the truth of the matter is this: the wealthy run the country; the Corps sit down with Congress & they bought them a long time ago; that is why in a nation supposedly set up to be run FOR THE PEOPLE & by the people: we pay taxes for Corps; who want to pay minimum wage, no benefits, and actively work together AGAINST the people of this country; until folks WAKE UP enough to ever figure out our Gov is AGAINST us: nothing will ever happen. The FDA is a SCREEN: the folks got all upset over things from China coming in that could harm them; why do you think folks are still picketing in the streets just for importing BEEF from the USA? everyone in the world knows that we are slaves to corporations; and wonder why we the people put up with it. Because of IGNORANCE. Formaldehyde is one of the most toxic chemicals on the planet; and it is agressively used in everything: NOT because it is needed; because it brings the most harm to humans & animals; and then they get big $ on meds; HELLO. Docs offices get paid for meeting quotas; drs get mega prizes to push pills; everyone gets rich; the people are harmed; but who cares? you are totally & completely expendable: and the Gov totally undependable; not ALL countries are like this; they will be; India refused the treaty of World Trading the USA tried to push & lo & behold: bombings there; big surprize;

By Folktruther, August 20 at 6:06 am

•  “Cyrena, Michael Parenti was one of the few honest political scientists in the last half of the 20th century in the US, and may well have been the best of them.  He was blacklisted from American universities despite his Elite academic credentials, large body of scholarly work and innovative political theory.  This is common in academia which is considered a hotbed of radicals in American mainstream truth, just as the media is considered “liberal.” Political science is the most reactionary of a very conservative American social science.”

Actually, I have read some of Parenti, in limited versions, just as comparisons to other political theories. To be perfectly honest, I’m not much of a ‘theorist’ in terms of political theory. In fact, I’ve mostly choked down most of the political theory stuff I’ve been forced to absorb. I know it because I have to, but it’s really not my thing, since theory rarely, (if ever) accounts for human behaviors in groups/societies in the reality of things. In so far as the power structure is concerned, that much would be my interest, but I’ve already been there and done that. I’m far more interested in the theories at the foundation of various legal systems as they developed and changed over time. But, that’s because those changes and the whole evolution of legal systems are directly connected to the behavior of societies, and that changes as well.

I’m equally familiar with brilliant and blacklisted academics/scholars. Matter of fact, the radical right maintains a list of “The 100 Most Dangerous Academics/Professors/Scholars, or whatever they call them. I’m proud to say that I’ve studied with several on the list, and I’m just annoyed that my name isn’t on it as well. I can’t think of a much higher honor than being on that list compiled by the reactionary right. One of my colleagues has been recently tagged as the ‘jihadist professor of blah, blah, blah”. It’s so totally ridiculous, because she’s a hard core atheist. That’s how totally insane these people are.

As for Chomsky..

•  “A truther like Chomsky, for example, rated the number 1 public intellectual in some poll or other, absolutely refuses to deny the offical truth about the Kennedy and other assasinations, and the 9/11-anthrax false flag operations.  That is, he denies the gangster aspects of the American state and sleazes those who don’t.  His journalist sidekick Alexander Cockburn is even worse, denying that pollution in the atmosphere causes global warning.  And these are mainstream Amereican leftists!  So the population has no access to these truths, which consequently appear surreal and bizarre to them.”

II

I like Chomsky well enough, but I don’t necessarily base my own opinions on whether or not I agree with any particular scholar/author/academic/politician. I agree with a lot of Chomsky’s stuff, but he denies that 9/11 was US State terrorism/false flag operation as well. Most academics do. I disagree, but I also see why they can embrace a certain degree of denial on that issue, and I’ve said it before. It’s not that political terrorism doesn’t exist in the world, because it always has. It serves a purpose for extremists, or desperados who can’t resolve what are usually legitimate grievances by any other measures. (again, because of the power dynamic). So, it isn’t the least bit inconceivable that Islamic extremists (or anybody else with a political grievance against the US) couldn’t have perpetrated those acts. I just don’t think they did, other than in the form of patsies. I’m never gonna believe the official conspiracy from the commission on 9/11, because what they’ve put forth is literally impossible, and they have no evidence to prove it. For the same reason, (no physical evidence) we’ll probably never know exactly how the details were accomplished, but I can make some educated guesses.

