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Immunity and Impunity in Elite America: How the Legal System Was Deep-Sixed and Occupy Wall Street Swept the Land
As intense protests spawned by Occupy Wall Street continue to grow, it is worth asking: Why now? The answer is not obvious. After all, severe income and wealth inequality have long plagued the United States. In fact, it could reasonably be claimed that this form of inequality is part of the design of the American founding -- indeed, an integral part of it.
Income inequality has worsened over the past several years and is at its highest level since the Great Depression. This is not, however, a new trend. Income inequality has been growing at rapid rates for three decades. As journalist Tim Noah described the process:
“During the late 1980s and the late 1990s, the United States experienced two unprecedentedly long periods of sustained economic growth -- the ‘seven fat years’ and the ‘long boom.’ Yet from 1980 to 2005, more than 80% of total increase in Americans' income went to the top 1%. Economic growth was more sluggish in the aughts, but the decade saw productivity increase by about 20%. Yet virtually none of the increase translated into wage growth at middle and lower incomes, an outcome that left many economists scratching their heads.”
The 2008 financial crisis exacerbated the trend, but not radically: the top 1% of earners in America have been feeding ever more greedily at the trough for decades.
In addition, substantial wealth inequality is so embedded in American political culture that, standing alone, it would not be sufficient to trigger citizen rage of the type we are finally witnessing. The American Founders were clear that they viewed inequality in wealth, power, and prestige as not merely inevitable, but desirable and, for some, even divinely ordained. Jefferson praised “the natural aristocracy” as “the most precious gift of nature” for the “government of society.” John Adams concurred: “It already appears, that there must be in every society of men superiors and inferiors, because God has laid in the… course of nature the foundation of the distinction.”
Not only have the overwhelming majority of Americans long acquiesced to vast income and wealth disparities, but some of those most oppressed by these outcomes have cheered it loudly. Americans have been inculcated not only to accept, but to revere those who are the greatest beneficiaries of this inequality.
In the 1980s, this paradox -- whereby even those most trampled upon come to cheer those responsible for their state -- became more firmly entrenched. That’s because it found a folksy, friendly face, Ronald Reagan, adept at feeding the populace a slew of Orwellian clichés that induced them to defend the interests of the wealthiest. “A rising tide,” as President Reagan put it, “lifts all boats.” The sum of his wisdom being: it is in your interest when the rich get richer.
Implicit in this framework was the claim that inequality was justified and legitimate. The core propagandistic premise was that the rich were rich because they deserved to be. They innovated in industry, invented technologies, discovered cures, created jobs, took risks, and boldly found ways to improve our lives. In other words, they deserved to be enriched. Indeed, it was in our common interest to allow them to fly as high as possible because that would increase their motivation to produce more, bestowing on us ever greater life-improving gifts.
We should not, so the thinking went, begrudge the multimillionaire living behind his 15-foot walls for his success; we should admire him. Corporate bosses deserved not our resentment but our gratitude. It was in our own interest not to demand more in taxes from the wealthiest but less, as their enhanced wealth -- their pocket change -- would trickle down in various ways to all of us.
This is the mentality that enabled massive growth in income and wealth inequality over the past several decades without much at all in the way of citizen protest. And yet something has indeed changed. It’s not that Americans suddenly woke up one day and decided that substantial income and wealth inequality are themselves unfair or intolerable. What changed was the perception of how that wealth was gotten and so of the ensuing inequality as legitimate.
Many Americans who once accepted or even cheered such inequality now see the gains of the richest as ill-gotten, as undeserved, as cheating. Most of all, the legal system that once served as the legitimizing anchor for outcome inequality, the rule of law -- that most basic of American ideals, that a common set of rules are equally applied to all -- has now become irrevocably corrupted and is seen as such.
While the Founders accepted outcome inequality, they emphasized -- over and over -- that its legitimacy hinged on subjecting everyone to the law’s mandates on an equal basis. Jefferson wrote that the essence of America would be that “the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar.” Benjamin Franklin warned that creating a privileged legal class would produce “total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections” between rulers and those they ruled. Tom Paine repeatedly railed against “counterfeit nobles,” those whose superior status was grounded not in merit but in unearned legal privilege.
