I just read this article by Robert Reich. Robert was also just “on” The Simpsons, explaining to the public that the fat cats have assumed control. I guess that makes it official. The corporations are not only people, they are super-human now. Or may as well be.
Replace the word corporate with confederate to better understand the coming “global war”.
Robert Reich gets the next political hero award from public voter. He’s been telling it like it is for a long time. Even about the filibuster, I liked that. I breathe a sigh of relief every time I hear Robert correct someone’s misguided opinion. I hope to start a hero category soon, to acknowledge heroic opinions.
Just to put this right up front, Robert is talking about an ongoing conspiracy that has been minimized for decades, by professionals. This conspiracy to monopolize our economy, prevent our democracy, and control our government, in order to farm the public for their money, was a political crime. It is a political crime. It’s the bigger lie.
That’s how our “system” “works”.
I think this was a crossroads moment for our country. Robert, being the most trusted truth teller, being on the biggest show ever, means something, to me. At least duly noted as happening. The screwing of the American middle class went mainstream in a classic commercial confession, tonight. Now they can stop pretending that they care about the common good. They earned that money fair and square, and bought your government with it. That’s just the way it is. Forget about it. If you were paying attention. It’s done now.
It’s a celebration in a way. Finally the republicans can officially walk away from that old kinder gentler thing. What was Bush thinking with that? The newfound royalty is a declaration and a celebration. They have been emancipated from any concern of compassion now, and have waded digitally, into the crypto-gold.
So let’s give this Opinion piece by Robert a read. The title is a ground breaking revelation compared to our traditional fluff & stuff, when it comes to referencing matters of class warfare. Though I suppose it’s nothing new, to you.
At first glance, of course the billionaires are supporting right wing anti-democratic forces. The problem with the headline is that it assumes the two groups are distinct and different, when they’re the same and always have been.
American billionaires are anti-democratic forces wether they like it or not. It’s not only a historical fact, it’s a mathematical fact. It doesn’t matter what you think, elections are determined by and for the money. That is the difference between a system based on belief versus a system that recognizes wealth when apportioning representation, like tax-bracket apportionment.
Robert’s subhead is a mouthful. I’ll summarize it: Trump and his billionaire buddies have bribed the republicans to surrender our democracy to them.
Bribery is a strategy that works because money is representation. It’s been working for a long time. Robert alleges they are ‘even questioning the value of democracy itself’. As if they ever cared about an honest democracy. As if the democrats didn’t always serve the same agenda as the republicans? As if they’re not doing exactly that same thing now with Joe Biden as president? It’s almost the same thing. The yo-yo goes up and down but the string remains securely in the hands of the ultra-rich, as they farm the public for their money.
I’m really starting to feel the padded pillow gloves on Robert’s title and subhead punches here. It’s still pretty good. Who are these “anti-democratic forces” Robert is speaking of? Are they violent? Who is the enemy of democracy? Let’s find out.
First sentence;
Caption to the pic, of Peter Thiel, why bother cite this? I guess he’s the poster boy for the sociopathic elite. He’s so happy to oblige in explaining how justified he is with his financial success, if you’ll listen. I’d rather not.
So Robert starts his article saying Decades ago, our monied interests bankrolled fiscal conservatism, anti-communism and constitutional democracy.
That all sounds so true, but deconstruct that. I have no idea where he’s going with his article but this first sentence says so much. My first thought is the republican establishment he is referring to, was bound by law, to abide and obey the constitutional democracy he says they believed in. They never cared for the democracy or the law. They have been at war with democracy and the law, this establishment that Robert is referring to, from the start. They break the law and the opposition lets the law remain broken.
The monied interests Robert mentions represented the colonial past. They were the masters of exploitation and asset accumulation, at the expense of the public, just to put his thought into historical context,
The first sentence goes on to say, these republicans who believed in constitutional democracy also believed in fiscal conservatism and anti-communism. It has to be noted this is the meat of the whole messy matter. These guys were never fiscally conservative. They always ripped off the public. If Robert ever believed in their fiscal sincerity, I would suggest he’s being kind, or naive, or misleading.
The republicans came in with all fangs out sucking hard for max extraction and they always do. They always have. It doesn’t matter if he means Nixon, Reagan, or Bush. Same party same agenda. I’m starting to think Robert is being a tad disingenuous now and I’m only on the first sentence. But, seeings how he brought up the anti-communism thing I also have to counter that.
Economic theory is used to justify war and it’s been obvious for a long time. It works well because economics is debatable. We demonize their economic theory while we embrace the greatest inequality ever, as a proud success.
Anti-communism was the main propaganda staple way back when to justify wars and other hideous public policies. The notion is an attack against what people believe or might believe. That’s enough to justify war, for some. But it’s the most anti-American thing a patriot can do and the republicans that Robert Reich is speaking of, did exactly that, repeatedly, as a party, whenever they’re in power, without fail, over the decades Robert is referencing. They called their enemy communists to justify persecuting them for personal and institutional privileges based on unaccountable authority.
