http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/johnn ... -oligarchy

We are no longer a democratic, constitutional republic based upon egalitarian principles of democracy [as expressed in the preamble to our US Constitution] that provide constitutional protections to the people.

The Democratic Party is no longer [has not been for some considerable time] the party of FDR. It has been corrupted into the GOP [Greed Overwhelming Principle] and has replaced that party in America as the conservative expression of political policy in our democracy.

The former GOP has morphed into the GOF [Greedy Oligarchic Fascists] party and it no longer cares about constitutional government or individual citizen rights and exclusively concerns itself with the creation of a privatized corporate [fascist] form of governance in which the profit motive is the ultimate manifestation of “success” that supersedes every other consideration.

Satiating the GREED [Get Rich Eviscerating Everything Democratic] of the wealthy elite that created the original GOP and corrupted the Democratic Party into its successor by creating corporations to usurp and replace our constitutional democracy with a corporate fascist one, is the sole goal of this extreme, right-wing fascist party.

The party is over, folks. The Great Experiment in democracy is over, and it failed. The Reagan Revolution is complete. The non-violent [although not bloodless] coup d etat is finished. There are no longer any principled politicians in a position of power to protect the American people as our elected representatives from the greed of the wealthy elite.

Yeah, we are almost a complete banana republic. As thom has said before, our fascism is similar to Mussolini's vision of a corporate/ state merger. But each nation models fascism in its own unique brand that suits its time and place in history. In the 1920s and 30s, with the Soviet Union directing powerful communist parties throughout Europe the fascists had to adopt some trappings of economic populism to recruit workers and farmers into their ranks. Germany went the farthest with this, and the Nazis adopted many of the ideas of the democratic socialists ( public works, universal health care, paid vacations, etc. ) with the caveat that these benefits were for the Aryans only. The Nazis wanted to replace the class system with a racial caste system.
In Italy and Spain the old economic class system remained largely intact- the appeals for an economically just society were just words.
Our American fascism is a weird combination of racial ideology and appeals for economic justice ( yes, Ted Cruz has expressed concern for what he labels " crony capitalism" ). But it is a lot more corporate than any sort of fascism that has gone before and the most racist with the exception of Nazism. It is based on the premise that people of color are a threat economically and physically and the Real America ( White America ) has to enlist the aid of white billionaires to keep " those people" down so hard working white folks can become rich, too.
As Lyndon Johnson once said, " If you can convince the lowest white man that he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket."

Funny, I hear the same demise of democracy for the opposite reasons from the people on the right. Communism won, FDR started it and now there is such a large and growing class of people dependent on the government that it will bring down the country. Boomers living off the government, a growing group of millions on goverment support programs, with illegals driving down wages.

While the Reagan revolution may be complete, it is not the end of the story.

Democracy is a messy business: from time to time decades will pass with an uncooperative government at work. But sooner or later The People take the opportunity to turn out those who don't work for The People and replace them with ones who do.

Now, it is true that the dollar is being challenged by crypto currencies, and it is true that there is more deficit around the world than there are GDP's to pay it off. And it's true that humanity is facing a huge challenge with respect to climate change.

These things will combine to motivate The People to vote in pols who work for us. Yes: Citizens United exists. Yes: Gerrymandering exists. Yet a new census will be executed in 2020.

Get out the vote. And have fun shooting stuff.

Of course the whole bet is off if the vote count is molested. We shall see. For the time being, I'm optimistic.

CDFingers

I hear the same from the right. I wish they'd actually look at the numbers- it's a pretty easy exercise to see who is screwing who in this country.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/ ... g-business

The $50k/year earner is spending $6k/year in corporate subsidies in one form or another.

The cost of food stamps per year? $36 for that same income bracket.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/1 ... are-is-not

Which one is really welfare spending?

As noted by the OP, the Dems aren't the party to run on those sort of facts. They perpetuate the fears of the right by proposing unfunded programs while they take money from big business on the side. On top of that, they are flat out authoritarian and war mongers. They want to limit the size of soft drink you can buy because they know what's good for you, they run on a platform promising to take away a constitutional rights because it might do something somewhere for someone. Clinton would expand the wars we fight and of course the money we spend that could go to social programs and to prop up medicare/medicad. Instead she'll raise taxes on the middle class and shield her major donors. If I have to pick the lesser of two evils, I'm voting for neither party. They are different color stripes on the same tiger.