After all, one of their principal grievances against the British King was his power to exempt his cronies from legal obligations. Almost every Founder repeatedly warned that a failure to apply the law equally to the politically powerful and the rich would ensure a warped and unjust society. In many ways, that was their definition of tyranny.
Americans understand this implicitly. If you watch a competition among sprinters, you can accept that whoever crosses the finish line first is the superior runner. But only if all the competitors are bound by the same rules: everyone begins at the same starting line, is penalized for invading the lane of another runner, is barred from making physical contact or using performance-enhancing substances, and so on.
If some of the runners start ahead of others and have relationships with the judges that enable them to receive dispensation for violating the rules as they wish, then viewers understand that the outcome can no longer be considered legitimate. Once the process is seen as not only unfair but utterly corrupted, once it’s obvious that a common set of rules no longer binds all the competitors, the winner will be resented, not heralded.
That catches the mood of America in 2011. It may not explain the Occupy Wall Street movement, but it helps explain why it has spread like wildfire and why so many Americans seem instantly to accept and support it. As was not true in recent decades, the American relationship with wealth inequality is in a state of rapid transformation.
It is now clearly understood that, rather than apply the law equally to all, Wall Street tycoons have engaged in egregious criminality -- acts which destroyed the economic security of millions of people around the world -- without experiencing the slightest legal repercussions. Giant financial institutions were caught red-handed engaging in massive, systematic fraud to foreclose on people’s homes and the reaction of the political class, led by the Obama administration, was to shield them from meaningful consequences. Rather than submit on an equal basis to the rules, through an oligarchical, democracy-subverting control of the political process, they now control the process of writing those rules and how they are applied.
Today, it is glaringly obvious to a wide range of Americans that the wealth of the top 1% is the byproduct not of risk-taking entrepreneurship, but of corrupted control of our legal and political systems. Thanks to this control, they can write laws that have no purpose than to abolish the few limits that still constrain them, as happened during the Wall Street deregulation orgy of the 1990s. They can retroactively immunize themselves for crimes they deliberately committed for profit, as happened when the 2008 Congress shielded the nation’s telecom giants for their role in Bush’s domestic warrantless eavesdropping program.
It is equally obvious that they are using that power not to lift the boats of ordinary Americans but to sink them. In short, Americans are now well aware of what the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Illinois’s Dick Durbin, blurted out in 2009 about the body in which he serves: the banks “frankly own the place.”
If you were to assess the state of the union in 2011, you might sum it up this way: rather than being subjected to the rule of law, the nation’s most powerful oligarchs control the law and are so exempt from it; and increasing numbers of Americans understand that and are outraged. At exactly the same time that the nation’s elites enjoy legal immunity even for egregious crimes, ordinary Americans are being subjected to the world's largest and one of its harshest penal states, under which they are unable to secure competent legal counsel and are harshly punished with lengthy prison terms for even trivial infractions.
In lieu of the rule of law -- the equal application of rules to everyone -- what we have now is a two-tiered justice system in which the powerful are immunized while the powerless are punished with increasing mercilessness. As a guarantor of outcomes, the law has, by now, been so completely perverted that it is an incomparably potent weapon for entrenching inequality further, controlling the powerless, and ensuring corrupted outcomes.
The tide that was supposed to lift all ships has, in fact, left startling numbers of Americans underwater. In the process, we lost any sense that a common set of rules applies to everyone, and so there is no longer a legitimizing anchor for the vast income and wealth inequalities that plague the nation.
That is what has changed, and a growing recognition of what it means is fueling rising citizen anger and protest. The inequality under which so many suffer is not only vast, but illegitimate, rooted as it is in lawlessness and corruption. Obscuring that fact has long been the linchpin for inducing Americans to accept vast and growing inequalities. That fact is now too glaring to obscure any longer.
105 Comments so far
Show AllOn The Occupy Movement
Currently 1% of the US population have as much wealth as the bottom half. An unfair distribution of wealth and a lack of true democracy have been hallmarks of the American republic since its founding. This is why we needed an abolitionist, woman's suffrage, union and civil rights movement, to name a few.
