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    They Say We'll Have a Revolution......



    The Rise and Fall of the American Empire seems to be the topic du jour these days and at least one anthropologist has done a significant research on the subject of collapse of complex societies. Donal has given links to a recent talk by one of them.  But imagine my surprise at a link that was given to me in chat the other night. Not to some site by a member of the aluminum foil corset crowd, mind you but Market Watch by the Wall Street Journal no less. Here is some of what this commenter has to say on the subject.

    ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- “What’s distinctive about the Tea Party is its anarchist streak -- its antagonism toward any authority, its belligerent self-expression, and its lack of any coherent program or alternative to the policies it condemns,” warns Jacob Weisberg in Newsweek. But why not three cheers for the Tea Party Express?

    Admit it, something historic is brewing. And yes, it’s good for America, even the anarchy. Revolution is renewal. Tea-baggers want to take on both parties, “restore honor” and “take back the country.” Bring it on, the feeling’s mutual.

    OK, maybe most Americans just silently mimic the words, “we’re mad as hell, won’t take it any more.” But watch out: After November the campaign’s shrill rhetoric explodes into action.

    Tea-baggers are kicking the revolution into high gear. Debt is sinking America. Both parties are to blame. So vote out incumbents. Spare no one. We need new leadership, another Reagan or Truman. Congress better get the message: Cut that budget, or they’ll dump the rest of you in the coming Great Purge of 2012.

    Unfortunately they’re tone deaf. Congress cannot see past the election. All that changes in November.

    So thanks Tea Party, Vegas odds must favor a Second American Revolution. Actually, the revolution is already roaring, hot, it’s about time. The GOP and the Dems had more than a decade. But America’s worse off. We need a real revolution to restore sanity … or we can kiss democracy and capitalism good-bye, permanently.

    Pretty heady stuff for the WSJ, usually known to be a sober as a Methodist minister and just about as interesting. I do not believe he is referring to violence here but one should not rule it out. Further on he even lists a time line and the reasons for it.

    Stage 1: The Dems just put the nail in their coffin by confirming they are wimps, refusing to force the GOP to filibuster the Bush tax cuts for America’s richest.

    Stage 2: The GOP takes over the House, expanding its war to destroy Obama with its new policy of “complete gridlock,” even “shutting down government.”

    Stage 3: Obama goes lame-duck.

    Stage 4: The GOP wins back the White House and Senate in 2012. Health care returns to insurers. Free market financial deregulation returns.

    Stage 5: Under the new president, Wall Street’s insatiable greed triggers the catastrophic third meltdown of the 21st century Shiller predicted, with defaults on dollar-denominated debt.

    Stage 6: The Second American Revolution explodes into a brutal full-scale class war rebelling against the out-of-touch, out-of-control greedy conspiracy-of-the-rich now running America.

    Stage 7: Domestic class warfare is compounded by Pentagon’s prediction that by 2020 “an ancient pattern of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies would emerge” worldwide and “warfare is defining human life.”

    Now my first reaction is, "Can this guy be serious?" but then I see links to other articles on the same subject -   such as this one:

    SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, tax the Super Rich. Tax them now. Before the other 99% rise up, trigger a new American Revolution, a meltdown and the Great Depression 2.

    Revolutions build over long periods — to critical mass, a flash point. Then they ignite suddenly, unpredictably. Like Egypt, started on a young Google executive’s Facebook page. Then it goes viral, raging uncontrollably. Can’t be stopped. Here in America the set-up is our nation’s pervasive “Super-Rich Delusion.”

    Here’s how one savvy insider who knows described this Super-Rich Delusion: “The top 1% live privileged lives, aren’t worried about much. Families vacation at the best resorts. Their big concerns are finding the best Pilates teacher, best masseuse, best surgeons, best private schools. They aren’t concerned with the underlying deterioration of America or the world, except in the abstract, because they aren’t directly affected by it. That’s not to say they aren’t sympathetic, aware, or don’t talk about the issues you bring up. They are largely concerned with protecting and enhancing their socio-economic positions, ensuring their families live well. And nothing you write about will change things.”

