So how is this unregulated capitalism thing working out for us?

[Cyrano]

Basically, most of us have ended up in a toilet that a handful of uber-wealthy people keep flushing over and over and over again.

Unregulated capitalism is a license for the very rich to take everything they want. What do you think just happened in Wisconsin? It was unregulated capitalists and their bought and paid for elected thugs at work. It’s a battle they won. But it’s part of a larger war that may well impoverish or destroy us all.

Republican governors in other states are currently trying to follow the example set in Wisconsin. And if they manage to do it, there won’t be any more unions, any more middle class, or any more Democratic Party. There will just be a small group of people who own everything – including us.

So here’s the question for which I don’t have the answer. What do we do about it?

[phantom power]

1. What's happening in Madison is an example of what will have to be done.

We are going to have to re-fight the battles of the early 20th century.

It pisses me off, and makes me weary, that we basically spent the late 20th deliberately unlearning everything we learned from the early 20th, but there it is.

x(

[Cyrano]

8. Sadly, I must agree with you, phantom power.

[unblock]

11. keep in mind that they've been at it continuously ever since fdr's first election.

that's nearly eight decades.

they have made it their full-time job to organize, infiltrate, corrupt, and harmonize all sympathetic elements of the right-wing under a common philosophy, with an extensive media network, systems and laws tilting the playing field in their favor, and so on.

they did not get to where they are overnight. they got there through relentless persistence.

it's simply hard to counter such forces, especially when times are good, as they have been for the middle class for much of those eight decades.


the "good" news is that as things get worse and worse, it becomes easier and easier to rally the forces. eventually we will have our day.

[Cyrano]

13. It's too bad it's come to this. I guess we've really been asleep at the wheel.

And now we've awakened to our worst nightmare.

[kenny blankenship]

2. Like an Irwin Allen movie.

Except that usually the source of disaster in his movies is a violent caprice of Nature, not man-made circumstances.

[SDuderstadt]

3. We push for...

"democratic (regulated) capitalism".

http://www.democratic-capitalism.com/

http://www.kellysite.net/

[Cyrano]

4. Easier said than done.

At present, we have a country that is dominated by a lunatic right-wing fringe that owns the Republican Party.

Washington Democrats don't have the cajones displayed by the Wisconsin Democrats. And our Democratic president seems to be AWOL from what may well be called "Our Second Civil War."

Without leadership and a dedicated, organized, well oiled political machine, we are nothing but a rag tail band of people who can bitch, but can't act effectively.

So where do we go from here? My guess is that we are entering a new "dark age." Another Renaissance will undoubtedly come about, but I don't think any of us will be here to see it.

I know that sounds depressing. Can anyone show me an alternative scenario?

[SDuderstadt]

7. I don't recall saying...

it would be "easy".

[Cyrano]

10. Sorry, SDuderstadt: I'm not disparaging your opinion. I was just

voicing my own frustration with our own ineffective/absent "leadership."

[SDuderstadt]

12. I understand completely, however...

a big part of the problem is that many people simply do not vote. I frankly don't understand how people expect that the political process will work, when they don't exercise their franchise.

[CrossChris]

5. It works awesome for the top 1%. And they can convince most of us it is, too.

Why would they stop unless someone made them? I agree with you--I don't really know what we can do but pool our resources.

[Zorra]

6. Communication (like your post), solidarity, unions, strikes, boycotts,

Amen.

[tjwash]

9. If your palin, and get paid millions by them to parrot kock bros propaganda. its working out great