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Is A New Political System Emerging In This Country?

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Tom Engelhardt,

Have you ever undertaken some task you felt less than qualified for, but knew that someone needed to do? Consider this piece my version of that, and let me put what I do understand about it in a nutshell: based on developments in our post-9/11 world, we could be watching the birth of a new American political system and way of governing for which, as yet, we have no name.

And here’s what I find strange: the evidence of this, however inchoate, is all around us and yet it’s as if we can’t bear to take it in or make sense of it or even say that it might be so.

Let me make my case, however minimally, based on five areas in which at least the faint outlines of that new system seem to be emerging: political campaigns and elections; the privatization of Washington through the marriage of the corporation and the state; the de-legitimization of our traditional system of governance; the empowerment of the national security state as an untouchable fourth branch of government; and the demobilization of "we the people."

Whatever this may add up to, it seems to be based, at least in part, on the increasing concentration of wealth and power in a new plutocratic class and in that ever-expanding national security state. Certainly, something out of the ordinary is underway, and yet its birth pangs, while widely reported, are generally categorized as aspects of an exceedingly familiar American system somewhat in disarray.

1. 1% Elections

Check out the news about the 2016 presidential election and you’ll quickly feel a sense of been-there, done-that. As a start, the two names most associated with it, Bush and Clinton, couldn’t be more familiar, highlighting as they do the curiously dynastic quality of recent presidential contests.  (If a Bush or Clinton should win in 2016 and again in 2020, a member of one of those families will have controlled the presidency for 28 of the last 36 years.)

Take, for instance, “Why 2016 Is Likely to Become a Close Race,” a recent piece Nate Cohn wrote for my hometown paper.  A noted election statistician, Cohn points out that, despite Hillary Clinton’s historically staggering lead in Democratic primary polls (and lack of serious challengers), she could lose the general election.  He bases this on what we know about her polling popularity from the Monica Lewinsky moment of the 1990s to the present.  Cohn assures readers that Hillary will not “be a Democratic Eisenhower, a popular, senior statesperson who cruises to an easy victory.”  It’s the sort of comparison that offers a certain implicit reassurance about the near future.  (No, Virginia, we haven’t left the world of politics in which former general and president Dwight D. Eisenhower can still be a touchstone.)

Cohn may be right when it comes to Hillary’s electability, but this is not Dwight D. Eisenhower’s or even Al Gore’s America. If you want a measure of that, consider this year’s primaries. I mean, of course, the 2015 ones. Once upon a time, the campaign season started with candidates flocking to Iowa and New Hampshire early in the election year to establish their bona fides among party voters. These days, however, those are already late primaries.

The early primaries, the ones that count, take place among a small group of millionaires and billionaires, a new caste flush with cash who will personally, or through complex networks of funders, pour multi-millions of dollars into the campaigns of candidates of their choice.  So the early primaries -- this year mainly a Republican affair -- are taking place in resort spots like Las Vegas, Rancho Mirage, California, and Sea Island, Georgia, as has been widely reported. These “contests” involve groveling politicians appearing at the beck and call of the rich and powerful, and so reflect our new 1% electoral system. (The main pro-Hillary super PAC, for instance, is aiming for a kitty of $500 million heading into 2016, while the Koch brothers network has already promised to drop almost $1 billion into the coming campaign season, doubling their efforts in the last presidential election year.)

Ever since the Supreme Court opened up the ultimate floodgates with its 2010 Citizens United decision, each subsequent election has seen record-breaking amounts of money donated and spent. The 2012 presidential campaign was the first $2 billion election; campaign 2016 is expected to hit the $5 billion mark without breaking a sweat.  By comparison, according to Burton Abrams and Russell Settle in their study, “The Effect of Broadcasting on Political Campaign Spending,” Republicans and Democrats spent just under $13 million combined in 1956 when Eisenhower won his second term.

In the meantime, it’s still true that the 2016 primaries will involve actual voters, as will the election that follows. The previous election season, the midterms of 2014, cost almost $4 billion, a record despite the number of small donors continuing to drop. It also represented the lowest midterm voter turnout since World War II. (See: demobilization of the public, below -- and add in the demobilization of the Democrats as a real party, the breaking of organized labor, the fragmenting of the Republican Party, and the return of voter suppression laws visibly meant to limit the franchise.) It hardly matters just what the flood of new money does in such elections, when you can feel the weight of inequality bearing down on the whole process in a way that is pushing us somewhere new.

2. The Privatization of the State (or the U.S. as a Prospective Third-World Nation)

In the recent coverage of the Hillary Clinton email flap, you can find endless references to the Clintons of yore in wink-wink, you-know-how-they-are-style reporting; and yes, she did delete a lot of emails; and yes, it’s an election year coming and, as everyone points out, the Republicans are going to do their best to keep the email issue alive until hell freezes over, etc., etc.  Again, the coverage, while eyeball gluing, is in a you’ve-seen-it-all-before, you’ll-see-it-all-again-mode.

However, you haven’t seen it all before. The most striking aspect of this little brouhaha lies in what’s most obvious but least highlighted.  An American secretary of state chose to set up her own private, safeguarded email system for doing government work; that is, she chose to privatize her communications.  If this were Cairo, it might not warrant a second thought.  But it didn’t happen in some third-world state.  It was the act of a key official of the planet’s reigning (or thrashing) superpower, which -- even if it wasn’t the first time such a thing had ever occurred -- should be taken as a tiny symptom of something that couldn’t be larger or, in the long stretch of history, newer: the ongoing privatization of the American state, or at least the national security part of it. 

Though the marriage of the state and the corporation has a pre-history, the full-scale arrival of the warrior corporation only occurred after 9/11.  Someday, that will undoubtedly be seen as a seminal moment in the formation of whatever may be coming in this country.  Only 13 years later, there is no part of the war state that has not experienced major forms of privatization.  The U.S. military could no longer go to war without its crony corporationsdoing KP and guard duty, delivering the mail, building the bases, and being involved in just about all of its activities, including training the militaries of foreign allies and even fighting.  Such warrior corporations are now involved in every aspect of the national security state, including torturedrone strikes, and -- to the tune of hundreds of thousands of contract employees like Edward Snowden -- intelligence gathering and spying.  You name it and, in these years, it’s been at least partly privatized.

All you have to do is read reporter James Risen’s recent book,Pay Any Price, on how the global war on terror was fought in Washington, and you know that privatization has brought something else with it: corruption, scams, and the gaming of the system for profits of a sort that might normally be associated with a typical third-world kleptocracy.  And all of this, a new world being born, was reflected in a tiny way in Hillary Clinton’s very personal decision about her emails.

Though it’s a subject I know so much less about, this kind of privatization (and the corruption that goes with it) is undoubtedly underway in the non-war-making, non-security-projecting part of the American state as well.

3. The De-legitimization of Congress and the Presidency

On a third front, American “confidence” in the three classic check-and-balance branches of government, as measured by polling outfits, continues to fall.  In 2014, Americans expressing a “great deal of confidence” in the Supreme Court hit a new low of 23%; in the presidency, it was 11%, and in Congress a bottom-scraping 5%.  (The military, on the other hand, registers at 50%.)  The figures for “hardly any confidence at all” are respectively 20%, 44%, and more than 50%.  All are in or near record-breaking territory for the last four decades.

It seems fair to say that in recent years Congress has been engaged in a process of delegitimizing itself.  Where that body once had the genuine power to declare war, for example, it is now “debating” in a desultory fashion an “authorization” for a war against the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, and possibly elsewhere that has already been underway for eight months and whose course, it seems, will be essentially unaltered, whether Congress authorizes it or not.

What would President Harry Truman, who once famously ran a presidential campaign against a “do-nothing” Congress, have to say about a body that truly can do just about nothing?  Or rather, to give the Republican war hawks in that new Congress their due, not quite nothing.  They are proving capable of acting effectively to delegitimize the presidency as well.  House Majority Leader John Boehner’s invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to undercut the president's Iranian nuclear negotiations and the lettersigned by 47 Republican senators and directed to the Iranian ayatollahs are striking examples of this.  They are visibly meant to tear down an “imperial presidency” that Republicans gloried in not so long ago.

