If you read this blog, you know a fair bit about these things already. You know of the now not-so-hidden-hand of the greedy bankers and their Zionist connections, support, etc to both Israel and the White House.
You know the Jews run most of it and, if not them, the Christian Zionists pick up most of the slack What Dr. Livergood does is concentrate solely on money and the growing rift between rich and poor and how we the people are being driven to extinction by corporate greed.
"Any city,
however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other
of the rich; these are at war with one another; and in either there are many smaller divisions, and
you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single
State." ~ Plato, Commonwealth IV.
1. The two classes at war with each other can be delineated in several ways:2. By wealth: the class of the rich 1 against the class of the poor
3. By ownership: the capitalist class (owners of the means of production) versus the working class
Hedge Fund Gamblers Earn the Same In One Hour
As a Middle-Class Household Makes In Over 47 Years"Just take a look at the latest reports on what the top hedge fund managers haul in. In 2010 John Paulson led the list with a record $4.9 billion in personal earnings. That's a whopping $2.4 million an HOUR. Here's a factoid to make you wretch: It would take the median US household over 47 years to earn as much as Paulson pocketed in just 60 minutes. And, every hedge fund manager pays a lower tax rate than the average family. ~ Source
Are Financial and Political Leaders Suffering Economically Like the Workers?"US corporations took in $1.659 trillion in the third quarter [of 2010], breaking records going back 60 years, according to a Commerce Department report. On November 30, five days after the Thanksgiving holiday, unemployment benefits will expire for 1.2 million workers due to Congressional inaction. By Christmas and the New Year, this figure will swell to 2 million. The fate of these workers and the several million children who depend on them, tossed out without cash income into the worst job market in seven decades, is of little consequence to the millionaires and multi-millionaires who populate Congress." Source
“If there’s been class warfare in this country, my class won.” ~ Warren Buffet
Returning American veterans are committing suicide at the rate of 120 a week, a CBS investigation revealed on 11/15/07; the toll of military suicides in 2009 was the worst since records began to be kept in 1980.
2. Maim more American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
3. Drive more people insane
Of the 1.6 million Iraq
and Afghanistan veterans, 38% of Army and 50% of National Guard service members
have been diagnosed with mental illness. (2007 Pentagon report)
4. Slaughter additional Pakistani, Afghan, and Iraqi children and adults and medically uninsured American children and adults
6. Commit crimes (financial, military, political, and social) and go scott free, while workers are imprisoned for legally protesting or for any infraction of the law.
THE JOBS CRISIS IN AMERICA
Andre Damon,May 30, 2011,www.wsws.orgAmid the worst mass unemployment in the United States since the 1930s, states throughout the country are cutting benefits to jobless workers. Arkansas, Michigan and Missouri have already implemented cuts to unemployment payments, and Florida, Pennsylvania and South Carolina are preparing to do so.Michigan and Missouri have cut the usual 26 weeks of state-financed unemployment payments down to 20. The Florida state legislature, meanwhile, has passed a law that would cut benefits to as low as 12 weeks, depending on the official unemployment level in the state.These vindictive and punitive measures ~ which threaten jobless families with destitution ~ are part of an ongoing drive by the ruling class, led by the Obama administration, to eliminate every social gain won by the working people of America.They come at the same time as government austerity measures, the closure of schools, cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and the layoff of hundreds of thousands of government employees on both the state and federal levels. The ultimate aim is to create conditions in which millions of people have no access to even the most basic government assistance, to create such levels of economic desperation that workers will take any job, at any wage.Whatever the talk of an "economic recovery," the jobs situation is disastrous. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia had official jobless rates of 9 percent or more in April, while real unemployment is much higher. There are currently 24 million people in the United States who either want to work but can't find it, or are working part-time involuntarily. This figure is larger than the populations of Chile or the Netherlands, and is twice the population of Cuba.Some 5.8 million US workers have been out of work for over 27 weeks or more. Economists estimate that one million people lost all federal unemployment benefits last year after being unable to find work for 99 weeks. Nearly two million people total are among this group of "99ers."