At various points in our history- including today, it has become apparent to most of the remaining 99% that the social, economic and military system that pervades all aspects of our lives is failing and can no longer address the needs of the majority. Essentially, we have today a global plutocracy, serving the needs of those wealthy enough to buy sufficient influence. In addition our global military industrial complex is inherently unsustainable- already in a state of collapse.
I believe the Occupy Movement is an effort to restore true democracy, giving everyone a voice-regardless of status or wealth
I believe it is the only international movement that is willing to face the truth of what I just wrote and work at all levels for solutions. It is a natural reaction to a failing, dangerous system out of touch with the reality it has helped create.
Global society is now at a fork in the road. If the Occupy movement is forcibly repressed by government, it will become further radicalized. If government at all levels gives it a meaningful voice, allowing for radical changes in power structures-it can help co-create a peaceful and sustainable world.
Can we achieve a just, sustainable and peaceful world? I believe the answer is yes- but not with the current systems of political and economic power.
Loved your description of the reality in Berkeley and at UC Berkeley. About time someone acknowledged the truth about it. It is not relegated to just those environs of course.
Also, somewhat unbelievably, John Yoo, of Torture Memo and Executive Privilege fame, remains a professor of law at UC Berkeley.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo]
[http://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/faculty/facultyProfile.php?facID=235]
Visiting Prof stirred Berkeley into this thread line, and Federalist Society guru John Yoo's prominent presence on the UC law school faculty certainly epitomizes the systematic immunity above the long arm reach of the criminal law for powerful elites that Glenn Greenwald editorializes about in his fine essay. As an midwest outsider, I was unaware of the 2009 dust up over attempted closure of the downtown Marine recruiting center. It is poignant reminder of just how far militarism has successfully reinserted itself into mainstream American political culture since the end of the Vietnam war.
It is no coincidence that UC Berkeley today hosts the poster boy for torture rebranded as harsh interrogation, a policy option rather than a crime. Campaigning as governor and later as president, Ronald Reagan made his partisan bones by villifying all that the Boalt Hall free speech movement and neighboring Haight Ashbury once symbolized. That campaign of systematic, incremental demonization of the 60's and early 70's antiwar youth civil rights culture has proved stunningly effective.
I hope Glenn Greenwald is right that the Occupy Wall Street movement has legs because many who self-defined themselves as the mainstream American middle class has finally wised up to how the ideal of equal protection under the law has gradually become a sad and hollow joke over the last thirty years.
Bill from Saginaw
Good comment Bill. Just one caveat. In the 60's, the Berkeley movement was considered "political" and disdianed as such by the Haight Ashbury hippie crowd, who felt that consciousness expanding drugs were much more important than politics. It was the politicosl versus "flower power." Flower Power generally saw politics as a drag.
Overgeneralization; some saw themselves as Political/flower people
There was a real divide between Berkeley and the Haight inthe 60's. To an extent that divide continues today between the advocates of "a revolution in consciousness" and those advocating a leftist political revolution.
For the most part, flower power won out and the Left has sufferred because of its victory.
That was a shortcoming of the "flower power" folks. By refusing to look after the interests of themselves and others, an opportunity was laid bare for loss of their interests by those willing to usurp them. ergo, what we now have. Refusal to engage always leads to this. dh
Big Brother: The pattern/strategy you've related is the same one used to get sovereign nations to come on-board regardless of the substance of US foreign policy. So long as our esteemed FED can just print $, and $ talks, the problem of paying off any would-be principled opponents is largely obliterated. How can the insiders not feel like Masters of the Universe when they own the means to printing the collateral that makes the fiscal world turn?
Not quite correct but close on Magna Carta. There were no armed merchants involved. There were the barons in rebellion on one side and the barons loyal to King John on the other.
The rebellious barons had surprised King John at Windsor before he could call for loyal forces to come to his aid. They forced him into negotiations where the King and his army camped on one side of the Thames and the rebellious barons on the other. The king and the barons met and King John knew that he had no way to defend against them given the disparity in force, but they did not threaten to hang him, they threatened to fight his army.
Historically, the Magna Carta was forced entirely by the nobility on the nobility and no middle or lower classes were involved.
Good catch. Quite true.