The radical nature of that letter, not as an act of state but of its de-legitimization, was noted even in Iran, where fundamentalist Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proclaimed it “a sign of a decline in political ethics and the destruction of the American establishment from within.” Here, however, the letter is either being covered as a singularly extreme one-off act (“treason!”) or, as Jon Stewart did on “The Daily Show,” as part of a repetitive tit-for-tat between Democrats and Republicans over who controls foreign policy.  It is, in fact, neither.  It represents part of a growing pattern in which Congress becomes an ever less effective body, except in its willingness to take on and potentially take out the presidency.

In the twenty-first century, all that “small government” Republicans and “big government” Democrats can agree on is offering essentially unconditional support to the military and the national security state.  The Republican Party -- its various factions increasingly at each other’s throats almost as often as at those of the Democrats -- seems reasonably united solely on issues of war-making and security.  As for the Democrats, an unpopular administration, facing constant attack by those who loath President Obama, has kept its footing in part by allying with and fusing with the national security state.  A president who came into office rejecting torture and promoting sunshine and transparency in government has, in the course of six-plus years, come to identify himself almost totally with the U.S. military, the CIA, the NSA, and the like.  While it has launched an unprecedented campaign against whistleblowers and leakers (as well as sunshine and transparency), the Obama White House has proved a powerful enabler of, but also remarkably dependent upon, that state-within-a-state, a strange fate for “the imperial presidency.” 

4. The Rise of the National Security State as the Fourth Branch of Government

One “branch” of government is, however, visibly on the rise and rapidly gaining independence from just about any kind of oversight.  Its ability to enact its wishes with almost no opposition in Washington is a striking feature of our moment.  But while the symptoms of this process are regularly reported, the overall phenomenon -- the creation of ade facto fourth branch of government -- gets remarkably little attention.  In the war on terror era, the national security state has come into its own.  Its growth has been phenomenal.  Though it’s seldom pointed out, it should be considered remarkable that in this period we gained a second full-scale “defense department,” the Department of Homeland Security, and that it and the Pentagon have become even more entrenched, each surrounded by its own growing “complex” of private corporations, lobbyists, and allied politicians.  The militarization of the country has, in these years, proceeded apace. 

Meanwhile, the duplication to be found in the U.S. Intelligence Community with its 17 major agencies and outfits is staggering.  Its growing ability to surveil and spy on a global scale, including on its own citizens, puts the totalitarian states of the twentieth century to shame.  That the various parts of the national security state can act in just about any fashion without fear of accountability in a court of law is by now too obvious to belabor.  As wealth has traveled upwards in American society in ways not seen since the first Gilded Age, so taxpayer dollars have migrated into the national security state in an almost plutocratic fashion.

New reports regularly surface about the further activities of parts of that state.  In recent weeks, for instance, we learned from Jeremy Scahill and Josh Begley of the Intercept that the CIA has spent years trying to break the encryption on Apple iPhones and iPads; it has, that is, been aggressively seeking to attack an all-American corporation (even if significant parts of its production process are actually in China).  Meanwhile, Devlin Barrett of the Wall Street Journal reported that the CIA, an agency barred from domestic spying operations of any sort, has been helping the U.S. Marshals Service (part of the Justice Department) create an airborne digital dragnet on American cell phones.  Planes flying out of five U.S. cities carry a form of technology that "mimics a cellphone tower." This technology, developed and tested in distant American war zones and now brought to "the homeland," is just part of the ongoing militarization of the country from its borders to its police forces.  And there’s hardly been a week since Edward Snowden first released crucial NSA documents in June 2013 when such “advances” haven’t been in the news.

News also regularly bubbles up about the further expansion, reorganization, and upgrading of parts of the intelligence world, the sorts of reports that have become the barely noticed background hum of our lives.  Recently, for instance, Director John Brennan announced a major reorganization of the CIA meant to break down the classic separation between spies and analysts at the Agency, while creating a new Directorate of Digital Innovation responsible for, among other things, cyberwarfare and cyberespionage.  At about the same time, according to the New York Times, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, an obscure State Department agency, was given a new and expansive role in coordinating “all the existing attempts at countermessaging [against online propaganda by terror outfits like the Islamic State] by much larger federal departments, including the Pentagon, Homeland Security and intelligence agencies.”

This sort of thing is par for the course in an era in which the national security state has only grown stronger, endlessly elaborating, duplicating, and overlapping the various parts of its increasingly labyrinthine structure.  And keep in mind that, in a structure that has fought hardto keep what it's doing cloaked in secrecy, there is so much more that we don’t know.  Still, we should know enough to realize that this ongoing process reflects something new in our American world (even if no one cares to notice).

5. The Demobilization of the American People

In The Age of Acquiescence, a new book about America’s two Gilded Ages, Steve Fraser asks why it was that, in the nineteenth century, another period of plutocratic excesses, concentration of wealth and inequality, buying of politicians, and attempts to demobilize the public, Americans took to the streets with such determination and in remarkable numbers over long periods of time to protest their treatment, and stayed there even when the brute power of the state was called out against them.  In our own moment, Fraser wonders, why has the silence of the public in the face of similar developments been so striking?

After all, a grim new American system is arising before our eyes.  Everything we once learned in the civics textbooks of our childhoods about how our government works now seems askew, while the growth of poverty, the flatlining of wages, the rise of the .01%, the collapse of labor, and the militarization of society are all evident.

The process of demobilizing the public certainly began with the military.  It was initially a response to the disruptive and rebellious draftees of the Vietnam-era.  In 1973, at the stroke of a presidential pen, the citizen’s army was declared no more, the raising of new recruits was turned over to advertising agencies (a preview of the privatization of the state to come), and the public was sent home, never again to meddle in military affairs.  Since 2001, that form of demobilization has been etched in stone and transformed into a way of life in the name of the “safety” and “security” of the public.

Since then, “we the people” have made ourselves felt in only three disparate ways: from the left in the Occupy movement, which, with its slogans about the 1% and the 99%, put the issue of growing economic inequality on the map of American consciousness; from the right, in the Tea Party movement, a complex expression of discontent backed and at least partially funded by right-wing operatives and billionaires, and aimed at the de-legitimization of the “nanny state”; and the recent round of post-Ferguson protests spurred at least in part by the militarization of the police in black and brown communities around the country.

The Birth of a New System

Otherwise, a moment of increasing extremity has also been a moment of -- to use Fraser’s word -- “acquiescence.”  Someday, we’ll assumedly understand far better how this all came to be.  In the meantime, let me be as clear as I can be about something that seems murky indeed: this period doesn’t represent a version, no matter how perverse or extreme, of politics as usual; nor is the 2016 campaign an election as usual; nor are we experiencing Washington as usual.  Put together our 1% elections, the privatization of our government, the de-legitimization of Congress and the presidency, as well as the empowerment of the national security state and the U.S. military, and add in the demobilization of the American public (in the name of protecting us from terrorism), and you have something like a new ballgame.

While significant planning has been involved in all of this, there may be no ruling pattern or design.  Much of it may be happening in a purely seat-of-the-pants fashion.  In response, there has been no urge to officially declare that something new is afoot, let alone convene a new constitutional convention.  Still, don’t for a second think that the American political system isn’t being rewritten on the run by interested parties in Congress, our present crop of billionaires, corporate interests, lobbyists, the Pentagon, and the officials of the national security state.

Out of the chaos of this prolonged moment and inside the shell of the old system, a new culture, a new kind of politics, a new kind of governance is being born right before our eyes. Call it what you want. But call it something. Stop pretending it’s not happening.

 

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Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:19 | 5915441 Shad_ow
Shad_ow's picture

I call it tyranny.  I call it treason.  I call it corruption and theft.

I call it BS disguised as hope and change by lies.

It won't end any time soon and it won't end pretty.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:28 | 5915468 cossack55
cossack55's picture

The French called it "The Terror".  I'm down.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:35 | 5915486 HenryHall
HenryHall's picture

>> It won't end any time soon and it won't end pretty.

