Not a bad “op ed” piece but he didnt go far enough.
The author spoke of globalization and it’s far reaching effects ie “decisions made thousands of miles away”… While true it doesnt help that the people that make those decisions are usually not politicians but the nameless, faceless CEO’s of large corporations that contributed obscene amounts of money to the campaigns of the “leaders” that we so willingly elect.
Trade agreements that are bashed out over years of negotiation with big business standing right behind the “leaders” to give them advice or instruction.
Lets look at these self same “leaders” of “Democracy” that rely on a continually convenient “State of Fear” issues to get our minds off how pathetically useless they really are in the grand scheme of things when trying to effectively rule us….
For example.
Weapons of Mass destruction in Iraq…….Billions of dollars later and hundreds of thousands of dead, injured and missing and we realize it was all a lie. Good luck getting enough volunteer soldiers for the next “necessary” war
Climate change, where we finally have started tossing around useless phrases like “carbon credits” (another way to steal billions of dollars without really affecting change), or “greener energy” like fracking ( cant wait to see the class action lawsuit carcinogenic trials launched sometime in the not too distant future). All while the polar icecaps continue to melt at an alarming rate and China keeps cranking up that huge industrial machine (because “its their time in the sun” and the 1st world countries are just jealous) to sell cheaper plastic widgets to the rest of the world…
Or the equally outrageous theft of billions of dollars on Wall St in 2008 where millions of middle class( a virtually extinct species) investors lost everything( imagine working hard your entire life and losing ALL your retirement money….) and then had to watch as hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money was shovelled at the self same thieves as “bonuses” for their creative accounting in stopping its total collapse.
And the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in countries of massive unemployment amoung populations that are overwhealmingly young ( average age of people in most Middle East countries is below 30) gives rise to violence and desperation. We wont “win” fighting anyone over there. Time and age will suck the energy out of them in about 25 years and they will calm down…..if there’s anything left to fight over.
All while our “leaders” dither and wring their hands and spew out the latest “politically correct” Orwellian doublespeak pablum that the elite and the rich will understand while eating their lobster brisque with creamed caviar
I dont think its any surprise that voters who have been lied, cheated and stolen from have flocked towards racist xenophobes with simplitic messages of hate.
I’m just surprised its taken so long……..
Where’s Dwight Eisenhower when you need him.
IKE was the last of the ‘sound money’ presidents. He was also the last one to cut the military budget in half. The US government, under Ike, did good. But it was immediately hijacked by corporate interests from his term on and they have not let go. So the USA has had two generations of liars, cheaters and failed visions. I agree – it is a wonder they haven’t rebelled already. I wonder what it takes?
Ike also warned in his presidential farewell speech of the “military industrial complex’ ie “lobbyists”, taking control.
He was right.
What will it take?
Well if The Donald runs in the upcoming US election as the republican candidate and Hillary is charged with violating US national security for her personal/govt emails…………
It wont take much…..
A looney North Korean missle launch? China flexing their “blue water navy” muscles in the South China Sea? Putin invading another country? Britain’s exit from the EU starting a ‘United” European unraveling all while millions of refugees pour across its borders? Israel stirring the pot? So many options, so little time.
Yeah. Interesting to say the least. And pathetic and sad. Syrians, Kurds and 3rd world refugees have a front row seat of this modern tragedy. They can have it. I left the Coliseum and am staying away from the madding crowd. I am disinclined to stay and watch the show first hand. Not worth it. I’ll read about it instead. And, if you think about it……you might do the same. Do I really think there will be riots in the street? No. I do not. The ‘police state’ we have so stupidly embraced will stop that. The modern centurions will jail more people and taser them when they act out. There will be more oppression. But few popular riots. Do I think people might ‘move away’, too? No, I don’t think so. Romans did not leave Rome even when Nero fiddled. Propaganda and inertia are too strong for most people. It is hard to leap into the unknown with your TV strapped to your back and Canucks season tickets in your back pocket. Kool-Aid and tournaments have it’s adherents.