    Warning, in 2011 that attitude is delusional, deadly, yet pervasive in America.

    Super Rich replaying “Great Gatsby” age, won’t learn till it’s too late

    Our top 1% honestly believe they’re immune, protected from the unintended consequences of beating down average Americans for three decades with the free-market, trickle-down Reaganomics doctrines that made them Super Rich.

    They honestly believe those same doctrines will protect them in the next depression. Why? Because they have megabucks stashed away. Provisions for the long haul. Live in gated compounds with mercenaries guarding them.

    They believe they’ll continue living just fine in a depression. But you won’t. Nor will your retirement. Neither will the rest of America. And still the Super Rich don’t care, “except in the abstract, because they aren’t directly affected.”

    Warning: The Super-Rich Delusion has pushed us to the edge of a great precipice: Remember the Roaring Twenties? The Crash of 1929? Great Depression? Just days before the crash one leading economist, Irving Fisher, predicted that stocks had “reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”

    Yes, he was trapped in the “Great Gatsby Syndrome,” an earlier version of today’s Super-Rich Delusion. It was so blinding in 1929 that the president, Wall Street, all America were sucked in … until the critical mass hit a mysterious flash point, triggering the crash.

    Yes, we’re reliving that past — never learn, can’t hear. And oddly it’s not just the GOP’s overreach, the endlessly compromising Obama, too-greedy-to-fail Wall Street banksters, U.S. Chamber of Commerce billionaires and arrogant Forbes 400. America’s entire political, financial and economic psyche is infected, as if our DNA has been rewired.

    The Collective American Brain is trapped in this Super-Rich Delusion, replaying the run-up to the ’29 Crash.

    Nobody predicted 2011 revolutions in the oil-rich Arab world either

    Warning: Mubarak, Gaddafi, Ali, Assad, even the Saudis also lived in the Super-Rich Delusion. Have for a long time. Were vulnerable. Ripe for a revolution. They, too, honestly believed they were divinely protected, chosen for great earthly wealth, enjoyed great armies.

    Then, suddenly, out of the blue, a new “educated, unemployed and frustrated” generation turned on them, is now rebelling, demanding their share of economic benefits, opportunities, triggering revolutions, seeking retribution.

    Still, you don’t believe there’s a depression ahead here in America? The third great market crash of the 21st century? A new economic revolution about to blow up in our faces? No, you don’t believe, can’t believe … you, me, we are all infected by the Super-Rich Delusion, just as Americans were in the Roaring Twenties.

    Check the stats folks: The last time America’s wealth gap between the Super Rich and the other 99% was this big was just before the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression.

    You can’t remember? Or you won’t? America is trapped in “terminal denial,” a setup for failure. Too many still live in the false hope of this Super-Rich Delusion. Do you believe government stats hyping a recovery? Believe Wall Street’s nonsense about a new bull market ahead? Believe Exxon-Mobile’s misleading ads about energy stocks. Believe Bill Gross’ when he says dump Treasurys, and buy his emerging country bonds? Dream on.

    Start preparing for the third meltdown of the 21st Century, and depression

    Denial and lies. Remember, 93% of what you hear about markets, finance and the economy are guesses, wishful thinking and lies intended to manipulate you into making decisions that suck money from your pockets into Wall Street. They get rich telling lies about securities. They hate any SEC fiduciary rules forcing them to tell the truth.

    But the fact is, on an inflation-adjusted basis, Wall Street lost 20% of your retirement money in the decade from 2000 to 2010, over $10 trillion. And “Irrational Exuberance’s” Robert Shiller warns of a third meltdown coming. You better start preparing now.

    Before you start betting any more at Wall Street’s rigged casinos, think long and hard about these six megatoxins lurking in America’s Super-Rich Delusion, a mind-altering pandemic infecting our nation’s leadership in Washington, Corporate America and Wall Street … but also “trickling down,” infecting many Americans.