 

So true. Those words will prove to be prophetic. I am glad I am too old to see how this is going to end. I pity my children and grandchildren. America will be hell on earth within decades.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:41 | 5915499 chunga
chunga's picture

Yup. And whatever "it" is...if you're not with "it" you're against it.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:52 | 5915523 DaveyJones
DaveyJones's picture

the "Unitary Executive" theory has made it well past the theory stage

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:55 | 5915527 Timmay
Timmay's picture

Don't forget the robots, everyone seems to overlook the robots and the .00001% who will control them.

 

 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:17 | 5915565 negative rates
negative rates's picture

I'm about to give birth to a cow at any moment now. 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:56 | 5915641 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

Why would you expect political organizations or the populations of countries to behave any better than the people who comprise them?

Evolution is not a one way street.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:04 | 5915660 Future Jim
Future Jim's picture

The author seems to just want to take us back to the government of a few decades ago. He does not understand that the cuirrent system is the inevitable result of the earlier system because he does not understand The True Nature of Government.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 15:36 | 5915886 y3maxx
y3maxx's picture

...Kenyan Oligarch

...Bibi gun

American freedoms have nearly disappeared....being replaced by .....

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:28 | 5916356 Sanity Bear
Sanity Bear's picture

There is a name for this form of government. It is called Fascism.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 22:03 | 5916874 gallistic
gallistic's picture

-

 

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 08:50 | 5916896 gallistic
gallistic's picture

-edit-

 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 15:12 | 5915842 NihilistZero
NihilistZero's picture

Don't forget the robots, everyone seems to overlook the robots and the .00001% who will control them.

The .00001% can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 15:20 | 5915861 Future Jim
Future Jim's picture

They will stop some policies once there is no ability to propagate effective criticism or ability to physically resist.

Polices to milk us and/or euthanize us will of course accelerate. 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:23 | 5916336 August
August's picture

For those of us already beyond the crest of the hill, euthanasia is starting to look pretty good.

How I do hope they give us a nice AV show, and some cool drugs.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 19:39 | 5916522 wet_nurse
wet_nurse's picture

Robots can't be worse then these guys. It might not be that bad.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:07 | 5915547 chunga
chunga's picture

It's such a damn mess I have to wonder when it all started to unravel, if it ever was legit.

I remember being taught in social studies that we don't have "Democracy" here in America. We have a " Democratic Republic" and that's better because we wouldn't want mob rule.

These days I'd take my chances with mob rule because these mf'ing "representatives" have been fucking shit up non-stop for years and years. It would take a huge string of dumb mobs to do as bad as our "best and brightest".

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:39 | 5915598 XqWretch
XqWretch's picture

Is this article serious?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:07 | 5915666 cornfritter
cornfritter's picture

or perhaps more importantly ...

"Is is good for the company?" :-)

Gimme back my stapler,
Put it back where it belongs,
aint gonna see, no more damage done
gimme back, gimme back my
stapler ...

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 16:08 | 5915972 XqWretch
XqWretch's picture

Fuck off downvoters... We have always been at war with Eurasia and always will be... fucking morons think shit is going to change? Give me a fucking break. Thats three fucks I just laid out, now four.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:30 | 5915736 sleigher
sleigher's picture

"It's such a damn mess I have to wonder when it all started to unravel, if it ever was legit."

The Virginia Company.  

I too wonder if it ever was legitimate.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:49 | 5915781 Arnold
Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:45 | 5915771 Farqued Up
Farqued Up's picture

Aaron Burr killed that scalawag bankster Alexander Hamilton, a step in the right direction. The beanpole moron Lincoln started a War of Northern Agression after  Old Hickory had tossed the banksters out as best he could and then the shit started gaining Big Mo with the Fed in 1913 and the FIT was enacted (or was it?) to feed that fiat looting. Then along comes FDR and adopts every one of Marx's Manifesto Planks, confiscates the real wealth, gold, and Truman really feeds the monkey with the Marshall plan of grand larceny.

Kennedy wanted to reel in the shadow government, fucked up and invited his dimwit brother to the party, who promptly bit the hand of the ballot stuffers that got Fitz elected, the Mafia, so they killed their asses. Then LBJ fed the warfare AND welfare states simultaneously and the fiat banksters had continuous orgasms with inflation. Nixon and Kissinger gave away the production majority portion of GDP, Carter gave away the canal, credit card Ronnie ran the debt up more than every other prior president COMBINED. You know the rest of the story with Neil Bush and the Keating 5, megawars with Pappy, TARP nand other shit with W, Clinton cannot be covered with less than 4 volumes, Homobama ain't through yet.

My point is this shit didn't start with 9-11. I'd say the surge occured with Lincoln onward. I've often wondered about my American History lauding R.E. Lee as being the zenith of generals. I've concluded he wasn't worth a dog turd. How could he possibly ever think he could prevail against a much financially and population superior opponent by lining up like school kids going to the bathroom and fighting a war of attrition. Sun Tsu would have kicked his and Grant's asses in nothing flat. Just like Ho Chi Minh did with Victor Charley and the West Point dunce Westmoreland.

The US Government has not WON a single war since the Spanish American War. Some may want to say we won WW II and the truth is that Russia froze Hitler out, and Japan was a fart island with no resources with balls that overloaded their delusions of superiority. Oh, we coulda woulda shoulda in Viet Nam, but Sun Tsu kick our asses and couldn't get the helicopters off the top of the embassy quick enough. We have not won anything in the M.E. and won't. Book it. 

I can't speak for other branches of the service but the US Army didn't impress me in the 60s and early 70s. I will say that I loved my buddies and there was no better warrior class in the world. We had a billion pounds of thrust with dumb shits for gyroscopes. Homobama's pentagon purges have fixed that problem, we now have Venus Flytraps doing the heavy mental lifting. We are fucked with uneducated government schooled imbecile sheep for the next generations. I refuse to use the term leaders.

TPTB are fucked to the hilt if they don't get control of the internet. Can they? I dunno, I'm too illiterate to even form an opinion. 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:56 | 5915803 Jugdish
Jugdish's picture

You sir deserve an upvote. Upvote given.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:15 | 5916311 DaveyJones
DaveyJones's picture

Nice nutshell history

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:45 | 5916409 August
August's picture

>>>The US Government has not WON a single war since the Spanish American War.

An important point for those who support US overseas interventions to bear in mind.  The US does have high-dollar, whiz-bang weaponry, and some elite combat units, but actually in prevailing over an enemy of remotely comparable equipment and resources, the actual US war-fighting record is poor, if not dismal.  We shore whupped Spain's ass, though, not to mention Grenada's. 

Still, as the true war instigators know, the purpose of war is not victory.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 08:45 | 5917637 Secret Weapon
Secret Weapon's picture

Post of the month right here.  Well done.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 15:24 | 5915869 TheReplacement
TheReplacement's picture

Sadly, most of the mob just wants to sponge off of YOU.  Good luck with that.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:52 | 5915592 Dick Buttkiss
Dick Buttkiss's picture

And voting only perpetuates it, never mind that "it" is so embedded as to be invisible, while also hiding in plain sight:

http://www.amazon.com/The-American-Deep-State-Democracy/dp/1442214244 

It will self-destruct, of course, the question being how much of humanity — and Mother Nature — it takes down with it.

My guess is that it will be a lot of each.

I don't know if this will be enough to be among the survivors, but I might as well find out:

http://readynutrition.com/resources/52-weeks-to-preparedness-an-introduc...

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:41 | 5915604 jbvtme
jbvtme's picture

decades?  have you pulled a building permit lately?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 22:12 | 5916918 NeoLuddite
NeoLuddite's picture

"Pulling" a building permit in Calgary AB is like a root canal without any anesthetic. Planning department here is infested with immigrants who routinely delay projects and extract more dollars from home owners. Bureaucracy run amok.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 06:51 | 5917435 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

Hoe your Immigrants aren't from France or Italy or from Latin American Countries.

I've heard it is bad in Latin American Countries.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:55 | 5915502 Smegley Wanxalot
Smegley Wanxalot's picture

I have a few names for it:

 

. . . 1) Democratatorship

. . . 2) Dictatemocracy

. . . 3) Democratyranny

. . . 4) Tyrannepublic.