LJG100 said:
"I believe the Occupy Movement is an effort to restore true democracy, giving everyone a voice-regardless of status or wealth"
As Greenwald tells us, capitalism is based on economic inequality. We should therefore not expect democracy and legal equality to flourish under the present system in the US.
The best that we can expect in the US is the two party pseudo-democracy and legal favoritism that we have today, until the people rise to reverse the domination of capitalism.
To the degree that capitalism is moderated by socialism, democracy will be strengthened. When capitalism dies and socialism triumphs, true democracy and economic equality will be possible.
The recent demonstrations have articulated the undemocratic nature of capitalism, but they have not yet called for the obvious replacement for capitalism, that is, socialism.
I see a few potential weaknesses with OWS too:
First, the number of people whose interests are inextricably connected with the elite's is much more than just one percent. Furthermore, there are a lot of social positions and jobs that make no sense in a truely democratic system, and a lot of the culture and values of the controller class are connected with capitalism very very deeply. From law through engineering to education, even in medicine, there are lots and lots of traditions that are incompatible with an equitable social system.
Second, the special, privileged historical position of the United States (along with Europe of course) needs to be recognised. Western industrial development, and all its advantages, were mostly based on waste of resources, both under Western and foreign soil and international in nature, so I find the "bring back the manufacturing jobs from China" line a bit...errrr...distasteful, to say the least. Economic nationalism from the part of the US, the largest historic polluter and resource waster on Earth (partly because Europe fucked itself up good, definitely not much good will herer either) is not progressive. Simply put: if you accept capitalism's good stuff, you have to accept the bad stuff too.
Third, as you said, there's an apparent disconnect with history and historical class struggles. Young people can not invent everything for themselves. And it's much more difficult to get the insight of Marx now, as he situation is much more complex, without reading and understanding him.
To sum it up: a lack of consciousness of true class boundaries, of an international outlook, and of historical experience are potential weak points for the movement that can be (and will be, eventually) taken advantage of.
US manufacturing neither need be Capilist or Unecological in nature.
People are well aware of the intricacies of the 1%'s support cadres.
"I believe it is the only international movement that is willing to face the truth of what I just wrote and work at all levels for solutions. It is a natural reaction to a failing, dangerous system out of touch with the reality it has helped create."
You should be aware of what has been going on in Latin America for some years now. Countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and others have been pushing back against global capitalist forces and institutions like the IMF, which for decades had wreaked havoc in Latin America by lending to them, then imposing brutal austerity measures on them when they were unable to pay their debts (when their economies failed to thrive using the approved capitalist model). Socialism is being embraced in a number of these countries, notably Venezuela, which accordingly has been demonized in US media and subject to US interference - attempts to destabilize the Chavez government.
LJG 8:59 Excellent! Greenwald should note that some wealth has always flowed from corrupt activities.
I find Glenn Greenwald and Chris Hedges to be the two most insightful political commentators writing today.
He makes an important point about the staying power of OWS. The word is "legitimate."
Once the system is no longer legitimate, the collective trust in the words of our political system, are seen to be manipulations to carry out a take over for the oligarchy. And the law is another system that has been corrupted along with the political parties who serve the corporations and the military.
There is no way out of our current problems through the status quo. The faith in the pendulum swing back to sanity no longer holds.
I am ordering Glenn's book today to stand proudly beside his earlier works.
I agree with you on Glenn Greenwald and Chris Hedges. In addition, Bill Moyers will be back in January on public television in a new show "Moyers & Co." which will reach an additional segment of the population. We need more journalists and political commentators such as these people who aren't afraid to speak the truth.
Despite having the trappings of a democracy the United States is the least democratic country in the western world and is completey ruled by an extremist super wealthy elite that is control of both parties and is willing to see their own people suffer rather than compromise cutting back even a little bit on their excessive profits. They have joined forces with the moronic religious culture of the confederacy that Americans are so fond of and this appears to be an unbeatable combination.
"Least democratic country in the western world"? Well I'd argue that Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti, and several others are less democratic. However your point is well taken. The U.S. is rapidly moving in the direction of joining that sorry club of plutocracies. Citizens United was the most recent demoralizing nail in the democratic coffin.