    People are paying attention. Unfortunately it is not the people who should be paying attention. Now this may seem over the top but think a moment. It took far less to get the southern states in a tizzy during the 1860s. And there are a lot of very scared and pissed off people out there now.  Which brings up another point. What these people want or rather what they do not want is a strong, authoritarian central government as some of the left fear. As noted above there is a strong anarchist streak -- it's antagonism toward any authority.  Not widely reported but definitely there is a desire for removing the drug laws and tax laws. Not issues one would find from a fascist authoritarian follower. 

    Now these articles concern how one could prepare one's self financially for such contingencies.  I do not believe this can be done and Dmitri Orlov does not think so either. Since monetary issues tend to be the first to get scrambled when things go massively haywire. Be he does have one suggestion that bears consideration. Plan on living a very austere life.  Plan on being poor.

    Most of us lack the ability to sever all ties with the financial realm, but, as with so many things, having the right attitude is very helpful. To that end, let me drop a Bible-bomb on you. (I do this as someone quite free of any religious sentiment; I just find the Bible to be an interesting and useful work of world literature, filled with highly quotable, pithy remarks.) Here's a particularly nice quote from the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Never has a truer phrase been written. Many of the more recent self-styled or so-called “Christians” have attempted to distort it to mean that it doesn't imply depriving yourself of any worldly goods, and that “poor in spirit” is a special, strictly spiritual sort of poverty. That is, of course, nonsense. You do not have to dig deep for the real meaning: “Poor” just means “poor,” and “in spirit” means “on purpose, not as a result of, say, injustice, misfortune, or being lazy, stupid or a gambler.” Oh, and “blessed” means “not damned.” Accordingly, Christian monks take the vow of non-acquisitiveness, which is a virtue, with the corresponding vices of stinginess (“what is mine is mine”) and greed (“what is yours is mine”). It is rather difficult to embrace such basic tenets while remaining within a culture that has elevated avariciousness and rapaciousness to the status of virtues. But here is a key insight: being poor on purpose is much easier than being poor as a result of suddenly having less than you are accustomed to having. Voluntary poverty is a hell of a lot easier than involuntary poverty.

    I can tell you from personal experience that having poverty thrust upon you sux rocks big time. Beginning to live a very austere or impoverished life is not fun but a lot easier.  You have time to get accustomed to it and develop the creative skills necessary.

    Comments

    In other words, a paradigm shift? I think so. Dimitri Orlov looks to The Book but I am reminded of a more recent but still prescient commentary. Jerry Brown was often called Governor Moonbeam because of his “less is more” philosophy.” At one point he indicated that he thought California should launch its own satellite as a way to establish its own identity, independent of the nation state of the U.S. Of course this was laughed at then. Today, if California were to secede from the Union it would choose “being poor on purpose” - poor in terms of military strength, poor(er) in terms of world influence, etc but it would instantly solve its financial crisis and just as instantly become one of the most successful nation-states that are extant. So this idea has been around even recently if anyone wants to find it.

    For just a sample of his thinking, here is a long quote imbedded in an otherwise silly blogpost: http://biggovernment.com/mrichmond/2010/06/10/jerry-brown-flashback-we-n...

    Thanks C.


    Interesting Larry. One cannot really put these people under one small umbrella that is for sure. There is another aspect of the Tea Party people that  most on the left either choose to ignore or are just unaware of. That is the presence of the 1960s/70s live-off-the-land Abby Hoffman anti-government crowd in it. People who had no use for the Democrats because of the 1968 convention fiasco and don't really like the republicans but have an enemy of my enemy is my friend loose relationship with them. 

    Just listen to the current rhetoric vis-à-vis the budget.  Theses are not your fathers conservatives by a long shot.


    Despite their anti-authoritarian rhetoric, I'd be surprised if the Tea Party actually revolted against a Republican-led government. And I think their fervor could all-too-easily be channeled against an imaginary opponent. For example, all Tea Partiers and most Republicans oppose illegals, but the leadership manages to tolerate them because their donors like cheap labor. They spend a lot of sound and fury pushing for ID cards and closing the border, and nothing really changes.