You get the point.  We elect our dictatorial tyrants from a pool they choose, and unless an overwhelming number of voters reject their chosen one of that pool, the results will be diebolded to ensure the outcome is precisely the member of that pool they want.

 

Oh yeah, and about that free and open media bullshit to keep them honest?  Hahahah, yeah sure...

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:17 | 5916318 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Whoever you vote for, the government gets in.

 

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 06:48 | 5917432 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

Israeli Elections have Diebold machines?

You would think Israelis would be very careful of Elections after the History as we are told of German Leadership. You know like using hand counting at each district. Purple thumbs.

But Bibi got elected from behind. Won by a landslide. Insta-Count completed in like one day.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:52 | 5915636 Refuse-Resist
Refuse-Resist's picture

Whatever it is, we're against it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqyI09bqEB8

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:19 | 5915704 Big Tom
Big Tom's picture

The good news is that  IT WILL END!! The GIANT GUARD DOG in America's Heartland is very much awake. These treasonist tyrants want to hurt my family, my children and my grandchildren. There are alot more of us, than they are of those cowards. Your are correct, IT won't  be pretty, but it will end.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:27 | 5915729 angel_of_joy
angel_of_joy's picture

I call it Fascism, and it's not new at all. At some point in their history the Americans even fought against it.Too bad they learned nothing from that experience...

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:51 | 5915788 BOPOH
BOPOH's picture

Fashington is the capital of USSA

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 19:02 | 5916451 snodgrass
snodgrass's picture

The new world order is the old world order. Fascism. Never ending war to build state power. Terror by the govt. against the people. 911 kicked it off formally although America has been a fascist state for some time as corporations have metastacized and the American people have become dependent on the welfare generated by military adventurism.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:21 | 5915446 fastrakn1
fastrakn1's picture

Long read, but some truth to it.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:22 | 5915453 McCormick No. 9
McCormick No. 9's picture

What is "new" about any of this?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:48 | 5915513 Captain Willard
Captain Willard's picture

Any of his points couild have been made about the Gilded Age in the US. 

But what is new is simply the outright size of the US Government and the ubiquity of the Regulatory State. As a % of GDP, it is just much, much bigger than at any time (other than WWII) in our history. This size, combined with Regulators with quasi or de facto police powers, makes it a huge menace.

Now we "citizens" merely exist to serve it. 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:22 | 5915455 jeff montanye
jeff montanye's picture

i see where we and israel have had another foreign policy success.  yemen is sliding into civil war; shiite rebels have seized the third largest city and the ruler is calling on the u.n. for help.  obama is withdrawing the special forces drone brigades: another "mission accomplished".

http://rt.com/news/242977-us-yemen-evacuation-violence/

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:31 | 5915587 Wahooo
Wahooo's picture

Does Yemen have a central bank? Yet?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:22 | 5915456 Flybyknight
Flybyknight's picture

"we could be watching the birth of a new American political system and way of governing for which, as yet, we have no name."  Fascism?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 16:26 | 5916018 NoPension
NoPension's picture

Facism, by any other name, is........

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:25 | 5915460 homebody
homebody's picture

The sheeple will stay sheeple until the EBT cards are no longer filled!

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 16:50 | 5916074 g speed
g speed's picture

or those with means no longer honor them--

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 21:48 | 5916858 NeoLuddite
NeoLuddite's picture

Or until they realize that their politicians are Judas goats.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:26 | 5915463 ILLILLILLI
ILLILLILLI's picture

It works best if the sheep are in a pen, all calmed down, before you slaughter them.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:29 | 5915473 Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture

Tainted mutton otherwise.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:27 | 5915466 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:29 | 5915469 cossack55
cossack55's picture

Nice!!!

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:16 | 5915564 Thirst Mutilator
Thirst Mutilator's picture

Very nice WB7!

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 15:48 | 5915918 MASTER OF UNIVERSE
MASTER OF UNIVERSE's picture

Apt, WB, very apt in today's milieu.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:41 | 5915500 Consuelo
Consuelo's picture

Now ~That~ is Good...    I'd like to see that right there on a Billboard.   The only problem is, 2/3 or better looking at it wouldn't have a clue as to just who Goebbels was...

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:22 | 5915536 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

It is the people who have the curiosity to go and check that are promising.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:30 | 5915737 cornfritter
cornfritter's picture

I'll check it out.  Master Banzai, here's a link for you.  You being artistically inclined and symbol literate perhaps you have seen this 3 part series.  I was pretty fiercly educated in the rational, and enjoy it.  I have also now, fortunately, spent some time in nature and with a guitar in my hands (the real life).  Humanity at large needs more information about what the ancients were up to, good and bad, these presenatations by M. Tsarion are profound.

Origins And Oracles Series: Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI0COZ9Sq60

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 17:01 | 5916107 zhandax
zhandax's picture

I have seen video wherein someone could present a complete concept in 10 minutes.  If the guy can't at least introduce what he wants to say in the first 10 minutes I refuse to waste any more time.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:21 | 5916329 logicalman
logicalman's picture

If the good stuff starts at 11 minutes you are not doing yourself any favours.

The attention span of a gnat is not a good thing.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 21:39 | 5916837 cornfritter
cornfritter's picture

you are correct logicman. it's tough to summarize 25,000 yrs. of human history in 10 mins. - i'll be relieved once i'm finally divided from such dim bulbs.. these three presentations are probably in excess of 4 hrs. of material, just saying

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 22:58 | 5917025 zhandax
zhandax's picture

If the guy can't make at least one point in 10 minutes I seriously question if there is any good stuff'.  I presume the "If" that begins your comment signals that you have not listened to the guy babble for 10 minutes?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 15:51 | 5915923 Pheonyte
Pheonyte's picture

"What's a Goebbels? Lemme google that."

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:29 | 5915731 Excursionist
Excursionist's picture

Two-thirds?  Wow, you're really an optimist.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:48 | 5915515 Max Steel
Max Steel's picture

feeling lucky nsa !

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:01 | 5915537 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

I just want to remind everyone to watch Citizen Four. We need more Citizen Fours.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:30 | 5915584 Wahooo
Wahooo's picture

We need some March Madness art.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:57 | 5915533 Two Theives and...
Two Theives and a Liar's picture

Damn Banzai...perfect! You are somethin' else!

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 15:03 | 5915820 Jugdish
Jugdish's picture

Bernanke as captain of the Titanic. hahaha. I'd put that on the wall next to family photos in the hallway.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 17:23 | 5916167 Raging Debate
Raging Debate's picture

A picture says a thousand words. The US looks like France of the later part of the 20th century. If these politics continue for another decade we'll be Mexico with a military.

Many people make $11-$12 an hour now with no benefits which is poverty level showing how close we already are. The police are acting more corrupt like a 3rd world country too. It takes about $60k a year to provide a small home, food, one decent car, insurances, medical for a family of four and such wont be eating steak.

So if your making under that as a cop it has got to be tempting to cheat for the difference. And the $11-$12 folks certainly have to share residence and eat bad food and have no luxuries besides a 12 pack and some cigs.

Many people don't realize that a third of the globes citizens now have better purchasing power than Americans. On a hopeful note America will be very ripe for investment after the police state inevitably shrinks. Trade is also beginning to rebalance a little but that will take a decade or two before that really helps Joe 6 pack.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:29 | 5915470 ChacoFunFact
ChacoFunFact's picture

And no mention of the 14th amendment?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:29 | 5915471 kchrisc
kchrisc's picture

Zionism is not new.

The banksters need to repay us.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:31 | 5915479 Last of the Mid...
Last of the Middle Class's picture

It always ends badly. We've been suckered into a sense of comfort by a qwerk of nature. New country new government that has lasted 200 years without corruption and greed dismantling it. Guess what no new land mass to take over and no chance of a greedless government forming to protect freedoms much less those religious. What we now have is global bread and circus. enjoy

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:33 | 5915482 Captain Chlamydia
Captain Chlamydia's picture

great aas always @W@Williambanzai7 

 

USA is heading for a fascist Hunger Games State.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:37 | 5915491 homebody
homebody's picture

Already there.  Called reality shows - evolving

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:34 | 5915484 css1971
css1971's picture

The New American Empire. Bow before King William the First and Queen Hillary.

