There is nothing so blinding as self-righteousness
Among the three of them, Ratigan, Back and DeGraw haven't got enough vision to piss straight. They are so full of themselves that they have no idea what it would take to even identify what is wrong, let alone right it.
The fundamental problem that is allowing the ruling oligarchs to use the other 99.9% of us as the means to realize their wet dreams of unlimited power is the fact that people don't know the difference between economics and politics. They literally think the two are inextricable. Here's a partial list of unquestioned assumptions that are entrenched in our system: Someone who is economically successful is qualified to be a public servant. Wealth produces happiness. A person who is smart (able to remember and manipulate information) and cunning (able to manipulate human and physical resources to meet goals) is also intelligent (able to derive meaning and ascribe human value to events, and make wise choices on behalf of human life).
People are unable to question these assumptions. That's the problem. That's why Geitner and Bernanke et. al will win this round no matter how sincerely these three fools wax eloquent about how we have to indict and replace these bastards with another set.
The only thing that would turn the momentum of human degradation around would be a Constitutional amendment strictly limiting the opportunities of economic and political powers to collude with one another, in much the same way that political and religious powers were separated after centuries of collusion and suffering. At that time, most people thought it would spell social doom if people weren't required to support the church, and if people could be elected to office that weren't good church members. But instead what happened is that religious freedom and privacy were promoted, churches didn't any longer have the right to control public policy, and the self-serving corruption among power-hungry church leadership was diminished. What happened was entirely good.
To make such a change with regard to the political and economic realms of social life, people have to first realize that what is good for economics is not necessarily good for civil human society, and that having the same people in charge of both is ALWAYS going to be a recipe for human disaster. I think people are starting to realize that, but with "leadership" such as is demonstrated by these three people, the necessary solution to the problem seems an awfully long way off.
That's maybe a little harsh. I can agree with your points that we need to separate economics and politics, and that a fundamental reconfiguration is absolutely necessary. That being said, Ratigan is one of the few people giving this movement fair coverage. And he does want the same separation you are talking about. You should check out www.getmoneyout.com a site where he is trying to do just this. Also, I'm glad that he emphasized that this isn't a left-right issue. Maybe he's not making the points you want, but it's a start. When I look at many other MSM outlets, all I see is juvenile coverage of the issue, trying to make the movement look bad, or trying to tie it up with the left, or brushing over it in some other way.
Just the fact that this debate is happening, in an intelligent way gives me a sliver of hope. I've been trying to bring this issue to friends and family for years, and it's kind of weird to finally hear it being talked about, let alone protested. The conversation will evolve and clarify, and it will probably be messy along the way. But, insulting the one outlet giving this fair coverage, is probably not the most effective response in my opinion.
As an "Occupier" or whatever it is I am, I am glad to see many intelligent and diverse people jumping on board. Those who sit back in the peanut gallery and talk about how we are just dirty kids, or that we just want government hand outs aren't really doing anything to improve the situation. Not to mention that they are just flat out incorrect. I guarantee that nobody in this movement is as dirty as some bankers and politicians out there. And as far as the age insults, they are wrong again. There are all age groups represented, though there are more younger people overall. This is to be expected, because the youth have not yet become as jaded or impotent through a lifetime of subservience and propaganda. This site doesn't seem to be festering with these types of people, but as I follow stories on sites like drudge, I see what appears to be armies of haters or government bots making the same incorrect insults over and over. Perhaps they are government bots in action?
This movement is unstoppable because it is the direct result of the problems with our financial and political system. As the problem continues to become worse, the movement will become stronger, better informed, and more effective. I have to balance my frustration with how apparently slow moving it is with the fact that it took us decades to get to the point of crisis we are in now, so a solution overnight is not going to happen. Also, in this time, think about how many people are educating each other on these vital issues, instead of sitting at home watching TV, or video games. I encourage people to get involved if you're not already. This is probably the biggest public movement I have seen in America in my lifetime, and I'm glad I have a chance to participate. I know that many will look back on this time and regret that they were too lazy to be a part of making history.
...you've got to realize that your protests mean NOTHING. They cannot change a thing. The mechanisms of change have been broken. There are no effective public servants, just a scattering of grandstanding ideologues. And you cling to these few people as if to fragments of a splintered boat. You cling to the hope that they can somehow put the boat back together, when the tools to do so no longer exist. Yes, you can now see the problem. Yes, that knowledge represents progress of a sort. But no, it does not represent a solution.
Masses of people have effected change in the past when there was the opportunity for real leadership and when democratic processes still existed. But the last vestiges of that were systematically dismantled 30 years ago with Reagan and the Gingrich Revolution. The powers that be can now look at your protests with disdain. They know how easily you can be managed and corralled. The vision-free Ratigans, Blacks and DeGraws of the world are given a limited forum, just enough to provide you the illusion of a voice, but they would never be allowed to do so if they said anything fundamental about the real issues at hand. And if you're young enough and/or naive enough, you shake your fists and carry your signs and shout your slogans and get high on your camaraderie, and it means NOTHING.
It's a good thing that most people aren't so pessimistic. A few corrections. I cling to nobody. I was merely contrasting Ratigan to the likes of FOX. I have only a shred of respect for MSNBC for this. Hardly clinging. I don't put my hope in anybody. Why do you think I am out engaging people on the streets, and engaging people online?
If Gandhi thought like you, nothing would have changed. You've already defeated yourself before the movement has really gotten off the ground. I run into lots of people who are jaded and self-defeating like this on the streets. Usually they are homeless and very bitter. I'm not saying that you are, just that you remind me of a similar cynicism. If you think that this movement means nothing, then you are greatly mistaken. It obviously means something, or nobody would bother writing about it, engaging in it, or reporting on it. What you really meant to say is that you predict that no meaningful political change will result as a byproduct. I'm not a future-teller. I don't know where exactly this is heading. The message is clear, the system is broken, and I see a lot of people very committed to stick this out wherever it leads.
