USA ELECTIONS = EXHAUSTING $BILLION ELECTION BUYING GAME FLIP-FLOPPING from Democrat to Republican and back again
USA ELECTIONS = Voters given no real choice = $BILLIONS TELL VOTERS to punish the party in power
USA ELECTIONS = Richest 1% threw $4 billion to BUY votes and to prepay for political favors to candidates that gave them WELFARE.
USA ELECTIONS = Corporations doling money out equally to both parties with a consistent, core economic agenda favorig the 0.01%.
USA ELECTIONS = Punish the party in power that earned the hatred of working-class voters by providing WELFARE to corporations and billionaires
FACT: Under Obama Presidency SUPER-RICH received 95% of wealth created. = NO politicians are complaining about it.
BOTH PARTIES = SERVES SUPER-RICH and THEIR MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS = Two parties have nothing to debate = In total agreement.
BOTH PARTIES = On foreign policy = $700+ Billion annually spent on the military + NEITHER PARTY complains that U.S. taxpayers have spent, $6 Trillion on two UELESS ongoing wars of Afghanistan and Iraq.
FACT: U.S. politics = Legalized Bribery and Corruption.
FACT: 2014 voter turnout sank to a new historic low of 38%, but without state elections and local ballot initiatives turnout would be in the teens or lower
FSCT: 5% to 10% is Popularity of the U.S. Congress = Lowest in History = It serves the interests of the parasitic super-rich.
FACT: Election winners reward their donors with government positions profit maximizing legislation and WELFARE or TAX DODGES.
FACT: LOYAL politicians that lose are still rewarded for being loyal by being hired or paid $Millions as a “consultant” = Usually glamorized lobbyist.
GOP WINS = OBAMA WINS = Expand the wars in the Middle East to topple and SPLINTER Syria and Iraq so Multinationals can DOMINATE and EXPLOIT WEAK FAILED SPLINTERED NATIONS.
GOP WINS = OBAMA WINS = “work together” to lower the U.S. corporate tax rates + Give Welfare “incentives” to corporations and rich + MORE TAX DODGES AND LOOPHOLES.
GOP WINS = OBAMA WINS = Bi-partisan public school agenda to privatize public schools.
GOP WINS = OBAMA WINS = LOVE central “FOR-PROFIT” feature of Obamacare/Romneycare = Central logic is CORPORATE RIPOFFS.
GOP WINS = OBAMA WINS = FRAUDULENT TRADE DEALS THAT TRANSFER NATIONAL POWER TO CORPORATIONS AND SHIP AMERICAN JOBS TO SLAVE LABOR NATIONS WILL RECEIVE FAVOR.
Obama will get to act “progressive” by vetoing Socially Restrictive BILLS = BUT Nothing for working people.
USA ELECTIONS = Too clogged with cash to be cleansed = Citizens United + MASSIVE LEGALIZED BRIBERY BEFORE THAT
Labor unions prop up this VILE two party corporate cancer by BRIBING Democrats.
Third parties failed attempts in the U.S. can be blamed on BEING BLOCKED OUT of consideration due to lack of BRIBES.
IDEA: A workers’ party financed by the unions could smash the two-party system — Not by competing with the Wall Street cash, but by using their resources and membership to rally the broader country around a new high quality job creation, raise the minimum wage, and advocate for higher taxes on the Super-Rich and Big Corporations to finance better schools and vital social programs.
A unions financed 3rd party that served ignored working people and ignored Middle Class aspirations can be successful.
Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev attends a symposium on security in Europe 25 years after the fall of the “Wall” in Berlin
USA-Western policies toward Russia led to the current crisis in Ukraine.
“Europe will be weakened and become irrelevant.” — Gorbachev warns in Berlin calling on western leaders to de-escalate tensions with Russia
“Europe is the one suffering most from the situation.” — Gorbachev
“Instead of becoming a leader of change in a global world Europe has turned into an arena of political upheaval, of competition for the spheres of influence, and finally of military conflict. The consequence inevitably is Europe’s weakening at a time when other centers of power and influence are gaining momentum. If this continues, Europe will lose a strong voice in world affairs and gradually become irrelevant.” — Gorbachev
After the Cold War ended western leaders adopted anti-Russian policies that eventually led to the current crisis — Gorbachev
USA-West must tone down its anti-Russian rhetoric and seek points of convergence. — Gorbachev
“Taking advantage of Russia’s weakening and a lack of a counterweight, they claimed monopoly leadership and domination in the world. And they refused to heed the word of caution from many of those present here. The events of the past months are consequences of short-sighted policies of seeking to impose one’s will and fait accompli while ignoring the interests of one’s partners.” — Gorbachev
Gorbachev’s list of Anti-Russian policies:
Expansion of NATO
Development of an anti-ballistic missile system
Military interventions in Yugoslavia and Iraq
West-backed secession of Kosovo
Crisis in Syria and others
The Ukrainian crisis is a “blister turning into a bleeding, festering wound.”