“So, how might it show up in BC?”
I think we are looking at a decade of more of the same. But increasingly worse. Inequality. Cost of living increases. More marginalization. More fringe-person victims (homeless, mentally ill, crime, violence, addiction, suicide). More blatant corruption. But history teaches us that the masses do not revolt unless they are hungry. It seems imminent survival (literally) has to be threatened. Humiliation, victimization, oppression, discrimination and even unrestrained anger is NOT enough. Put another way: if 20% of the people are actually really hungry on Monday and 75% are then hungry by the following Friday, maybe there will be riots. But the authorities can confiscate property, even children and get away with it. They can take your freedom and your health and get away with it. They can take all that you have and, unless they take everyone else’s at the same time, most people are led docile to the gas ovens.
Regan pushed trickle down economics. Never was as much as a trickle but more of a drop or a drip. According to the theory of exceptionalism if you can not make money in what The Bern describes as a “rigged system” the fault gentle readers is not in the stars but in the flaws of the individual. The golden ring is there for all but only the fatally flawed(the black, the uneducated, the moral, the ethical) are unable to take advantage of the American economic system. Mr Sanders thinks that a Northern European style socialism is the answer to inequality but that will never be. The exceptional one percent will fight to the death to ensure that America’s path of inequality will not alter because the fatally flawed, in the view of the one percent, are not worthy. Just as they think Obama in not worthy.
Obama was not worthy. Or, rather, capable. The Defense budget actually grew under his watch. And that is one of the huge black holes into which the wealth of that nation flows. The country also experienced more quantitative easing. An even bigger black hole. And, of course, the trade agreements…..and the rich got richer.
My gut tells me Obama is a good guy…kinda (I hate that he quasi plagiarizes MLK, Kennedy and other heroic figures when he speaks but that’s just me). But I think we now have proof positive that the president is NOT omnipotent but that the system they created in the background is. Military Industrial – corporate – banks – ….whatever you want to call it…drives the national agenda. Clearly Joe Sixpack thinks so. I think that there are so many special interests and control groups and complexes that no one person or even the two parties can divert the Titanic at this stage.
And what is the iceberg onto which it is going to founder? There may be a war. Quantitative easing may show up for the ‘rot’ that it is. The world’s refugees. Disease. Who knows? But one thing is for sure; there is more of a rotten smell in the USA than there ever was in Denmark. A lot of American foundations are in peril.
I agree that Obama is fatally flawed but does Obama need to wear the policies of the Bush presidency. “David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, author and visiting lecturer at Syracuse University’s law school and business school, says the economy would be a lot stronger if not for the Bush tax cuts.
Americans have lost $6.6 trillion from 2001, when the tax cuts first took effect, through 2012, according to Johnston. That’s more than one-third of the country’s annual GDP.”
Has military spending increased under Obama? “The facts are sometimes murky, which makes it hard to know the truth.”
I don’t think Obama is to blame for GWB in a ‘real’ personal sense because how can one guy turn off the tap in one day? Too much was committed by Bush for Obama to ‘fix’ quickly. But, in eight years the Defense budget increased – plain and simple. Not even ‘frozen’. Eisenhower halved the defense budget in 3 years. And there is NO question that the banking debacle and QE 1 & 2 and the beginning of #3 happened on GW’s watch. Obama couldn’t help that. That Obama’s admin kept the whole haywired contraption together is some kind of magic. I admit that. But no real effort was achieved in real fixes. Their system is broken. It’s still fiat currency. The banks are still speculating. The dollar is still inflated. The economy is still gutted and the rich are getting richer. Obama performed triage, first aid. But the damage is deeper than that.
Our Off the Grid Home 
Not a bad “op ed” piece but he didnt go far enough.
The author spoke of globalization and it’s far reaching effects ie “decisions made thousands of miles away”… While true it doesnt help that the people that make those decisions are usually not politicians but the nameless, faceless CEO’s of large corporations that contributed obscene amounts of money to the campaigns of the “leaders” that we so willingly elect.