Aristocracy, means to be governed by the superior class of people. The sociopath.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:46 | 5915773 Caleb Abell
Caleb Abell's picture

You have a typo.  It's King William The Priapic.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:37 | 5915487 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

This has been debated in the USA and English Speaking Countries since Watergate Scandal or even the US Civil Rights Movement. Not sure about the American Indian Movement in the USA.

Nothing has improved. War is even more of a Racket and K-12 Education must be worse. Money rules all men's destinies and the Anglo-American Governments.

- One sign worth mentioning is the Renouncing of US Citizenship and the increasing penalties for doing so.

- Call it the US Diaspora

Plenty of History of US Law regarding Financial Conflict of Interest, Anti-Trust, Racketeering, Accounting Control Fraud, Lax Government Oversight, Wealthy wining Lawsuits due to leverage provided by Endless Funding, loss of Civil/Individual Rights, Value of Geneva Convention, Value of US Declaration of Independence and US Constitution which was required because of "Bad English Government", and plenty of proof of CIA Buying Press and Intelligence operations to sell Federal Legislation:

-------------------------------------
--- Counter Intelligence Operations -
-------------------------------------

1913 - Federal Reserve Act,
1914 - World War I, US Involvement
1939 - World War II, US Involvement
1964 - Gulf of Tonkin,
1964 - Vietnam War,
1968 - US Discovers that some Wealthy People don't pay tax due to Tax Law Loopholes
1976 - Intelligence Finding Signed by Jimmy Carter,
1980 - G.H.W. Bush CIA Director becomes US VICE President,
1985 - Iran Contra Affair,
1989 - Invasion of Panama,
1990 - Persian Gulf War,
1992 - Energy Policy Act (H.W. Bush)
1994 - NAFTA, Deregulation of Trade, 3 Nations (W. Clinton)
1994 - Free Trade Begins to Devastate US Manufacturing Jobs,
1996 - Energy Deregulation (W. Clinton, followed by ENRON Scandal)
1996 - Telecommunications Act (W. Clinton, cross ownership)
1998 - Clinton's Kosovo War (over 60 Days)
1998 - Citicorp & Travelers Insurance Merger
1999 - Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (Phil Gramm, W. Clinton, followed by 2008 Financial Crisis)
1999 - bombing campaign in Kosovo (W. Clinton, over 60 days)
2000 - Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (P. Gramm, W. Clinton, derivatives)
2001 - Afghanistan War
2001 - Subprime Home sales & Financial Derivatives Take Off,
2002 - McCain–Feingold Act (G.W. Bush, Campaign Finance, soft money unlimited)
2002 - DHS Created, Homeland Security Act
2002 - Patriot Act Signed, Homeland Security Act
2003 - Iraq War, Fake Evidence of WMD
2005 - NSA Data Center Building in Utah started, $1.2 Billion
2005 - Energy Policy Act (G.W. Bush, subsidies, excluded clean air Water acts)
2005 - Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA).
2005 - CAFTA-DR Ratified, 2006 El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala
2005 - US Military Spending Exponential by any measure
2005 - US Housing Market Bubble Tops out in October
2008 - After Presidential Election Financial Crisis is Declared out of the Blue
2008 - Liberal Darling B. Obama becomes War Monger, Rights taker, and Elevates Drone Assassinations "Obama Doctrine"
2008 - 2012 Hillary Clinton uses own Email Server to keep secrets from citizens
2008 - 2014 QE & LIRP/ZIRP (B. Bernanke, J. Yellen, B Obama)
2009 - 2014 Continuing Resolutions in which Congress gives up Budget Powers
2010 - Affordable Care Act (ACA)
2010 - Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (money is free speech for corps)
2011 - US combat in Libya (B Obama, over 60 days)
2014 - lift ban on crude oil exports (B Obama, Commodities Deregulation)

-------------------------------------
--- Counter Intelligence Operations -
-------------------------------------

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:47 | 5915511 reader2010
reader2010's picture

There had been no oppositions from the people because there are no people anymore and because they are busy consumers following the mantra spoon-fed to them since their birth -  buying the shit they don't need with the money they don't have trying to impress people they don't like. 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 21:12 | 5916759 NeoLuddite
NeoLuddite's picture

Methinks Americans have crossed the line from a people with government to a government with people.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 07:11 | 5917464 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

Yeah, somehow people are content with Status Quo and the US Congress knows it.

Activism of over 100 years lead to Labor Rights/Worker Rights. It took a very long time.

US Congress doesn't do anything without a lot of pressure of a lot of Bribe Money.

That is why it is said we have Inverted Totalitarianism.

The Corporations are on Top, An Inverted Pyramid, the thick base is the Corporations, and the Point is the Government.

But we set up an Influential Strong Central Government to Establish this Super Power Status. And we recruited all of Western Europe after World War II. Instantly we were best buddies with Everyone for a common cause of fighting off a Communist Invasion.

Then we planned to Rebuild Europe and Japan to secure our Strategic Bases.

Not sure why we didn't help Greece so much. Greece was an original European Community Member. Then the US Seems to have been involved in Greek Military Coup and had strong Ties with the Greek Far Right.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 01:09 | 5917256 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

I should have mentioned that a second outcome was the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and many Social Programs.

--------------------------
-- Socialism Legislated -
--------------------------

- Clayton Antitrust Act 1914
- Railway Labor Act 1926
- Social Security 1935
- Labor Management Relations Act of 1947
- Contract Work Hours Standards Act 1962
- Equal Pay Act of 1963
- Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
- Food Stamp Act of 1964
- Medicare passed 1965
- Medicaid passed 1965
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Higher Education Act of 1965
- Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
- Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966
- Child Safety Act of 1966
- Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967
- Truth-in-Lending Act of 1968
- Land Sales Disclosure Act of 1968
- Bilingual Education Act of 1968
- Think Medicaid expanded in 1968?
- Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970
- Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA), passed in 1983,
- FLSA amendment increased the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour 1996
- Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007

--------------------------
-- Socialism Legislated -
--------------------------

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:49 | 5915628 Milestones
Milestones's picture

Thanks for the grim calander of events. Helps the perspective.         Milestones

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:39 | 5915493 jimijon
jimijon's picture

I think I have a way that could change the face of politics in a very big and easy way.

And if there are any real bona-fide investors out there who might be interested, please contact me.

Real.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:50 | 5915783 Pabloallen
Pabloallen's picture

Dont tell me, you make $710 every day in your moms basement. I can as well working only 15 minutes a day with only a small investment ...........  Beats chest and hums..........  

 

Real !!!!!!! 

 

Jimijon for President 2016 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:43 | 5915501 andrewp111
andrewp111's picture

It has some parallels to the time when the Roman Republic was transformed into the Empire. Our transformation won't take 100 years, though. It will be much quicker.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:43 | 5915764 Caleb Abell
Caleb Abell's picture

And its collapse will come much quicker too.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:46 | 5915506 HenryHall
HenryHall's picture

Lon Snowden for president!

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:48 | 5915516 q99x2
q99x2's picture

What recursive conspiracies. ChairSatan upon satan. Agents and agencies of the NWO Heavy dark matter so solid and cold you can see through it. Yellen and Obama shaken thier Bernankes.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:56 | 5915519 Cloud9.5
Cloud9.5's picture

This article misses a couple of counter trends.  First off it misses the fact that the body politic has been arming itself at a phenomenal rate over the last half dozen years.  Americans buy enough guns and ammunition to outfit an army every two days and that has been going on since this President has been elected. Never before this President have I gone to Walmart and found the store bare of all the common calibers.  Last year, the little old lady who sells reloading components at the Lakeland Gun show had one pound of powder left on Sunday afternoon.  That had never before occurred in my experience and I have been attending that show for the last thirty years.

 

The second thing missed was the push back that happened at the Bundy Ranch. That was no minor incident. That is the first time the Feds have pulled back since the Civil War. 

The blow back from Waco and Ruby Ridge caused the formation of militias around the country.   Out fits like the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers are very real.  The Minute Men are on the border.  Behind all of that you have a very significant silent minority that are putting together bug out bags and setting up doomsteads. 