The portion of working-age people who are employed is 58.5 percent, the lowest level since 1983.This means that the transformative effect of women entering the labor force over the past two-and-a-half decades has been fully counterbalanced by the disastrous rise in unemployment. The employment-population ratio for men is at its lowest level in records dating back 40 years, and no doubt longer.In another period, such conditions would have been treated as a national scandal, and the political establishment would have felt some obligation to take government action. On January 11, 1944, as the United States was wrapping up the war in Europe, Franklin D. Roosevelt gave an address to Congress, in which he proclaimed that the political rights guaranteed in the American Constitution had proved inadequate, requiring an "economic bill of rights."The first of this "Second Bill of Rights," said Roosevelt, was that to "a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation."Roosevelt's proposal was dead on arrival. American capitalism proved incapable of eradicating poverty and unemployment, even in boom years of the postwar period. But for decades afterwards, American politicians gave lip service to the concept of full employment as a basic goal of domestic policy.Unemployment insurance was introduced in some states in 1932 and expanded throughout the country in the 1930s, in response to the Great Depression. This was part of a general program of social reform driven in no small part by fear within the ruling class of social upheaval and revolution. Roosevelt himself was speaking only a few decades after the Russian Revolution.The entire direction of American policy today is toward the elimination of whatever remains of the reforms of the postwar period, including unemployment benefits. The political establishment has abandoned even the vaguest suggestion that people have the right to a job.This past week, the administration released the centerpiece of its new "jobs" policy ~ a program of corporate deregulation to eliminate existing constraints on corporate profit. The extra profit, Obama claimed, will be used to hire workers. This under conditions in which corporations are sitting on the largest cash hoard in history, refusing to hire, waiting for wages to come down even further.The cause of this transformation is to be found in the transformation of American society. The industrialists of Roosevelt's age were people who largely made their money from the productive process. But in the past two decades, under conditions of economic decline, the American ruling class has split its attention between dismantling domestic industry and creating the giant Ponzi scheme that toppled in 2008.The American ruling class has pursued a policy of deindustrialization, with banks flourishing to the point where, by the late 2000s, finance and real estate generated 40 percent of all corporate profits.The vast increase in the wealth of the financial aristocracy over the past three decades has been bound up with this process. Now, three-and-a-half years after the beginning of the recession, not a single social program or measure to alleviate unemployment has been introduced. Instead, the economic crisis has been seen as an opportunity to throw back the conditions of the working class a century.Obama, in his 2010 State of the Union address, pledged to double exports within five years. The only way this will be possible is through the reduction of wages to the point where they compete with those of the developing world. The driving force in this transformation is high unemployment, which is forcing workers throughout the country to accept lower and lower wages.These conditions are not unique to the United States. In all the major capitalist countries, the ruling class has embarked on a program of austerity aimed at forcing workers to pay for the economic crisis.The right to a job, with a livable income, is a basic social right. Indeed, as the program of the SEP states, "the right to employment is the most basic of all," as "without a steady, good-paying job, it is impossible to satisfy all other needs." The fight of workers to realize this right, however, brings them into conflict with both the Democrats and Republicans, and with the capitalist system that they defend.The Socialist Equality Party calls for a public works program to ensure a high-quality job for everyone. There is no lack of work to be done. The social infrastructure of the US lies in ruins. Roads and bridges are in a state of disrepair, and the public transportation system is unreliable where it exists at all. As the most recent bout of tornadoes has revealed, millions of people live in ramshackle mobile homes that leave them exposed to the elements. The country's levee and flood prevention system are so archaic that entire cities can be inundated with water, like New Orleans was in Hurricane Katrina.To implement such a program requires not only the seizure of the wealth of the financial and corporate elite, but the transformation of all the major corporations and banks into publicly owned enterprises, under the democratic control of the working class.
America has become a totalitarian police stateAmerica has been debased into a militaristic aggressor nationAmerica's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are for the purpose of war profiteering and world economic conquestAmerica has fallen to the status of a world destroyerAmerican Constitutional freedoms have been decimated"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and the well born, the others the mass of the people . . . The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge and determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share of government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second." ~ Alexander Hamilton, Treasury Secretary of the U.S.
Neocons and their Democratic party co-conspirator members of the
enemy class like to claim that a term such as "class warfare" is only
used by those they brand as unpatriotic, extremist liberals, with the
implication that ordinary Americans don't believe there is a class war. .
.
"The controversy stemming from the arrest of prominent African American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home on July 16 has dominated the media for a week. It has afforded another opportunity to pose race as the decisive social division and to obscure basic class realities, including the unprecedented assault on the living conditions of the working class being carried out by the Obama administration." ~ Source
It's difficult for us to
grasp the full significance of the cabal's control over both political parties,
as well as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of our government,
along with military and religious groups..
