Mobilization Without Method Is Meaningless

 

Everyone knows this expression:  There was method to his madness.

What does it mean?  It means that regardless of how crazy the person acted, no matter how much he appeared to be nuts, behind that facade there was a solid plan, and that plan presumably resulted in successfully achieving what he set out to achieve.

It is this sense of 'method' I'm referring to in the title of this essay.

If there is any doubt about my message, here it is:  To mobilize people behind any cause, regardless of how worthy that cause is, regardless of how intrinsically appealing it may be to get these folks marching, singing, chanting, shouting for that cause, if there is no clear strategy which targets an equally clear and obvious outcome, with a realistic expectation that the strategy will achieve that outcome, then the mobilization is a waste of time.

I didn't say it wasn't fun or satisfying.  I didn't say it didn't have notable and perhaps positive collateral effects.  But I am saying that anyone who thinks that mobilization is some guarantee of making substantial change and achieving desired reforms is surely kidding themselves.

This is why, despite being the biggest mass movement in recent history, OWS completely failed.  Spokespersons for OWS will say it didn't fail at all, because it had no preconceived agenda or goals.  But that is a frivolous cop out.  By the time OWS went international and 'occupy' was attached to everything from towns to shopping malls, labor unions, and even Facebook, there was certainly a goal.  It may not have appeared on any official documents, but that was because as an experiment in unstructured, horizontal command-and-control, married to spontaneous democratic expression, any attempt at formalizing anything at all was discouraged and successfully thwarted.

Nevertheless, it was evident to everyone who watched the marches, read the protest signs, listened to the speeches, or was constantly bombarded by the most successful, ubiquitous meme to erupt in colloquial English in the last five decades -- the 1% vs the 99% -- exactly what all of the brouhaha was about.

In the broader sense, it was about the ruling class -- the 1% -- forcing its elitist world view and self-serving agenda on everyone else -- the 99% -- using their privilege and raw power to callously and ruthlessly turn everyday people into serfs.

In a more specific sense, it was about overwhelming, abusive, and anti-democratic wealth inequality.  It was hardly random that the movement was started in the heart of America's financial district and the anger and vilification was directed at incomprehensibly wealthy investment bankers and Wall Street high-rollers.

Of course, any thoughtful exploration of these two parallel themes -- monopoly on power and obscene accumulation of wealth -- would naturally conclude that they are inextricably related and mutually reinforcing.  Not that there was much analysis going on.  The OWS protests were pretty much an 'it's-us-against-them' affair, with lots of noise and bluster, but with absolutely nothing remotely resembling a grab for power anywhere in sight.

Thus, in terms of specific demands, it was quite common for news commentators to ask:  What do the protestors want?

This was a legitimate if mostly rhetorical question.  As a matter of record, there were no actual demands aired by the movement, much less tacit undercurrents of a coup d'etat.

There weren't any coherent demands, no specific policy proposals, not even obvious ones.  It wouldn't have been out of place, as an example, to at least talk about GBI -- guaranteed basic income -- as a conspicuous path to begin addressing the grotesque level of wealth inequality.

There were no hard and fast calls for student debt forgiveness, free college education, mortgage default relief, capping credit card interest rates, free access to universal health care, and a host of other palliatives which would have somewhat reduced the wealth gap.

This is not a criticism of OWS or anyone who bobbled up, even if temporarily, from the rank-and-file to take credit -- or blame, depending on where you stand in judgment -- for what happened.  OWS was an intriguing and inspiring new experiment in activism, which attempted to skirt the usual pitfalls of hierarchical, top-down organization.  It was what it was, and I believe should be respected for that.
But that doesn't prevent us from learning from it, and taking every precaution to not make the same mistakes again.

If you're going to assemble a mob, give them something to do.

Give them something which will make a substantial and decisive difference.

Camaraderie is a good thing.  It's a social high.  Feeling like you're part of something offers relief from a sense of isolation and helplessness.

But it's only a feeling.  It's not politics.  Politics is about power.  Only power can confront power.
After the marches are done, after the protest signs are put away, when we're in our cars or on buses headed back home, we always need to ask ourselves:  Do we now have power to implement the changes we want?

If the answer is 'no', then we didn't have an effective plan.

The best time for an effective plan is BEFORE we hit the streets, before we march and sing our songs, before we waste valuable time and energy in a frustrating and fruitless attempt to get those NOW IN POWER to do anything for us.  Asking the the ruling elite and their lapdogs in our governing institutions to listen to our demands and serve our interests is like asking a carjacker to be sure and wash our automobile and return it in the morning with a full tank.

Here comes my plug:  I have an end-to-end plan, a carefully-crafted strategy for engaging a broad base of U.S. citizens, uniting them into an overwhelming voting bloc, directed at stopping America's out-of-control militarism and endless wars of aggression.

You can get a general idea here:  The Peace Dividend

Next time we march for peace, we'll know where we're headed and how to get there.

At least, that's the hope that gets me from day to day in these insane times.

---

 

The Peace Dividend: The Most Controversial Proposal in the History of the World is now available both as an ebook and deluxe paperback at many of the usual outlets . . .