On top of that as EROI contracts, the system is hard pressed for the resources to keep all the takers afloat. Devolution is in the wind. Cities are firing their police departments.  Some are hiring mercs others are depending on their county sheriffs for police

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:44 | 5915611 sapioplex
sapioplex's picture

It also misses a lot of trends caused by the increased communications and computing power held by the masses.  The common man has more capability to learn and find information than at any time in human history.  I believe as things get worse we'll see a lot of unexpected push-back from the masses.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 17:37 | 5916198 Raging Debate
Raging Debate's picture

I dont know about pushback other than them decreasing productivity realizing they cant win.

I remember discussing politics with a very astute business mentor I had. He had worked in analaytics at Cognos and IBM, was a VC also.

I asked him if the US would have another revolution and he said he didnt think so he said they would just throw there hands in the air and check out. He said the big guys were taking it out of the little guy which in his opinion was different than the 70's and 80's.

ZH published a recent article of just that occurring, with productivity declining the last two years. Back in 2005 America had one of the best productivity rates in the world. That was touted often in financial media back then but not anymore.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 19:58 | 5916568 August
August's picture

>>>I don't know about pushback other than them decreasing productivity realizing they cant win.

This is certainly how pushback begins.  To borrow from Solzhenitsen, don't believe them, don't fear them, ask nothing of them.  And sure as Hell, don't lift a finger in support of them.

And, as has been said by many ZHers, withdraw from active involvement in the US economic system as much as possible.

If they want "productivity", let them get what they can from their mind-controlled drones, not from me.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:26 | 5916343 logicalman
logicalman's picture

The common man has more capability to learn and find information than at any time in human history.

Problem is, few choose to use it in that manner.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:21 | 5915709 samsara
samsara's picture

I don't think Tom is unaware of these associated trends.  His focus in this article was strickly what the one side is doing.   Looking at that and coming to some conclusion.

I believe Tom(because of the other aricles I have read from him overtime)  know very well these counter trends.

Not the focus of this article.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 00:43 | 5917157 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

WTF? ADL is an Anti American Foreign Lobbyist if they make statements against the US Declaration of Independence (Independence from Israel) and the US Constitution.

Web Search shows ADL is a Threat to US Republic.

Oath Keepers and Three Percenters - Anti-Defamation League

www.adl.org/combating-hate/domestic-extremism-terrorism/c/oath-keepers-a...
Oct 26, 2009 ... The Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, both part of an anti-government extremist movement that has grown since President Obama took ...

Many People are Semitic:

- Arabs
- Israelis
- Descendents from Assyria
- Descendents from Sumeria

Arabic,
Amharic,
Hebrew,
Tigrinya,
Modern Aramaic,

Probably people who speak or write:

Ugaritic,
Phoenician,
Aramaic,
Hebrew,
Syriac,
Arabic,
South Arabian,
Ge'ez alphabet,
Ethiopia,
Eritrea,
Maltese,

If Maltese is the Language of Malta, then what can we say about the Allegiance of the Knights of Malta to the Catholic Pope? The Knights of Malta have a Seat at the United Nations which indicates some great power or Support BTW. What is the Wealth of Malta or the Knights of Malta? Where does this Wealth Come From?

Many Mysteries...

Using the Anti-Semetic tactic is so very Lawyer like and just proves again the most Corrupt people:

Bankers, Politicians, Lawyers, and Lobbyists.

-------------------------------
--- Teeth's US Dream Anthem --
-------------------------------

- It is 1 Minute to Midnight: Neo-Feudal Debt Slavery & nuke war
- Problem is Bankers, Politicians, Lawyers & Judges
- Failure of Self Regulation of Bankers, Politicians, Lawyers & Judges
- US Constitution is Usurped, Gone are Budget Powers, Legislative Powers, War Powers
- Money has taken over the Government, Banking, Universities, Science
- American Dream is over, Corruption is the same in all Countries now
- Old American Dream may serve as basis for new Country someday

-------------------------------
--- Teeth's US Dream Anthem --
-------------------------------

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 23:57 | 5917158 STP
STP's picture

Next month is the one year Anniversary of the Bundy Ranch Standoff.  I got a call last week from an older couple. They were part of the locals, that provided welcome support to the movement, by cooking out there on the bridge, fetching supplies and helping everyone who came in, from far and wide! I remember going with them and cleaning out all the local super markets of ice, which we piled in a pair of pickups

It was an honor to be out there, with fellow minded patriots.  My car was parked just west of the bridge and I left everything out and wide open, including wallet, keys and cell phone, for a number of days and nobody touched nothing.  In fact it was such a great crowd, that I wasn't even worried about it!

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:51 | 5915521 Bluntly Put
Bluntly Put's picture

4. The Rise of the National Security State as the Fourth Branch of Government

Nope, the 4th unaccountable and unelected (unconstitutional) branch of government is the commercial banking system via the federal reserve bank.

So, 5th maybe? Taken to it's logical extreme and the reality of the fed backstopping private equity ownership via the stock market it may not be too far a stretch to see our currency backed by equity ownership in the US corporation once the dollar begins to hyper-inflate.

hahaha

No seriously, this isn't new it's all been going on for over 100 years, the fed was the prototype.

 

 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:57 | 5915531 Consuelo
Consuelo's picture

The author did try - give him credit for that, but if you look at the beginning and the end (The Familiar 'Koch brothers' refrain, with their 'billions', as opposed to Hillary's 'PAC' with no mention of any specific names/backers - or 'Billionaires', And...   A brief mention of the Occupy Movement vs. the (Faux) 'Tea Party'.   Well, better to read it again:

"Since then, “we the people” have made ourselves felt in only three disparate ways: from the left in the Occupy movement, which, with its slogans about the 1% and the 99%, put the issue of growing economic inequality on the map of American consciousness; from the right, in the Tea Party movement, a complex expression of discontent backed and at least partially funded by right-wing operatives and billionaires, and aimed at the de-legitimization of the “nanny state”; and the recent round of post-Ferguson protests spurred at least in part by the militarization of the police in black and brown communities around the country."

No mention of George Soros, and no 'connection' made between 'The Left' and any NAMES of 'Billionaire backing'...?

And 'militarization of the police in black and brown communities around the country'...?   As if para-militarization of the police hasn't touched anywhere else, Tom Englehardt...?    The ~Only~ reason militarization-of-the-police is getting ANY air-time at all, is because it happens to involve the 'Preferred Minority Class', within the 'zeitgeist' of the 'First Black President'...

Drop the equivocating Tom Englehardt.   Everyone is a target.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 12:58 | 5915534 Hannibal
Hannibal's picture
Ukraine oligarchs ‘top cash contributors’ to Clinton Foundation prior to Kiev crisis

From 2009 up to 2013, the year the Ukrainian crisis erupted, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, which is headquartered in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, a new report claims.

In 2008, Viktor Pinchuk, who made a fortune in the pipe-building business, pledged a five-year, $29-million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, a program that works to train future Ukrainian leaders “to modernize Ukraine.” The Wall Street Journal revealed the donations the fund received from foreigners abroad between 2009-2014 in their report published earlier this week .

http://rt.com/usa/243017-ukraine-clinton-foreign-donors/

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:03 | 5915541 I Write Code
I Write Code's picture

Wordy bastid, just say "fascism" and have a nice day.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:03 | 5915543 Reaper
Reaper's picture

Government works because enough obey. Most humans are like domesticated dogs. They never fully mature to wolves and remain childlike. Government fails when enough end trust and ignore. Trust must morph into distrust.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:05 | 5915545 Cloud9.5
Cloud9.5's picture

The fifth branch of government consists of the legions of bureaucrats that run the fiefdoms that write millions of regulations that would control every aspect of our lives.  Still, I think Detroit is our model.  It got there first because the industrial sector was the first to collapse, the economic sector will be next followed shortly thereafter by the political sector.  Google earth pretty well shows that Detroit’s code enforcement branch pretty well fell off a cliff as did schools and police precincts.

 

 

Except for a few necessities like keeping the nukes under control, we are going local.  