So Chomsky can deny on that, but it doesn’t invalidate everything he comes up with, and that’s the main mistake that I find people make. Most Americans like to dismiss by association. That’s too bad, because that means it’s not so much that the population doesn’t have access, they just choose not to consider more than one view. I’m not saying that EVERYTHING is accessible, but the Internet has made tons more information available to people who aren’t too lazy to look. For those willing to sit in front of the TV and have everything spoon fed to them, it eliminates their choices on what the can learn. For anyone who tosses out an entire argument or theory because they don’t like parts of it, the same thing occurs. What I’ve noticed over years of observation is that Americans are by and large willing to be led, and they are equally willing to blame everyone other than themselves, when things don’t go right, and they nearly always blame the *wrong* ‘things’ or set of circumstances, or structure, or people. That’s generally speaking of course, since there are obvious exceptions. Still, that’s pretty much way it comes down.

I may get to more of Parenti, but it’ll probably be a while. There’s a huge stack of stuff staring at me. I just finished up Sheldon Wolin’s “Democracy Incorporated”, and that just really solidified a whole bunch of stuff for me. Excellent work!!

First to assure our economic future is free from encroachment..We must take back control of our own natural resources.
Second we must begin putting the innoations which have been developed FINALLY to work.
Oil has not only proven a ‘laced’ drink to our economy and environment, but has proven to be lethal in regards to our foreign policy decisions.
The biggest lie being told to US is that this offshore drilling will produce Oil for US…sorry folks the Oil Inc will own and control that oil too. It will be sold on the open market- just like it is now. We must end all lease of public lands & shorelines to these Poachers. Take back (repo) what they owe US from loans and tax breaks which WE have not benefited from.We must return OUR national Energy management and distribution to the US Dept of Energy.Let the Oil Corps use the land they actually OWN to compete on the open market.
As for these Foreign Debts- most are the result of Wall street & corps asking for Loans and claiming we would Co Sign…We have NOT co -signed any of THEIR Loans.Let them re pay these Gambling debts to these Loansharks. Our citizens are not responsible for their ‘hedging’ their bets.Whoevers anme is signed on the bottom of that “Note” had better start figuring out how THEY are going to fulfill their obligation to their Foreign creditors.
Two UnAmerican behaviors we have never supported…Poaching and swindling.

Based upon these posts it appears that both true Capitalism and true Socialism eventually lead to an authoritarian rule where those on the top covet more power and money.  A quick look at the history of the world indicates that, with few exceptions, it has always been that way!

Whether it be medieval Europe or the alleged primitive societies of the new world a hierarchal structure, supported by force, has been the norm.

In older times the unit of commercial payment was barter or labor and when monetary systems were established cold cash became the accepted tender thus paving the way for easy corruption.

Today, in the US, corruption has taken on a new attribute——not only to make the recipient comfortable, but to create a dynasty from the megabucks derived from such corruption!

Eugene Robinson is right about the need for the political leadership of the United States to wake up to the fact of a multipolar world, but not surprisingly, he here gets his facts wrong in his usual self-serving manner. It was not «Russian tanks [that] were rolling into Georgia» while «stone-faced and nonchalant» Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin appeared as background to TV shots of George Walker Bush «fidgeting as usual, talking and smiling, looking around, taking it all in» (does the man suffer from an untreated ADHD ?), but rather Georgian Katyusha rockets which were pounding the capital of South Ossetia and the surrounding (Ossetian) villages from a souped up version of the weapon German Ostfront soldiers used to call «die Stalinorgel». Ignoring the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia (plans for which the US must have known well in advance) in order to portray the Russian response as an (unprovoked) «invasion of Georgia» is an example of one of the bad habits that US pundits are going to have to relinquish (it won’t come easy) in order to facilitate a necessary accommodation by the US elite to a world in which their writ does not run uncontested….

Henri

Cyrena, Michael Parenti was one of the few honest political scientists in the last half of the 20th century in the US, and may well have been the best of them.  He was blacklisted from American universities despite his Elite academic credentials, large body of scholarly work and innovative political theory.  This is common in academia which is considered a hotbed of radicals in American mainstream truth, just as the media is considered “liberal.”  Political science is the most reactionary of a very conservative American social science.