Experience in the 1980s showed that much worse and seemingly hopeless conflicts can be resolved, when there is the political will and right setting of priorities. — Gorbachev
Gorbachev assured the forum that Russian leadership was willing to do its part, as evidenced by President Putin’s keynote speech at the Valdai Forum. — Gorbachev
“Despite the harshness of (Putin’s) criticism of the West and the United States in particular, I see in his speech a desire to find a way to lower tensions, and ultimately to build a new basis for partnership.” — Gorbachev
Ukraine’s current confrontation can become a focus for reconciliation between Russia and the West. — Gorbachev
Gorbachev called for all parties to join forces and help Ukraine overcome the consequences of the civil war it is currently going through.
“…enlargement of NATO and the current EU common defense policy have failed to produce positive results.” — Gorbachev calling for overhaul of OSCE
“Had such a mechanism been created, the worst scenarios of the Ukrainian events could have been averted.” — Gorbachev
Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist, publishes Mondays on Truthdig — Two decades as a foreign correspondent in 50+ countries and has written nine books, including “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2008) and “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009)
Interview with Professor Sheldon Wolin, Professor of Politics at Berkeley and Princeton, Author of seminal works on political philosophy, including Politics and Vision and Democracy Incorporated.
HEDGES: Professor Wolin and I talk about revolution in a system of inverted totalitarianism that has effectively fragmented and destroyed the notion of the “PUBLIC.” In USA institutions define themselves as democratic and yet have abandoned civic virtue and the common good.
HEDGES: In USA elitists have harnessed their power to meet the interests of corporations whom prefer neo-feudalism, a security and surveillance state, enriching a small group of oligarchic elitists, want to demilitarize the people, while increasing the corporate-military prowess.
HEDGES: Are we at a point we should begin to discuss revolution?
SHELDON WOLIN, PROF. EMERITUS POLITICS, PRINCETON: Yes, but we must discuss it carefully, not timidly, but carefully in the sense that we have to be breaking new ground to meet this challenge in our modern society. We must not act prematurely and avoid doing more damage than is justifiable. Revolution is a word with too much baggage so we should find a synonym that better captures our goals and discards the physical notions of overthrow and violence — This will minimize having to do all sorts of rearguard (defensive) explanations of what we really mean — Avoid having to overcome the overtones and implications that revolution conveys.
We need a new kind of vocabulary to help us express what we mean by radical change without simply seeming to tie ourselves to the kind of previous notions of revolution.
FACT: USA conditions are without precedent in terms of the concentration of capitalist power and of the relationship between capitalism and the state.
FACT: USA Elitists-Corporate aggregation of power is unlike any the world has ever seen, and now we see a world in the throes of being integrated and controlled by these Elitist-Corporate Powers.
WOLIN: We really need our own language and rethink in a different direction what we mean by radical change or revolution.
HEDGES: The old meaning of Revolution is “Cycle” or “Coming Back” to participatory democracy that we’ve lost.
HEDGES: The current popular notion of revolution does not match “Coming Back” or “Cycle”, but instead involves great violence, but most revolutions are nonviolent and without armed forces. Examples include the Cossacks going to Petrograd and the Paris commune of 1871, and the downfall of the Shah of Iran where the national army refuses to turns their arms on the people.
HEDGES: We must converting intellectually, morally, ethically, those within the power structure who realize its decay, its corruption, its repression and no longer are willing to sacrifice for it.
WOLIN: Your formulation would rely more than I would on trying to persuade the powers that be to change course and modify their behavior and beliefs, and I don’t think that’s possible — it’s clearly not possible on a large-scale.
WOLIN: Major Change has to be generated and shaped outside the power structure, because it’s nearly impossible to enlist and educate groups and individuals who have NO political education or experience of any kind — That task is compounding and very unlikely.
WOLIN: Some think the basic problem is just seizing power over a population that’s not educated and basically unchanged — Then they face the cruel choice of forcing them to change so that they can support your structure. The really difficult challenge is to gain power by an equally challenging emphasis on strong public education to create a responsible repository of that power in the people.
HEDGES: I totally agree that the movement must be formed outside of power. But can a force for massive change contest power by (what Václav Havel called) “living in truth” penetrate the lower levels of power like the police and even foot soldiers tasked with protecting Elitists, they may view is Evil?