Amazon (Kindle) / US . . . amzn.to/2cpIRfQ
Amazon (Print) / US . . . amzn.to/2cEhnCb
Amazon (Kindle) / Canada . . . amzn.to/2ciZKdl
Amazon (Kindle) / Japan . . . amzn.to/2cbf3TO
Barnes & Noble . . . bit.ly/2cWxvzd
Kobo (Indigo) . . . bit.ly/2cI8cB6
Apple iTunes . . . apple.co/2cqw7an
Smashwords . . . bit.ly/2cb6Cse
Direct from printer . . . bit.ly/2c3mJsl


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



Mobilization Without Method Is Meaningless

All boats rise in a rising tide? Really?

 

The haves want the have-nots to believe sharing wealth is not a zero-sum game.

The mantra:  All boats rise in a rising tide.

But that's not the way things are working out, eh?  The wealthy get wealthier and the poor get poorer.  Certainly on a planetary scale, with human population increasing globally at about 1.11% annually, there is a rapidly swelling underclass who have no concept, much less any chance of sharing in the vast quantities of goods, services, opportunities, and resources churned out by our great engines of economic and technological development.

The same is also becoming more and more true here in America, with wealth inequality increasing astronomically over the past several decades, vastly accelerating after the crash of 2008 crippled the middle class, further sunk the lower class, decimated savings and home equity, destroyed jobs and job security, and plunged already indebted average citizens into even greater debt. True, the rich did same somewhat of a hit as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, but predictably bounced back with a vengeance. 95% of the wealth generated in the slow but steady economic recovery over the past eight years went to the top 1%. In 2016 alone, the world’s rich elite increased their wealth by $237 billion.

In terms of our boat analogy . . .

I suggest we regular folks buy life jackets.

Because as the luxury liners supported by the subservient ship of state rise to even greater heights of opulence for the already wealthy and privileged, our fragile boats will be swamped in the wake of their showy extravagance and wasteful wanton affluence.

The rich and powerful have never made much of a secret of their disdain for regular folks. But as long as America citizens remain incurably detached from the reality of their lot, when the ravenous kleptocrats of the Trump administration rev up their feeding frenzy beyond anything ever before witnessed in the history of the world, everyday Americans probably won’t have to worry about being put in cages or internment camps — of course, the prisons will be kept bulging in our for-profit prison system but that’s business as usual. In their callous indifference and Machiavellian marginalization of the less fortunate, the wealthy if nothing else are coldly efficient. Extermination by war or disease or relentless grinding poverty are the time-honored and road-tested methods for effortlessly "draining the swamp" of unwanted creatures like you and I.  The wealthy don’t need to ponder and won’t even flinch at the inevitable carnage.  They won’t even notice.  Their evening wear won't even get soiled or their reputations sullied by the noxious clouds of incinerated souls and destroyed lives, families, communities, and even whole nations, as poverty, war, chaos and human neglect on every front stampedes the unprivileged — the slobbering masses — into the abyss of sociopathic excess.

There are no pangs of conscience for those who don’t have one.

Wealth is a zero-sum game.  That’s true regardless of how much wealth exists in the world. If someone has something, then everyone else does not have it.  We can make more of that something but capitalism — especially its grotesquely virulent current iteration, neoliberal capitalism — is built on want and shortage, thus quite by design there will never be enough of that something for everyone to benefit equitably.  Recent history is all the evidence we need for this: while it’s true that since the dawn of the industrial revolution the engines of progress have mounted bigger piles of everything, it is also apparent that those piles have ended up in fewer hands.

In what may be the most astonishing, outrageous and incomprehensible economic statistic I’ve experienced in my lifetime, Oxfam just released a study of global wealth distribution which offered this gem:  Eight individuals now own as much wealth as the bottom 3.7 billion people on the planet.  Or presented another way:  The top .000000107% of the world population have as much wealth as the bottom 50%.

Under these conditions, as the tide rises a handful of luxurious and unsinkable yachts inch closer to God and millions of sunken hulls rot at even greater depths in the dark void at the bottom.

Does any sane person really think it can continue to go on like this?

Are there enough sane people around to make a difference?


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



All boats rise in a rising tide? Really?

Paying For The Peace Dividend

Understandably, the first reaction I get when I tell people we're going to get the U.S. government to refund to its citizens $4,826,000,000,000 is:  "What?  We can't afford that.  Our government is already in hock over $19 trillion and every year since 2000, we've been running a deficit."

Aside from the fact that the deficit spending -- which has been the focus of overwrought debates, ultimatums, government shutdowns, and a celebrated hand grenade tossed back and forth in the political blame game -- is both unnecessary and entirely intentional, the ultimate impact of the Peace Dividend is actually to remedy such fiscal irresponsibility.  The Peace Dividend refund drives a whole host of fundamental reforms which will over time help to put our financial house in order.  However, that's a topic for another blog.

The Peace Dividend is paid out over three years.  Thus, each year we have to come up with a little over $1.6 trillion each fiscal year.

Here's how we do it.  Here's how we raise a minimum of $1.6 trillion dollars each year . . .