Trade agreements that are bashed out over years of negotiation with big business standing right behind the “leaders” to give them advice or instruction.
Lets look at these self same “leaders” of “Democracy” that rely on a continually convenient “State of Fear” issues to get our minds off how pathetically useless they really are in the grand scheme of things when trying to effectively rule us….
For example.
Weapons of Mass destruction in Iraq…….Billions of dollars later and hundreds of thousands of dead, injured and missing and we realize it was all a lie. Good luck getting enough volunteer soldiers for the next “necessary” war
Climate change, where we finally have started tossing around useless phrases like “carbon credits” (another way to steal billions of dollars without really affecting change), or “greener energy” like fracking ( cant wait to see the class action lawsuit carcinogenic trials launched sometime in the not too distant future). All while the polar icecaps continue to melt at an alarming rate and China keeps cranking up that huge industrial machine (because “its their time in the sun” and the 1st world countries are just jealous) to sell cheaper plastic widgets to the rest of the world…
Or the equally outrageous theft of billions of dollars on Wall St in 2008 where millions of middle class( a virtually extinct species) investors lost everything( imagine working hard your entire life and losing ALL your retirement money….) and then had to watch as hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money was shovelled at the self same thieves as “bonuses” for their creative accounting in stopping its total collapse.
And the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in countries of massive unemployment amoung populations that are overwhealmingly young ( average age of people in most Middle East countries is below 30) gives rise to violence and desperation. We wont “win” fighting anyone over there. Time and age will suck the energy out of them in about 25 years and they will calm down…..if there’s anything left to fight over.
All while our “leaders” dither and wring their hands and spew out the latest “politically correct” Orwellian doublespeak pablum that the elite and the rich will understand while eating their lobster brisque with creamed caviar
I dont think its any surprise that voters who have been lied, cheated and stolen from have flocked towards racist xenophobes with simplitic messages of hate.
I’m just surprised its taken so long……..
Where’s Dwight Eisenhower when you need him.
I need another coffee………
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IKE was the last of the ‘sound money’ presidents. He was also the last one to cut the military budget in half. The US government, under Ike, did good. But it was immediately hijacked by corporate interests from his term on and they have not let go. So the USA has had two generations of liars, cheaters and failed visions. I agree – it is a wonder they haven’t rebelled already. I wonder what it takes?
LikeLike
Ike also warned in his presidential farewell speech of the “military industrial complex’ ie “lobbyists”, taking control.
He was right.
What will it take?
Well if The Donald runs in the upcoming US election as the republican candidate and Hillary is charged with violating US national security for her personal/govt emails…………
It wont take much…..
A looney North Korean missle launch? China flexing their “blue water navy” muscles in the South China Sea? Putin invading another country? Britain’s exit from the EU starting a ‘United” European unraveling all while millions of refugees pour across its borders? Israel stirring the pot? So many options, so little time.
Interesting times.
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Yeah. Interesting to say the least. And pathetic and sad. Syrians, Kurds and 3rd world refugees have a front row seat of this modern tragedy. They can have it. I left the Coliseum and am staying away from the madding crowd. I am disinclined to stay and watch the show first hand. Not worth it. I’ll read about it instead. And, if you think about it……you might do the same. Do I really think there will be riots in the street? No. I do not. The ‘police state’ we have so stupidly embraced will stop that. The modern centurions will jail more people and taser them when they act out. There will be more oppression. But few popular riots. Do I think people might ‘move away’, too? No, I don’t think so. Romans did not leave Rome even when Nero fiddled. Propaganda and inertia are too strong for most people. It is hard to leap into the unknown with your TV strapped to your back and Canucks season tickets in your back pocket. Kool-Aid and tournaments have it’s adherents.
“So, how might it show up in BC?”