Who knows where it will go. I don't claim to predict the future, but I would bet money that your divination is wrong. I am willing to bet that meaningful change will happen, and not necessarily by working with the current mechanisms of change, which you claim are "broken". If you've been paying any attention at all throughout the world, you will see that people rising are toppling dictators and starting democracy. Does that also mean "NOTHING"?
I don't really care if you wish to continue misrepresenting me, and I don't really mind your jaded outlook. I just wanted to set a few things straight for the record.
Its and interesting idea. If it doesn't work, or isn't allowed to, then I guess the next question should be.... "Is the USA too big to fail?" I think not, unfortunately.
Its difficult not to be angry when watching a slow motion train wreck happening and nobody at all, either willing, or in a position to avert it.
I'm not sure if Barry McGuire quite had this in mind, but I'd like to dedicate his song to everyone who thinks 'things can only get better', I think they have to get worse, before that.
The U.S. is not too big to fail. It's been set up to fail through a process of 'controlled demolition'. That should be a familiar term to most of you. The trigger for the end stage, 9/11, was both symbolic and literal.
You see, it's 'us' or 'them.' The ponzi scheme that is our so-called economy either destroys 'us' or it destroys 'them.' And we're elected to take the fall. So far, the plan is working beautifully. The engines of any future wealth production - land, resources, clueless third-world populations - are being appropriated at breakneck speed so that 'they' will hold all the cards for playing their game of monopoly once again after the grand implosion.
THIS is the scope of what is happening. Everything you have been raised to consider your right and your due will become as insubstantial as that pyroclastic cloud from the WTC 'collapse'. No one can even imagine what it will be like when we're all literally left with the shirts on our backs and whatever ingenuity we have to survive. We are a country of 320 million people who are all - no matter if we realize it or not - on the dole. Most of us are utterly dependent on worthless green pieces of paper to collect our daily food supply from the local market and have a place to live and the means to heat it.
As George Carlin said, "They OWN you."
There's still a lot of waking up to do, folks. You waste your precious time with OWS. Who the hell do you think you are protesting TO?? Your time is far better spent building communities that can be more self-sufficient. There's not much time left.
We have a developed nation, whether it's called the United States of America or by any other name, there is already plenty of housing and other infrastructure to meet our basic needs. If I understand Isjarvi correctly, when it is no longer profitable to support the domestic politics of the USA, then TPTB will move on to the undeveloped world where there are vast natural and human resources to exploit. Fine. So the failure will be not the failure of a nation, but it's diminishing returns for wealth creation of trans-nationals. We will still be here...breathing in and breathing out. We will still be able to engage our communities locally to find the support structures that have always been here but have been teased away from us by false promises of centralized control. The promises are obviously false because what we have is not a coherent whole but a fractured and fragmented jumble held together by pop-cultural duct-tape. Nevertheless, I am hopeful that when the failure is complete and the our fiat wealth is depleted, we will be left here with the the basic staples of developed infrastructure. Along with what remains as the American Spirit, we will have all the means to fend for ourselves.
That being said, such a transition, or re-integration of our communities after de-centralization, will be painful. Growth, real growth, seems to be inevitably so.
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson
In order to survive what's coming without massive chaos, we need complex, decentralized economic structures that are responsive to local needs. We do not have them.
Evil can manifest on any societal level. The greater the scope of the psychopath's influence, the greater harm done. Thus any group of humans can be infected or "ponerized" by their influence. From families, clubs, churches, businesses, and corporations, to entire nations. The most extreme form of such macro-social evil is called "pathocracy."
- Ponerology.com
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How does manipulation work? In this situation, it is all about evoking emotionalism about justice. The same approach was used in the George Floyd...
Among the three of them, Ratigan, Back and DeGraw haven't got enough vision to piss straight. They are so full of themselves that they have no idea what it would take to even identify what is wrong, let alone right it.
The fundamental problem that is allowing the ruling oligarchs to use the other 99.9% of us as the means to realize their wet dreams of unlimited power is the fact that people don't know the difference between economics and politics. They literally think the two are inextricable. Here's a partial list of unquestioned assumptions that are entrenched in our system: Someone who is economically successful is qualified to be a public servant. Wealth produces happiness. A person who is smart (able to remember and manipulate information) and cunning (able to manipulate human and physical resources to meet goals) is also intelligent (able to derive meaning and ascribe human value to events, and make wise choices on behalf of human life).
People are unable to question these assumptions. That's the problem. That's why Geitner and Bernanke et. al will win this round no matter how sincerely these three fools wax eloquent about how we have to indict and replace these bastards with another set.
The only thing that would turn the momentum of human degradation around would be a Constitutional amendment strictly limiting the opportunities of economic and political powers to collude with one another, in much the same way that political and religious powers were separated after centuries of collusion and suffering. At that time, most people thought it would spell social doom if people weren't required to support the church, and if people could be elected to office that weren't good church members. But instead what happened is that religious freedom and privacy were promoted, churches didn't any longer have the right to control public policy, and the self-serving corruption among power-hungry church leadership was diminished. What happened was entirely good.
To make such a change with regard to the political and economic realms of social life, people have to first realize that what is good for economics is not necessarily good for civil human society, and that having the same people in charge of both is ALWAYS going to be a recipe for human disaster. I think people are starting to realize that, but with "leadership" such as is demonstrated by these three people, the necessary solution to the problem seems an awfully long way off.