$200 billion . . . cut from the official DOD budget.
$83 billion . . . cut from future Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria war budgets.
$45 billion . . . cut from homeland security agency budgets.
$32 billion . . . cut from the black budgets of the NSA and CIA.
$102 billion . . . raised from closing tax loopholes and taxing offshored money.
$469 billion . . . ending unnecessary and counter-productive corporate welfare.
$103 billion . . . raised by making corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
$400 billion . . . raising income taxes on the wealthiest to what they were in 1975.
$177 billion. . . raised from financial transaction tax on public trading.
$250 billion . . . raised by issuing domestic-use-only Peace Dollars.
$250 billion . . . raised issuing Peace Bonds for investing in a peaceful future.

I better slow down!  I'm already way over $2 trillion!

Now, as you all know, I'm not an economic analyst, a statistician, a financial wizard of any ilk.  Yet, I was able in broad strokes to demonstrate how simple it is to make the necessary adjustments.  Granted, my plan will have to be fine-tuned by acclaimed and self-anointed experts.  But before the proselytizers and pretenders armed with skepticism and hatchets subject us to their pompous, pedantic and patronizing pruning, just bear this in mind . . . 

 

The Peace Dividend is a refund due to American citizens.  That is a given.  Read my book.  It's all there.  I didn't make this stuff up.  The facts are clear.  American citizens have been the victims of the greatest rip-off of tax money in the history of the world.  They deserve -- and should demand, no excuses, no negotiation, no compromise -- a full refund.  No analysis can alter this reality.

Yes, it may be unprecedented.  It most certainly is controversial.  Traditionalists and those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo -- because it keeps them wealthy and in the centers of power -- will declare it outrageous!  Insane!  Irresponsible!  Impossible!

But the the truth is, what is outrageous, insane, irresponsible, and impossible is to promote and pursue never-ending war, keep needlessly killing innocent people -- including our own fine young men and women in uniform -- continue to turn America into a pariah in the world community with the incessant bombing and support of terrorist proxies.  What's truly outrageous, insane, irresponsible, and impossible is spreading chaos, destruction and death, fomenting terrorist attacks and an unparalleled refugee crisis across the globe.  What's outrageous, insane, irresponsible, and impossible is the pursuit of a psychopathic agenda of imperial conquest, which has destroyed our democracy and imposed a vulgar, savage regime of fear here at home, in the form of the insidious and fraudulent War on Terror.  This madness must be stopped or America will crumble under the weight of its own hubris and delusions of grandeur.

The point here is a simple one.  What's not lacking here are the mechanics of finding and refunding the money.  What's lacking is the political will.  What's lacking is any sense of responsibility among our corrupt pay-for-play political leaders.  What's tragically lacking is the public awareness of how far out-of-control the situation is.  Were people to wake up to what's really going on with our military madness, imperial delusions of world empire, and ruthless oppression of everyday citizens under a systematic, propaganda-fueled, carefully crafted and entirely orchestrated regime of totalitarian control by a veritable handful of rich and powerful elites, heads would role! 

Maybe I'm naive, but I'm hoping it won't come to that.  With 300 million guns at hand, when things start getting violent, we can only expect a bloodbath to unfold.  My sincere hope is that the urgently required regime change is still possible non-violently.  We do this by replacing any uncooperative legislators with ones who understand that their obligations are first and foremost to their constituents, that being elected to represent us, implies that they actually will represent us, putting our welfare and the health of our families and communities ahead of all else.

I propose the Peace Dividend as a decisive test.  It's a line in the sand.

Either "they" are for it or against it.

It's how we decide who to vote for.  If a candidate won't support it -- by signing a legally binding contract to guarantee his or her support -- we find one who will.

The games are over.  The rich and powerful plutocrats have had a good run.  They've bled the country and its citizens dry.  Now it's payback time.

If the politicos who've created and perpetuated the mess we're in can't own up to the error of their way and fix the problem, beginning with proper redress in the form of a full refund of the money taken fraudulently from good, decent, hard-working Americans, then they are not serious about making the necessary changes, regardless of what they say.

Either they give us our money back, or they get their walking papers.

They do not deserve our support and will be removed -- unelected -- from office.

These soon-to-be ex-congressman and presidential hopefuls are very talented people.

I'm sure they'll do well on the comedy club circuit or selling time-shares in the Caribbean.


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]


Paying For The Peace Dividend

A Look At Some Other Numbers

 

On July 20th, I created The “I’ll vote for Jill if you will” Pledge Campaign.  This included setting up petitions at four reputable petition campaign sites to keep track of the number of participants.  Off to an encouraging start, I got signatures on the very first day.

This whole effort addresses what I consider to be the primary obstacle to Jill Stein getting elected.  That is, it offers a mechanism to work around the predictable fears that most voters have that if they vote third-party, they will "throw their vote away" and even worse, end up electing one of the major party candidates who they abhor.  Those who voted for Ralph Nader -- I was one of them -- were wrongly accused of throwing the election to George W. Bush.  Though this is easily established as false, the idea of the "spoiler vote" continues to persist and serve the agenda of the two-party monopoly, preventing any real challenge from either the progressive left, the libertarian right, or any party for that matter functioning outside the narrow, tightly choreographed corporate mainstream.

The success of my campaign to unite potential Jill Stein voters into a bloc, essentially by "pre-polling" the voting public, was predicated on ascertaining in advance that there were sufficient voters to elect her.  Ascertaining that meant voters could comfortably vote for her without fear of wasting their votes, perhaps inadvertently electing Donald or Hillary, whichever might be judged worse -- though in my book it's a toss-up. 

