motivating factor of my daily concern that I will be among their numbers some day.
Contrary to right-wing and corporate media mis-characterizations of them, they have been very polite and good natured toward us and we endeavor to be the same. They generally approve of our movement because we've explained to them that we are anti-poverty and believe in a society where we don't exclude people and in which we all help take care of each other
Sanitation facilities are very limited right around the park itself, as is drinking water. Many of these homeless Americans move in a daily circle between the homeless missions and the park. Right now there is a concerted local business/political move to close one of the larger homeless shelters nearby in the downtown area because the real estate is so "juicy." We are trying to figure out, among many other issue events we want to organize, what and how to put together a special event for them that will draw maximum attention and compassion to their predicament.
In terms of internal unity, I don't like the fact that these kids are so instantly trustful of and dependent on facebook & twitter, which are both heavily monitored by the Police State--when we really should be RELYING on personal face to face verbal communication among all the hard workers in this movement to better focus on the process.
We need more good people of all kinds to come and work with us, and older folks with institutional knowledge of strong, well-knit movements are very much needed now so long as they don't try to absolutely take-over the movement from the younger generation who began it. We need them to be informationally supportive but not commandeering.
As a Boomer I want this to be primarily a young people's movement because the core of it was from Occupy Wall Street in NY. I think it's very important that their generation own it in order to help build their confidence in themselves and each other. So I'm trying not to be a control freak like so many of my fellow Boomers who had too much handed to them during America's best economic and government program years, and have too strong a sense of entitlement to influence any multi-generational circle in which they take part.
We are lucky that we don't have any really bossy Boomers right now and I love it because it's almost like watching ancient Athenians or the founding fathers (and mothers in this case) when they were younger (and not older in the portraits that we typically see of them) work their best to figure out a new democratic experiment, only this time with horizontal organization and decision making from the literal grass roots ground up.
I have so much love and respect for these young people it's difficult to express. I think it is disgusting to almost hateful how most of the older generations, including their parents' generation, ignore or scorn this historic URGENTLY important movement.
To all you fence sitters out there who have much to contribute to this movement in knowledge, work, food, drinking water, money, child care, computer equipment (FAX/printers & toner are URGENTLY needed in all the Occupy movements)--you name it: QUIT PLAYING WAIT-AND-SEE AND GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND COME HELP OUT.
You will meet some of the most marvelous people you will ever meet in your life, make new friends, feel a very special sense of camaraderie and you might, just might, help transform this country in the very nick of time.
Keep up the good work. Don't worry about CD's editors ignoring you - they seem to ignore everyone who writes to them.
Thanks. If CD didn't like some aspects of my opinion article or wanted to reduce it to strict reporting I would've worked with them and it could've been handled quickly because it was a relatively short article. But the southern Occupy Together encampment movements urgently need positive press from the more nationally known independent/progressive news organizations.
I wish I was young again and had the energy level of the kids I'm working with. Especially the real natural leaders among them sleeping in crappy pneumonia weather in the tents. I bike/rail to and from the encampment and am running out of bus/rail money, which I have to scrape together doing hard to find odd jobs or selling bicycle parts off old bikes I used to own. Occasionally my church will help me with some bus/rail money but the pastor is in Europe until the end of the month, so I have to be very selective about which events I come in to work on and I have to use the time to the fullest while I'm there.
The powers-that-be feel safer because they know so many of us are STRUGGLING financially to participate in such movements. But this is the largest populist progressive movement in the U.S. since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
When we were on vigil last night expecting the cops to come in at any time and kick us out of the park, several of our members were getting texts from friends in Occupy Boston describing how the cops beat up the veterans for peace to get through them to attack the protesters in the tents. What a sick behavior was expressed in that by the mayor, rank & file-probably unionized--pigs who participated in it (whose benefits those protesters were trying to protect) and the corporate powers that be there.
Unemployment among returning military vets from the Bush/'Bama wars is much higher than civilian unemployment figures. I wonder how many of them view Boston's "finest" beating up military veterans trying to protect kids who are trying to figure out how to make their country better and create better economic conditions for unemployed vets and everyone else in the working-class.
That strikes me as so ironic and unpatriotic for the Boston Establishment to behave in such an Un-American, anti Democratic fashion..After all, the Boston Massacre was the very first battle with the British, and incidently, the very first casualty of the American Revolutionary War, at The Boston Massacre was A black youth participant named Crispus addux...{sp.?}
I think his name was spelled Crispus Attucks.
I did some research on that fat cat Democrat Boston mayor, Thomas Menino, and frankly, what I came away with is that he's a dinosaur with hardening arteries living in the middle 20th century and unaware of the 21st. Violence-wielding Democrat mayor and openly anti-union Democrat mayors and governors like Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and Governor Cuomo are driving nails the coffin of the failed federal level neo-liberal Democratic Party. The sooner it's dead and gone the better.
Their ilk will only drive the country into the arms of even worse Republicans whose perfect combination of stupidity and cruelty will only provoke more massive and widespread resistance than what is already building.
I don't get it? I think it would be terrific to supply goods or services that people around the world find so desirable that they voluntarily trade their hard earned money for.
That the people value a good or service more than the money it costs to produce and get to them should be celebrated.
So far I have not been able to accomplish that, but it is an admirable goal.
It is the coerced supply of goods or services that come from either government or crony capitalism that is disgusting.
Voluntary cooperation positive/good coerced cooperation negative/bad.
Good article Paul Krugman. Hope you keep your job at The Jewelry Shopper.
How about we impeach Justice Thomas and overturn Citizens United?
And include his wife with tampering with the court through the Koch Brothers Heritage Foundation...What A pair of treasonous scumbags...
Well stated and totally revealing of their ugly true identity...This cuts to the bone as to what the uber rich nature and true lack of character is all about..Exposed-No secrets here!!!
Trouble is, that they are so immersed in greed that they can't recognize the despicable "things" that they have become, and, after all, that is all that they really are, is "Things"...
It is about time MSM recognized the virtues of the 99%'rs. Maybe there is still hope for the Times, with Mr. Krugman aboard...
For #OccupyWallStreet (and everywhere):
And thank you.
Gandhi and Edison on Nonviolence:
My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing Him.
Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.
Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.
Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.
M.K. Gandhi
**
Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
Thomas Edison