Bottom line, there weren’t any communists at all. Communism is a theory that has never actually been used, in practice, except as a boogie-man to justify whatever “we” did.
Second sentence. Robert pretends the billionaire class was ever for democracy. They weren’t. The difference is they have enough money now to bribe everybody they need. The big lie, and I suspect Robert knows this, is the establishment he is referencing has been extracting money from the public for a half century or more. They are awash in the spoils of public debt. It’s not an exaggeration to say that they are buying this place with money they have stolen from our future, digitally, because they could.
They have all gotten rich by extracting money from the future with leverage and debt, because nobody cared to stop them.
The big lie that Trump beat Biden is a ruse. It’s an excuse to pursue permanent extraction status for the confederates. It’s an organizing argument to divert attention from the financial crime being perpetrated against the public. The big lie allows the republicans a grievance to remedy as opposed to a greedy grab for power and supremacy.
The Big Lie is an Alibi. It’s a distraction. The cheaters are screaming we’ve been cheated while they themselves cheat. It is a predictable ploy, never quite proven because truth no longer matters. The republican strategy to defend the army of billionaires that they are building with our tax dollars, is to blame their victims for their victimhood.
The republican pundits argue that the democrats are shameless and greedy, so you shouldn’t support them. The irony is they try to demonize the left for being like the right, hoping that’s worse, to you, somehow, than they are. It’s ironic that the right demonize the left for trying be what the right admittedly is, corrupt.
The billionaires have to have a plan other than stealing from the poor to give to the rich. So it’s election fraud. That’s the big lie. You would think the democrats would move to remedy the situation with a digital consensus network that’s not a global wasteland of corruption, but no, they don’t. The democrats embrace the unregulated cesspool of cyberspace or they’d move to fix it. Like Crypto.
They love it the way it is, broken.
But I digress. Where was I?
Robert goes on to blame Thiel for being a dickhead whacko for all the typical reasons. No doubt he’s blinded by his artificially inflated ego because of the meritocratic fantasy-land where he lives, where he’s oblivious that his success comes from a culture of unethical crime sanctioned by a corrupt government.
We need political remedy.
It’s almost as if Robert is trying to shame Thiel and his billionaire buddies into a more empathetic behavior, reminiscing the aforementioned monied elite. His is a misplaced persuasion, imo, because the effort needs to be directed at the corrupt system that produced them in the first place. The laws that increase our inequality need to be fixed. Billionaires are a relatively new phenomenon in our world. They should be outlawed as being unconstitutional or as a threat to our national security, or for tax evasion. How about bribing the government? The legal remedy to our political problems are resisted by the law, which sustains the corruption, which empowers the billionaires and prevents representative government.
Robert quotes Thiel. I’ll paraphrase. Theil thinks because we let women vote and give assistance to poor people, Capitalist Democracy is an oxymoron. That means those two words represent incompatible practices. Doing democracy prevents capitalism and doing capitalism prevents democracy. They are theoretically incompatible practices when practiced to the extremes. Theil thinks we, as a people, are getting too extreme with our belief in the common good, which is exactly backwards to what he thinks. He believes in his own good.
I’m to the Gilded age in Robert’s article and the paragraph is fuzzy. It’s as if he’s not talking about a crime here, legal or not. The rich investors ripped off the working poor and got away with it, because of judicial dereliction. The standard of living for those who work and consume dropped to pay for the extraction scam.
Then we got the Great Depression and bailed out the people who got ripped off with newly printed money. That allowed the banking industry to become a very profitable business. It’s a cycle now and our most profitable profession.
Stealing Deposits.
Robert goes on to mention this is a global thing. The world is conceding, I guess, to the strongmen, hey says. And he’s right, apparently. Everybody I know is somehow for a war. Not a real one, but something. That’s how I know you are all crazy, for the most part. And that’s the part that matters most, to me.
That’s why all politics should be online. More text, less talk. All public discourse should be documented and accessible. Your social security number is your password to your citizen network account that provides a way for you to vote and a way to pay taxes, on your devices, without commercial interference.
The absence of this service is inexcusable. I think Robert should be offering up some solutions, like mine. It’s time to breakout the democracy now, for the future, or democracy won’t stand a chance, But, I guess that’s what the Simpson’s episode was about. Game over for the middle class. The corporate ladder just lost a couple rungs. It’ll be a big step to management next year.
This episode is the cultural declaration of acceptance to the crime of the century. Who needed the middle class anyway? What did the middle class ever do for anybody? Good riddance, so long suckers. Hey, what are ya gonna do?
Got any bitcoin?
I hate to say but Robert seems the narrator here in this article. We have all known this for a long time. We want some solutions. We want some truth. We want some law enforcement. What’s likely he implies is that we are destined to fall for a Hitler-like strong man, as a people, to applaud the conflict-based agenda and the billionaires, who control the economy and the government, not by democracy, but with money.
The Simpsons
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-simpsons-season-33-episode-22-review/
Haven’t read this yet either. Oxfam says were making a billionaire every day and a million extremely poor people.
And so I don’t forget the adivce from Madison:
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-10