The target was 50 million or more voter signatures, which I determined would be enough, if distributed appropriately in important swing states, to put her in the White House.

The key to getting that many signatures was the power of an exponential multiplier, or as I euphemistically dubbed it, the power of numbers.  If each person who signed the petition -- and in doing so agreed to participate in the program -- told only two others, instructing them to each likewise tell two others, in less than 30 days we could have over 67 million people signed up, more than enough to eradicate all anxiety about voting for Jill Stein.

So how did we do?

On September 9th, we finally hit 5,000 signatures across all four petition sites.

That is, we managed to get 5,000 well-meaning folks -- and judging from the comments very passionate supporters of Jill Stein -- to jump on board, and it only took 52 days.

Mind you, I didn't just sit back and twiddle my thumbs.  In fact from the day I started the campaign till now, I've sent out over a thousand tweets, posted it on over ninety Facebook pages, posted it as comments on some fifty plus political media sites, posted it on Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Blogger, Delicious, and Live Journal.

Which suggests that assuming I don't suffer from dwindling returns for my effort -- highly doubtful since the "low fruit" gets used up quickly -- to get to 50 million signature, I would only need to keep doing what I've been doing for the next 1,424 years. 

What do you think?  Should I keep going?

Alright . . . what happened?

That is perhaps the easiest question in the world.

People didn't recruit anyone else.  Despite their personal enthusiasm for Jill Stein, despite many of them -- judging from the enthusiastic praise I got for the idea -- thinking it was a highly ingenious way to make her a viable candidate in the eyes of a fearful voting public, despite them making a firm pledge when they signed the petition which committed them to the action which was the critical core of the strategy . . .

"I will now contact two other people who I respect and trust, let them know there is a real alternative to the Clinton vs. Trump political spectacle, explain that if we frustrated voters join together, we don’t have to throw our votes away, we can elect a great president, America’s first female president no less."

. . . they just couldn't bring themselves to talk to and convince others that this was a necessary and worthwhile project.

Am I surprised?  Of course not.  Disappointed but not surprised.

As citizens we have become paralyzed by our own timidity and fear of failure, intimidated and rendered dysfunctional by the dysfunction all around us.  We've become disengaged and numb from the constant trumpeting of counter-productive memes, false narratives, the insultingly banal media coverage of politics, the disinformation and propaganda that bombards us 24/7/365.  We have been made cynical and immersed in despair by endless violations of the public trust by our leaders, by the condescending and cavalier lies we are constantly told by our politicians and other puppet-masters in the pulpits of power.  Most tragically, we have become afraid, afraid of the police, afraid of the government, afraid of one another, afraid to act.  We're just too afraid to turn to a couple other people and say:  "Hey, look at this.  I think it's a great idea!"

But here is the problem . . .

No matter how hopeless and difficult it seems, we must act.  We must get involved.  Time is running out on democracy.  There still remains some small hope that we as citizens can make a difference.  

But that hope is shrinking fast.

What probably the majority of citizens apparently fail to understand -- or if possible avoid thinking about -- is that in our current social and political environment, under the "rules of the game", we have no choice but to participate.  Just being a citizen means you are intrinsically a functional "activist" in a system which determines everything that is happening now and will happen in the future.

There is widespread reluctance to recognize and embrace a simple fact:  The future is still ours for the taking.

The numbers are with us across the board -- on many key issues, on outrage and contempt for Congress, on collective revulsion for the choice we are being waterboarded with via the two major party presidential candidates.

What is lacking?

Courage.  The courage to just reach out to others and say:

"I've had it!  I'm not playing this game anymore."

Yes, many are saying this but only to themselves.  Until the American public hears a loud roar and a thunderous chant, and each and all realize they are not alone, they individually will again buckle to their fear, and be afraid of a simple act like reaching out to just two others -- even two others of like mind and thinking -- and talking, just being open and honest about issues that confront all of us but from which we retreat like cowards.

Recognize this . . .

Being paralyzed by fear and hopelessness is a form of "citizen participation".

As is surrender or any other form of capitulation or acknowledging defeat.

It's self-sabotaging but participation no less.

To not act is counter-intuitively an act.

Because to not act is a choice.

And all choices have their consequences.

We will live or die by what those consequences look like.


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



A Look At Some Other Numbers

The “I’ll vote for Jill if you will” Pledge Campaign

Vast numbers of voters are frustrated and angry!  It’s come down to Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump?  Can this be happening?  These are the two most unpopular candidates in the history of presidential elections!

Of course . . . there is an excellent alternative.  But understandably voters are afraid of “throwing their vote away”.

Here’s the solution:  We join together in a person-to-person pledge campaign, the “I’ll vote for Jill if you will” initiative, supporting the presidential bid of Dr. Jill Stein.  And together we’ll elect the first female President of the United States, one who will do a phenomenal job of putting America back on track.  Here’s how . . .



Step 1:   After you take the “I’ll vote for Jill if you will” personal pledge, just let us know by officially signing the petition at one of the sites listed below.  (The petition reads exactly as the pledge does.  We are "petitioning" every registered voter in America to join with us in rejecting the anti-democratic charade the two-party system has become.)