"The budget agreement reached between the White House and congressional Republicans late Friday [4/8/2011] night puts the Obama administration's stamp of approval on a reactionary program of cutting spending on vital social services for working people, the elderly and the poor, four months after a similar bipartisan agreement to cut taxes for the wealthy. The result is a vast redistribution of wealth upwards, from working people to the millionaires and billionaires." 4
Exactly the same economic
conditions that exist now in 2011 were present in America in the early decades
of the twentieth century. Given the Robber Baron environment, the nation was
just waiting for a financial catastrophe. "When business in the United States underwent a mild contraction, the Federal Reserve 5 created more paper reserves in the hope of forestalling any possible bank reserve shortage. The Fed succeeded, but it nearly destroyed the economies of the world in the process. The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market, triggering a fantastic speculative boom.
Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in breaking the boom. But it was too late ~ the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching, and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed."
In the 1980s excessive liquidity resulted in the stock market bubble which ultimately collapsed in 1987.
Beginning in the 1990s, the FED's excess credit produced a second speculative bubble in stocks ~ which burst in 2000.When that bubble burst, the Fed pumped in even more liquidity, which went into the real estate market and fed an even bigger speculative bubble; in 2009 its unraveling finally began to be seen and acknowledged.
In 2009, the Treasury Department and the Fed spread the lie that the economy had rebounded.
Greenspan is pretending
that the Fed is attempting to rein in excess liquidity once they recognize the
error of their ways. However, Ben Bernanke, the new FED chief, says he sees
"reining in" as a mistake and that he will never restrict liquidity.
All he will do is print more dollars and bailout the banks, hedge funds, and
financial institutions, dropping the money from helicopters.
The vulture capitalists
are beginning to realize that worldwide conditions of economic anarchy and
corruption may soon wake people up and lead to their demanding regulation of
financial institutions to stop their cannibalistic practices."The current financial crisis is a wake-up call for modern-day central banking. The world can't afford to lurch from one bubble to another. The cost of neglect is an ever-mounting systemic risk that could pose a grave threat to an increasingly integrated global economy. It could also spur the imprudent intervention of politicians, undermining the all-important political independence of central banks. The art and science of central banking is in desperate need of a major overhaul ~ before it's too late." ~ Stephen S. Roach, Chairman, Morgan Stanley Asia, "The Failure of Central Banking," Fortune, September, 2007
"Consider the wisdom of economist John Maynard Keynes: The rich are tolerable only so long as their gains appear to bear some relation to roughly what they have contributed to society. Think of it as proportional and justified economic success. This can be tolerated by poor and middle class people if they believe the economic system is fair and properly rewards those who work harder or have better capabilities. But truly obscene economic rewards angers people.“When most prosperity and wealth is unfairly channeled to relatively few Upper Class people, it is only a matter of time until fuming, resentful people in the Lower Class decide enough is enough and revolt. Perhaps violently, if the political system remains controlled by the Upper Class." ~ Joel S. Hirschhorn, "Economic Armageddon is Coming," OnlineJournal.org, Apr 26, 2007
Armed with penetrating comprehension of the forces at work in our world, we must begin a potent and dynamic offensive against those who are murdering us: the lawless plutocratic monsters who have seized control of world political and economic systems.
"The struggle of the people in opposition to the privileged class that controls the state; this is the dynamic factor in our national development, the theme and meaning of our history.""We cannot understand the role of the people in history unless we also understand the historical illusions which misrepresent history in order to serve the interests of privileged classes. Thus culture must be studied as a weapon in the struggle of classes."Cultural history emerges in its truth and grandeur when it is seen as an unceasing struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed. This is also the link between the present and the past. The long battle against the oppressor is not ended. Man has not yet become the full master of his own life, of the conditions of his social existence. ~ John Howard Lawson, The Hidden Heritage, 1950
Unions exist to negotiate the sale of their members' labor power to employers, to keep working people in line, and limit the scale of working-class action against corporations.Unions divert the discontent of union members into harmless channels. They keep workers passive spectators in the events that most affect their lives.
