All the ancient and the modern authorities knew that a large middle class is essential. Extremes of wealth in the hands of a few can threaten democratic process, and extremes of poverty remove people from the normal polity and can threaten order. (Bernard Crick, 1929 – 2008)
We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both. (Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1856 -1941)
That’s all right. These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one. (Peter Clemenza, The Godfather Part I)
Note that the two of the three men above lived through the Great Depression and the New Deal. The whole situation in Wisconsin (along with many other places) is troubling, but as Clemenza reminds us, it’s gotta happen. Just substitute every thirty years for ten.
This stuff needs to come to the surface. We need to have this fight. It’s been simmering underneath for years. Governor Walker and the radicals who took the reins in so many places in 2010 need to be exposed. They are mere useful idiots for the oligarchy, those wealthy people who hate working people and democratic governance in general.
This is easily seen: This fight started in 1980 with wealthy people setting in motion the reduction of their taxes via Reagan. Extrapolate from there: If they don’t believe that we have a right to tax them, it only follows that we don’t have rights to restrain them in other ways as well, as with unions in general, regulations on campaign spending, use of taxes to help people in any form. Since voting can take away what they regard as sacred privilege, it only follows that democratic rule is their enemy.
The key event in the 1980 movement was 9/11, which released the beast of fascism from his cage. After that day, right wingers of the ugliest nature slowly rose to power. Couple that with the retreat of the Democrats, who were never much good anyway. Radicals and revolutionaries, formerly known as Birchers, Klansmen, militiamen and Randians, have come to power. With Citizens United in place, they are going for broke. Walker is a radical, but is also a puppet on a string held by oligarchs. He’s a true believer, and a fool.
These wild men are always in the wings. We seem to have to deal with them in thirty-year increments. That’s about the time it takes for a generation to pass. Reagan came to power in 1980 due to former Democrats who left the party to vote for him. These are the “Reagan Democrats.” Left behind were the “New Deal Democrats,” the people who had already learned the lessons we are about to learn again. They slowly died off, and we are left now with no wisdom from the past save that preserved in the 5% minority called the “progressives”, or Naderites, as I prefer.
Governor Walker will be voted out, maybe even recalled, as will his fellow travelers. The question is whether the courts will stand to help us, or whether they too are politicized. Certainly if all of this conflict makes its way to the Roberts Court, unions will go down in flames nationally.
Then the battle starts all over again.
I don’t like to speak in terms of violence, but it is going to be violent, one way or the other. Walker now has it in his power to unilaterally take people off Medicaid, and so innocent people will die as a result due to lack of health care. That is violence. His use of unchecked power to spring the great surprise on Wisconsin is a form of overbearing coercion. Each of these moves will engender reaction.
The game is afoot. It’s time again to fight. Do we have it in us? Do we, punks?
Piece of Mindful 
I was BORN ready for this fight! It’s time, time to redeem ourselves, we Boomers! We had our fun. We had a great run. And now we’re old, and all this fascist bullshit happened on OUR watch. NO ONE knows these no good bastards better than we do. We grew UP with them as our “leaders”. And NO ONE has a bigger score to settle with these pieces of shit than WE do!
They STOLE our country from us! They killed Kennedy, and committed a coup. THAT was the beginning! Thereby resulting in untold suffering, death, and destruction to our country and the world. In other words, they unleashed EVIL upon us!
So yeah, what are we gonna do about it? Well, I say let’s KICK SOME FASCIST ASS! Starting with those no good Bircher Kock brothers! I hold them PERSONALLY accountable for much of it! Then, the Bush crime family is right in their too! And Murdoch? He’s an evil criminal needing a BIG TIME asswhupin’ of his Limey ass!
It us incumbent upon us to right this mess before making our exit. It’s the least we can do. Hell, they stole our future from US! And I say we get it BACK for those that follow! So, yeah, I’m MORE than ready to rumble! We must ALL come together one more time, a giant ASSWHOOPIN’ WOODSTOCK, to take the fascists down! Viet Vet and protester, union man and working poor, men and women, hippy and redneck. Black white! We must UNITE and get’er done!
Therefore, I’m forming the Gray Panthers! We’re old, bold, and a sight to behold! We’ve got NUTHIN’ to lose! Hell, we’re pret near dead ANYway! And we always DID enjoy a good party! All you fascist bastards better watch out! You ride with a nazi, you DIE with a nazi!
We are legion
We don’t forget
We don’t forgive
EXPECT us!
We DON’T forget that you bastards stole killed OUR dreamers, John, Bobby, Martin, and Malcom, and replaced Camelot with Bushalot and the CIA! Not acceptable! We can’t forgive that!
We’re comin’, and if you know what’s best for you, you’ll leave the field of battle now! We’re givin’ you fair warning. It’s the decent thing to do. We’re takin’ our country back, and we’ll come either WITH our shields or ON them! It’s the 300, baby!
We be bad! We be bad! We be your worst nightmare!
And Mark, for your reading pleasure, this is really good. It’s really long, but skip the stuff you don’t need. It’s ALL in there.
Click to access NaziHydra.pdf
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Don’t know how to tell you this, but JFK was not a saint and not a martyr. He was killed by Carlos Marcello. There’s a bit of class snobbishness within the oligarchy – they usually do not kill their own. If they were so intent on removing JFK from office, all they needed do was expose his love life, which was well known within those circles.
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Sorry, but I’m not buyin’ that one. BTW, never heard that one before. Where did you see that?
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Check back tomorrow – I’ll give you some food for thought. Tonight I’m beat.
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“‘Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed. I’m glad I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself!” (Carlos Marcello, 1985)
Read the book Legacy of Secrecy by LaMar Waldron. It’s like 900 pages, came out in 2009. Oliver Stone emphasized in his movie that JFK wanted to get us out of Vietnam, and that is why he was killed. It makes sense if one ignores the temper of those times – Vietnam was hardly on his radar. He was after Cuba.
After he was killed, there was indeed a cover-up, and high officials, including CIA, FBI, Warren and LBJ were involved. That is the confusing part, why so many people think they were part of a cabal. They had their reasons, good reasons actually. But it will be 50 years in 2013, and the reasons don’t stand anymore.
Interesting … if you are interested in presidents removed from office because they threatened oligarchic power, you might want to read Russ Baker’s “Family of Secrets,” about the Bush’s. Baker is just skimming the surface, and there is much to know there, but I’ve never bought the premise of Watergate. As with Clinton and Monica, it all smells of a setup.
Anyway, far from wanting to get us out of Vietnam, JFK was secretly bombing Cambodia, escalating that conflict. Things ain’t so cut and dried as you make them out to be.
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“‘Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed. I’m glad I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself!” (Carlos Marcello, 1985)
Pretty thin gruel.
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Marcello was unknowingly speaking to an FBI informant in 1985 while imprisoned in Louisiana or somewhere. He’s on tape.
And of course it’s pretty thin, and if that is all there was, I’d not have brought it up. I was curious for years about JFK and who killed him, jumping from one theory to another. There’s quite a story behind Marcello, far more than this one quote, but I’m not going to bother with details. Seek them out yourself.
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