Step 2:   You find two other people who you respect and trust -- friend, neighbor, relative -- let them know about Jill Stein if they don’t already, get them to take the “I’ll vote for Jill if you will” pledge, and make sure they let us know, just as you did, by going to one of the listed sites below to sign the petition.

Step 3:   These two people likewise will each solicit two others to take the pledge and add their names to the growing list of pledge takers.  The new ones will each find two more.

Step 4:   When and only when we reach our target of 50 million pledges, we will vote for Jill Stein.  

Why 50 million?  Because 50 million voters will guarantee a victory by plurality for Jill, thus we will all know with absolute certainty we’re not throwing our votes away, that indeed our votes will go toward electing a great president!

50 million may seem like an impossible goal.  But it’s all in the math.  If one person tells two about this tomorrow, then the following day those two each tell two more, and so on and so on, how many days does it take to get to 50 million?

The answer might surprise you.  2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 . . . believe it or not, in ONLY 27 DAYS, we'll have 67,108,864 pledges!  (Go here for a full explanation.)

It’s the power of numbers!

It’s the power of people!

It’s the power of joining together and declaring:  NO MORE LESSER EVIL VOTING!

Remember, there’s nothing at risk here.  We honor the “I’ll vote for Jill if you will” pledge only if we get to our goal.

On the other hand, there’s an awful lot at stake . . . a better America for ourselves and our children!

It’s up to you.

Take the pledge.  Let us know by signing at one of the petition sites.  Then have two others take the pledge.  Make sure they go to the petition sites as well.  Here are the sites:

Sign at . . . MoveOn.org
Sign at . . . Change.org
Sign at . . . RootsAction.org
Or sign at . . . iPetitions.com

Sorry, Hillary and Donald.  The people will have spoken.

We intend to celebrate Dr. Jill Stein as the 45th President of the United States!



[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



The “I’ll vote for Jill if you will” Pledge Campaign

“P. S. I Love You!”

 

P = Plunder

S = Steal

And yes, the insatiable moguls of the big banks and ravenous Oberführers of the multinational corporations love it!

We're talking about people who don't live and think like most of us.  For these folks, 'more' is never a question.  It's an answer!  The only answer.

When the economy crashed in 2008, largely the result of an orgy of speculation and gross distortion of the investment market by the greed of these banksters and corporate hustlers, they were more than happy to line up to plunder the Federal Reserve to the tune of $16 trillion dollars.  Why not?  Money was like manna falling from the heavens into the accounts of major banks all over the world, so that their addiction to casino capitalism could continue without a pause and set us up for the next catastrophic meltdown.

Besides outright theft of fiat money in the form of capitalization subsidies, at another level the plunder takes the form of a lot of acronyms -- NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP, TTIP, TISA -- and the gutting of any regulatory oversight.  These so-called "free trade" deals just lubricate the wheels for transferring the wealth and political control from the vast majority of citizens -- the ones who actually work a living, producing things of practical value, products which are markedly more substantial and less diabolical than debt leveraging, collateralization, privatization, and monetization -- to the already ultra-wealthy, ultra-powerful elite.

What will they come up with next?

Corporate greed and plutocratic avarice apparently knows no limits.  As if exporting our jobs to sweat shops in China and Bangladesh putting millions of American workers on the streets; gutting our manufacturing base by shuttering 50,000 factories; pursuing hostile takeovers to gain market share and even monopoly control; promoting predatory lending and liars loans to ravage families and small businesses; destroying unions and driving wages down to the point that a person can't survive any longer working a 40-hour work week; yes, as if abusing the enormous resources and financial power of corporations and their brothers in crime, the Wall Street banks, to relegate the average individual during the long working years of his or her life to the status of a serf weren't enough, now the rich are coming after the elderly.  Giving 45 years of your life to serving the "man" no longer means you are allowed to live a decent, comfortable life in your retirement years.  These criminals are now after employee pension funds.  And because any big pile of money is targeted for a P.S. I Love You blitzkrieg, regardless of who it rightfully belongs to, since 1985 using their pay-for-play puppets in Congress they have been raiding the Social Security trust fund.  Did you get that?  TRUST FUND, as in the fund of all of our accumulated contributions toward retirement, set properly aside and protected so that the money would not be used for anything else.  All the money is gone now.  It funded wars, bail-outs, every variety of corporate welfare and fiduciary abuse which has become standard operating procedure. The money the old folks in retirement homes in good faith paid into Social Security over their lives is just another asset for exploitation.

Just so you aren't deluded into thinking that the mountains of money stolen via all of the unprincipled, anti-social, anti-democratic, coldly callous and cruel instruments of wealth extraction the ultra-rich have ruthlessly applied in the past is ever enough, consider this:

Over the past several years, while poverty rates in America continue to increase, while real wages have barely risen and many are forced to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet, using a rather innocent-sounding device called quantitative easing, $3.5 trillion has been created out of thin air and made available to investment banks and our too-big-to-fail menagerie of casino capitalists.

$3,500,000,000,000!

Is there anyone out there who could use $10,000?  How about $1,000?

Actually, $500 would be a big deal for most of us.

Of course, none of the $3.5 trillion trickled down to you and I -- I assume this is not being read by hedge fund CEOs or any other members of the exclusive .1% club -- au contraire! Instead, it trickled up!

A lot of it found its way into offshore accounts and tax havens.

