“Should the Republicans still win the Nov. election after all this; you’ve got to know that they’ve stolen it again?  Then it’s time to hit the streets with our pitchforks.  If the democrats win the election and they continue on much of the same course, then it’s time to hit the streets with our pitchforks.  I know . . .  what we know about a revolution.”

Kathy,

Everything you mentioned was true; but unfortunately 45 percent of the population doesn’t bother to vote—-most of the 18-25 year olds are apathetic—-they don’t care.

During the Vietnam War, they cared because their “ass” was on the line.  How clever our government is—-they don’t want to make the same mistakes again—-the news can’t show film of the dead troops returning from Iraq, and there is NO DRAFT.  The war has been outsourced to the poor, working-class and those who still believe the propaganda. 

The rest of the population, are cynical and feel that even if the elections are rigged—what difference does it really make—aren’t all politicians a bunch of crooks anyway?

To raise enough money to campaign for office successfully, so many promises and deals are made to their crook friends, who will want FAVORS once their “politician guy” gets into office.

So maybe things are not QUITE BAD ENOUGH, maybe, we need to wait until there is NO middle-class left—-if there is only poverty and extreme wealth—-it won’t take much for the masses to hit the streets—-but they will need more than a pitchfork.   

.

First of all, there are still people on this blog who believe Bush won both elections.  The truth is that the people did not vote for Bush either time.  The elections were stolen (the evidence is overwhelming).  I was living in Florida during the 2000 election. I saw Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who also happened to be in charge of George Bush’s Florida campaign (anyone smell a conflict of interest here) disenfranchise black voters and steal absentee votes.  I saw some Republican bullies come down from DC to the Miami election precinct, pounding on the doors, scaring the hell out of the precinct demanding them NOT to recount the votes.  Guess what, they didn’t recount the votes.  I was shocked; this was not the America I knew.  Regarding the 2004 election, read Rolling Stones article by Robert Kennedy.  Republican Secretary of State Blackwell prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted—enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.  Remember the exit polls had Kerry winning by a wide margin.  So what we have here are criminals, crooks and lunatics in the White House who are there illegally and who are looting the treasury and threatening the world with the most powerful military ever devised.  And they are doing it in our name with our money!!!  And who are THEY??  They are the elite of this country, the corporate powers, the congressional powers (both parties), the mainstream media who support their corporate owners (or lose their job). They’ve taken our Constitution and stomped on it, ridding us of the Bill of Rights so that anyone complaining can be called a terrorist and can disappear into one of their secret prisons; they’re making it harder and harder for us to feed our families; they’re getting rid of all the safety nets that use to be there to protect us; they want to wipe out any remnant of the New Deal; want to privatize Social Security which they’ve been stealing from us for years.  They want to keep us busy working two jobs so we don’t have the energy to fight them and they want to scare the hell out of us so that we will not have the courage to stand up to them.  They’re dumbing down America, (only their children will go to college), the dumber we are, the more they can take from us and and with our blessings from other third world countries. They don’t want to pay us decent wages when they are making more money from OUR productivity than ever before.  Our lawmakers give themselves raises (six to date) while we grovel for crumbs from the table. And if we get wise to what they ‘re doing, they have detention camps built by Halliburton ready to herd us into.  On the bright side, if there is one. . . the Republican Party is self-destructing at this moment in time.  The Foley scandal has shredded their family values campaign and the evangelists are waking up to the fact that they have been conned big time into voting against their own interests.  Should the Republicans still win the Nov. election after all this, you’ve got to know that they’ve stolen it again?  Then it’s time to hit the streets with our pitchforks.  If the democrats win the election and they continue on much of the same course, then it’s time to hit the streets with our pitchforks.  I know. . .  what do we know about a revolution.  There was Viet Nam.  If we changed that, we can change this too.

Rossputin above states:

“if people like those writing on this site ever get in power, you will be like my taxi driver one day, wishing there were fiscal conservatives back in power.”

Not a chance, Ross.  If they manage to gain sufficient power, they will spiral everything into the ground and then keep on digging. 

