What would terrify the 1% more than anything else?

[Brigid]

My answer: the sight of the 99% flocking to the polls come November. If I were a one-percenter, it would certainly terrify me, even if I knew that at least some of them were there to vote the way I would want them to. Why? Because it would mean that if nothing else, the masses are paying attention -- and sooner or later they are going to start voting in their own interests instead of those of their overlords.

So let's do it. Don't forget, as Michael Moore is always saying, there are far more of us than there are of them.

[ZombieHorde]

1. A series of ghosts visiting on Christmas eve? nt

[RagAss]

2. DUZY !

[Honeycombe8]

3. We did that in 2008. So it's not a "finally" doing that, but doing it again. nt

[Brigid]

8. Not really.

Voter turnout in 2008 was a little over 57%. I think that leaves a lot of room for improvement.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html

[Honeycombe8]

23. I see your pt But that's all Democrats and a lot of independents. That's all any Dem. Prez

can get?

In any case, I'll be there to vote! But that's the usual case for me.

[BlueIris]

36. It's important to point that out.

I was shocked, in the end, how low voter turnout was in 2008.

[CAPHAVOC]

4. Ron Paul POTUS. Bernie Sanders VP. Ralph Nader AG.

[IowaRevolutionary]

6. bwahahahahahahahahaha!! nt

[Dokkie]

12. Bernie Prez

Grayson VP, Ralph Nader AG and Ron Paul Fed Chairman/Secretary of Defense. Or infact any combination of those 4 guys will have em sweating bullets

[CAPHAVOC]

58. And we forgot Dennis Kuchinich for Secretary of Defense.

[Egalitarian Thug]

30. Ron Paul? Are you fucking insane? Because he sure is.

If all it takes to gain your support is to include one or two truths within a dogma of regressive insanity, you my friend are the problem with America.

[progressoid]

80. So, you're saying the 99% are Paulites?

Last edited Mon Apr 9, 2012, 03:27 PM - Edit history (1)

[CAPHAVOC]

81. Nah! But he would drive the 1% nuts.

[progressoid]

84. OK

but he would also scare away 99% of the 99%ers.

[LeftishBrit]

90. Not nearly as nuts as the 99%

Most one-percenters would benefit financially from policies that stopped them having to pay taxes, and destroyed all public services and social safety nets.

[NYC Liberal]

86. The one percent would LOVE Ron Paul.

Corporations would have complete free reign -- even more so than they do now (and that's saying something).

[LeftishBrit]

89. Do you seriously think that Bernie Sanders would agree to be Ron Paul's VP?

[guitar man]

5. The breakdown of their propaganda machine

...that keeps us at each others throats and the unifying of all of us who are in that same 99% boat together.

Only fools fight in a burning house...

[dogknob]

9. A (continued) free Internet and...

The eradication of television's constant stream of hate/fear programming.

Education: I asked a woman who graduated from high school in 2009 what they taught regarding world history while she was there. She said "The Holocaust." I said "so, you mean World War 2?" She said "The Holocaust part of it." I said "that's it?" She said "yep."

[unblock]

7. a nationwide, passionately committed consumer's/worker's group that boycotts effectively.

or any institutions capable of wielding real power for causes on the left.

we used to have unions that could bring businesses to their knees.

now, not so much.

but a revival of that kind of power is what they really fear.

[socialist_n_TN]

13. Yeah, I agree..........

They don't really give a rat's ass about LGBT rights or ethnic rights, or racial rights, or anything else that doesn't affect their bottom lines. The only reason they take ANY side on these issues is to keep the working class divided. It's not intrinsic to their raison d'etre. BUT a true, mass worker's movement that threatens to fuck with their profits would scare the shit out of them.

[coalition_unwilling]

14. Hear, hear! Racism, sexism and most of the other -isms are tools the ruling class uses to

keep the working class divided against itself and distracted from focusing on the real enemy.

[TomClash]

53. This nt

[Prism]

10. Equality n/t

[Pacafishmate]

11. Oh noes, the rabble is voting for one of two corporate approved choices.

What ever shall the 1% do ?

[SammyWinstonJack]

71. ...

[rhett o rick]

73. And should someone slip thru that isnt in their pocket

that person will either be bought, "exposed" (Spitzer, Weiner), redistricted out (Kucinich), framed (Siegelman), or killed.

[Tom Ripley]

15. The sound of the tumbrils

[guitar man]

18. Hear hear!!

+1000

[Voltaire]

39. I am with you

Fear for their own physical safety is the ONLY thing that will frighten them. They believe they can buy every fucking thing else, and why not, they mostly HAVE!

