We have been fighting for the oppressed for-ever. One of the most known billionaires is Warren Buffet and he specifically says, that there is a class war and his class has been winning it for a long time now.
The oligarchs have won the class war for centuries, with a few brief and notable interludes where wealth and power were trusted in the hands of common men. The reason most Americans feel estranged from our leaders, is because they have undermined our entire culture by allowing us to be fleeced in broad daylight by corporate welfare recipients, like GE (minus 9% effective tax rate). Wal-mart has recently plummeted in "value" on the stock market, I think it is because the majority has realized that the only thing pure greed is capable of doing is destroying communities. Same for road building projects, banking, Everything the Koch brothers dabble in, Wall Street, the insurance industry and most kinds of "resource" extraction. All of these mal-adaptive behaviors cost the average person far more than they justify with even modest scrutiny.
Financially, we are all still strapped for cash and the logical argument has always been that if we just work a little harder or a little longer, we will somehow get "ahead". Many are beginning to realize, that our efforts to thrive in the economic system that has been flooded with corruption and graft, are like spending more hours in the gambling houses. The tables are rigged for the uberwealthy and the longer we rely on their "products and services", the more of our wealth they will skim off. Perhaps our whole world economy is poised for an intervention. Instead of the saying, step away from the crack pipe, we need to strongly encourage, or command stepping away from the juggernaut gambling tables of high stakes, life and death labor decisions, When we, the 99%, walk away, the system crumble. The well-insulated billionaire class cannot fathom what we are capable of, just as we cannot imagine the depths of their depravity. We are ready to elect a Bernie sanders for President, but in our system, we need to assure that 469 new congresspeople come into office who will pledge to work with, rather than against Bernie, then we can reign in some of the wanton spending on corporate welfare.
Many do not understand the massive tax subsidies that go to business, industry and the corporate hierarchy. I mentioned GE earlier and I will repeatedly harp on the fact that the largest subsidy we have given to GE over the years is that we gave them billions in subsidy to "grow" their company, building nuclear/electric generating facilities, knowing full well that the costs of their actions would be paid by the taxpayers as well. Over 60,000 years of "safe storage" for the waste created is a massive cost and you and I will be paying for that long after the benefits of a few electrons do their work. The nuclear facilities themselves will be dirty forever and just because you cannot see what kills you does not mean that it is not doing it. Friends of mine born virtually across the road from a local nuke facility are dead and or suffering with the human cost of nuclear energy. There will always be well-paid mouthpieces to help prop up lies, but more and more people are understanding the truth and it cannot be assailed, cannot be torn down and cannot be ignored any longer. The truth stands alone and need not be propped up by lies.
This Solstice season, let us put our houses in order, let us depend less on the filthy lucre of the oligarchs, let us starve them out as it were and when they are willing to humbly accept a place at our table, let them learn first-hand the true meaning of stone soup. Those of us who have been at the losing end of the class war have known for decades the value of barter and the sharing economy. Now it is time to revolutionize the thinking of the masses. I am fond of saying each one teach one, but this is the foundation of all great movements.
When I first envisioned this post, it was much more about eating the rich, but what we must learn is to utilize the vast and pernicious waste, fraud and corruption that exists in the current system to redistribute resources, punish those who ignore basic rules of humanity with boycotts, divestment and sanctions. Rather than punitive measures, designed to hurt the offending individuals, groups and corporations, we need sound protections for those who rely on goods or services from the marketplace. The only way to extinguish the one dollar one vote model is to assert that we are supposed to have a one person one vote system. Democracy is new enough in the evolutionary chain of humanity that we cannot sit idly by and let it devolve further into oligarchy. By now, we are all likely to have seen the distribution of kings to serfs and the various ranks of status and privilege that existed during feudal times. what we are experiencing today mirrors that hierarchy of power and control exactly and it pains those of us who are paying attention that so few know what can be done to turn the tables and redistribute the greatest fortunes ever created in the history of humankind.
Eat local, drink local, shelter yourself as locally as possible and make merriment locally as well. We reproduce what is important to us and if we focus on the things closest to us, the least fossil energy is used running about the place. Learn to make biochar and use it! Tell your neighbors and friends. We will need all hands on deck to survive the coming storms and we will have to all pull together or be ripped apart by the rogue waves of the die hard billionaires. They will undermine and subvert our efforts at any cost, so be brave and do not tear down one another of yourself. To do that is playing right into their hands. We all bring something special to the table, do not sacrifice it or squander it on the altar of the oligarchs, enriching them and giving them evermore power and control. Instead add your part to the Stone Soup of our new culture, the one that rewards all, not just the already well-heeled. The transformations that will occur in your life will be staggering.
There has been a revolution taking place for decades and it is rarely acknowledged. Some of the outward signs are in the slow food/farmer's market model, sharing our ecologic ethic with those who produce our food, etc. What was called living better for less, or voluntary simplicity, the home school revolution, as well as is part of that and Healing our relationship with place. All Earth is sacred.