Contrast England with it’s Gun control program.  Grab all guns, no more crime.  Simple, no?  Yet, when non-gun violent crime went through the roof, did they change direction?  No, they just bean outlawing more things that folks were using to kill others.  I think the last I heard on the topic was a movement to ban steak knives or some rot like that, as it is well known that steak knives kill people.

Once the country lies in ruins, the left, if they are still in power (wonderful thing that democracy concept) will raise taxes further and increase spending more, since “we just didn’t spend enough”.  If they lose power and the economy starts to improve, they’ll claim credit for their policies finally working.

US IS 3rd World in spots and its spreading.
I’ve seen Namibia and I’ve seen Ft Lauderdale gas lines after a relatively mild hurricane. There’s something that will get very ugly, very quickly. I’d take SW Africa anyday.
I understand Katrina wiped out a major US city 13 monnths ago that is still harboring bodies.
I’ve been tortured in a Sheriffs’ jail for mouthing off.
If I get cancer, I’m doomed to spend all my savings and lose all my property .
I can’t afford to buy high quality food in bulk so I’ll probably get cancer.
There are millions just like me.
America is doomed by lazy citizens that have allowed greedy corporations to thoroughly corrupt government

Capitalism is a lottery system based on “the luck of the draw.”  Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is not such a simple deed, especially if all the cards are stacked against you.  Betting in Vegas can be a risky business, if the roulette tables are set to favor the house.

  The number one business in the U.S. is the military industrial complex—no bid contracts are awarded to companies that have PURCHASED politicians.  These companies repeatedly win government contracts—WITHOUT COMPETING.  Profits are huge and not necessarily based on free enterprise but on cronyism.  So what we really have is socialism for wealthy crooks, while the working-class are forced to live under Darwinian capitalism—-survival of the most exploited.

Corporate America, which claimed 112,000 pension plans in 1985, has since terminated about 80,000 of them. As a result, the share of working Americans earning a pension has dropped from more than 35 percent in 1980 to less than 20 percent today.  This will gain rapidity, as companies say it is no longer responsible to reward longevity,  and workers retirement is not considered the company’s problem—you are on your own, when you are the most vulnerable—old and sickly.

Compare the governments of Cuba and Venezuela with all of Central America except Costa Rica.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=60&ItemID=10841

That is clear evidence that Capitalism is evil.

Capitalism is a dying ideology only sustained at the point of the bayonet.  Capitalism would never have continued without force.  It is the height of stupidity and is rejected by most people if given the opportunity. Capitalism is the rule of plutocratic oligarchies and is opposed to democracy. Capitalism is a failure world wide with millions of people dying from hunger and war. Every year it gets worse.  The war against capitalism will continue as long as capitalism continues.  Only in the USA are the people brainwashed into this type of retrograde thinking of “might makes right” and “do in your neighbor before he does you in”. Free trade is the greatist evil plaguing mankind.

If Republicans lose control of Congress in 06, or the Presidency in 08, the plutocracy could conceivably crash the market in a rush to take profits on their MIC holdings. Some of the most astute plutocrats have probably started doing so already and are busily wire transferring their profits to foreign banks. The rabble is getting restless.

The Bush regime and Republican congress will do all they can to broaden the war, and no one should be surprised if the U.S. or Israel nukes Iran before the midterm election. But that will open a whole new can of worms and no matter what they do, their dreams of perpetual war are economically unsustainable and Military Industrial Complex stocks are going to drop precipitously. To be followed by an overall market drop due to a belated realization of impending political instability right here in the U.S.of A.

We are in uncharted territory because the masses have lost confidence in both political parties. Things could get ugly.

Heavens, who’s going to protect the plutocrats now?

Spinoza,you must be Rip Van Winkle if you havn’t noticed the ionternational wholesale conversion of socialist countries to free enterprise (capitalist) economic systems in the last 2 decades. The economic systems are not identical but they are free enterprise/capitalist at the core. They sure as hell aren’t doctrinaire socialist economies any more. Try Russia and its former satellites for a starter.

