Monday, September 5, 2011

It's only a matter of time ...

[A big welcome to Crooks and Liars and Skippy's readers! Thanks, Mike and Skippy! - F.]

Before we storm the gates. Gordon posted a piece from Greenwald yesterday and his message at the end is portentous:

...

Shorter: the government hates and fears us for our freedom*.


In this age of the interwebs, fortunately, word gets out a lot faster to more people and it's only a matter of time before people wake up and start demanding their share. When people are starving and unemployed (especially the youth), and they see the rich living it up, they're gonna want their piece of the pie:

...

So as average wages fall, and nearly 14 million people remain unemployed, America’s economic recovery has almost entirely benefited corporations. This development adds another chapter to the decline of the middle class, whose incomes are shrinking and wages are stagnating. Last year, top executives’ salaries increased 27 percent, while workers’ salaries increased only 2 percent. At the moment, income inequality in America is the worst it’s been since the 1920s, as the richest 1 percent make nearly 25 percent of the country’s income.


When they see the political class, of either party, is no longer on their side, when they hear how much the rich and corporations rake in while they can't feed their kids, when they are told what meager help they might expect from the federal government will be cut, when they don't have any hope of getting out from under, when they're told the rich shouldn't have to pay taxes and all the burden is upon the poor and middle class, when unemployment of the nation's youth reaches 30 - 40%; that will be the day when the corporatocracy will get its comeuppance.

While those in Washington look at the numbers and percentages, I'll ask you to picture 14 million desperate people in a large group, more by the time it gets really bad. Do these arrogant assholes think their private security (and their cronies in local police departments) can protect them from the will of the masses? There will be a "let them eat cake" moment (we've traveled too far down the Road of Impunity for it not to happen). Now it's just a matter of when it happens and what the American people will do at the time.

Obama had the power to stave off that moment, had he used his momentum and voter popularity just after his election to do the right thing (he could have enacted a "shit sandwich Friday" and everybody would have gladly eaten it once a week). Instead he made it worse, either by being bought, cowed, or just inept. That door has since closed.

Unless something radically changes in the next 4 years of Obama's term (if he actually gets himself reelected), we will be irrevocably set on the path to a probably violent class war. It will be then that Americans will see change. The only questions will be the form it will take and how many will survive it. Look to the East; Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, just a portent of what will happen here. People are people, all over the world, and when people get desperate, they will do whatever it takes. I hope our elected officials keep that in mind over the next few years.

Update:

D-cap sees things that way too:

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This President is a nothing more than Richard Lugar or Chuck Hagel or John Warner - a somewhat moderate 80's Republican. He is no progressive and I don't think he is much of Democrat. In fact I don't think of much of Obama at all anymore.

... I guess we really do need a Republican to lead us completely off the cliff to finally wake the fuck up. Apparently reason, logic and presenting the facts don't work in a world competing with Justin Bieber's car accident or J-Lo's divorce.

...


*The government fears us. Period.

4 comments:

Gordon said...

I guess we really do need a Republican to lead us completely off the cliff to finally wake the fuck up.

Great. We'll wake up just in time to hit the ground. United Splat! Of America.

Anonymous said...

You're a great optimist. The fact is that throughout all of human history the periods in which there was anything resembling a real middle class have been rare and all fairly recent, and we've been steadily losing ours for decades now. Since it arose only after the Great Depression of the 1930s, and didn't really get underway until the postwar years of the 1950s, then it had a short run indeed, since it was being dismantled starting with the moment that Reagan was elected President. I remember plainly when the notion of him becoming President was seen as utterly ridiculous, Doonesbury even did cartoons with "yeah and Reagan will be President" or the like as the punchline, since he was seen as so far on the right wing fringe as to be unelectable.

The countries you point to as examples of how "it's just a matter of time" like Tunisia, Syria, and so on-- well, here's Syria for example, from Wikipedia:

"The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a large number of military coups and coup attempts shook the country in the period 1949–1970. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1962–2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, and its system of government is considered non-democratic."

That's roughly 60 years controlled by either the military, or a dictator, or both (and before under the control of the French, and on and on as you go back). So yes, it's just a matter of time I suppose, but anyone who thinks that means "in a couple of years we'll finally be free of the corporatacracy of Bush, Obama, et al, is far more optimistic than I am.

Anonymous said...

They'll simply hire half of us to murder the other half.

Klaatu said...

You are wrong. O gave the middle class tax cuts
and infrastructure jobs in his $1 trillion stimulus.
Where would unemplm't be w/o it? 10.5% +
and the RAYpublicans would be calling for
impeachment "due to his callous disregard for
the suffering of ah unemployed"

They called for his impeachment almost after
his swearing in ceremony was botched by
Chief Justice Roberts. If he gets a 2nd term
they might do it for real especially if ppl
like you undermine the political process
which discourages voting allowing them
to take the senate. Then again you might
be for Hillary getting the nomination.