We need a Constitutional amendment specifying that corporations are not people, do not enjoy the same rights as real people, can only exist with the blessing of the people, and must always operate subservient to the interests and rights of real people.
A very good clarifying article.
Two things.
We need to stop calling it the "Bush domestic warrantless eavesdropping program" because the program was and is embraced and continued under BOTH corporate-owned parties.
This unequal application of legal manipulation (formerly the so-called "rule of law") is a global infection and is the same devious corruption which has led to increased warmongering, torture, and the disdain for Habeas Corpus.
WOW! Spot on article.
Glenn Greenwald always gets it. Another great article showing again Glenn's sapience. Nothing to add Glenn, you said it all.
Oh, what has happened? The elite toss around the k word, casually, as matter of fact, as SOP. Even liberal pundits gloat over Obama's killing of Kadhafi, Hillary Clinton caught saying a dittie about how we killed him, on camera for all to see, unabashedly. There would not be a Nuremberg today, why go through all the quaint nicities of protracted trials with all that legal mumbo jumbo.
The answer to his last question is clear to me; no, because we will not be able to change the political and economic power in this country. The longstanding players, captains of industry, read that as the banks, will not release any of their stranglehold over us to allow change; they've been at it too long and would never conceive to give up now, no matter how much we protest. Remember, we have more prisons in this country than any other and many are just sitting empty, waiting for the roundup.
Clearly stated and never more true, Glenn Greenwald. I can hardly wait for your book to arrive, I just ordered "With Liberty and Justice for Some".
Keep these important pieces coming. Along with the obscene increase in wealth at the top over the years a concurrent decrease in trustworthy journalisim has ensued. I'm sure that's no accident; the wealthy seem to own everyone and everything, including what were once considered reliable and objective newspapers. Writers such as yourself are desperately needed in today's world. I'm sure I'm not alone in reiterating how grateful we are, those of us who want the truth, for your salient reporting!
I hope the author is right. I hope the 99% have awoken to the realization that everytime you hear the term "tort reform" you should prepare yourselves for less access and equity in the legal process. It's one of those terms like "privatization" that doesn't hold up well to extensive scrutiny (public risk for private profit). "Reform" is another of those marketing terms that should always be examined carefully to determine who exactly profits from the "reform" and what exactly that "reform" constitutes. The only ones that are being "deregulated" are the 01%, while the rest of us find even our most personal actions regulated and taxed.
You can't take people's homes, jobs and life savings, promise neverending austerity cuts, mandate additional expenses and then pass out bailouts, subsidies and protections to the very people and institutions that created the problem and not expect people to be unhappy and resistant.
Nice comments. And this particular line really jumped out: "It's one of those terms like "privatization" that doesn't hold up well to extensive scrutiny (public risk for private profit)."
This trend in common wealth things like schools, parks, water, electricity, etc, (in short, life’s necessities) concerns me, too. There is literally nothing good about it. Every single benefit has a greater detriment from another perspective. It boggles the mind what the negative outcomes will be in a few generations, including our children’s illiteracy in all of the finer arts. A lowering of our collective intellect, rights, and power to 3rd world citizens (who are already in complete servitude to billionaires and their murderous military enforcers).
An excellent article. Once a power structure is broadly perceived to be illegitimate it begins to lose power. This is true of a "democracy" or a dictatorship. This is what happened in Egypt when the people came together in Tahrir Square and gave voice to the public that lead to the collapse of the Mubarak regime. The same process is occurring with OccupyWallStreet and related actions where people are pointing out the corrupt nature of this political-economic system. Glenn Greenwald makes a valuable addition in this article in pointing out how the legal system itself has been corrupted in the interests of the 1 percent.
Laws are like spider's webs: they catch the weak and the poor but are torn to pieces by the rich and powerful.
Anacharsis
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
Jonathan Swift -- from A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind
Glenn Greenwald -- always on top of it.
Surprisingly, Amerikans seem to be catching on to the rank corruption of their overlords.
Unfortunately, the plutocracy owns both political parties, the judiciary, and all the powerful economic institutions. They own the mass media, the military, and have the apparatus of a police state ready should too many citizens get noisy and restless.
Nonetheless, exposing and delegitimizing them in public (as the OWS movement is doing) is a good start.