Parenti’s major theory contribution, in my opinion, is beginning to formulate the POWER impications of marxism derived from the economic implications.  Which he applies to the American power system or polity.

When class inequality increases, as is currently happening historically in the US and perhaps throughout the West, oppression icrreases as well to protect the rich from the population.  Violence, coercion, and deceit become institutionalized as brutality and barbarism become the norm. 

This can be seen in the incease and legitimation of torture in both the US and Israel.  Perhaps as many as half the prisoners have nothing to do with terrorism, but they are tortured anyway.  This is not to gain information, the cover story, because they don’t have any, but to intimidate the population from militancy, and to turn the tortured into spies to gain further information.

The best place to start Parenti is his little book called DIRTY TRUTHS.  These are truths that subvert the power structure that are excluded not only from the mainstream media, but from mainstream progressive thought. 

A truther like Chomsky, for example, rated the number 1 public intellectual in some poll or other, absolutely refuses to deny the offical truth about the Kennedy and other assasinations, and the 9/11-anthrax false flag operations.  That is, he denies the gangster aspects of the American state and sleazes those who don’t.  His journalist sidekick Alexander Cockburn is even worse, denying that pollution in the atmosphere causes global warning.  And these are mainstream Amereican leftists!  So the population has no access to these truths, which consequently appear surreal and bizarre to them.

Now that I think of it, his work has been collected and summarized in a book published last year, CONTRARY NOTIONS, a Michael Parenti reader.  That would be the best place to start.

Folktruther,

Thanks for this reference:

•  “But there is a new historical wrinkle that the Buhsites introduced, revealing what Michael Parenti has called “the gangster nature of the state.””

I haven’t read this, but the author is familiar. I’m finding these years fascinating on the one hand,  and scary as hell on the other. I returned to academia 5 years ago as a middled-aged former corporate plantation slave. On my particular plantation, it was SOP to keep everybody (at least the field hands) as dumbed-downed as possible. Local media advanced the cause. So I had to escape there, (pretty much a mini-police state even before it kicked in big time) to get back to my roots where I could try to ‘catch-up’ with real stuff.

The first few years after The Coup, I just kept being more and more astounded by each and every thing that came out of these gangsters. Each ‘thing’ left me thinking, “Oh my, this is just the *most* bizarre. – nothing could beat this. And then,  damned if they wouldn’t come up with something even more outrageous. So, it’s been a full time job trying to keep up with the gangsters, AND dodge the bullets at the same time. Sheesh!

But, I was eventually able to begin putting the dots together with more than just my ‘sense’ or suspicions of what was going on. Not sure how much that helps, unless this consciousness can be used for purposes of preparation and “survival conditioning.’

I did figure out that this wasn’t an identical scenario to Nazi Germany/Stalin’s Russia pre-WWII, but ya know, it’s sure got a whole bunch of similar things going on. Having worked out the similarities, I should probably work on the differences. I’ve just finished Sheldon Wolin’s book, “Democracy INC” and that was really helpful, though tempered. (he doesn’t really get into calling it what it is…GANGSTERISM). So, I’m gonna check out Michael Parenti.

I knew about the pallets of cash that had been shipped over to Iraq and gone missing. (What the hell? See, that’s what I mean. Billions of dollars just evaporate, and not much of anyone blinks an eye?) Then a colleague related an experience from when he was in Jordan in 2004. He was there on an Internship, and he’s an American Muslim. (Turk I believe) Anyway, he was in Jordan and just before he was about to return to the states, he was out and about and decided to take some photos, which is NOT something that he ever does. But, just for the family and all back home. So, he was taking photos of a Mosque there in Amman, and before he knew what was happening, some goons swooped him up and threw him in a van.

Well, he made the mistake of trying to explain who he was (an American student) and what he was doing there, but he was speaking in Arabic, because he figured that would ‘help’. It made things worse. They kept accusing him of being a Turk, (which he is, except that he was born and raised here) and had him handcuffed and the whole nine yards in the van. He had no idea where they were taking him, or what they were gonna do with him. But I said all of that to say that he was in there with another guy (an Iraqi) who had apparently also been ‘captured’ as well. (he didn’t know why or what for or any of that). BUT, he said this other guy had *bulges* of US cash on him. Like, just big fat wads of it. My friend said some of it was still in the shrink-wrapping, because he could hear the ‘rustling’ sounds.

