Summary: The moment approaches when every American sees that the 1% are taking it away. Then we each make a choice to go with the flow or resist. Here are a few events that show this time is close. I’ve predicted the events leading to this point, but have no idea how we’ll react. Much depends on our choice.
“An experience of profound contempt is necessary in order to grasp our situation, and our capacity for contempt is vanishing.”
— From Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, chapter on “Values” (1987).
We’re in the pursuit phase of our battle with the 1%, the quiet coup. Decades of quiet organizing and slow progress (see here & here) — then Reagan began their advance that continues to this day, inexorably accelerating. After breaking down the old order (e.g., unions, campaign finance limits, New Deal era limits on banks) we see them building a New America: dismantling the public-financed colleges (see here and here), shifting the tax burden from the rich to the middle class, and many other changes to core features of America.
The obvious moment of truth will come when events force us to see the systematic nation of these changes. Will we rise to the challenge, or look in the mirror and see cowards? That time approaches. Soon we’ll learn the answer.
(1) Former NSA & CIA Director Hayden mocks us
This is almost too good to be true. Former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden spoke to America’s inner party at the Wall Street Journal’s CFO Conference.
If somebody would come up to me and say “Look, Hayden, here’s the thing: This Snowden thing is going to be a nightmare for you guys for about two years. And when we get all done with it, what you’re going to be required to do is that little 215 program about American telephony metadata — and by the way, you can still have access to it, but you got to go to the court and get access to it from the companies, rather than keep it to yourself” — I go: “And this is it after two years? Cool!”
He was speaking the truth. We deserve to be mocked The USA Freedom Act was mostly cosmetic reform (the NYT agrees). Two years ago I predicted our pitiful response to Snowden’s revelations.
(2) The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passes
Under the cloak of “free trade”, the still-secret TPP builds an elaborate machinery to screw us. On May 20 I forecast that it would pass. There was much cheering when a bipartisan alliance in the House voted against Obama on June 12 (a victory for the Left’s campaign to call Congress!).
But reports of the TTP’s death proved premature, proving against that there is no political polarization for interests of the 1%!
The Hill reported “President Obama is poised for one of the biggest victories of his second term after the Senate voted Tuesday to advance legislation enhancing his trade powers.” The New York Times described the doings of that socialist Obama and his GOP allies…
The tortuous path of the trade legislation over the last six months created the unusual alliance between Mr. Obama and Republican leaders … “This is a very important day for our country,” said Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader … Most Democrats — along with labor unions, environmental groups and liberal activists — disagreed, saying that such trade agreements had resulted in lost manufacturing jobs and lower wages for American workers.
(3) Miscellaneous milestones on our trip back to the gilded age
There were cheers after Obama’s latest Hallmark moment, announcing a halt to the Federal government’s funding militarization of local police. Undeserved applause, as Philip Giraldi explains in the American Conservative: “Obama Won’t Demilitarize Police“, 23 June 2015 — “White House claims of de-escalation are merely misdirection.”
For those who still hope that normal democratic processes will save us, there is the spectacle of the Clinton and Bush dynasties teeing off together in Campaign 2016.
Our reaction to these events will show who we are, and probably determine the nature of America for the next few generations (or longer).
For More Information
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