Rossputin, you are bang on the money! As a Libertarian I believe in Meritocracy, the cream rising to the top. Also, believe that Democracy is not the same thing as Capitalism. Our form of Democracy is what I call “Procedural Democracy”: whereby elected officials have been suborned by the Money, the Lobby Groups and true representational Gummint does not exist, even down to local level. As a matter of fact, one could postulate that “Democracy” is purely a transitional state, presaging Plutocracy and/or Oligarchy. One manifestation is the increasing number of political dynasties ie Bush or Kennedy. As I recall the Roman Senatorial position was not, at first, hereditary and morphed into an aristocracy. Capitalism IS the driving force that changed human civilisation, Socialism is a fraud, tax is theft. Examples of Capitalism transforming and raising wealth in society are numerous. A good example is the transition from vegetative combustibles to fossil fuels, in the 17th, 18th century. In England alone the population leaped from 8 million to 17 million from 1600s to 1700s. The problem I feel that does exist is “Corporatism”, where a small elite (eg the privately owned Federal Reserve et al) actually feeds off the bulk of the populution. This vampirism is NOT Capitalism, it is a cartel, the antithesis of true lassex faire capitalism. True respect for personal property, the ability of small business to grow and develope without over regulation and taxation (theft!) and agorist principals are what we need. Oh, and to all those Socialists out there, ever heard of a Bell Curve, dudes? ...Thought not!

Capitalism and Socialism… the United States sloshes with elements of both in, for better or worse, a Mixed Economy. Some could argue effectively that we now have a Corporate Economy because Capitol Hill crawls with unelected lobbyists heavily influencing both local and national legislation. I would argue that in a legitimate democracy, “We The People” could vote-in any form of government or economy type in the world that we wished… yeah right!

Generally in agreement with you. The self owned health care insurance would be good for everyone not offerred health insurance at work but only if the Government would demand insurance rates that took into account the total market for such health insurance. This could be subsidized as many, many other politically bendficial programs are.

>>>>As for capitalism, history has proven that it is preferable to socialism.<<<<

And your evidence for this is???

Yo, Rossputin and Spinoza. Perhaps I should have said STOCK-TRADING is a zero-sum activity. When someone sells at a loss, another has realized a gain. This is true even as stocks rise in price.

As for capitalism, history has proven that it is preferable to socialism. But capitalism and the right of private ownership are not synonomous. Capitalism, like any other system, can be abused, particularly by governmental policies that facilitate the huge concentration of privately owned assets in the hands of a relative few.

“You are people who think that the Soviet Union’s economy failed because they just didn’t execute the plan well enough rather than realizing that central planning is doomed to fail.”

I think the main reason the Soviet Union collapsed is that the people running the place were as corrupt as the day is long.

Rome fell for the same reason and, well,...stay tuned.

Beyond that, the capitalist system is probably doomed because it’s inherently unsustainable. Consider that the dismal science its based on can’t move past its conviction that the environment is little more than a mere externality to the economy.

Whatever system you choose to live by you can have an ecosystem without an economy but not the other way around.

> A zero-sum game requires a loser for every winner, a short for every long. None of that is the case in the stock market where the price of a stock going up does in fact create wealth for shareholders without costing wealth of anyone.<<<

Yes, it is completely phony corrupt gambling.  It goes along with the culture of scams, hucksterism, and get rich schemes without working.

It goes along with a culture of anything for mammon. Capitalist ideology is one of the more ugly human inventions and we can do better.  The basic premise of capitalism is wrong. The argument that people seeking after their own personal gain will automatically inprove the common good is irrational and doesn’t work.

It’s rather amusing to see you socialists fulminate about the unfairness of it all.  I defy you to show me any place where your redistributive policy choices actually accomplish what your stated goals are.

Socialism simply does not work. History has shown repeatedly that the best way to improve overall standards of living is by the free market where, like it or not, some people will do better than others.  The only way to truly make people more “equal” in terms of outcome is to lower everyone. It can’t be done by raising the lifestyle of the lowest, at least not in any large scale.

I suggest you might find this article about income gaps interesting:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=082806E

The idea that we’re “really living in a third world country” is laughable. Go visit India or Bangladesh or Namibia (as I have) and then try to flog such stupidity. Language like that is nothing more than organizations trying to get your money.