Anyway, my colleague finally was able to jiggle his handcuffed wrists enough to get to his cell phone, (I know, sounds like a TV drama or something) and contact the director of the academic program he was with, and they managed to ‘straighten it out’ with the captors in Jordan. He said he had no idea what became of the guy with all of the cash.

Anyway, makes the old Cowboy Westerns look like child’s play, eh?

Thanks for the tips. Wonder if we’re gonna make it through this?

That’s the basic political-economic history, Cyrena.  But there is a new historical wrinkle that the Buhsites introduced, revealing what Michael Parenti has called “the gangster nature of the state.”  Why go to all the trouble of producing something to make money when you can just steal it?

The police state that the neocons are introducing in the US is not the military fascism of Italy, Germany and Spain pre-WW2.  A military ideology is not necessary whenthe entire military is professional-mercenary.  The Bushites are something new in history, a gnagster fascism. 

The Bushites and their allies have stolen tens of billions of dollars.  As documented by a congressional investigation, largely ignored by the mainstream media of course, they have put 263 tons of hundred dollar bills on pallets and sent them off to Iraq.  There are no receipts for what happened to this money.  Equivilent lack of receipts occur in the military budgets.  tens of billions may be a gross under estimate.

In addition, they have fostered two narco states, Afghanistan and Columbia.  Huge amounts are spent on the War on Drugs, which keeps the price of narcotics high, but the amount of narcotics somehow just keeps increasing.  After the puritanical Taliban wiped it out, it is now up to six thousand tons of opium in Afghanistan.  It is taken on US military planes to be processed into heroin and sold on the streets of the Mid East, Russia, Europe and the US as a means of social control.

This follows the Cia’s cultivation of it in Vietnam and southest Asia.  One out of every ten US soldiers there were addicted.  The British, as you know, fought two wors in the 19th century to infect China.  When the Communists came to power 26% of the population were opium addicts.

Narcotics is a trillion plus indussry and has been documented by Eric Walburg on an English language Eygptian paper and John Ross in Mexico.  American entrepeneurs in the trade still are largely hidden, but they must certainly be involved.  Under the Bushites this industry has replaced manufacturing as a way of making money.

The gangster dope slogan is ‘we make you rich or we make you dead.’  The Bushites have copied it.  Rumsfield constantly quoted his ideological mentor, Mr Alphonso Capone:  You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

This kind of thing is typical when imperialism collapse.