I think we are looking at a decade of more of the same. But increasingly worse. Inequality. Cost of living increases. More marginalization. More fringe-person victims (homeless, mentally ill, crime, violence, addiction, suicide). More blatant corruption. But history teaches us that the masses do not revolt unless they are hungry. It seems imminent survival (literally) has to be threatened. Humiliation, victimization, oppression, discrimination and even unrestrained anger is NOT enough. Put another way: if 20% of the people are actually really hungry on Monday and 75% are then hungry by the following Friday, maybe there will be riots. But the authorities can confiscate property, even children and get away with it. They can take your freedom and your health and get away with it. They can take all that you have and, unless they take everyone else’s at the same time, most people are led docile to the gas ovens.
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Starvation apparently leads to longevity……
Guiness Record Holder for worlds oldest man announced this week.
http://www.google.ca/url?url=http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2016/3/guinness-world-records-announces-holocaust-survivor-israel-kristal-as-worlds-old&rct=j&frm=1&q=&esrc=s&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiF5Imk-bvLAhUC-2MKHSc5CTsQqQIIFjAA&sig2=qc1F8zuenHTynCQL26nL6w&usg=AFQjCNE4uG9wm2y_rqC-cnD283-AMTz50Q
Who knew?
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Regan pushed trickle down economics. Never was as much as a trickle but more of a drop or a drip. According to the theory of exceptionalism if you can not make money in what The Bern describes as a “rigged system” the fault gentle readers is not in the stars but in the flaws of the individual. The golden ring is there for all but only the fatally flawed(the black, the uneducated, the moral, the ethical) are unable to take advantage of the American economic system. Mr Sanders thinks that a Northern European style socialism is the answer to inequality but that will never be. The exceptional one percent will fight to the death to ensure that America’s path of inequality will not alter because the fatally flawed, in the view of the one percent, are not worthy. Just as they think Obama in not worthy.
LikeLike
Obama was not worthy. Or, rather, capable. The Defense budget actually grew under his watch. And that is one of the huge black holes into which the wealth of that nation flows. The country also experienced more quantitative easing. An even bigger black hole. And, of course, the trade agreements…..and the rich got richer.
My gut tells me Obama is a good guy…kinda (I hate that he quasi plagiarizes MLK, Kennedy and other heroic figures when he speaks but that’s just me). But I think we now have proof positive that the president is NOT omnipotent but that the system they created in the background is. Military Industrial – corporate – banks – ….whatever you want to call it…drives the national agenda. Clearly Joe Sixpack thinks so. I think that there are so many special interests and control groups and complexes that no one person or even the two parties can divert the Titanic at this stage.
And what is the iceberg onto which it is going to founder? There may be a war. Quantitative easing may show up for the ‘rot’ that it is. The world’s refugees. Disease. Who knows? But one thing is for sure; there is more of a rotten smell in the USA than there ever was in Denmark. A lot of American foundations are in peril.
LikeLike
I agree that Obama is fatally flawed but does Obama need to wear the policies of the Bush presidency. “David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, author and visiting lecturer at Syracuse University’s law school and business school, says the economy would be a lot stronger if not for the Bush tax cuts.
Americans have lost $6.6 trillion from 2001, when the tax cuts first took effect, through 2012, according to Johnston. That’s more than one-third of the country’s annual GDP.”
Has military spending increased under Obama? “The facts are sometimes murky, which makes it hard to know the truth.”
LikeLike
I don’t think Obama is to blame for GWB in a ‘real’ personal sense because how can one guy turn off the tap in one day? Too much was committed by Bush for Obama to ‘fix’ quickly. But, in eight years the Defense budget increased – plain and simple. Not even ‘frozen’. Eisenhower halved the defense budget in 3 years. And there is NO question that the banking debacle and QE 1 & 2 and the beginning of #3 happened on GW’s watch. Obama couldn’t help that. That Obama’s admin kept the whole haywired contraption together is some kind of magic. I admit that. But no real effort was achieved in real fixes. Their system is broken. It’s still fiat currency. The banks are still speculating. The dollar is still inflated. The economy is still gutted and the rich are getting richer. Obama performed triage, first aid. But the damage is deeper than that.
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