( – promoted by buhdydharma )
When a society becomes corrupt it becomes economically unhealthy. Although it may continue to accumulate wealth through global plundering, the depletion of trust resulting from corruption undermines domestic productivity, as increasing numbers of citizens lose the incentive to cooperate constructively. The wealthy and powerful respond to the economic deterioration in classic zero-sum fashion: to preserve and extend their advantages, they extract more resources from the poor and the weak.
This is the situation America faces at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. The rapacious rich, having consolidated their control over the government since the “Reagan Revolution,” have undermined the economic productivity of the United States to the point that their only remaining avenue for further enrichment is to extract wealth from the middle and lower classes. They will do this by causing the US Government to default on domestic obligations to the poor and middle class – specifically Social Security and Medicare.
The cutbacks will fall on the weakest members of society because the wealthy and powerful control the executive branch, the Congress, and the courts. Behind a huge propaganda blitz, and possibly a new war of choice, the middle class and poor will be told that “sacrifice” is every American’s patriotic duty. Meanwhile, CEO salaries will continue to rise and wealth will be further concentrated, as the oligarchy continues to feed on the decaying carcass of our former democracy.
When social conditions for the middle class reach a point of intolerable deterioration, a political backlash will develop, but this is likely to be brutally suppressed by “anti-terrorist” tactics similar to those utilized in third-world regimes. The people may ultimately prevail against the oligarchs, but the cost will be frightful.
Given the sociopathic character of the American economic elite and their highly perfected tools of political and media manipulation, this unhappy outcome is inevitable. The public Internet has arrived too late to halt America’s plunge into the abyss. The forces of greed have overwhelmed the nascent movements for justice and sustainable society. Something true, just, and decent may arise from the ruins of the American culture of predation, but it will not emerge from simple reason and honest communication; it will be the result of a colossal and costly failure, the global failure of selfishness and deceit in a world sustainable only through sharing and honesty.
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interesting to see when they bring their chisels out.
Also, we have no idea how the so called healthcare bill will play out over the next 4 years and whether cracks begin to form in the Medicare program as a result. Social Security will definitely be easier for them to dismantle as they can play with age and benefits without problems.
How the media approaches these programs will be very interesting. If these programs are not considered fundamental rights of citizenship after 220 years of struggle and progress, then we’re in big trouble.
There will be no V shaped recovery. We are doomed to repeat the 30s.
The only glimmer of light I see is barney Frank and Ron Paul finding common ground. If we don’t get collectively behind that movement we will deserve our fate.
property rights as the core liberty in Anglo American history. It has simply spread from the landed aristocracy to merchants, industrialists, bankers and finally the “proletariat-consumer” himself. It is the sine qua non of modern life, an unhealthy condition that pits people against each other, and perverts the ideas of justice into a management system for laissez-faire capitalism. It is cultural brainwashing, and no different from religious doctrine.
I don’t think productivity has been affected. I think there is some demoralization here and there but that’s the extent of it. There is no left and no labor movement in this country that in any way threatens the elites. Even if there were such a movement would be labelled as “terrorist” and the leaders would disappear. The country is finished, the Constitutions is dead, democracy is not functioning in any meaningful way–if it was the elections would just be altered in the voting booths. We live in a post-Constitution, post-democratic society and, really, it could be worse.
I don’t see any down-side for the elites other than a moral and perhaps physical one since statistics show that even the rich become less healthy when the growth of wealth disparity rises. I think they have it well-gamed and well-engineered. The system will impose increasingly strict austerity on all of us. The increasingly sophisticated system of entertainments that will be available will make up for the dramatic decrease in real standards of livings and dramatic increase in real economic insecurity. This will breed more compliance not less. This will breed more intense working and higher productivity as workers, increasingly, become fearful of losing their jobs. Frankly, as I observe American society, I’m convinced the vast majority of Americans think this system is just great since they are so willfully and agressively ignorant of everything that is not either sports or celebrity-related. I see no trend moving in any other direction than what it has been headed in since Reagan.
July 6 – Real News Network
given our complete lack of any sense of social solidarity, class consciousness, and enduring community, when the “backlash” comes, like the Tea Party it will be made to order for further tightening the yoke Hegemony has over the rest of us.