Plundered . . . stolen . . . socked away.

For what?

More yachts?  More vacation homes?  More private jets?

What else can they possibly buy?

Patience now!  Give them time.

Spending trillions of dollars is not easy.

It takes time and energy.

Arrogance and myopia.

Unfeeling and irrepressible selfishness.

A sense of entitlement and a disdain for the less fortunate.

Callousness, irresponsibility and a total lack of decency and compassion.

Fortunately for the rich, they won't have to plunder and steal to get these.

They already have them in great abundance.



[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



“P. S. I Love You!”

TPP . . . just extrapolate and you’ll get it.

 

Because of some trademark or product protectionist agreement or with Bayer, there is no such thing as generic aspirin here in Japan.

They sell aspirin in blister packs, ten to a package, for a little over $8.00 here. As if aspirin is some sort of amazing wonder drug.

Therefore, this bottle which I bought the last time I was in America for $6.99 here in Japan would cost over $240.00!

This is a simple example of how what would appear to be an innocuous patent agreement can dramatically impact the cost and availability of a consumer item.

I bring this up because the public is finally beginning to wake up to the perils of the TPP, a so-called free trade agreement aggressively being promoted by the Obama administration.

The type of arrangement which priced my aspirin in the stratosphere will exponentially expand under TPP.  Of course, this only scratches the surface in terms of the horrifying implications.  TPP is a weapon of mass socio-political devastation.  Here is the entire text.

There are 12 countries included in the TPP:  U.S., Japan, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Chile, Vietnam, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, and Brunei Darussalam, representing 11.3% of the world population and 40% of the total economic activity across the planet.

TPP will affect just about everything bought and sold, used by most of us on a regular basis --  food, clothing, medications, movies, songs, cars, smart phones, furniture -- you name it and TPP will be there with its hairy arms wrapped around it one way or another. 

The TPP trade agreement runs over 5,000 pages.  It's been in formulation and negotiation for over three years.  Until very recently, it has been completely kept from the public eye -- literally it was subject to a top secret classification and anyone even attempting to discuss its details was subject to fines and imprisonment -- which alone should have raised major red flags about its contents.  Parts of it were leaked and then finally the entire text of this burdensome document was released.  Now the worst suspicions of those issuing warnings all along have been confirmed.  There is so much to condemn about this diabolical gift to corporations, we could go on for months detailing its egregious agenda and ruthless grab for power.  Much of the analysis and resulting critique is very technical. Most people can be forgiven for having their eyes glaze over and their attention wander.

I offer my simple anecdotal tale to make this complex issue real and accessible.

I submit it as a typical dose of daily life and hopefully a loud wake-up call.

Corporations do whatever they can to maximize profit . . . period!

Corporations are not community-minded or people-oriented.

Corporations are not loyal to countries or their citizens.

Corporations are not in the business of being nice.

They are only in business to make money.  Anything which stand in the way of making money must be eliminated or changed.

We've had NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, WTO.

TPP is now the last in a long list of systematic efforts to fashion the rules, engineer the marketplace, game the system, load the dice, all in the name of making greater profits.  The TPP is a brilliant, if insidious redesign of the macro-economic regime to favor profit over people, corporations over government, faceless multinational corporate hegemony over local community and citizen control.  Please understand . . .


TPP is not an abstraction. It is a genuine threat.

TPP is the worst trade agreement in history.

TPP will crush people under the weight of corporate greed.

TPP will destroy America as a sovereign nation and a functioning democracy.

TPP will destroy any hope for citizens having a say in the future of this country.

TPP will imprison the 99% and make us permanent slaves of the corporate state.

TPP is misleadingly named the Trans-Pacific Partnership and is being sold as a trade agreement.  It in fact is neither.  It is not a partnership of nations.  Nor is it a mere trade agreement.  Designed by multinational corporations, mostly headquartered in America, it is a supra-national framework for destroying the sovereignty of nations and giving citizens of those nations -- that's you and I -- even less say in the industries and marketplace which produce and make available the items we purchase, including the basic necessities of life.

As workers, it gives us less power to improve our wages and working conditions.  Worker safety will suffer, union organizing will become all but impossible.

As consumers, the quality and safety of everything we buy will be compromised.  It will be a race to the bottom, as any attempt at regulation and requiring transparency is challenged under rules limiting and barring practices which interfere with pursuit of profits.

As members of communities, any and all of our efforts, both local and national regulation of environmental conditions -- meaning he purity and safety of our ground, air, and water -- will come under attack, and all of the progress made to improve the environment over many decades will unravel.

The evil step-sister of TPP is TTIP -- the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership -- a nearly identical regime of corporate tyranny targeting the 28 nations of the European Union which is simultaneously under negotiation and aggressively being promoted by our self-described "progressive" president.

Greenpeace just managed to leak 13 of 17 chapters of the most recent version of TTIP.

There have been massive demonstrations and riots going on in Europe against TTIP for quite some time now.  The release of the text of TTIP has heightened tensions even more.

U.S. citizens might just want to ask themselves:  What's all the fuss about?





[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



TPP . . . just extrapolate and you’ll get it.





 

The BS Challenge

 

While I disagree with Bernie Sanders on a host of important policy issues, I will certainly give credit where it's due.