By troublesum, August 19 at 11:14 am

Economic news just released: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26286459/
How is it possible that one administration could fuck a country over on so many fronts at once?

~~~~~

Just adding to the response from folktruther. On the economic front at least, it hasn’t really been just this one administration, though they certainly have executed the last stage of it. It started way back, like to about Regan. But folks like Phil Gramm, and Cheney have been working the set-up (albeit from the shadows) all along.  Imperceptible to most of us, since everything apparently ‘looked’ normal enough, and the state media has been telling us for years, how ‘strong’ the economy is. When that didn’t jibe with everyday life for the average American, nobody ever bothered to compare notes. Instead, we’ve just blamed our own economic woes on ‘too many illegals, or whatever else. We have this tendency to blame everything but the right thing. That’s how “divide and conquer/steal”  works. Just get the masses to start fighting with each other over crumbs, while they walk away with everything. Works every time.

The planners knew what they were doing though. It’s basically akin to a long term embezzlement by experts who know how to work the books.

Of course immediately upon the Coup of 2000, it went into full throttle,, and we’re seeing the effects before they can get out of dodge. (though the loot is already stashed). Hitler really did do the same thing. He cared nothing about the economy when he was doing his massive destruction, including his holocaust apparatus. In fact, where Stalin left his victims to just die of neglect in the gulags, Hitler invested tons money to exterminate so many.

As for the total breakdown in a constitutional government, that was planned in advance as well. Hitler did the same thing. Create a ‘national emergency’ suspend the rule of law that would have prevented the Grand Theft from taking place (just like any decent burglar would do by cutting the security system before the break-in). Make NEW laws, (to control the population) and establish a propaganda ministry to keep the public totally misinformed.

At that point, they’re well on their way to establishing a true fascist dictatorship. To do that, they basically establish an additional apparatus by duplicating agencies. (look how many new bureaucratic agencies we got immediately after 9/11) They create that one as a shadow government, (Cheney, Rummy, Addington)  and still keep the ostensible government (bush) in place as a façade for the masses. Again, everything ‘looks’ normal enough. Buildings are still standing, and the banks are still there, even though there’s no real money in them. When our ‘neighbors’ start losing their jobs, it’s just a bit of a ‘recession’. Pity for those who were somehow displaced. It happens. And, when the ‘neighbors’ start losing their homes to foreclosure; eh, same thing. They must’ve just been flakey and living above their means. (but not us)

But THEN -  it happens to - ’US’, and we start to pay attention, but it’s too late. (Actually, I’ve been paying attention for a while now, but nobody would much listen, and I definitely take no pleasure in the ‘I told you so’ stuff, especially when folks are suffering so). Oh yeah…also jack-up via manipulation, the cost of the one commodity upon which everyone is dependent. That’s why oil was $20.00 a barrel when the Cabal moved in, and eight years later, it’s $140.00 a barrel. Billions in profit for them, and poverty for the rest of us. (Hitler wasn’t that smart, but his totalitarian ideology was slightly different, even if it was a global vision).

So, that about does it, at least for a basic summary. It definitely has NOT been a matter of ‘mismanagement’ anymore than 9/11 was. It’s been very carefully planned and orchestrated.

Any particular reason, folktruther, that you directed your post to me?

The people of the earth are rising up as China is leading their industrialization, impeded by Western imperialism.

Proletarii vcex strahn zaschischaite svoe sotzialistichechoe otechestvo, eh?

(I know that any good Communist will not need a translation of the above phrase.)

An interesting question, troublesum, how could a regime drive the US into the ground in just a few years.  The reason, in my opinion,  is that it is the culmintion of historical trrends that have been occurring invisibly over the last decades.  When the War on Communism of the 20th century segued into the War on Terrorism of the 21st, guality became quantity and the rot became visible.

Although Bush is certainly the worst president the US has had, he man not gain world stature in this regard.  Look at what Hitler did to Germany in just twelve years.  Or Gorbachev in even a shorter time, destroying his whole power system.  The West was so delighted with his poltical performance they gave him the Nobel prize.  Bush was nominated but he just didn’t have the same stature.

Economic news just released: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26286459/
How is it possible that one administration could fuck a country over on so many fronts at once?

Now if we can just STOP accepting toys with lead paint that make our children MORE STUPID than we already allow them to be…...

But what they don’t tell you in the mainstream truth about this multi-polar world, Jackpine, is that Western power is decaying and Asian power is rising, led by China. Sity percent of the world’s people live in Asia, fifty percent in and bordering Chnina.

China is leading as Asian common morket which will dwarf the West economically and politically.  This multi-polar world is a few decades prelimnary to an Asian dominated world.  Which is now beginning to dominate Africa as well, another near billiion people.  The multi-polar world is a prelimary couple of decades to the dwarfing of the West.

And a good thing too.  The US is trying to stop history by military means, a sign of weakness not of stremgh.  Europe is increasingly rejecting American leadership, another good thing, and Russia is increasingly looking toward Asia.  In polls 90% of the Chinese population approve of their government and in the US 80% of the people think the US is headed the wrong way.  The peoploe are right.

The people of the earth are rising up as China is leading their industrialization, impeded by Western imperialism.  And Free Enterprise.  The US and the west simply can’t compete with centralized capitalism, where, in China, the government owns a third of the economy.  And China is growing four times faster than Western economies.

But you will look in vain, Jackpine, for the simple truth from the perspective of the world’s people in the NYTimes, the Washington Post or Truthdig.  Vacuous and restricted Big Truths are the rule, to continue the vast deception of the Ameriean population to support their Superpower and Superpresident.  But the rest of the world are less deceived.

That’s the whole piece?  Look out Nike, there are Chinese sporting goods companies too…

Ah well, the title is enough.  There is nothing wrong with a multi-polar world.  In fact, it can be a very good thing…if only the United States does not fight tooth and nail to keep multi-polarity from happening.

All empires end.  How the United States reacts to the end of its empire is more important than that fact that it will/is end/ending.