I understand what you're talking about budget wise. If the US focused, they could cut the military enough to give everyone in the US a tax break, pay for college, pay for infrastructure, and maybe have some left to help pay for seniors. While at the same time still having the largest military in the world.

I'm starting to think the small government people are right. The smaller government is, the less either side can harm you with it.

Give you a third option a kleptocracy. Where the corrupt officials and government steals from the poor and gives to the rich.

We see it with the Military Industrial Complex and cost plus contracts, or with the infastucture failures with shoddy work that is passed over. We are seeing it with laws that will allow white collar crime to go unpunished. We see the oppression of poor people by the police state to make a profit. What we have is a third world banana republic. We reenforce this idea elsewhere, such as in the Middle East or south of our border, when we send our military out to save the world. It's just doing business as usual.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politi ... leptocracy

inomaha wrote:As noted by the OP, the Dems aren't the party to run on those sort of facts. They perpetuate the fears of the right by proposing unfunded programs while they take money from big business on the side. On top of that, they are flat out authoritarian and war mongers. They want to limit the size of soft drink you can buy because they know what's good for you, they run on a platform promising to take away a constitutional rights because it might do something somewhere for someone. Clinton would expand the wars we fight and of course the money we spend that could go to social programs and to prop up medicare/medicad. Instead she'll raise taxes on the middle class and shield her major donors. If I have to pick the lesser of two evils, I'm voting for neither party. They are different color stripes on the same tiger.

I understand what you're talking about budget wise. If the US focused, they could cut the military enough to give everyone in the US a tax break, pay for college, pay for infrastructure, and maybe have some left to help pay for seniors. While at the same time still having the largest military in the world.

Unfortunately true. I don't see the D's doing anything resembling the right thing unless someone like Bernie gets in. Even then he'll be fighting the money party (both D's and R's) for his whole term.

I'm starting to think the small government people are right. The smaller government is, the less either side can harm you with it.

I still can't get behind that. Essentially at that point we're just ceding all power to the corporations and hurting the most vulnerable. There is a way, it will take work in every state to get it fixed though. We've got to get money out of politics. Seems that people of all political stripes are disgusted with the system the way it is, perhaps that can finally unify us to fix it.

comedian wrote:Yeah, we are almost a complete banana republic. As thom has said before, our fascism is similar to Mussolini's vision of a corporate/ state merger. But each nation models fascism in its own unique brand that suits its time and place in history. In the 1920s and 30s, with the Soviet Union directing powerful communist parties throughout Europe the fascists had to adopt some trappings of economic populism to recruit workers and farmers into their ranks. Germany went the farthest with this, and the Nazis adopted many of the ideas of the democratic socialists ( public works, universal health care, paid vacations, etc. ) with the caveat that these benefits were for the Aryans only. The Nazis wanted to replace the class system with a racial caste system.
In Italy and Spain the old economic class system remained largely intact- the appeals for an economically just society were just words.
Our American fascism is a weird combination of racial ideology and appeals for economic justice ( yes, Ted Cruz has expressed concern for what he labels " crony capitalism" ). But it is a lot more corporate than any sort of fascism that has gone before and the most racist with the exception of Nazism. It is based on the premise that people of color are a threat economically and physically and the Real America ( White America ) has to enlist the aid of white billionaires to keep " those people" down so hard working white folks can become rich, too.
As Lyndon Johnson once said, " If you can convince the lowest white man that he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket."

I have never really considered anything that we have called Communism, to actually be Communism. At least not Marxism style. Russia for instance; Stalin was a dictator, and yes, he had the people working for A common good. At least it was a common good in his eyes, as it was himself. Cuba, China, N Korea, N Vietnam, none were real communist.

ran across this curio.
Andrew Jackson even pointed out the evils of corporations and bankers " special privilege " rule in the USA all the way back in the early 1800s.

Jackson clearly headed a sweeping political movement. His central message remained largely the same from the previous election, but had grown in intensity. Jackson warned that the nation had been corrupted by "SPECIAL PRIVILEGE," characterized especially by the policies of the Second Bank of the United States. The proper road to reform, according to Jackson, lay in an absolute acceptance of majority rule as expressed through the democratic process.

http://www.ushistory.org/us/23f.asp

inomaha wrote:As noted by the OP, the Dems aren't the party to run on those sort of facts. They perpetuate the fears of the right by proposing unfunded programs while they take money from big business on the side. On top of that, they are flat out authoritarian and war mongers. They want to limit the size of soft drink you can buy because they know what's good for you, they run on a platform promising to take away a constitutional rights because it might do something somewhere for someone. Clinton would expand the wars we fight and of course the money we spend that could go to social programs and to prop up medicare/medicad. Instead she'll raise taxes on the middle class and shield her major donors. If I have to pick the lesser of two evils, I'm voting for neither party. They are different color stripes on the same tiger.