The man admirably has raised the awareness of the American public on critical challenges to the American way of life -- like income inequality, corporate malfeasance, the plundering of the working and middle classes by Wall Street and the 1%, the corruption of our democracy by the Citizens United decision and unprecedented influx of money into electoral politics.

There is now real talk of major reform.  The word "revolution" is being floated.

Perhaps more laudably, Sanders has said that the movement fueled by his presidential campaign must go on with or without him.  If he is drummed out of the election by the Machiavellian apparatus of the Democratic Party, or if he loses to Trump or Cruz or which ever imbecile the Republicans nominate, we shouldn't give up. We must fight on for what he stands for and for the vision of America he has presented.

Bravo!  This is excellent advice.

But let me make a point I've made repeatedly to a deafening silence.  Even if Bernie does win, we must fight for what he stands for and the vision of America he has presented, and this fight goes way beyond just getting him into the White House.

Translation:  If Obama with majorities of both houses of Congress on his side couldn't get anything "revolutionary" done, with the current complexion of the House and Senate what chance does a Sanders presidency have?  (I really don't want to get into why Obama failed. I have my own rather extreme take on that.  It's not relevant.  My point is still valid.)

Let me also offer my solution.

Let me offer it as a challenge to all of you Bernie supporters, because I know you are way above average intelligence, well-read and versed in history, informed and armed with a deeper understanding of the realities of our political system.

If you folks are really feeling the Bern, then you need to build on your enthusiasm and support for Bernie and take it to a whole new level.  This means transforming Congress into something allied with and totally supportive of the "Bernie Sanders revolution".

This accords with his entire vision for remaking America, is true to the selfless spirit of his campaign, and assures genuine progress -- WITH OR WITHOUT HIM!

If he gets elected, he gets a Congress he can work with.

If he doesn't get elected, the thrust and wisdom of his vision continues, promoted by those leading the charge in our legislative bodies.

So here's the plan.

District by district, state by state, we give an ultimatum to every single candidate running for Congress in the 2016 election.  Every single candidate for the House and Senate.

EITHER YOU'RE WITH BERNIE OR YOU'RE AGAINST HIM.

If you're with Bernie, you get our votes.

If you're against Bernie, you don't.

And if you're against Bernie, we'll find someone else -- independent, Green Party, greeter at Walmart, homeless guy on a freeway ramp.

Because ANYONE WOULD BE BETTER THAN YOU!

Am I being clear here?

Now we get to the nuts-and-bolts.  And I sincerely apologize for this article being so long. But I can't fashion this into a short and snappy meme.

I've been pushing this idea for four years.  It has not caught on.  I accept responsibility.  Perhaps my writing is deficient.  The reason for my prior failure is not important.

As just explained above, we set up a showdown -- a line in the sand.  We confront every candidate in the 2016 federal election with a simple, easily-grasped choice. 

"You're either with us or against us."

How do we do that?

We give them a contract to sign.

Either they sign it and get our vote.

Or they don't sign it and they don't get our vote.

This is how you reform the Democratic Party or get the scum out of the running!

Here's the contract.

---

(Note: This is written for a candidate campaigning for the House of Representatives.  Obviously, it can easily be reconfigured for a Senatorial candidate.)

I, [Name of Candidate], if elected to a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, hereby commit to sponsor and vote in favor of legislation for all of the following:

• Raising the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour.
• Reforming tax regulations to stop corporations from shifting their profits and jobs overseas to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Establishing a progressive estate tax on the top 0.3 percent of Americans who inherit more than $3.5 million.
• Enacting a transaction tax on Wall Street speculative trading.
• Investing $1 trillion over five years towards rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, railways, airports, public transit systems, ports, dams, wastewater plants, and other infrastructure needs.
• Creating 1 million jobs for disadvantaged young Americans by investing $5.5 billion in a youth jobs program.
• Making tuition free at public colleges and universities throughout America.
• Expanding Social Security by lifting the cap on taxable income above $250,000.
• Increase benefits by at least 10% for all eligible recipients.
• Establishing healthcare as a right of citizenship by enacting a Medicare for all single-payer healthcare system.
• Requiring employers to provide at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave; two weeks of paid vacation; and 7 days of paid sick days.
• Enacting a universal childcare and prekindergarten program.
• Making it easier for workers to join unions by fighting for the Employee Free Choice Act.
• Breaking up huge financial institutions so that they are no longer too big to fail.

I will not resist, discourage, or in any manner put up an impediment to, and in fact will publicly and on the floor of the House of Representatives actively promote, any and all legislation in support of these measures. If no other legislator comes forth to propose such individual pieces of legislation, I will create and introduce by my own initiative, within 90 days of taking office, legislative acts for all of the foregoing, for consideration by Congress.

I further understand and fully agree to the following: If I violate the above-stated terms of this agreement, I will tender on the 91st day after taking the oath of office for my legislative seat, my full and unqualified resignation from this elected position. Moreover, within one year of my resignation, I will refund all contributions made by individual donors in support of my candidacy for this office.

This entire agreement constitutes a legally binding contract between myself and that class of citizens who will be my constituents, should I win the upcoming election. In the event that I fail to perform the above-required actions, redress may be sought by those same citizens in the form of a class-action suit in a civil court of law, and I will be liable for a minimum of $10,000,000 damages for breach of contract. If I fail to resign from office due to my failure to fulfill the other requirements of this contract or similar contracts, I may be liable for an additional class-action settlement for an amount not less than $50,000,000. No portion of these specified settlements may be paid from campaign donations, PACs or SuperPACs.