As far as poverty statistics go, the poverty rate was steady for blacks and hispanics in 2005 (versus 2005) and lower for non-hispanic whites. And the overall level is the low end of its historic range.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p60-231.pdf

Interestingly, the poverty rate is the highest for blacks, for whom most of the “war on poverty” has been focused for more than a generation now. Redistributive policies have demonstrably failed and have simply served to make those constituencies more dependent on government. Leaders of the black community have formed an alliance with the Democratic party in which they both look to profit by trying to promote such programs, which they can then use to buy votes and skim money.

Another point of left-wing economic illiteracy which the writer “Colonel” demonstrates above is the idea that the stock market is a zero-sum game.  It most certainly is not.  A zero-sum game requires a loser for every winner, a short for every long. None of that is the case in the stock market where the price of a stock going up does in fact create wealth for shareholders without costing wealth of anyone.

At the end of the day, most of you are simply people who haven’t or can’t make money and therefore want to use government to take it from those who have or can while claiming some sort of moral high ground.  Let’s be clear: Your policy suggestions are tantamount to theft. And even though you are willing to hide criminal behavior behind the cloak of a government accomplice you end up with policies that actually worsen the conditions of those you claim to care about most.

All I can say is that we are very lucky the Democrats tend to lose elections. You are people who think that the Soviet Union’s economy failed because they just didn’t execute the plan well enough rather than realizing that central planning is doomed to fail. If you really want to see what poverty looks like in the USA, win control of Congress and the Presidency, implement some of your policies, watch the market tank, employment plummet, inflation skyrocket, and then come crawling back to those who understand economics to fix the situation.

You sort of remind me of a discussion I had with a black taxi driver in Cape Town (and this is not about race, but about policy choices): He said “I wish we had more white people in government. The people we have now just don’t understand economics or the needs of small businessmen. All I want, all I need, is a very small loan to get my own business off the ground. And many of my friends are the same way. We don’t need a handout. We just need people in government who understand entrepreneurship.”  I had that sort of conversation more than once. It was rather stunning to hear blacks, who had suffered terribly under apartheid and still lived in true third world conditions, wishing that there were more white people in government.  If people like those writing on this site ever get in power, you will be like my taxi driver one day, wishing there were fiscal conservatives back in power.

With a little luck, though, we’ll never have to suffer through you guys having enough power to matter.

p.s. It’s also highly amusing to read that some of you think the press is “controlled by the right wingers”. You leftists are so sure that the world is out to get you that you absolutely ignore the most basic facts. Polls of the news media show they identify themselves overwhelmingly as Democrats, and other than Fox News all the major media outlets have an obvious liberal bias.

The so-called middle-class, may wake-up soon and discover, that they are living in a third world country.

In terms of types of financial wealth, the top 1 percent of households have 44.1% of all privately held stock, 58.0% of financial securities, and 57.3% of business equity. The top 10% have 85% to 90% of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate.

Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.

40 million people live in poverty in the U.S.  An estimated 38 million Americans, or 12%, are food insecure; meaning their access to enough food is limited by a lack of money and other resources. 
41.5% of all households served by the “America’s Second Harvest Network” reported having to choose between buying food and paying for utilities or heat.
More than one-third (35%) of households reported having to choose between paying for food and paying their rent or mortgage.  (Hunger in America 2006)
Nearly one-third (31.6%) of households reported having to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care.  (Hunger in America 2006)
The rate of food insecure households with children has risen from 2001 (16.1%) to 2004 (17.6%).  The estimated number of children living in food insecure households has risen as well, from 12.7 million to over nearly 14 million. 

http://www.secondharvest.org/who_we_help/hunger_facts.html

47 million people do not have healthcare.  In California, its one out of five people—numbers, are growing as fewer and fewer employers provide insurance to their workers.  Only sixty percent of companies provided coverage, down from 69 percent in 2000.

The true level of unemployment is at least two times higher than the official rate.

Those who want to work but are discouraged about job opportunities, and have given up an active job search, are not counted as unemployed. Instead, they are considered not to be in the labor force.

Part-time workers who wanted full-time jobs are nevertheless counted as fully employed. People working even as little as one day a week are categorized as “employed.”

About two million Americans, for example, are “on-call” workers who are called to work as needed—sometimes for one day, sometimes for longer. Substitute teachers meet this definition.