The oligarchs have won the class war for centuries, with a few brief and notable interludes where wealth and power were trusted in the hands of common men. The reason most Americans feel estranged from our leaders, is because they have undermined our entire culture by allowing us to be fleeced in broad daylight by corporate welfare recipients, like GE (minus 9% effective tax rate). Wal-mart has recently plummeted in "value" on the stock market, I think it is because the majority has realized that the only thing pure greed is capable of doing is destroying communities. Same for road building projects, banking, Everything the Koch brothers dabble in, Wall Street, the insurance industry and most kinds of "resource" extraction. All of these mal-adaptive behaviors cost the average person far more than they justify with even modest scrutiny.
Financially, we are all still strapped for cash and the logical argument has always been that if we just work a little harder or a little longer, we will somehow get "ahead". Many are beginning to realize, that our efforts to thrive in the economic system that has been flooded with corruption and graft, are like spending more hours in the gambling houses. The tables are rigged for the uberwealthy and the longer we rely on their "products and services", the more of our wealth they will skim off. Perhaps our whole world economy is poised for an intervention. Instead of the saying, step away from the crack pipe, we need to strongly encourage, or command stepping away from the juggernaut gambling tables of high stakes, life and death labor decisions, When we, the 99%, walk away, the system crumble. The well-insulated billionaire class cannot fathom what we are capable of, just as we cannot imagine the depths of their depravity. We are ready to elect a Bernie sanders for President, but in our system, we need to assure that 469 new congresspeople come into office who will pledge to work with, rather than against Bernie, then we can reign in some of the wanton spending on corporate welfare.
Many do not understand the massive tax subsidies that go to business, industry and the corporate hierarchy. I mentioned GE earlier and I will repeatedly harp on the fact that the largest subsidy we have given to GE over the years is that we gave them billions in subsidy to "grow" their company, building nuclear/electric generating facilities, knowing full well that the costs of their actions would be paid by the taxpayers as well. Over 60,000 years of "safe storage" for the waste created is a massive cost and you and I will be paying for that long after the benefits of a few electrons do their work. The nuclear facilities themselves will be dirty forever and just because you cannot see what kills you does not mean that it is not doing it. Friends of mine born virtually across the road from a local nuke facility are dead and or suffering with the human cost of nuclear energy. There will always be well-paid mouthpieces to help prop up lies, but more and more people are understanding the truth and it cannot be assailed, cannot be torn down and cannot be ignored any longer. The truth stands alone and need not be propped up by lies.
This Solstice season, let us put our houses in order, let us depend less on the filthy lucre of the oligarchs, let us starve them out as it were and when they are willing to humbly accept a place at our table, let them learn first-hand the true meaning of stone soup. Those of us who have been at the losing end of the class war have known for decades the value of barter and the sharing economy. Now it is time to revolutionize the thinking of the masses. I am fond of saying each one teach one, but this is the foundation of all great movements.
When I first envisioned this post, it was much more about eating the rich, but what we must learn is to utilize the vast and pernicious waste, fraud and corruption that exists in the current system to redistribute resources, punish those who ignore basic rules of humanity with boycotts, divestment and sanctions. Rather than punitive measures, designed to hurt the offending individuals, groups and corporations, we need sound protections for those who rely on goods or services from the marketplace. The only way to extinguish the one dollar one vote model is to assert that we are supposed to have a one person one vote system. Democracy is new enough in the evolutionary chain of humanity that we cannot sit idly by and let it devolve further into oligarchy. By now, we are all likely to have seen the distribution of kings to serfs and the various ranks of status and privilege that existed during feudal times. what we are experiencing today mirrors that hierarchy of power and control exactly and it pains those of us who are paying attention that so few know what can be done to turn the tables and redistribute the greatest fortunes ever created in the history of humankind.
Eat local, drink local, shelter yourself as locally as possible and make merriment locally as well. We reproduce what is important to us and if we focus on the things closest to us, the least fossil energy is used running about the place. Learn to make biochar and use it! Tell your neighbors and friends. We will need all hands on deck to survive the coming storms and we will have to all pull together or be ripped apart by the rogue waves of the die hard billionaires. They will undermine and subvert our efforts at any cost, so be brave and do not tear down one another of yourself. To do that is playing right into their hands. We all bring something special to the table, do not sacrifice it or squander it on the altar of the oligarchs, enriching them and giving them evermore power and control. Instead add your part to the Stone Soup of our new culture, the one that rewards all, not just the already well-heeled. The transformations that will occur in your life will be staggering.
There has been a revolution taking place for decades and it is rarely acknowledged. Some of the outward signs are in the slow food/farmer's market model, sharing our ecologic ethic with those who produce our food, etc. What was called living better for less, or voluntary simplicity, the home school revolution, as well as is part of that and Healing our relationship with place. All Earth is sacred.
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