Even Fox News -- which makes the old Soviet Pravda look like the BBC -- has had a little trouble managing the rabble lately:
http://www.observer.com/2011/10/fox-news-web-poll-on-occupy-wall-street-sentiment-backfires/
What the rich and the wealthy and the elite are most terrified of is that Americans, and in particular those who are participating in the OWS movement, will not only read Glenn Greenwald's latest book but that they will also take to heart the lyrics of this still relevant song:
Evrywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy
Cause summers here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy
But what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock n roll band
Cause in sleepy london town
There's just no place for a street fighting man
No
Hey! think the time is right for a palace revolution
But where I live the game to play is compromise solution
Well, then what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock n roll band
Cause in sleepy london town
There's no place for a street fighting man
No
Hey! said my name is called disturbance
Ill shout and scream, I'll kill the king, I'll rail at all his servants
Well, what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock n roll band
Cause in sleepy london town
There's no place for a street fighting man
No
Street Fighting Man [1968]-The Rolling Stones
Thanks, Glenn, for your great 'track' analogy. It should help even the dumbest among the 1%'ers and those in the 99% who don't yet understand that the OWS movement is essentially about reestablishing what we thought this nation was supposed to be about: the Rule of Law.
Excellent analysis. Thank you. One specific example:
http://rollingout.com/news-politics/theories-suspicions/homeless-man-gets-15-years-for-100-ceo-gets-3-years-for-3-billion/
Many of us tried to warn others that this would take place at the time Reagan was running for president. We were ridiculed as 'nutcases' over the years.
The incredible sense of entitlement of the well-to-do was palpable. Amongst the well-off, there was a sense that the social policies in place since the 30s had actually 'robbed' them of monies that we theirs 'by god-given right'.
I am glag Glenn is able to 'scratch' the surface of the total plan implemented during the Reagan years and carried out over the last 30 years, bit by bit, resulting in the current societal inequities.
I had acquaintances on the CA GOP Central Committee actually talking about plans to gain control of ALL levels of control of the society, beginning with taking control of school boards. These people were saying crazy things like 'education is a privilege, not a right' and we are going to do something about it.' They were upset with the student upending of society and interfering with the MCM war profiteering of the Viet Nam era amongst other things.
My father, a life-long GOP supporter actually resigned when Reagan became the GOP candidate.
Many of us tried to warn others that this would take place at the time Reagan was running for president. We were ridiculed as 'nutcases' over the years.
The incredible sense of entitlement of the well-to-do was palpable. Amongst the well-off, there was a sense that the social policies in place since the 30s had actually 'robbed' them of monies that we theirs 'by god-given right'.
I am glag Glenn is able to 'scratch' the surface of the total plan implemented during the Reagan years and carried out over the last 30 years, bit by bit, resulting in the current societal inequities.
I had acquaintances on the CA GOP Central Committee actually talking about plans to gain control of ALL levels of control of the society, beginning with taking control of school boards. These people were saying crazy things like 'education is a privilege, not a right' and we are going to do something about it.' They were upset with the student upending of society and interfering with the MCM war profiteering of the Viet Nam era amongst other things.
My father, a life-long GOP supporter actually resigned when Reagan became the GOP candidate.
curmudgeon99
Any possibility that you or anyone else are able to recommend a book that critiques Reagan from the left?
If you would like an interesting take on how the 1980's and Reagan influenced the American psyche, even at present, read David Sirota's book, "Back to Our Future: How the 1980's Explain the World We Live in Now".
"Today, it is glaringly obvious to a wide range of Americans that the wealth of the top 1% is the byproduct not of risk-taking entrepreneurship, but of corrupted control of our legal and political systems. Thanks to this control, they can write laws that have no purpose than to abolish the few limits that still constrain them, as happened during the Wall Street deregulation orgy of the 1990s."
What if the 99% wrote the laws?
http://ni4d.us/initiative-definition
i ♥ BigBrother, Oct 25 2011 - 1:25pm -- Thanks for the laugh! And I agree.
