I am owning those documents, it’s all I’ve got. I’ve seen enough of what can and is done when people decide the documents REPRESENT tyranny -a mantra taught in the indoctrination centers we call schools and fostered by disappointed and futile people.

One common thread that runs through the comments is “we need solidarity”. Then everyone argues. “Solidarity to the working poor, solidarity in religion, solidarity in blah blah blah, insert your special interest or slim cross-section of society”

Is it really so elusive? Under what in the world could people in the USA possibly unite, despite different opinions? Hmm. What is our common birthright? What is our common inheritance? What is this silver bullet that could be used to wrest power back from the oligarchy?

Duh. They won’t have it. They want it gone. Let’s spin our wheels some more here, shall we?

“Life is a tale told by an idiot . . . full of sound and fury, signifying . . . . . . . nothing.” -W.S.

Peace, Resistance, Hope,
Melissa

The constitution of the United States is a prime example of a required conformity to law. It may be changed by amendment not by popular opinion which lends it stability. The protection of the masses from a tyrannical government is only as powerful as the education required to recognize the dangers of that tyranny. As John Adams was quoted “Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.” Failing to instruct the future generations on the disciplines used to imbibe youth with complacency and submission is of great concern these days. It is of equal distress we fail to teach the distinctions between dissent and respect. Instead we speak of current affairs as if there were no history to reflect upon which illuminates the scenes we are faced with and attempt to use logic to assert our views. Debate is only as good as the foundations on which it is agreed will be common among the parties. In the US that common ground used to be the constitution and law. Today it is based on interpretation of law and a completely lacking moral thread which would support it. Given that lacking the constitution itself has no authority and those who should see the tyrants plotting away after their liberty are complacent in their roles as voters either winning or losing but neither knowing really what it is they have won or lost, just that they are part of one group.

What I find funny are stupid white people who hold this same view so they sell themselves out and grab onto the identities (and unique herd mentalities) of the “minorities” and claim them as their own. They are so unable to find their own way of being that they grab onto the equally blind ways of others and try so hard to prove their identification with it. Ha, what a joke.

“I’m sorry, but if you think the poor in America are a revolutionary force, I can only imagine that you don’t spend any time around them. Does anyone seriously believe that the poor in America would rather see the system change than cling to the desperate hope to drive an Escalade, wear a Rolex, live in a McMansion, or have servants of their own?”

If one has only been around rednecks, one could conclude that, but if one spent any time around Black and Latino poor, you’d have to be deaf, dumb & blind to walk away with that impression. While these groups may have sycophancy issues of their own, they remain much less conformist than their middle-class white counterparts to the mcdonalds/walmart herd-think foisted by american society and the oligarchs running it.

In reply to Monkismo:

“I’m sorry, but if you think the poor in America are a revolutionary force, I can only imagine that you don’t spend any time around them. Does anyone seriously believe that the poor in America would rather see the system change than cling to the desperate hope to drive an Escalade, wear a Rolex, live in a McMansion, or have servants of their own?”

Very few Americans are truly poor. Most “poor” in America are part of the global middle class. From a revolutionary perspective the problem is not that the poor in America fail at revolution, but that there are barely any poor to revolt.

Even with the rise in homelessness and tent housing, there is still plenty of shelter for everyone in the US. The US housing industry overbuilt. Even if unemployment continues to rise, it won’t be long before those living in tents will become squatters in vacant housing and adversely possess their homes. Many already have started squatting. The owners of the property won’t care once the owners have lost their equity and can’t sell. And then all the squatters need is food. As long as there is no real famine in this country, even the poorest of the poor will get enough to survive. Once you have food and shelter, why take the mortal risk of violent revolution?

And there really will be no real structural change without a violent revolution. That is what it takes. It takes an American Revolution, a French Revolution or a Russian Revolution to really bring about the change that would satisfy most of the people on this board.

So forget Nader or Kucinich. Forget new parties. Their kind, and any new parties they could ever form, will never achieve power through civil political means or the ballot box.

The best you can hope for non-violently, is very slow incremental change. Maybe over a hundred years of incremental change, one could look back and see significant non-violent change. But if waiting a hundred years is not your thing, your option is a violent revolution. And that is not too likely to happen with people whose goal is to get a blue tooth.

Even minor efforts at social change like environmentalism remain boutique trends for the middle class, ignored by the poor and working classes. Meanwhile, fads of dumb consumption and meaningless symbols of status like Bluetooths and Land Rovers are ubiquitous, even in my working-class neighborhood.

I think most American are confused as to what to do. All you have to do is go on You-Tube or even, what left of them, union meetings to get a pretty good understanding of the mindset. Three generation of cold-war (anti-left) sentiments, living the so-called “American Dream” and the Ronald Reagan motif of “rugged individualism” are difficult cultural brain-washing to expunge.

Most people still get most of their information from “mainstream media” who job it is to maintain the propaganda and there are still many Americans who are managing in the way to hang onto their little slices not to want to “sacifice” themselves or their family of that sliver. I think many American understand what’s wrong but giving a choice are not “suffering enough” to change anything. I think this condition will lead to more demoralization and apathy and “dropping out” than the kind of “activity” needed to yield a “fascist” leader.

