An Historic American Revolution Has Begun

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

Americans are sick of having no voice in their government, angry at the crumbling economy, the home foreclosures, the lack of jobs, the gutting of schools, and the slashing of other vital services people desperately need such as medical care and Social Security. It's something the bailed out financial institutions, corporate CEO's, and the lobbyists and politicians who serve them still haven't grasped. Nor has the U.S. media which provides endless political sound bites.

Meanwhile the American Middle Class income, adjusted for inflation has slipped to 1970's levels while giant company CEO's are making record salaries and shifting evermore jobs overseas. And the U.S. spreads its "War on Terror" everywhere, no longer even bothering to justify it as its Military Industrial Complex receives a financial bonanza.

Americans know they are being had. Occupy Wall Street brought thousands of people to the streets of New York City and thousands more have taken to the streets across the U.S. Rather than arrest those on Wall Street responsible for pillaging the nation's assets however, police are instead cracking down on the peaceful protesters. But in fits and starts and led by the young, by the vast number of unemployed and by those whose unions are being crushed, Americans are beginning to take to the streets. As the U.S. economy grows worse, there will more protests, more demands for change and even louder demands that politicians become answerable to the people.

posted with permission from http://sane-ramblings.blogspot.com/2011/10/historic-revolution-has-begun.html

[shraby]

1. Looks to me like a goodly share of everyone in the world

has had it and ready for a monumental change in the power structure. So far it's peaceful but things have been known to get ugly really fast in some cases. May it stay peaceful..it puts more power in the people's hands.

[doc03]

2. I am thinking the rich are going to get scared and start fighting

back, they have the government on their side it could get very ugly very soon.

[roamer65]

6. I fully expect to see that we are not a democracy very soon.

[coalition_unwilling]

17. They should be scared, as the photo below illustrates:

[lunatica]

3. This time it's a planetary revolution.

In the 1940 it was a world war. Today it's a world revolution.

[Dan]

5. ...sad smile,

and it will lead to another world war, with the "not rich" fighting the other "not rich", while the "rich" enjoy the game of misdirection - and ensuring that all combatants abide by the rules of "no one touch the rich".

[Name removed]

7. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[starroute]

12. They pulled that one with World War I -- but they won't try it again

For one thing, nationalism as a reputable belief system for understanding the world is long dead -- the nationalism we have now is no more than a vague "hooray for our team" remnant of a hundred years ago.

For another, the rich have realized that wars destroy value -- more value than the winners are likely to be able to extract from the losers. World War I was never solely about heading off a popular revolution -- but the German reparations fiasco in the wake of the war demonstrated the folly of expecting any profit in the aftermath. And World War II left everybody poor for decades except the Americans. Besides, they have their techniques for extracting value far more refined now -- wars are no longer needed for the purpose.

And for a third thing, the rich know that even a hundred years ago their being able to pit the French working class against the German working class was no sure bet. It took all the propaganda they could muster and could easily have gone awry. This is one reason they've built up professional armies, mercenaries like Blackwater, and systems of predator drones. If they do go to war again for any reason, they don't want to depend on proletarian conscripts who owe them no particular loyalty.

I'm not saying that some nasty stuff might not go down over the next few years -- but it won't be the same old nasty stuff. And there's even a chance that the workers may have gotten it through their heads by now that "an injury to one is an injury to all" and actually be ready to stand in solidarity.

[Dan]

14. Good points,

I just finished reading "In the Garden of the Beasts" - and I was struck by events in Germany, and American during that period. Everyone was looking for answers to desperate situations. Each found a savior - and in both cases, the rich fought back. The struggles of the average man was far removed the life style of the rich. Even Ambassador Dodd with his attempts of living like the common man - enjoyed a life style far removed from the average person. But what struck me, was the utter indifference that those that "lead our nations" view the plight of the common man. We are pawns - to be played.