Thing is, there is no 99% - only when it's against the 1%. That is to say, there is no unity of interests that spans 99% when they're not unified against someone. That is the real problem of governance. There are high level common interests of course, mainly emergencies that must be handled as soon as possible, but even a little bit beyond that there is a diversity of acceptable and realistic opinions. This means that a deeper democracy and a higher level of granularity of units of self governance is necessary. It's a pretty difficult task in itself, even without the powerful 1% sabotaging it.
And sabotage it they do Atomsk, whether by race, religion, gender etc..whatever BS a person is willing to be distracted by, they've handed it to us by the bucketful. And they've worked and are working today to disallow critical thought to which we now have a completely divided populace, most of whom believe voting still makes a difference. Not that I'm not voting. but I do believe it's now all just a part of the smoke and mirrors that gets beamed down to us 24/7. (which is why I say 'willing' to be distracted because as of now, we do have a choice to turn the TV off) I think we're in a dreadful situation and after reading The Family by Jeff Sharlett, I see why; they view 'us' and the churches who still administer to the poor as nothing more than nonsense. IF we were worthy to have things, God would have made us one of them. HE didn't, they are the chosen ones and that's all there is to it. Accept your station in life and shut up I think is basically their message. The question is, where do we go from here, knowing they'd love to fill their many corporate run prisons with the lot of us and just be done?
Real Choice
Matsusaka (2004), p. 143:
Voting is an important way citizens signal their policy preferences; for many it is the only way. To convey a preference, a voter must have a choice in the ballot box. The initiative provides a choice: vote for the proposal or reject it in favor of the status quo. Candidate elections do not always provide a choice. Indeed, competition in candidate elections is likely to lead to an absence of choices as Downsian parties converge on the same policies. The convergence of candidates, a fact continually bemoaned by ordinary citizens, has some desirable properties if they converge in the vicinity of the median voter. However, if the parties perceive the position of the median voter incorrectly, they might converge on the wrong point, and there is nothing in the electoral process that would self-correct. The initiative offers a way to break the gridlock of Downsian competition because it allows proposals to reach the voters outside the milieu of party competition. The fact that even seemingly crazy and hopeless proposals can be placed before the voters by a determined petitioner is particularly important, because these are the proposals that are unlikely be brought before the public under party competition. The possibility that a "crazy" proposal might turn out to enjoy majority support is more than theoretical: [California's] Proposition 13, for example, was dismissed by leaders of both parties and most expert opinion before its overwhelming victory.
http://ni4d.us/en/choice
A. I don't think there is any suggestion that the 1% or 5% for that matter are going quietly into the night and handing over power as they leave.
B. As there will be no violent revolution, no change in the political arrangement as far as the way our republic works, no sudden discovery of corporate civic responsibility, no change in elections, there is only one avenue open to effect change.
C. Doesn't take 99% to elect new "writers" at the local, state and national level. It just needs folk to stop electing fools like the Wicked Witch of The West to Congress and being surprised at what you get.
Don't you think it would be a good idea to "take over" the democratic party? It's certainly possible as Obsama and Pelosi's Congress have trashed it and any chance of it's ressurection in the near future.. Witness what is going on in the republican party at the moment.
The text seems to present a mechanism by which politics can become more inclusive to the 99% - a so-called "crazy" idea filtering into the conventional political system, bypassing the 2 parties' platforms, and brought before voters.
Do you have some animus against ezeflyer? Your dismissive tone in reponse to him/her is kind of unpleasant to read. No need for it, surely?
Mega Dreamer and Obama Shill Thom Hartmann seems to repeat that mantra about taking over the Democratic Party from the inside all the time..LOL!
"After all, severe income and wealth inequality have long plagued the United States. In fact, it could reasonably be claimed that this form of inequality is part of the design of the American founding -- indeed, an integral part of it."
- Greenwald
The so-called capitalist economy is centered around profits.
At its core, all “capitalist” profit is based on one form or another of limited access, whether to markets, resources, or labor.
It is the ability to turn a good or service into cash flow. And this, in turn depends upon the power to exclude - the power to deny customers a valuable product , rivals from a market.
Without property “rights”, patents, licenses, captive markets, or captive labor, profits diminish. There is a the built-in bias toward monopolization of resources and production, and labor arbitrage - and the symbioses with government, … all done to establish and protect privileged access.