The question then is how to reach these people. Clearly the Obama campaign was important to demostrate that the desire to alter course is there. The problem as I see it is that there is NO coherent force on the Left to present an alternative. Once again I’ll point out that the Left squandered a golden opportunity in 2003 when people got active against the War on Iraq and the “Left” fearing the specter of a real focus in the Israel question defused that energy. Had momentum been maintained against that war the economic question would have been raised and that energy would be there now. Another opportunity missed was that demonsration against the Sensenbrenner bill and the energy provided by the immigration movement. That energy could have coaleased with an anti-war movement again would have been powerful. But alas the vacuum especailly due to the failures of the “Left” is why people galvanized behind Obama. So IMO being angry at Obama fails to examines and analyse the Left own missteps, problem and especially betrayal and the role it is playing to maintain confusion and stunt solidarity.

Also with regards to Nader, he has his change in 2004 and such “Left” personalities like Glen Ford, Michael Albert, Chomsky, Zinn, Michael Moore, et. al all supported the Democrats. Nader had a real chance to build on his 2000 campaign. He was side-swiped by such “Demo-Greens” and phony leftist like Medea Benjamin. In addition, Nader choose not to campaign as a Green which meant the field was open for a slob like David Cobb to fill that void. This kind of confusion and lack of coherance is not going to bring people over to the Left. Therefore the Left was extremely weak in 2008 producing a void that was filled by Obama.

So what should the Left do? T-C calls for a united socialist front. But how can happen? There clearly doesn’t seem to be any coherance on the Left to make that happen. I think this is because the people who claim to be on the “Left” are too “elitist” to make that happen. They are not living and especially not engaging where the real revolutionary forces are. The real revolutionary force is where you’ll find the most oppressed folks, the most oppressed communities. The people who have lost the most and who have nothing to lose. The people who I described representing the “Left” has got something to lose and therefore IMO lack the will to really demand and seek change. These supposed “folks on the Left” can complain about Obama all they want but essentially Obama represents their material interest.

The first ever American Human Development Report launched on July 17, 2008, by Oxfam America, finds that although the US spends more per capita on health care than any other nation in the world (5.2 billion dollar daily), its citizens live shorter lives than citizens of virtually every western European and Nordic countries.

The US has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world’s richest countries. The US ranked 34th in the survival of infants to age. There are huge gaps in living standards and quality of life among different US states. The US ranked 42nd in global life expectancy. Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living.

Suicide and murder are among the top 15 causes of death in the US. Although the US has 5% of the global population, it contains 24 % of the world’s prisoners.

The report concludes that even though the US is one of the most powerful and rich nations in the world, it is woefully behind when it comes to providing opportunity and choices to all Americans to build a better life.

Despite an almost cult-like devotion to the belief that unfettered free enterprise is the best way to lift Americans out of poverty, the report points to a rigged system that does little to lessen inequalities.
From:
http://democracyandsocialism.com/InBrief.html

It seems to me that using the Marxist concepts related to the class nature of society really goes along way to explaining this phenomenon. If you have a ruling class, who by their relationship to the means of production, rule over that society, then you will always find sycophantic behaviors among those subject to their rule.

The capitalists in the US as in other capitalist countries form a ruling class by the fact that they have institutionalized the idea of private “ownership” of the economy and they as a class “own” most of the US economy and have a very deep interest in maintaining this arrangement. This small group of people, capitalists, has devised a system that provides them with fabulous material rewards. They not only own the wealth that is produced by working people, but they own productive ideas and even life forms that have been created. Worst of all, they control ideas regarding their system through their concentrated ownership of the media, and through their control of education. Throughout all their systems of indoctrination they carefully cultivate ideas which support this system, and above all, the notion of deference to authority. As Woodrow Wilson put it so succinctly to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.” Of course with the increasing need for technologically trained workers, education has had to adapt somewhat—but the idea is the same.

Now in the 21st century it often seems like this phenomenon is worse than ever. It seems to me that this is due to the ever increasing concentration of ownership of the media and the rest of the economy. Regarding the latter, there are a lot fewer people who can function as independent small businessmen and farmers than was possible in earlier periods of our history. Thus one goes from childhood obedience to obedience to authority figures in the workplace or the military. Almost the entire society is organized in a hierarchical fashion so that the ruling class can maintain control over all significant sectors of society. It seems to me that most people really never grow up in the sense that they can think for themselves and arrive at their own truths without the guidance of authority figures.

http://www.facebook.com/mittromney

Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain. What It Takes, Richard Ben Cramer. Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris, The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman. 1776, David McCullough. Mein Kamp, Adolf Hitler. The Battle For Peace, Tony Zinni and Tony Koltz. The Business Of Winning, Robert Evangelista. Future Jihad, Walid Phares. The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren. The West’s Last Chance, Tony Blankley, Mastering The Rockefeller Habits. Praying for Money, Joel Osteen

FASCIST RACIST FAMILY TRADITIONS OF MITT ROMMNEY:

Besides my family, I have great interest in strengthening this country and our economy. Fixing our failing schools so we can better compete with emerging Asia and making health care more affordable through free market reforms. And, most importantly, winning the war against the jihadists to ensure that Americans are kept safe.

what is a king, tsar, emperor, capo, et al but the head of a gang of men and women.
every gang i know of, tho they go by different names, behaves/acts similarly or same. and the largest gang ever to have arisen thus far behaves like any mafioso gang.

the gang in US is known as US gov’t. however, it does not function in a vacuum.
e.g., US gov’t is a function of cults and worship of stars; its governance, health care, education, military/police/fbi/cia power, jurisprudence.

thus, socalled sychophants, fear the might i’ve just enumerated more than their superiors.
in short, people don’t make waves or even ripples because of dozens of factors and not just fear of a superior.
a sychophant may even fear her/his spouse if s/he fears losing friends, job, or spouse. tnx