[hifiguy]

83. Yep. Time for France's National Razor

to go back into service on this side of the pond.

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. I think that we definitely should do this, but if you think that this is terrifying to them,

you don't know them at all.

Understand this, they own America and the rest of the world, too. They own both political parties. They own you, your family, your house and your city. They own your boss, your boss's boss, and the company you all work for. They have their plans and neither you nor I nor anyone you know are a part of them.

And no, there is no conspiracy as it is generally understood, there is simply a confluence of objectives. They fight each other while they steal from you to generate the means to keep fighting, They are both sides of the shadow economics that most of us are barely aware of. They are the people pushing the stock market higher and the people shorting it. They live in a world the 99% don't even know exists.

So what do they fear? Two things, each other and any real change. Change that upsets the basic power structure.

And here's the real kicker, if there were any real threat to that power structure, and the current turmoil might just spark that, they would give you just a little more and you would be happy with that and go back to your family and friends and be grateful that somebody is taking care of you.

[IowaRevolutionary]

19. +1 nt

[socialist_n_TN]

22. "...they would give you just a little more......

and you would be happy with that and go back to your family and friends..."

Yep this is what they do when the shit hits the fan and the system itself is threatened. Like in the 30s in this country. The ONLY reason we got the FDR reforms that liberals pay lip service to is because the communists were getting into a position to bring the whole fucking thing down and get rid of them all together.

I know enough history that I know we don't stop this time. Otherwise our grandchildren are fighting this same fight in another 50 years or so.

[Egalitarian Thug]

34. Memory is vital to progress. We have lost so much, so quickly.

Please see Cerridwen's reply below.

[Cerridwen]

28. "...the dictatorship of the future will be very unlike the dictatorships which we've been familiar"

"...the dictatorship of the future will be very unlike the dictatorships which we've been familiar with in the immediate past.

...take another book...George Orwell's "1984"...written at the height the Stalinist regime, and just after the Hitler regime, and there he foresaw a dictatorship using entirely the methods of terror, the methods of physical violence...I think what's going to happen in the future is that the dictators will find, as the old saying goes, you can do everything with bayonets except sit on them.

...{the new dictators will find} if you want to preserve your power indefinitely, you have to get the consent of the ruled, and this they will do partly by drugs.., partly by these new techniques of propaganda. They will do it by bypassing the rational part of man and appealing to his subconscious and his deeper emotions and physiology even...making him actually love his slavery.

...this is the danger that actually people may be in some ways be happy under the new regime. But they will be happy in situations in which they oughtn't to be happy..."

(emphasis added) Aldous Huxley, The Mike Wallace Interview, 5/18/1958 (video link at link)

My post, December 2008: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4571277&mesg_id=4571782

Direct to video: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/huxley_aldous.html

[Egalitarian Thug]

31. Wow! 1958. This is of course, absolutely correct. It is both surprising and profoundly disappointing

to see how easily people are tricked into servitude. It's like they really want it.

[Stardust]

51. Your post reminds me of someone I miss deeply..

"...and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it . . . they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in The big club...."
-George Carlin

[Egalitarian Thug]

52. My hero. As a kid I literally wore out FM & AM, I knew The Weird Willy West Show by heart

and can probably do it today. Both he and Frank Zappa deeply effected my developing world view, but Carlin was the epitome of the thinker.

And unlike Frank, he never stopped. He was almost obsessive in his need to tell people what they didn't want to hear, and to do it in such an appealing way that they could not refuse. Truly one of the greatest minds of our time.

[Stardust]

94. Thanks so much for that. I wish I could just blast this from the sky, wake people up. nt

[bvar22]

88. "they would give you just a little more"

"if there were any real threat to that power structure, and the current turmoil might just spark that, they would give you just a little more and you would be happy with that and go back to your family and friends and be grateful that somebody is taking care of you. "

We have been thrown a few crumbs over the last 3 years.
That dynamic is In Play,
and the response is much as you predicted,
but not for those paying attention.





You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[Egalitarian Thug]

92. My first thought was, "not even crumbs", but yes, I guess the are.

And what is, IMO, the saddest fact of all is that the overwhelming majority would be perfectly happy to go back to getting the heel to fight with each other over, never even considering that if we were to more evenly distribute the entire loaf there is enough for everybody to sustain for the foreseeable future.

[bvar22]

93. You can find a bunch of these crumbs here on DU.

Just wait for somebody to post The LIST!