Germany sought salvation, not from the German leadership at the time, but from a desperate desire to be allowed to have some quality of life. That desperation allowed "some" to take advantage of the situation to take control of a nation - and once in control of that nation, they were not letting go. The events of June 30th, 1934 - ensured that control would be maintained and a message delivered to a nation.

America found FDR, but even then, there are historical accounts that the "leaders of finance, etc" were willing to overthrow our government to maintain their life style and ensure control of the wealth. We were lucky, extremely lucky.

We are not at the extremes faced by the nation in the 1930(s), but there is a sense of desperation, of urgency in the air. Too many people are suffering and a branch of our government is controlled by "extremist". They do not feel the pain of the common person. As a nation, we are looking for answers, and as the original post indicated, it is a message being delivered across the world - that here we find common cause, in our plight. One would hope, that the demonstrations of solidarity of people(s) imploring their respective governments - to reach out, give a hand, and do something to relieve or address the concerns of the Masses, would give our government pause. But you have to wonder, in this time of divided government, do they hear, do they want to hear? And even worse, when they hear, who are they listening too....

My thoughts...

(Smile), ... I have always thought that the events leading to WWI was mostly the result of "miscalculations" and the primitive conditions of communicating, which resulted in mass movements of troops, in an attempt to preempt other government moves.

But I enjoyed your post. Thanks.

[starroute]

15. Perhaps we could use to look at World War I more closely

When I was in high school, they drilled into us that the causes were "militarism, imperialism, and entangling alliances" -- because that was the answer that would be expected on the exam. And that certainly does reinforce the "blundered into it by accident" scenario.

But in more recent years, I've been wondering how true that was. I saw one analysis some years ago suggesting that capitalism was headed into a crisis of overproduction and that the war, by wiping out value, restored the system to equilibrium for a time -- though it caught up to them again in 1929.

There's also the fact that the years immediately preceding the outbreak of war in 1914 were the heyday of radical organizers like the Wobblies -- and that the war itself served to sweep everyone up in a wave of nationalistic propaganda and was then used as an excuse to pass and enforce the Espionage and Sedition Acts as a way of cracking down on dissent.

My own tentative analysis at this point is that by 1914, power was starting to slip out of the hands of the wealthy -- as evidenced in the US by the graduated income tax and the popular election of senators -- and that the war was in a real sense their way of fighting back.

There is a great deal I don't know about the period (including where the establishment of the Federal Reserve fits into the picture) -- and much has been papered over. But I would guess that there was a very real possibility of literal, blood-in-the-streets class warfare breaking out, and that World War I was a means of diverting those passions into more controllable channels and reasserting the control of the old order.

[Dan]

18. I find your 'mind'

interesting... Thank you, and if you don't mind, I will monitor your posts/thoughts/opinions.

[NNN0LHI]

4. This American union member knew we were being had during the 1980's

Shame more people didn't realize it back then.

Don

[lunatica]

8. So you think the world wide Occupy people just found out yesterday?

I knew we were in trouble with Reagan too, but like most people I didn't think anything bad could happen to this country. Certainly not something deliberate by fellow Americans. Their coup d'etat was very slow and very clever. Not nearly as many people as we thought were asleep. It just seemed like they were.

Something like the OWS doesn't happen spontaneously. It's been a gathering storm for a long time. This is just the first lightning strikes heralding the storm to come. And it's gonna be a dozy.

[Skittles]

10. I HEAR YOU DON

reagan made greed and idiocy FASHIONABLE :puke:

[Skittles]

9. if they're as angry as I am, it will be a success

yes INDEED

[Odin2005]

11. K&R

[StarsInHerHair]

13. corporations need to be restructured BY LAW in a way that eliminates CEOs

I've been calling for the elimination of CEOs for years, under my old name KakistocracyHater & now under this name. Before I was told I was stupid, how about now? Can anyone now envision a new form of corporation, without CEOs CFOs etc? It would probably be included wiith a new economic model NOT modeled on eternal expansion, i.e. an explosion.

[RegieRocker]

16. It's the whole world is fed up with tyrants and wants to be freed

from them. The illusion is falling away.