We must understand that
the state is the mechanism the ruling class uses to maintain its monopoly of
violence (police, military, economic, propaganda) over the working class.Every contemporary government in the world ~ with the partial exception of Chavez's Venezuelan government ~ is a repressive apparatus defending capitalist property relations.
Like it or not, we must recognize that electoral politics is a psychologically sophisticated scam deluding voters into thinking they have a real say in how they're governed within the fantasy of a two-party system.
In the present police
state environment in America, the supposed right to vote is intended to keep us
mystified, divided, and passive, and is amazingly effective in keeping us from
taking effective action against capitalist predators.Another of the ideological fantasies we must utterly reject is the socialist swindle that workers worldwide will somehow miraculously rise up, form themselves into a coherent alliance, and confront the capitalist class.
Oppression by plutocratic and tyrannous powers does not magically unite people into an effective combat coalition. The number of working-class Americans without health insurance is now 46.6 million, according to the Census Bureau. More than one in 10 American children are uninsured. Being a member of such oppressed groupings does not automatically unite you with the others.
Having a common enemy doesn't mysteriously create a united front.
Every day in Congress,
plutocratic leaders of both parties promote or vote for tax breaks for the rich
or billions more for war profiteering corporations, while at the same time cut
programs for working families like insurance for poor children, student loans,
food stamps, veterans benefits, home heating programs for the elderly, Medicaid
and Medicare. But the victims of these predatory programs do not automatically
form into a united phalanx to do battle against the capitalist class. The political, economic, and social structures of the stateA political party, whether the Democratic Party or a third party
.
In July, 2010, a brouhaha erupted when a federal
civil servant ~ Shirley Sherrod ~ revealed in a public video that she had
awakened to the fact that the problem in America is not white versus black but
rich versus poor. "That's when it was revealed to me that, ya'll, it's about poor versus those who have. . ."Well, working with him made me see that it's really about those who have versus those who don't, you know. And they could be black; they could be white; they could be Hispanic. And it made me realize then that I needed to work to help poor people ~ those who don't have access the way others have."
As we participate in the
perennial struggle of the truth against ignorance, we can't allow the accident
of our birth in the working class to define us. As we've seen, being a member
of the laboring class or one of the oppressed does not, in itself, create class
solidarity. Genuine group cohesiveness can only be created by intentional
allegiance to common values and common goals."I believe in aristocracy. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet.They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. On they go ~ an invincible army. The aristocrats, the elect, the chosen, the Best People ~ all the words that describe them are false, and all attempts to organize them fail. Again and again Authority, seeing their value, has tried to net them and to utilize them as the Egyptian Priesthood or the Christian Church or the Chinese Civil Service or the Group Movement, or some other worthy stunt. But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door is shut, they are no longer in the room, their temple is the Holiness of the Heart's Imagination, and their kingdom is the wide-open world." ~ E. M. Forster
Genuine engagement in this new form of class warfare can only begin when a small enlightened group of persons ~ having suffered under an oppressive form of rule and having prepared themselves for self-rule ~ create a new community.
This new society will arise
out of the ashes of our present culture, led by advanced persons who have
freed themselves from all alluring myths and illusions, looked reality squarely
in the face, and begun the long, hard effort to lay a solid foundation for a new commonwealth."In other societies, as a general thing, a member of the upper class is not supposed to make the accumulation of wealth his master-concern, or expected to be particularly good at it. His ancestors are supposed to have stolen enough in the first instance to enable him to rub along, merely taking care of what he has and devoting himself to other pursuits."The complete bankruptcy of intelligence exhibited in these representative pronouncements from our upper class should make a clean sweep of the notion so often advanced to account for the low level of our general culture that our best minds nowadays go into business. They do not. They do not go anywhere. There is nowhere for them to go."Our society has made no place for the individual who is able to think, who is, in the strict sense of the word, intelligent; it merely tosses him into the rubbish-heap; while picking out the stupidest millionaire in sight and placing him in the White House to the accompaniment of a deafening fanfare of adulation for his almost superhuman abilities."Intelligence is the power and willingness always disinterestedly to see things as they are, an easy accessibility to ideas, and a free play of consciousness upon them, quite regardless of the conclusions to which this play may lead. Intelligence, therefore, while not precisely incompatible with success in accumulating wealth, is unrelated to it; hence it is disallowed by our Philistines." ~ Albert Jay Nock, "Our American Upper Class," Harpers Magazine, 1932