“Capitalism is not about free competitive choices among people who are reasonably equal in their buying and selling of economic power, it is about concentrating capital, concentrating economic power in very few hands using that power to trash everyone who gets in their way.”
-David Korten
Those who rail simply against “gubmint” are succumbing to a fraudulent paradigm. They are missing the point how the TOTAL economy (public and private) is geared to impoverish nearly all of us.
Nearly all of us are being ruined by a combination excess militarism, unbridled plutocracy, rampant public and private corruption, neglected infrastructure, debt and currency debasement.
Consider the idea of ‘profit’.
Profit is a man-made concept. It is a limited concept. Profit does not and cannot measure the worth of every and all things and be the ultimate guide to human conduct. The concept nonetheless underpins the whole notion that the pursuit of micro self interests will result in the best of all possible worlds. And it is that mistaken notion which is often used to justify the worst of all outcomes, and pronounce that the solution to our miseries is to increase business profits.
Never mind the profits made by ruining forests, rivers, and oceans. Never mind the profits from destroying the fisheries and polluting the air. Never mind financial parasitism. Never mind sweatshops, child labor, and poisoned foods. Micro profit, it seems, does not measure the environmental losses to society, nor the debilitation and destruction of human beings. But yet, it is to be the ultimate arbiter of human conduct. Or so we are told.
A system based on maximizing work, maximizing production, maximizing consumption ultimately values neither leisure nor the quality of life, human or other.
The corporation is the apex profit-driven organization of a misnamed and mythological “free market” capitalism. It is autocratic and elitist, with a narrow single-minded goal, denigrating all that stands in its way.
Government, like corporations, has evolved around the pursuit of profit. Government has become to be like corporations, autocratic, secretive, and obsessively entangled in the furthering of corporate profit-making, to the detriment of all else.
And finally, to paraphrase an oft-quoted meme:
"The problem with capitalism is that sooner or later you monopolize all wealth".
Good analysis.
"Profit does not and cannot measure the worth of every and all things and be the ultimate guide to human conduct."
This brings out very well how deeply corrupting capitalism can be, how it drains a society of values like moral and ethical principles because these cannot be quantified, so that their profitability cannot be measured. Other values like community, family, education that isn't vocational, the arts, etc. etc. The contemporary arts scene in NYC illustrates the problem. In the 80s newly enriched WallSters began buying contemporary art, resulting in an influx of money into the art market. But this money didn't reach all artists; only those few who manages to create an impression, a buzz around their work. Increasingly few artists could sell their work and the prices mounted to levels never seen before. Art for art's sake was increasingly devalued, and collectors became more like stamp collectors, to the detriment of the true values art offers. A painting should be considered priceless - after all, it contains the soul of its maker.
Where these arguments regarding law need to go is to inspect the underpinnings of capitalism. Because of the second law of thermodynamics, it is impossible for profits to inhere within the transactions that generate them; profits can come only from victims, from participants in the transaction who are undercompensated or not compensated at all. These social arrangements about who and what may be victimized are the fundamental legal matter comprising the cornerstone of society. In the democratic arrangement of the social contract, the willing citizens may permit an innovator to obtain greater benefit, but there should be an obligation -- and if necessary a legal compulsion -- to place those benefits back into the economic system. Historically this has always been accomplished through taxation. That system is fair because government investment is demonstrably more productive than private investment. For a general sketch of the disposition of this matter, see my web page at: http://home.roadrunner.com/~markwrede/NonFic/InvestProd.html
Good Class Act
RATHER THAN BEING SUBJECTED TO THE RULE OF LAW, THE NATION MOST POWERFUL OLIGRACHS CONTROL THE LAW AND ARE SO EXEMPT FROM IT. so true. and that not only describe the 1% millionaire/ billionaire class but also the political heirarchi. like those committed war crime against peaceful countries like iraq, which did no harm whatsoever to the US citizens, or violated the constitution or its ammendments by torturing or illegally spying on or imprisoning of poeple in these desribed gulags. yet the obama administration exempted them from applying the US law or the international laws or the geneva convention laws. at one time i wrote whether obama by his act could be persnally considerd a complicit in these committed crimes.