    Now I could be all wet on this, but what it sounds to me like more than anything else is they want to be able to do this in their state/community if they so choose. The whole States Rights thing with out Washington interfering. This has been the issue for the south from the get go and to a small extent with central and some northern states as well.

    But this is just one issue out of many IMHO.


    Interesting stuff to say the least. Gonna have to take some time and parse every word. In the meantime, you're absolutely correct about austre lifestyles...one hard pill to swallow...but not too difficult to get accustom to. You have to live within your means and make every penny count as well as your food stocks being able to cover a missed pay period due to illness. Splurging means you have to sacrifice something else you might need latter so one has to be careful. What is interesting is a simple diet is less costly than an average diet especially if one can store the basics...rice, dried legumes and so forth...so the only daily necessities would be bread, milk and meat (chicken, fish [tuna/sardines], pork, beef).


    Get to know some Amish and old order Mennonites and learn how to grow food without trips to the nursery or garden shop.


    The issue facing those in America is that what is required is a economic revolution, not a political one.  Which brings up the questions around "Stage 6: The Second American Revolution explodes into a brutal full-scale class war rebelling against the out-of-touch, out-of-control greedy conspiracy-of-the-rich now running America."

    Just how the people going to rebel against these folks?  Most people running into the streets will have to run quite awhile, and head to some other state for that matter, before they actually cross path with one these folks running America.  And just what are they going to do once they meet them?  While revolutions can be effective in tossing out those at governmental levers, they are pretty ineffective when it comes to changing the economic infrastructure and the people who are at the controls. In many cases these folks aren't even in this country (and definitely won't be if things start to look a little dicey).  Unless of course the goal is to just burn it all down.  In which case, in the short run, people will be experiencing even greater austerity than what drove them to burn it all down in the first place.

    Which brings up the big question?:  for those at the "bottom" who are joining the fight in this all-out class war, what is that they fighting for?  What is going to replace the current system the revolution topples?  Nothing undermines the passion for revolution faster than ambiguity, especially if it is going to require personal sacrifice.  What purpose is there for me to get arrested? tear gassed? depossessed of my belongings?  The serfs throughout history have taken their lot and endured through it in large part because the alternatives looked pretty much the same or worse.


    Actually they are pretty ineffective against governments as well. You usually wind up trading one set of clowns for another.


    The serfs throughout history have taken their lot and endured through it in large part because the alternatives looked pretty much the same or worse.

    All it really takes is for enough people to be desperate and angry enough to believe that "Whatever they get has to be better than what they have now." And to have a group or single person to blame.

    One need only study the French revolution to see this and to see that it does not always turn out well initially.


    And while it was economic conditions that fueled the French Revolution, its focus was on the political institutions.  The problem "revolutionaries" face in America is that most people have no problem with the political institutions per se, but rather the people in them who are corrupting the institutions.  Elections thus provide the pressure valve where the people can throw the "bums" out.  These days a lot of people just see all that is being offered as replacements is more bums.  Yet that begs the question, given the population of this country, are there a few good men and women out there to run for office?  Or is this experiment in democracy toast? 

    The revolutionaries in France had a government by the people to fuel their passions.  What is going to fuel ours, seeing we already have that technically.


    I don't think it's toast necessarily. But American Democracy release 1.x needs and update badly. But I would not do an installation until at least 2.3 or 2.4 is released myself though.  New releases tend to be a bit buggy. Smile


    One thing I think that the person wrote the WSJ article I cited in my post does not entirely get is the the next financial melt down will not spare as many as the last did. Something that I was reminded of, a while back in chat I think, was that most or a good number of these 1% wealthy people are wealthy mostly on paper (or rather in computers somewhere). That to try and and get to this virtual money by selling their stocks and bonds and what not, would cause a panic and precipitate the melt down. Kind of an economic Catch 22.

    Those that do escape by having most of their money off shore may well face the kind of pursuit that the rich Russians did under Putin.


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