I understand what you're talking about budget wise. If the US focused, they could cut the military enough to give everyone in the US a tax break, pay for college, pay for infrastructure, and maybe have some left to help pay for seniors. While at the same time still having the largest military in the world.

I'm starting to think the small government people are right. The smaller government is, the less either side can harm you with it.

But whose version of Small? Small government that works for the betterment of All American Citizens? Or a smaller government that works for the betterment of the elitist rich, at the expense of All hard working American.

inomaha wrote:Funny, I hear the same demise of democracy for the opposite reasons from the people on the right. Communism won, FDR started it and now there is such a large and growing class of people dependent on the government that it will bring down the country. Boomers living off the government, a growing group of millions on goverment support programs, with illegals driving down wages.

more of the corporations and the wealthy are on Government support programs, and its not illegals who drive wages down, its the corporations that abuse illegals who drive down wages. And now, Corporations are turning more toward tech to drive down wages and kill off any working class, so its just the super rich,and the super poor in the near future. Self checkout to now even Panera bread [ st louis bread company ] is going to no human cashiers at all , just kiosk ordering system . But like the UAW president said to the CEO of GM back in 1968 , when they were being shown a new robotic welder for the first time. " that's great, but how many cars and trucks is that robot going to buy? "

A company of any kind can not survive without consumers.

jefferson warned of the dangers of corporations.
https://www.monticello.org/site/researc ... yquotation

Yep, Jimmy Carter says so, here too http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jim ... f33a02ae2b

TrueTexan wrote:Give you a third option a kleptocracy. Where the corrupt officials and government steals from the poor and gives to the rich.

We see it with the Military Industrial Complex and cost plus contracts, or with the infastucture failures with shoddy work that is passed over. We are seeing it with laws that will allow white collar crime to go unpunished. We see the oppression of poor people by the police state to make a profit. What we have is a third world banana republic. We reenforce this idea elsewhere, such as in the Middle East or south of our border, when we send our military out to save the world. It's just doing business as usual.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politi ... leptocracy

Yep:

SHINGTON - The U.S. government is working hard to ensure quicker processing of U.S. foreign arms sales, which surged 36 percent to $46.6 billion in fiscal 2015 and look set to remain strong in coming years, a top Pentagon official said.


"Projections are still strong," Vice Admiral Joe Rixey, who heads the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), told Reuters in an interview late on Monday.

He said the agency was trying to sort out the impact of a much stronger-than-expected fourth quarter as it finalized its forecast for arms sales in fiscal 2016, which began Oct. 1.

link:

http://www.jamestownsun.com/news/nation ... d-pentagon

"Neo's" from both sides support the military industrial complex. And our .gov does quite well at playing "Let's you and him fight." Then we sell weapons--ideally to both sides through the "open market" that the neo's favor.

See how it works?

Make 'em feel the Berne.

CDFingers

The American people want change, but no matter who they vote for they don't get it. Some people think politicians are stupid, or are well intentioned but misguided, or that they are sabotaged by other politicians (conveniently forgetting Obama's first two years in office, when Democrats controlled the Presidency, the House and the Senate), but I think it goes well beyond that. Free trade with China? Untold billions for a continuous state of war and never ending arms race? Billions for a space program? Militarized police? Making people buy for-profit health insurance instead of reforming the world's most corrupt, overpriced health care system? Bailing out Wall Street? No, this is beyond stupidity or political gridlock. It's "deep state" corruption.

Just one example. This is from the movie "Sicko":
From the White House tapes:
Nixon: You know I'm not too keen on these damn medical programs.
Erhlichman: This is a private enterprise one.
Nixon: Well, that appeals to me.
Erhlichman: Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason he can do it... All of the incentives (in HMOs) are for less medical care, because the less care they give, the more money they make.
Nixon: Fine.
Erhlichman: And the incentives run the right way.
Nixon: Not bad.

From public announcement the following day:
Nixon: I am proposing today a new national health strategy. The purpose of this program is simply this - I want America to have the finest health care in the world. And I want every American to be able to have that care when he needs it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QkgUkM0o6Q

And that, my fellow Americans, is how our public policy is actually being made.