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 16:29 | 5916025 Accounting101
Accounting101's picture

Good god! The bureaucrats again?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:20 | 5915568 I Write Code
I Write Code's picture

BTW, money is not the problem here, there seems to be crazy amounts of money on every side.  It's a good time to be running a television network, because that's where probably 80% of it ends up.  Long Disney, Fox, maybe Viacom and Comcast in 2016.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 16:32 | 5916037 NoPension
NoPension's picture

Welcome to Costco, I love you.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:23 | 5915569 lawyer4anarchists
lawyer4anarchists's picture

The entire "rise" of the national security state is based upon the idea that the government is allowed to keep secrets from the people. Most of that is done under the executive branch through agencies like nsa FBI etc.  There is no constitutional basis for the president to be able to keep any secrets like he does. NONE.  http://www.thetruthaboutthelaw.com/the-supreme-court-just-made-up-the-co...

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:33 | 5916370 logicalman
logicalman's picture

The government uses the people's money, stolen at the point of a gun, to spy on and control them.

Whatever happened to 'he who pays the piper calls the tune'?

Secrets only protect those keeping them, not those they are kept from.

The people fund the government and therefore should have access to any information gathered using those funds.

Governments only claim to represent, they never actually do it.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:24 | 5915572 withglee
withglee's picture

based on developments in our post-9/11 world,

Why did WTC7 fall down?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:13 | 5915684 SilverCoinLover
SilverCoinLover's picture

I really don't give a damn anymore about WTC7.

It was WTC1 & 2 where all the innocent office workers died that day. That's what made 9-11-01 the evil act it was for me, regardless of who-done-it.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 15:53 | 5915928 withglee
withglee's picture

WTC1 and WTC2 collapses cannot be attributed the impact of the jets. Something else was at work. The collapse of WTC7; not hit by anything; announced 30 minutes before it happened by the news media; and covered up by our media, law enforcement and legal systems ... that "proves beyond any doubt" that our country has been captured.

If our own government did it and used it as an excuse to ram through the ridiculous USAPATRIOT act; create the Dept. of Homeland Security leading to a full blown police state; start two unwinnable wars killing untold millions of innocents and wasting over $1T in the process ... that's terminally serious.

Further, it happened on one party's watch and wasn't investigated on the "other" party's watch.

Thus, we have proof for two very serious conditions:

1) Our flag has been captured. Any support we give to this government is traitorous as it is support of an obvious enemy.

2) There is "no" distinction between the parties. They are like the Washington Generals and the Harlem Globetrotters ...  playing a fake game and working for the same people.

If you "don't give a damn any more", that implies that you once did give a damn. What changed that? If it was just the passage of time then you have confirmed the effectiveness of their most commonly relied-on tool ... stalling.

You should be ashamed of yourself, whoever you are and wherever you came from.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 16:34 | 5916040 NoPension
NoPension's picture

The other force at work; gravity.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:41 | 5916391 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Gravity received a LOT of help from somewhere, and it certainly wasn't burning kerosene

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 21:01 | 5916725 dark_matter
dark_matter's picture

Gravity was helped out by rapid exothermic chemical reactions aka explosives

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 09:11 | 5917712 withglee
withglee's picture

Right. Without gravity, the building would have vaporized in place or fallen up. Regardless, no buildings have behaved like the WTC buildings in the face of fire or other calamity before or since. Why is that?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 17:59 | 5916251 Westcoastliberal
Westcoastliberal's picture

Well said.  Very well said.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 00:31 | 5917202 SilverCoinLover
SilverCoinLover's picture

ASHAMED? ASHAMED? That I don't want to spend the rest of my life in an angry rage over 9-11 like you think I should? SCREW YOU!

What about the Vietnam War? That was far worse than 9-11, 57,000 young American men killed, nearly all forced to go via the draft. That was the US Government's most evil act against its people since the Civil War, and unlike 9-11 there's no doubt that it was an "inside job", yet I don't see anyone bitching about that here.

Mon, 03/23/2015 - 10:31 | 5917746 withglee
withglee's picture

What about the Vietnam War? ... yet I don't see anyone bitching about that here.

Interesting argument:

Why get mad if they also did it in:

  • Vietnam
  • 1st Iraq War (not mentioned)
  • Granada (not mentioned)
  • WWII (not mentioned)
  • WWI (not mentioned)
  • Civil War
  • Spanish American War (not mentioned)
  • Mexican War (not mentioned)
  • Boston Bombing (not mentioned)
  • Shady Hook (not mentioned)

... and the above is far from an exhaustive list.

So the more they do these obvious false flags to have their way, the more we should just give them a pass  and get on with our lives? That's some very interesting reasoning.

I should point out to you that "every one" of the above enumerated instances were protested heavily ... and subdued in the same manner ... by propaganda and stalling and coverup and suiciding by the very same players. Looks like all it takes is about 1/2 generation for that to work on people like you.

Pitiful!

Perhaps voluntary anonymity on the internet is a good thing, but I'm sure without it you would be prime game  for a ripe fruit and egg attack.

Todd Marshall
Plantersville, TX

 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:16 | 5915697 samsara
samsara's picture

I'm gonna make a Tshirt with  WTC7WTF

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 17:08 | 5915994 withglee
withglee's picture

I was going to do a "Why did WTC7 fall down???!!!" shirt ... but I like yours better. Let me know where I can get one ... or a couple dozen.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:35 | 5915594 Mister Delicious
Mister Delicious's picture

 

 

 

It is a shoddy analysis which leaves out Israel's purchase of Congress, and such complete domination of the political zeitgeist that candidates for the presidency of the world's only superpower must travel to Israel to have their photo taken at the so-called wailing wall -  The Strange Story of the False Wailing Wall

 

While 40-50 million Evangelical "Christians" explain much of the obsequience to all things Israeli or Jewish, the truth of the matter is that most Christians do not subscribe to the warmongering and racialism engendered by dispensationalism - a theological aberration so contrary to the bulk of the New Testament one has to wonder if the Scoffield Bible was written/footnoted by a Christian at all.

 

But this is secondary.  There are more Catholics, alone, than Evangelicals - and they are spread out throughout the country.  Over 85% of the illegal immigrants/new voters/cannn fodder are Catholic.

 

But when do you read about "The Catholic vote"?

 

Now, when do you read about the Jewish vote?  Less than 3% of the electorate, and you see more stories and pandering to that community, by far, than any other.

 

It's not about the Jewish vote - it's about Jewish $$$$.

 

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/commentary-says-amount-of-us-political-money-coming-from-jews-is-staggering

 

 

Very reputable [and Jewish] media sources have variously estimated that Jewish private donations to both parties are 40-60%.   We are told most Jews are "liberal" and surely they tend to be for open borders, affirmative action, and all sorts of things that tend not to affect them directly... doesn't mean they are "liberal" as to calling Israeli war crimes war crimes, and it doesn't mean that they won't shout "anti-Semite" when it is suggested, in accordance with common sense, that many Jews, and not just those in JINSA, are loyal also {and perhaps primarily} to a foreign state.

 

So Jewish money dominates, so Israel dominates, and criticism of the situation is either excluded by a Jewish-dominated/influenced press, or decried as "anti-Semitic" - as if holding Israel to the same standards one would hold a "western Democracy" is somehow "hate" even though the "only democracy in the middle east" meme is supposed to make Americans think Israel's values are similar to American ones.

 

Watching Elizabeth Warren struggle to proclaim that Israel had a right to "defend itself" from mostly harmless rockets fired after multiple Israeli assaults on the West Bank and Gaza .......

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2014/07/08/who-started-the-cycle-of-violence-in-palestine/

http://electronicintifada.net/content/netanyahu-government-knew-teens-were-dead-it-whipped-racist-frenzy/13533

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israels-extermination-whole-families-gaza-reflects-genocidal-impulse

 

Was absolutely revolting.  Agree with her on x, y, or z or not - her statements were that of someone who knows that one can not speak of Israeli war crimes, even when obvious, and one can not express sympathy for hundreds of dead children, if killed by Jews - because Israel dominates American foreign policy because Jews as a group [not 'Zionists' qua such] absolutely dominate American politics. 

