Many people are concerned about the possibility of a double-dip recession. We should be so lucky. What is actually coming our way (IMHO) is far worse. What we're actually headed for (again, IMHO) is extinction. A world renowned Australian scientist says we'll be extinct in a hundred years. I'm not sure I'd give us that long...and between now and then things are only going to get worse for as long as we continue down the path we are on.
Every President since Nixon has promised to break our addiction to oil and every one of them has caved to the greed and power of Big Oil. When the hippies in the 60s said we had to change our way of life to save the earth they were mocked, beaten, jailed and shot down like dogs. We have allowed the greedheads to run roughshod over the intelligent members of our species and we are now paying the price.
If you believe that unemployment is just over 10 percent, you forget just who it is telling you that lie. It's the same folks who told you we have to attack the world to be safe. I am one of the millions who are not counted in the unemployment statistics. Starting in the Reagan administration and continuing in every administration since, corporations have been converting employees to independent contractor status. I don't know how many millions were so converted but it was a lot. None of us are counted in the unemployment stats and none of us have collected a dime in unemployment compensation.
So at 58 and going on year three of being unemployed and unemployable, there is no help for me or all those out there like me who no one counts and no one gives a rat's ass about. And now they propose to push off social security for five years and cut the benefits. These fuckers know no shame.
And that is the least of it my friends. Class warfare has marginalized everyone not firmly ensconced in the ruling class – and it gets worse with every passing day. Wages plummet, jobs disappear, home values melt away, the cost of living skyrockets while CEOs parachute out of their companies with tens of millions as the reward for having run their companies into the ground. The Fed gives away 2 Trillion of our dollars and refuses to tell us who they gave it to. Powerful members of the ruling class commit the most heinous crimes there are, aggressive war, torture, grand theft America, and suffer no consequences whatsoever. Financial giants steal so much money they bring the entire world economy to the brink of collapse. They not only get bailed out, they get rewarded for it. Just ask Geithner, Bernanke or Summers. Bernie Madoff's mistake was stealing from the rich. If he'd stolen from the poor he'd have a cabinet position.
We can screw the American people into their graves but we don't dare tax the rich or make corporations pay their fair share. Goldman Sachs pays 1% in taxes and no one raises an eyebrow. No, we have to cut social security to pay for two of the stupidest wars in all of human history. Fuck all the poor people who will suffer, we have to keep those million dollar bonuses rolling on Wall Street and we have to keep those bombs dropping on all those innocent babies. Obama lifts the ban on offshore drilling just before the apocalypse in the gulf, reimposes it when the enormity of the BP disaster becomes apparent, and then a judge with ties to Big Oil re-lifts it. The CEO of Johnson and Johnson purchases an 8.45 million dollar waterfront lot while planning the layoff of 8,100 employees.
And the madness goes on, getting worse every day. And all our worthless government can manage to do is figure out new and creative ways to steal from the poor to give to the rich.
If we do not find a way to powerfully counteract the SCOTUS decision in Citizens United v FEC, the following will be among the consequences:
We will do little or nothing about climate change, worldwide pollution or resource depletion, which will in effect doom future generations to a world increasingly hostile to human life.
We will continue to fund and fight unnecessary and unjust wars of imperial aggression making an ass of humanity in the process.
Profits will increase for the wealthy for as long as they can continue to squeeze them out of the rest of us.
Suffering for everyone not firmly ensconced in the ruling class will increase.
The last vestiges of the American middleclass will wither, turn to dust and blow away.
The only human right left to anyone anywhere will be to serve as prey.
The knuckle-draggers will drive our planet straight into a ditch.
Greedheads win.
Humanity loses.
Good luck everyone.
And Then the Sky Fell
Those who post long lists of all the things they are satisfied with are delusional IMO. They may be well meaning, their hearts may be in the right place but they clearly do not grok the severity of our present circumstances. Badabing posted a nice summation in bobswern's excellent diary last night:
And how much did Wall Street/the Banks get away with again? That crashed our economy, and then they all got paid off for doing so? Oh yeah, I remember now:
Casey Research, of Vermont, has analyzed the costs of the government bailouts of the housing crisis, the credit crisis and others and has concluded that the total is $8.5 trillion, which is more than the cost of all US wars, the Louisiana Purchase, the New Deal, the Marshall Plan and the NASA Space Program combined. According to CRS, the Congressional Research Service, all major US wars (including such events as the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the invasion of Panama, the Kosovo War and numerous other small conflicts), cost a total of $7.5 trillion in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars.
The Automatic Earth
That we continue to put up with all this crap is simply amazing. We elected Obama because he promised change, which we desperately need, but from the moment he took office he has been busy propping up the status quo – not to change it but to preserve it. (Emanuel? Gates? Geithner? Bernanke? Summers?) Yes, he's made some tweaks to the system and many of those tweaks have been good ones but they're woefully inadequate. The status quo needs to be smashed not finessed.
On the eve of this G-20 gathering, let’s look at a few facts. Fact, the world has divided into rich and poor as at no time in our history. The richest 2% own more than half the household wealth in the world. The richest 10% hold 85% of total global assets and the bottom half of humanity owns less than 1% of the wealth in the world. The three richest men in the world have more money than the poorest 48 countries.
From teacherken's Rich v. Poor - the world is divided.
It's high time we took matters into our own hands and do what they did in Iceland, as detailed in ActivistGuy's Reykjavik: The "Art of the Possible" Goes Dada, force our government to resign and replace it with one that will not tolerate corruption. We need to abolish the financial industry, corporate lobbyists and all other parasitic entities, redistribute the wealth and repurpose the Military Industrial Complex making it into the Green Industries Complex. We need to pour all the energy, treasure and genius we have poured into useless and shameful wars into saving our species.
Half measures, incrementalism and 'more and better democrats' are simply not going to get us there in time. It's time we crash the gates for real.
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