A Dictatorship of the Rich is a symptom, not the master, of an inactivist electorate.

[wcepler]

Over the centuries we keep pondering the "mystery of evil". More specifically, the mystery of how such a tiny percentage of the human race (say, 1%) keeps managing to subjugate the whole of humanity.

Call them "elites", call the aristocrats, call the multimillionaires, but the mystery still remains.

If we saw something like this happening on another planet we would probably be so mystified we might even wonder if the ruling "tip of the iceberg" was using ESP to enslave their underlings.

So, the question is where is the "power" of the elites coming from?

Please note (to criminally oversimplify) it's either:

(1.) coming from the elites themselves

(2.) or it's coming from "somewhere else"

Alas, can there be any doubt that it IS coming from somewhere else and that the somewhere is US.

Perhaps this is coming to mind became progressive/Democratic America is now in the throws of more political activism than possibly ever before in the history our country.

And Godspeed to it! That's just the point. The American political animal is usually criminally passive and stuporous. That sentence is worth repeating: The American political animal is usually criminally passive and stuporous.

And THAT is the core explanation of virtually everything that is now happening in America. Garbage in, garbage out. Said differently, no consistent, passionate, and NATIONWIDE activism is the social "host" of the elites. To paraphrase the words of a broker I once knew (God, did that guy know how to "churn"!), such a slob environment for the elites is "like picking up money off the floor".

But for the first time in the last eight years (actually much more), "Democratic/liberal activism" reigns, and we well know this election is no slam dunk (as it fairly should be!) because the of MASSIVE efforts of Republican filth to steal Presidential Election # 3.

But THIS time we are so organized, well financed, morally outraged, and COLOSSALLY PISSED that the odds makers in Vegas (for me, always the people I trust most) are all saying, in effect, the election is already over and the Democrats should even have a filibuster proof Congress.

We shall see, but for the first time in my lifetime, we aren't acting like a political/social slob species.

Please think back four or five years (if you can bear it). My God, we had gone down for the "fourteenth" time, so it was a miracle that the non-elites of America were even still breathing.

But somehow we survived and gradually, gradually got the message that it was activism or death. And then site after site began to appear on the net and we started doing what the peasants of the Middle Ages were technologically unable to do. We stated communicating. Sweet Jesus, did we start communicating! The very Earth became our town hall meeting and from communication comes knowledge and from knowledge comes activism and power.

In short if we were still stuck in passivity/stuporville, NOTHING WOULD HAVE CHANGED, and the pugs would be stealing every election in sight, just as they did in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.

Here's another infinitely satisfying symptom of how we are now a force to be reckoned with. Look at the number's of G. W. Bush (arguably the anti-Christ of the 3rd millennia). Man, he's not just in the toilet, he's in an outhouse! And hey George, after this election if we DO massively carry the day, I don't care how many sheds you have on your Texas ranch, you can run, but you can't hide. What do you bet this guy is already headed for alcoholic loony tunes? Even so George, slurring you words or not slurring your words, ACCOUNTABLY is approaching you like a glacier from God. And the same is true for your Nazi loving friends and family.

OK, back to the core idea. When a tiny minority of a country (let's keep calling them elites) is the absolute master of the citizens, this is NEVER because the elites are so powerful and smart. It is infinitely disempowering (and stupid) to think that. No, the reason is TOTALLY otherwise. Indeed, the buck 100% stops with us. It's because the electorate are allowing it to happen, just as we were allowing the fascist pugs to "have their will" with our country and planet for most of the Bush years.

But for now, at least, that is no longer happening because we are no longer in an "allowing" state of mind; instead we are in hard ball to the max mode. In short millions of the "peasants" (that's how the elites see and laugh at us) have decided to be activists, and not just activists, but very aggressive activists, and boy has it changed EVERYTHING!

Of course millions of our neighbors are still brainless deadbeats who keep perpetuating the fascist elites with their TV sitcom passivity, but, like the deadbeats of the little red hen, they ain't going to get any of the bread. Plus, some things in life you just have to work around and deadbeat neighbors and relatives are like hemorrhoids in the American body polick. Oh well.

Indeed we can use them as a constant reminder of how people live who are a kind of political "anti-matter". Social/political deadbeats and fascist elites are just two different sides of the same coin -- and a plague on both their houses.

Over the last several years I have written well over a hundred of passionately progressive op-eds, but nearly all of these pieces, albeit always fighting the good fight to save our country and planet, generally had the dark tone of struggling to deal with these devils from hell.

But THIS piece is a VERY cautious "celebration" that American Democrats and Liberals have finally got the message that our choice (as said before) is between aggressive activism and death -- death of our Constitutional Republic, death of our one and only planet Earth, and even the death of children.

And you know what? Praise the Gods, WE HAVE CHOSEN ACTIVISM!

In other words, we have chosen salvation over inevitable slavery and death.

Viva America.
**********************************************************************

Solidarity, W. Christopher Epler (Bill)


<http://theliberationofrealism.blogspot.com/>

[elleng]

1. Most people are not DELIBERATELY

brainless deadbeats, imo.

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson

http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1350.htm

[Mme. Defarge]

2. Bravo, mon ami!

Formidable!

[judasdisney]

3. Baloney. Blaming the victim.

"Of course there is class warfare in America. My side is winning" -- Warren Buffett

"Part of my job has always been to maintain a certain amount of worker insecurity" -- Alan Greenspan, according to Thom Hartmann: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=7-9781576754634-3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

The oligarchs have always sought to eradicate the middle class, because the middle class has the leisure time to be activist.

The oligarchs have always sought absolute power.

The oligarchs do not merely rely on citizen passivity -- oligarchs push for dumbing-down (e.g., "Leave No Child Behind") and they take action to ensure that the masses are living hand-to-mouth.

Stop blaming the victim.

[Sinti]

4. Absolutely - but I would not fault the host entirely for the work of the parasite

The parasite has found the host's weaknesses, and exploited them deftly. Have you ever seen the BBC documentary Century of the Self?

Video(s) here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151