HEDGES: Can a movement create enough paralysis within the structures of power that it can be replaced? It happened in the fall of East Germany in 1989 when Eric Honecker, a dictator for 19 years, sent an elite paratroop division to Leipzig to shut down 70,000 people massing in the streets — But the paratroopers refused to fire on the crowd and the whole military apparatus of the Stasi state crumbled at a dizzying speed — so fast we could not keep track of it — Honecker was out of power within a week.
HEDGES: So you’re right that all major change forces have to be formed outside of the structures of power, but can the conscience of POLICE AND SOLDIERS ordered by the ELITISTS to quell the masses, instead join the crowds? Is that kind of fundamental moment possible today to replace the power structure?
WOLIN: That is a positive idea as long as it avoids apocalyptic events. Today we’re still dealing with a democratic (small d) state and a population that desperately needs political education addressing those future lower echelons of power (future police and soldiers) and get them to think clearly about their constitutional role. That is a very touchy subject, because of accusations of promoting disloyalty of the police or soldiers — But we must try to reinstitute the constitution, but those powers in society will NOT likely come to grips with that – It will be an arduous difficult task, and even a little dangerous in our present age.
HEDGES: Ancient philosophers like Plato talk about the creation of an elite, what Lenin would call a revolutionary vanguard and Machiavelli called co-conspirators, Calvin call his saints. Is that Elitists for CHANGE relevant?
WOLIN: I would avoid words like elitists, but because most people become exhausted by the simple task of living, working, and trying to sustain families and neighborhoods takes all of their energy, it does call for some kind of group who would continuously do the political work of educating, criticizing, pressuring, and working towards a revamping of political institutions. — That necessary political group must stay INTIMATELY connected to the people with open lines of communication — Contact, Meetings — To avoid any sense of estrangement or alienation between that leading groups and the good of the masses.
HEDGES: Sometimes political leader groups turn on the people once they take power. Like the Bolsheviks and the very well intentioned Trotsky once in power became Lenin’s iron fist. So is creating an elitist political group a very dangerous move?
WOLIN: It is, but our situation is different from what Trotsky and the others faced — There are openings in our system of governance for public discourse that provide an opportunity to work hard to get dissident voices out into the public realm — Minimizing the need for force, violence, and so on. As long as we have constitutional guarantees for free forms of communication, I think we’re obligated to play by those rules, that allow us to disseminate a new kind of message. As long as we have that freedom to disseminate new ideas, the use of subversion is self-defeating.
HEDGES: Climate change has created an urgency of a narrowing window of opportunity for survival of species. Our unfettered, unregulated corporate capitalism, which commodifies even human beings and the natural world. We know that without constraints capitalists will exploit to exhaustion or collapse. We have an ecosystem teetering on collapse.
WOLIN: That is true. I don’t see any other solution but to bet on an enlightened public taking a stand. There are enlightened publics in this country, but there’s no concerted general movement which can profess to represent a large body of opinion that’s opposed to these kind of developments you’ve just described. There’s a lack of organization. We must find new methods to empower ordinary people to deter and dissuade those who make decisions, because time is running out, and if we continue the same course we face not simply an environmental disaster but will feed an outcry for really forceful government, and not in a necessarily democratic way.
HEDGES: And yet, if we don’t respond, it is in essence collective suicide.
HEDGES: This age of bureaucracy banishes mystery and the sacred so nothing has an Real Intrinsic Value; Everything only has a monetary value as a capitalist financial class has assumed power under our noses. The end result is we live in a world without the necessary passion to carry out the common good — against this massive monolith of corporate bureaucracy.
HEDGES: Some are calling for those who care about the common good and civic virtue to stand up in the face of a very bleak reality. The question is: how do you retain your own moral integrity in the face of these horrifically destructive forces? NOT: Can we succeed? But you must resist anyway.
WOLIN: The truly important civic virtues must be asserted at any time basic institutional values and human values are at stake — EVEN if you don’t win or win rarely — If you win, it’s often for a very short time, so politics must become a vocation for Americans — NOT an occasional undertaking assumed every two or four years when there’s an election; it’s a constant occupation and preoccupation.
WOLIN: Politics is NOT a partisan one party kind of education, but the broad understanding of what political life should be and what is required to make it sustainable — A Political Understanding (NOT how we vote) that steps back and says what kind of political order and values are we willing to really give a lot for, including sacrifice. That distinction between the un-empowered temporary transient voting every couple of years versus truly enduring empowered continuous involvement.
HEDGES: Your calling us to a life of meaning. Which you have exemplified.
Concise Politics -- Your Time should NOT be wasted. 