I sign this contract voluntarily and with full appreciation of my responsibility to the citizens of the [Name of Congressional District] should they choose me as their elected representative. I accept the terms of this document as legally binding, and with a thorough and lucid understanding of its requirements and consequences.

Signed: ________________

Date: _________________

---

Let me tell you why this will work.

First, we'll know who's serious about reform and who's not.  Talk is cheap.  If a candidate signs the contract, we'll know he or she is serious.  Because . . .

Second, if they've signed on the dotted line, when they report for work in Washington DC, they will have to deliver on everything they agreed to in writing in the contract.

Not just because it's a contract.  But because it would be political suicide if they didn't.

I won't elaborate.  You're smart people.  Think about it.

In closing, I find it inspiring and heartening that Mr. Sanders is doing what he's doing.

I hope that his supporters will have the energy and foresight to build on the awakening that seems to be occurring in this country.  I hope they will dedicate themselves to putting in place elected representatives who truly represent, who are serious about turning this country around, advancing an America which serves all of us, not just a privileged few.

Yes, I put this forth as a challenge.

It's really quite simple . . .

Cheer leading and hero-worship are the easy part.

Revolution is hard work.

Bernie got the ball rolling.

Are you prepared to do some heavy-lifting?

Or is Chris Hedges right? . . .

Is this just more BS along the historical road to disintegration and collapse?



[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]





The BS Challenge

The Real Debt Ceiling

 
Sovereign debt and its corollary, the federal debt ceiling, is arguably an illusion. These operate in a macro context where valuation of wealth and debt are essentially illusions, or at the very least, manageable artifices.

What is not at all manageable, however, is internal debt and wealth inequality. Why? Because in the internal workings of our economy __ and those of most of the developed countries of the world __ ownership and control of wealth are reinforced by rigid and unforgiving legal authority. As is becoming increasingly evident, the laws of this country now serve a very wealthy elite __ a tiny slice of our 318,000,000 people __ at the expense of everyone else.



This is not the 1%.

We're talking about the .1% and the .01% __ about 30,000 people __ the rich and powerful who actually run the country.

These are the folks you and I never see, because we can't get within fifty miles of them.

These are the people who operate in a bubble of incomprehension, so detached from the realities of our "ordinary" lives, the basics of survival are about as apparent to them as the emotional life of a Cambodian weaver ant is to you and I.

These are the folks who will repossess your car, foreclose on your home, garnish your pay when you fall behind on your student loan, make it impossible to get an apartment or job for the horrible crime of falling behind on your credit card bills.

They own.

We owe.

Home mortgage debt: $8.17 trillion.

Credit card debt: $3.34 trillion.

College loans: $1.2 trillion.

Auto loans: $955 billion.

Home equity loans: $550 billion.

Total household debt: $13.6 trillion!

The astonishing thing about all of this is that in the wealthiest nation in the world, none of this debt slavery is necessary. There is enough wealth to go around. We could all have the security and basic right to a minimum guaranteed income, a shared sense of community and country which would materialize from sharing our enormous resources and riches.

The ultra-rich could still live in splendor. After all, beyond a certain point, accumulation of money has no impact on the individual life style of a human being, no matter how absurdly rapacious that person is. More money just becomes a pathological numbers game.

How many Bentleys, private jets, wading pools full of caviar, diamond cuff links the size of grapefruits can you own?

I've referenced this in a prior blog. But it's worth reviewing.

To spend the Koch brothers incomprehensible fortune at $10,000 per day, it would take almost 28,000 years __ it would be 29,394 C.E. when you finished your shopping spree.

Spending one million dollars a day, it would take 214 years to go through the monumental wealth of Gates.

The fortune of the Walton family __ owners of Wal-Mart __ totals more that the bottom 42% of Americans. One family has more money than 134,000,000 people.

This is insane.

This is the system we have in place.

This is what the laws of this country have cemented into our national landscape.

Wealth inequality on this level is inhumane and grotesque.

Worst of all __ and the subject of a whole other blog __ the economic infrastructure which locks in this kind of excessive capital aggregation is destroying our planet, and may lead to human extinction. I can't improve on Naomi Klein's lucid exposition of this, so I won't try.

Just taking the narrow view of the social consequences, and the destructive impact wealth inequality has had on our democracy, we need to ask ourselves . . .

Is this sustainable?

One great thing about a rhetorical question is that the answer is so obvious, you don't have to answer it.

But we certainly need to do something about it . . . before it's too late.

Other than a handful of legislators __ Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren certainly are talking about it __ and our president who gives lip service to this critical issue, there is no one in public life who is serious about addressing this threat to our existence as a nation.

No one!

Just about everyone in elected office __ to a man, to a woman __ needs to go.

Stuffing them all in a massive launch vehicle for a mission to Mars might be too drastic. But getting them out of office and replacing them with officials who represent the needs and values of every American __ not just the privileged elite __ is not.

Just do it.

__________________________________________________________

 

"Candidate Contracts: Taking Back Our Democracy" is now available . . .

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[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]