 

And media.

 

and finance.

 

And everyone knows it - but are too chickenshit to say that it is bad for this country, and bad for world peace, and may even be bad for the people of Israel in the longer run.

 

 

 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:36 | 5915745 California Nigh...
California Nightmares's picture

Watching Elizabeth Warren struggle to proclaim that Israel had a right to "defend itself" 

 

Kinda like watching Debbie Wasserman Schultz say that Eric Snowden is a traitor. 

 

 


Sun, 03/22/2015 - 17:46 | 5916224 Raging Debate
Raging Debate's picture

If your going to discuss foreign lobby throw China in the mix too. Chimerica hasnt been too great for the American people.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:07 | 5916273 Westcoastliberal
Westcoastliberal's picture

I feel your pain.  Seems that whenever a political figure who "seems" to reflect at least "some of the will of the people eventually blows it.  Elizabeth Warren was a hopefull until she showed her hand on Israel. 

Another such candidate is Rand Paul.  While I agree with about 75% of what he says, then he jumps the rails and starts pandering to the religous right with the "live begins at" bullshit.  If he's so into liberty and protecting the Constitution, how can he inject religion into government?  Certainly he's not stupid and understands the separation of church and state. Makes me question his sincerity about all the rest.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:44 | 5916401 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Maybe I can be of some assistance.

Politicians don't understand the meaning of the word 'sincerity'.

 

 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:42 | 5915606 Raoul_Luke
Raoul_Luke's picture

It's good old fashioned disenfrnchisement and creeping authoritarianism.  Shit happens...

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:47 | 5915619 Hail Spode
Hail Spode's picture

The federal system cannot be redeemed until after it implodes. Best to concentrate on getting state and local government officials who are not traitors. This can only be done operating OUTSIDE the utterly captured and corrupt two party system. I advise a decentralized model where the top can't be bought off because there is no top, and where if one cell gets captured the rest can go on operating.  Sort of like this model www.arneighbors.org

What blueprint do we use to build America 2.0? This http://www.amazon.com/Localism-Philosophy-Government-Mark-Moore/dp/06922... It is the only way to keep the same thing from happening again. 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:47 | 5915621 sapioplex
sapioplex's picture

If anyone is interested in ways of steering this ship, do some digging. There are a lot of things going on all over the internet.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 13:58 | 5915646 DaveA
DaveA's picture

Jim Donald calls this a "left singularity". When rulers lack any hereditary claim to power, their only source of legitimacy is holiness, and this leads to an escalating spiral of leftists competing to be leftest of them all. Each Tsar was a little lefter than the last, Kerensky much lefter, Lenin lefter still, and Stalin even more left. Trotsky was lefter than Stalin, but Stalin declared that the Soviet Union was left enough already, and liquidated the Trotskyists.

You see the same holiness spiral in Maoist China, the Khmer Rouge, Cromwellian England, the French Revolution, radical Islam, and any website where extreme left-wing comments are allowed but extreme right-wing comments are not.

In the end, the leftists either lose, and are massacred by rightists or by foreign invaders, or they win, and massacre each other for not being leftist enough.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 16:20 | 5916007 Accounting101
Accounting101's picture

Why in the hell did you jump into a serious conversation with this fucking garbage? You obviously didn't comprehend the article and still are holding dear to that simplistic tribal nonsense.

Oh well. I suppose you were never going to be part of the solution, so it doesn't really matter.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:00 | 5915649 will ling
will ling's picture

so, who's gonna tip things?

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:12 | 5915683 samsara
samsara's picture

Mother Nature.  A thing called Depletion.

It will fall from Maintenance Costs in a Energy/Raw Materials restricted future.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:06 | 5915663 samsara
samsara's picture

ZH,  Tylers, thanks for posting aTom Engelhardt article.   Always good observations and ideas.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:08 | 5915667 Jack Burton
Jack Burton's picture

I have to agree with most of what was written. We are in a new age, and everything we knew as America of the 1940-2000 is now officially over! This quote sums up the fake democracy that our media pushes every 2 years. " The early primaries, the ones that count, take place among a small group of millionaires and billionaires, a new caste flush with cash who will personally, or through complex networks of funders, pour multi-millions of dollars into the campaigns of candidates of their choice."

Our politicians are not presented to the people until the elite have screened them and picked out their two choices. This is why Obama took over from George Bush and kept Bush's military team, spy head, central banker, and others from the Bush times.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:39 | 5915756 California Nigh...
California Nightmares's picture

This is why Obama took over from George Bush and kept Bush's military team, spy head, central banker, and others from the Bush times.

 

No matter who becomes Pres., we end up being ruled by the set band of thugs.

 


Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:46 | 5916412 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Elections are only there to make the public think they have a choice.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 21:00 | 5916722 NeoLuddite
NeoLuddite's picture

AKA the entrenched & immortal bureaucracy.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 16:06 | 5915964 Luc X. Ifer
Luc X. Ifer's picture

The new cast is simple the new emerged aristocracy and same as old ones during various historical periods.

Well, none lasted forever and all vanished by violent means.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 20:54 | 5916698 dark_matter
dark_matter's picture

"This is why Obama took over from George Bush and kept Bush's military team, spy head, central banker, and others from the Bush times."

Yes, and Romney would have chosen the same bunch. The great facade of democracy.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:10 | 5915676 MedicalQuack
MedicalQuack's picture

We are all under the Attack of the Killer Algorithms, you can't see, talk to or interact with..I call it Algo Duping or Code Hosing, take your choice.  People smarter than me have done some great videos that explain a lot of it and are at layman level.  Code rules sadly and consumers have no frigging way to fix technology that they have no access to and what's driving decision.

http://www.ducknet.net/attack-of-the-killer-algorithms/

Problem with politicians, they are too virtual, in other words they confuse virtual world values with the real world and can't balance worth a darn.  When the virtual values get too far out there, we all start to see the nonsense.  We go from the sublime to the ridiculous to quote Paul Wilmott, Quant extraordinaire.  

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.fr/2014/03/virtual-worlds-real-world-we-have....

 

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:12 | 5915678 Minburi
Minburi's picture

Democrats and/or Republicans = Authoritarian

Libertarian = Libertarian

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:11 | 5915681 besnook
besnook's picture

despitr all the ghandi fans(he advocated violence in defense) out there violence is the answer. the eurotrash know this and are building the antieuro movement into a crescendo of violence against the state. usans have no idea how to protest mostly because the millenials are limp wristed faggots who have never skinned a knee let alone take on a fight with potential death and imprisonment involved.

until the millenials step up there will be the same system in place with the same complaints 30 years from now when a new, even more useless generation take on the yoke of slavery and like it.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 15:26 | 5915870 Terminus C
Terminus C's picture

Meet the new boss same as the old boss.

I have said before, but it seems to need to be said again, violoence against the state (a system of violence) will only change the ruler, not the system.  Thus, we will end up right back in this position at some point in the near future.  True systemic change comes from withdrawl.  Take your ball and go home.  The parasites will die and the system can be rebuilt. Should you defend yourself from blatant physical attack?  Yes.  Should you attack the system?  No.  Even if you win, you lose, because the system stays the same.

Call me a coward if you will (though please do tell of all the systemic attacks you have done oh brave Internet warrior)... but my above statement is the truth.

What do I think the likelyhood of mass withdrawl from the system would be?  Nada, due to my experience with human nature.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 18:05 | 5916267 Raging Debate
Raging Debate's picture

Terminus C - they already are withdrawing see my comment in the thread about declining productivity numbers.

Tue, 03/24/2015 - 11:31 | 5921725 LooseLee
LooseLee's picture

Withdrawing from the 'system' = Starving the 'beast'. Not that difficult to do, actually...

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:18 | 5915702 Cycle
Cycle's picture

I'm surprised that after the massive fiscal and financial screw job of the past 50 years, whereby productivity increased by orders of magnitude and the results went to the 0.1%, that there is no Millenial Party.

Sun, 03/22/2015 - 14:50 | 5915785 Chuck Knoblauch
Chuck Knoblauch's picture

They've been successfully captured by the Internet.

 

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