For most of these crumbs, we were forced to give away the store to the 1%,
but they are still listed as "SUCCESSES",
like getting a brief extension on Unemployment Benefits for some of the Unemployed,
by giving up a 2 year extension of the Bush Tax Cuts.
This is still touted as a Great Progressive Achievement.

So too the much ballyhooed Health Insurance Reform.

You can go down the line,
and most of these "Progressive Achievements" are way more than counter balanced by wholesale Giveaways to the 1%.




You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[IowaRevolutionary]

17. General Strike. I mean a REAL general strike.

Highly organized. NATIONWIDE. Militant as fuck.

[socialist_n_TN]

20. And once again, I agree with you........

A LOT of people have some romantic notion of a general strike, but it ain't romantic. It's a revolutionary tactic and it means NOBODY works. Even if you WANT to scab, you can't get there because the roads are blocked and the stores, plants and shops are OCCUPIED.

However, you won't get this until you get what was talked about above, i.e., an organized worker's opposition. And we'll need worker's militias too for self defense. Because if it get's down to a REAL situation with the owners, they'll be paying the brown shirts and Acadamia (or whatever the fuck Blackwater is now) to break us.

[IowaRevolutionary]

24. Thank you.

I agree that it won't happen overnight. And with everything else you said. The question was what do the 1% fear most, and Real General Strike is the best answer I can think of!

[Initech]

25. Yes - we need to take to the streets like Greece and Syria.

I am really starting to think that's the only way these billionaire pieces of shit will get the message to stop fucking with our livelyhoods.

[Johnny Rico]

26. Surely you don't seriously think that's going to happen in the foreseeable future...

[U4ikLefty]

33. Occupy and others are oraginizing a General Strike for

are oraginizing a General Strike for May 1st.

http://www.occupymay1st.org/2012/03/11/flyer-what-is-m1gs/

[madamesilverspurs]

21. Elizabeth Warren in the White House

and good Democrats in the majority in both houses of congress.

And Dennis Kucinich as Chief Justice.

[99Forever]

27. Voting doesn't get us anything..

.. but more of the same with a different label. A corrupted system is a corrupted system no matter who sitting at the head of it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. Voting and just voting and hoping voting will solve all

Gets us nothing. If it was so ineffective why the voter supression? Trust me I have had this conversation many a times.

Voting alone will not do it.

But it is part, at this point while important, not as important as people think. People need to be involved 24/7 and go beyond petitions as well.

Multiple tactics...voting is one of them.

Oh and trust me, having been on the receiving end of an attempted voter supression, why the effort to keep the "wrong" kinds from voting?

[99Forever]

46. I think that's what ..

.. I was attempting to say, thanks for making it clearer that I did.

[nadinbrzezinski]

74. It sounded you were encouraging people not to vote

Oh I had this same talk with a few occupy, who also have white privilidge. Once I told them the story I think they got it.

[99Forever]

76. I can see where you got that from..

,,, and not what I intended. I'll vote even tho it (in and of itself) isn't likely to get a lot of real world results. I'm just tired of being lied to by those I vote for. I expect the other side to lie, that's a given. It's being disappointed repeatedly that has left me a cynic. Trust isn't possible for me anymore and I didn't start out like this. That leaves me both sad and angry.

[nadinbrzezinski]

77. I take the same attitude I did as an 18 year old in Mexico

We vote knowing full well won't change a thing. Alas we vote anyway. The real fight is not in the voting booth. It starts and stops in the streets.

Yup. I was that much of a cynic at 18, but I greW up in a country where a President ran on the Slogan, "we're all part of the corruption problem."

I would have a lot of respect for any American politician who voiced that in a campaign.

[datasuspect]

66. you can put lipstick and a wig on a piece of shit

and it will still fundamentally be a piece of shit.

the solution is to flush the turds.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

29. I'm ready. nt

[wendylaroux]

32. Yes Mr. Moore is right

there are more of us then them,hopefully someday the infighting between ''US'' will stop, so we can begin to show ''them'' our united numbers.

[Egalitarian Thug]

38. It will stop when we figure out where it comes from. n/t

[think]

35. People realizing we don't need Wallstreet. It needs us......

[raouldukelives]

37. The reappearance of Jesus. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. It goes beyond just voting

But I hope you knew that.

[Brigid]

44. Gotta start somewhere.

We have lots of work to do.

[nadinbrzezinski]

75. It started already at multiple occupy sites

It started at the union hall. It started in talks between neighbors.

But voting and only voting is not the solution.

It is part of it.