Such a methodology for determining the extent of unemployment in America reflects an intent to mislead.

Vanishing pensions, today, only 50% of America’s private-sector workforce is covered by any kind of savings or pension plan.

And the number of private employers who offer “defined benefit” pension plans—the type which guarantees a monthly benefit from retirement to the end of the retiree’s life—has fallen from 112,000 in the mid-1980s, to only 31,000 today; none has been established for at least a decade.

>>>>The rich who own everything and write the script for life have been holding off progress for long enough with this phony “ capitalist vs. socialist “ war. <<<<

It is not a phony war. It is a fundamental war. It is a major difference in two world views.  In one world view it is argued that the economy should be based on an ethos of sharing, scientific rationality and intelligent planning for the common good and it is opposed to the world view that the world has to be a dog eat dog world with the top dogs running the show.  One argues in favor of democracy and the other argues in favor of plutocratic oligarchy. One argues in favor of the so called market system as the organizing principle and the other while it might accept some aspects of the market basically takes a rationalist world view.

I also have been telling everyone this for years but it keeps accelerating. 

This will continue while the media is owned by the same people who control all the wealth.

However, do not increase taxes on families that earn less than half a million a year.  They are now part of the poor middle class and getting poorer.  I get angry when Democrats or Republicans classify those making 200K 300K or more as rich.  I can tell you who is rich.  CEO’s that make 5,10, 15, or more million a year are rich.  Movie stars that make 5 or 10 million a movie are rich.  TV stars that make 1 million for a 30 minute segment are rich. (20 minutes after you remove commercials)  Lets draw a reasonable line in the sand.  Our progressive tax is a joke with the maximum rate starting at under 100K!

Cocco is so right about the celebrated “middle-class investor”. His/her investments in the stock market are peanuts. Moreover, they are in competition with moneyed pros who, more often than not, relieve such investors of much of their savings. The stock market is a zero-sum cutthroat environment where the amateur generally loses.

The rich who own everything and write the   script for life have been holding off progress for long enough with this phony ” capitalist vs. socialist ” war.
Killing over philosophy is just putting clothes on the naked aggression of those who have much. Making them share and be on our level is the righteous war we must fight and win.
Socialism and capitalism are just words. We gonna keep fighting and dying and starving over this shit forever ?

One element of the “ownership society” is true: it favors those who own.  Wages and salaries are destined to lag relative to GDP.  Not everyone can be a hedge fund manager, tax lawyer, or radiologist.  Entrepeneurship, home ownership, and index mutual funds are the only way most people can hope to beat the odds.  However, most will be content with their leased auto, can of Bud, and media diet of soaps, celebrities, and hangings.  Ogranized labor is as dead as dead gets.  It is also true that no one dares promote redistributive policies: taxes, tariffs, immigration restriction, national health, extension of retirment ages, etc.  On the other hand, the GOP is gleeful to argue that converting Social Security into IRAs will make “owners” of all (who count).  20% to 30% active quotient of the electorate is all they need, and another 30% can be convinced that Lotto or faith, and not guvmin, is the answer.  Might they be right?  Name one candidate of any party who pledges to outlaw offshore tax shelters.

The insatiable ownership fat rats are scuttling the ship and so grab at everything they can. In the end, we mid-shipmates will all be on the Aerosmith Diet: Eat the Rich.

I have been telling everyone this for 10 years now and nobody is listening.

In addition to the article one needs skills that take years to hone.

When will America wake up to the lies?

I would like to see good sociology being done to see what people think is happening in the economy.  This is more important than so called facts based on government statistics.  It might be the case that there is a tremendous income from the underground economy;—-Small business people who don’t report their full income or who write off their taxes illegally or people who partake in get rich quick schemes that are so popular on the Internet and don’t report any income.  Supposedly 70% of the population owe considerable amounts of credit card debt.  Do these people also have large incomes or are they living hand to mouth?

Obviously a large number of people believe they are going to be rich and will do better then their neighbors.  This can be the only explanation of the rise of the hard right that makes any sense. I realize the press is controlled by the right wingers but I doubt people will accept reports of how well they are doing if it weren’t true.