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True Story:
I shared this story before, but people couldn’t hear it. It seems preposterous. Things as they are, let’s try again.
In 1991, a senior assistant from President Bush Sr.’s office met National Association of Counties (NACo) President Michael Stewart (R – Salt Lake Co.) at a cocktail party at the Annual Conference in Salt Lake City. I overheard them discussing the “best” form of government, ever. They agreed that it was Medieval England around the time of King John. Its benefits?
- The king is the sole authority, secures obedience, neutralizes all possible challengers; gains the monopoly of force; and, maintains law and order.
- Patriotism is focused on the nation, not on the localities that comprise it, transferring identity from local to national level, at the disposal of the king.
- The state dominates or controls the religious life of society with a single authoritarian religion to manage the mob for advantage.
- The state controls economic life to facilitate circulation and exchange of goods, and grasps as much as possible of the national wealth for the king and his allies.
In the medieval model stability is created through divine hierarchy. The king rules all, the church facilitates obedience of the mass, the military protects the property of king and “state”, and the peasants work to feed everybody. It’s a simple model, which allowed it to last for several hundred incredibly stultifying and repressive years in which most of humanity subsisted on the level of cattle, or swine, and wars were fought at personal whim of a vainglorious, and occasionally religiously demented elite. Does this ring bells?
The important men at the 1991 cocktail party didn’t intend to install a king or a single church in America (at least right now), but in variation, updated and recycled form, favored state identification and alliance with a majority religion and a CEO working with a board of directors (perhaps preserving a hint of representative government – old habits, even bad ones such as participative management, die hard). Call king and court president and cabinet, or rose and garden, they envisioned a tyrant working with an oligarchy of the privileged elite that they believe is, of course, best suited to govern, operating above government and for the privileged elite. They think they’re nobility.
They were deadly serious and not amused when I asked if they had heard of Robin Hood or the Magna Carta. They looked at me as if I’d shit their shoes, then ignored me.
“Americans deserve the government they elect,” my father used to say, but we didn’t elect G.W. Bush, or the Koch brothers. Kings, as I recall, are divinely chosen – in our case, by fat cats and a corrupted Supreme Court. Kings and aristocracy represent the elite status quo, which presently resides in Wall Street. Wall Street wants to govern everything by itself, without any interference from the rest of us. Father knows best. Or, would that be “brothers?”
Koch Brothers Buy Their Way Into, Then Breezily Skew, Civic Discourse
Anti-American Terrorists
Following a strategy of ignoring the facts and killing the messenger, the billionaire Koch Brothers have responded to the Center for Public Integrity’s report on Koch lobbying activities by mounting a smear campaign against the Center – complete with the real “Koch facts” – while refusing requests to speak with them. In the last elections, though, the Kochs did tell 50,000 employees who to vote for and what disasters would befall them if they didn’t. Citizens United rendered such corporate politicking marginally legal, though still, of course, supremely sleazy. -Abby Zimet More… 4-20-11 TruthDig.com
KINGS KOCH [The ultra rightwing Koch Brothers are – PUBLIC ENEMIES 1 and 2]
Poor Beleaguered Billionaires
The rich have created and retain dominance in an amoral, or consciously immoral world of corruption, thievery, and violence, instead of trying to eliminate or improve conditions that would remedy or heal it. They would leave us with a permanently dysfunctional, and therefore, easier to manage wingnut government. The dog-eat-dog social consequences are devastating to consider. The cynicism is appalling.
The rich don’t expect any retribution or punishment, for it is the culture. They are so highly placed that they expect to tiptoe through the tulips while the rest of us fry in the ozone hole. See also: ORGANIZED IRRESPONSIBILITY .
Corporate Coup d’état Coming Soon to a City Near You. Rania Khalek Wednesday, April 20, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein demonstrates how wealthy elites often use crisis and chaos to impose unpopular policies that restructure economies and political systems to advance their interests. She calls these orchestrated raids, “disaster capitalism.” Disaster capitalism is on display around the country, as legislators use the debt crisis afflicting their states as an opportunity to hollow out the public sector.
This so-called financial emergency is really a democracy emergency. Local governments are NOT corporations. The true purpose of emergency financial management is to convert a democratically elected government into a hierarchal business entity through economic “shock therapy”, which would be impossible if workers, elected representatives, and residents had any say. If we allow what is taking place to continue, disaster capitalism will find its way to a city, town, or school district near you. READ MORE: Rania Khalek blog at http://raniakhalek.com.
All U.S. Prime
GOP Wave Reshapes Nation’s Agenda State by State. Ann Sanner and Calvin Woodward Monday, April 18, 2011 by Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio – State by state, Republicans are moving fast on a conservative agenda they had no hope of achieving before the big election gains of November. The dividends go beyond spending cuts. Republicans are restricting abortion, expanding gun rights, imposing polling-station photo ID laws and attacking public sector unions.
Democrats find themselves cowed or outmaneuvered, hoping that voters will see these actions as an overreach by the Republicans, an accidental revolution to be reversed.
It’s not all coming up tulips for rightwing extremists. New Mexico and Utah are among Republican-led states where governors are bypassing the GOP playbook; and the tea party movement is in tatters in Colorado and not much better off in Alaska. READ MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/18-2
Final words: Keep on keepin’ on. We, the people, need each other. We can win this fight against the self-styled elite. We outnumber them. Vote Progressive as if your life depends upon it – it probably does, and cliché or not, every election is the most important election since our Constitution was ratified. Best regards and good luck to us all, j
John Legry's Blog 