[HeiressofBickworth]

42. Voting - I think you're right

They fear the 99% at the voting booth. That is why there is such a concerted effort in states with Republican governors and legislatures to minimize the number of eligible voters. They know, just as we all do, that the truism is that the more voters who turn out, the more likely Democrats are elected. Well, the Repubs can't bar the door to the polling stations, but they can thin out the numbers before the election by onerous registration requirements designed to have an impact on minorities, elderly and disabled, demographics more likely to vote Dem. The have been afraid for quite a while now. The closer the election, the more we see a step-up in the pace of voter suppression laws.

[Leftist Agitator]

48. "elderly"

Don't vote Democrat.

[HeiressofBickworth]

57. THIS "elder" does!!!! And so do many of my friends.

[Scuba]

62. Huh?

[DeSwiss]

43. What would terrify the 1% more than anything else?

An execution stand set up on Wall Street?



- Historically speaking.....

[jtuck004]

45. Having to repeat "Would you like fries with that" for real.

I would agree with you about voting, except that I am not sure the 1% ers, a separate group from the radical right/Tea Partiers care.

They don't complain, make excuses, or cry. They just start trying to figure out how to co-opt the winners, and have been remarkably successful at it for years..

[MannyGoldstein]

47. America's Founders understood this

and designed our government around this fact.

"In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other."
- Benjamin Franklin, closing address to the Constitutional Convention

Dr. Franklin would be damned proud of Occupy

[MisterP]

49. sort of like saying that MRSA really fears beta-lactams

[BeHereNow]

50. It would terrify them if we all went off the "grid."

If we stopped consuming what has made them "fat."

If we unplugged out televisions, cell phones, and all other electronics.
If we grew our own food and shared it with our neighbors.
If we stopped showing up at miserable jobs and paying taxes.

All of these things and more would terrify them- it's really simple
if you think about it.

No consumerism, no 1%.
How many are willing to "pull the plug" on the consumerism that created the 1%?
Not enough to make a difference.

BHN

[Marr]

54. The Occupy movement, but bigger.

I think the relatively small display we saw with Occupy right out of the gate freaked them out, a lot. It was people organizing outside of our rigged political system, which was purchased by the 1% a long time ago.

[Kablooie]

55. but about half of those 99% support 1% privilege over their own.

[saras]

56. Miniature unmanned drones in the hands of the general population that can find phones and RFID chips

[JHB]

61. The drones go for about $300...

[NuttyFluffers]

59. the continual implosion of their self-made economic apocalypse wiping out their ill-gotten gains.

there will be no punishment greater to the 1% than suddenly being reduced and forcefully included into a new 100%, especially if it is a result from them "outsmarting themselves."

the future challenge will be trying to fashion a new economic system from the coming ashes.

[Mendocino]

60. 90% Income tax rate

n/t

[unionworks]

63. this thread

...kicks ass!

[me b zola]

64. To vote for what?

Is there someone on a ballot that would acutally scare the 1%? Uh, no.

OWS----now that scares the one percent.

[datasuspect]

65. the one thing they fear the most (the one thing they have ALWAYS feared the most)

is when the rabble, the mob, the great unwashed come together and start torching their palaces and hanging them from street poles.

we came close to revolution in the late 60s, they made sure THAT would never happen again.

if you can put a 1% er outside the protection of their wealth and credit, they will shit their pants and beg.

[Zalatix]

67. Or we could expand on what Greece is doing.

Replace capitalism with the barter system. The Plutocrats would starve.

[datasuspect]

68. like i said,

place them in a position where their wealth and credit can't save them.

[Puzzledtraveller]

69. and?

What came of it last time we flocked to the polls, in 2008?

[Daniel537]

78. Uhm, a lot.

Stimulus, Health Care reform, Pell Grant expansion, Fair Pay Act, Withdrawal from Iraq, end of CIA torture and black sites, lifting some sanctions on Cuba, you know stuff like that.

[leveymg]

70. A Democratic President and Congress that wasn't owned by them.

[KG]

72. losing their grip on the reins of gov't

[One_Life_To_Give]

79. 99% Hosting a Constitutional Convention

The idea of having to buy a whole new government would really terrify them.

[lpbk2713]

82. No more AM radio.

They would be at a deep loss on how to get their propaganda disseminated.

[kctim]

85. What would terrify the 1% more than anything else?

More than 1% claiming to support the 99%.

[Enrique]

87. yes, but not in the general election

no one running in the GE is terrifying to the rich. They got MUCH richer under Obama.

But the primaries are a different story. They might start to get terrified if democratic voters started primarying dems the way the Tea Party is doing with Republicans.

[Taitertots]

91. A democracy that actually represents the will of the people?

A progressive President and Congress?
Widespread striking?