I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career. We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.
Those are the words of George Soros, speaking to Newsweek recently, or so my link says. The billionaire financier who is so feared by the right wing, known to finance such subversive undertakings as Wikipedia and Adbusters. As perhaps the only billionaire who is engaged in proactive movement politics, he is naturally demonized, thought to sleep every day under the bed of Ingamar Johansen before venturing out on moonless nights to destroy capitalism, turn women into lesbians, and promote witchcraft.
“The collapse of the Soviet system was a pretty extraordinary event, and we are currently experiencing something similar in the developed world, without fully realizing what’s happening.
Except that so many people on the margins do realize what’s going on. We are re-inflating the bubble, overextending the military, encircling ourselves with enemies of our own making. Collapse is not only imminent, but for rest of the planet, perhaps welcome.
For Americans, Soros predicts riots and civil unrest, and that as a result it
… will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.
In the wake of the Obama-supported NDAA, which allows willy-nilly disappearance of American citizens (not kidding here – the act actually uses the expression “willy-nilly”), Sen Joe Lieberman and Rep Charles Dent are pushing the Enemy Expatriation Act through Congress. Under this act, the executive will also be able to willy-nilly revoke citizenship without trial, removing constitutional protections from anyone that the executive might think a threat.
Taxing the rich “…shouldn’t be a difficult argument for Obama to make,” according to Soros, but he oddly could not make that argument, even when he had full control of Congress behind him. Sure, he’ll talk the talk now that he’s in campaign mode, but past is prologue. This guy is not our friend.
Optimism!
In the crisis period, the impossible becomes possible. The European Union could regain its luster. I’m hopeful that the United States, as a political entity, will pass a very severe test and actually strengthen the institution.
Seven percent of Americans now live below half of the poverty line, and there are four unemployed Americans for each job. As Ed Tom Bell might say, if this ain’t a depression, it’ll do till one gets here.
Piece of Mindful 
After losing a long strike in 1867, the miners were whipped. They had lost everything, and dejectedly went back to work for shit wages. Their families were dying off from lack of food. And hence, a miner’s ballad from that time. It’s where we are today. We have lost, but we did so without fighting back like the our ancestors.
Well, we’ve been beaten, beaten all to smash
And now, sir, we’ve begun to feel the lash,
As wielded by a gigantic corporation,
Which ran the commonwealth and ruins the nation.
LikeLike
It’s over, fini, done. Now, the only thing left to worry about is how much shit you can cause the dirty bastards on the way out. I prefer a lot.
LikeLike
The “working class,” “middle class,” or whatever categorical definition one prefers, has been bled like a bunch of medieval plague victims for decades now. Both vote in droves for the respective party that bleeds them and buries them. Nothing can make the “victims” see what’s being done to them. These are the only animals left on the planet that have lost both — fight, or flight — god-given instincts to survive threats to their continued existence. My question: Is this “class” pure fiction? Why would anyone continue to care so much about class anyway when facing the real prospect of ignorance, hunger and enslavement?
Janice said it years ago:
“Mercedes Benz”
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV ?
Dialing For Dollars is trying to find me.
I wait for delivery each day until three,
So oh Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV ?
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a night on the town ?
I’m counting on you, Lord, please don’t let me down.
Prove that you love me and buy the next round,
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a night on the town ?
Everybody!
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends,
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
That’s it!
LikeLike
From Songfacts.
In the ’90s, Mercedes used this in commercials for their cars. It was one of the great misappropriations of a song in a commercial, as Joplin’s song was meant to convey the message that owning a luxury automobile does not make you a better person. Joplin’s step-sister owned the rights to the song and allowed Mercedes to use it.
Janis Joplin never got a Mercedes Benz, but she did have a 1965 Porsche that was painted to become a piece of hippie art.
LikeLike
A people who had to fight to become independent must not relinquish this independence without fighting. Those who are cowards and renounce their freedom will not find the strength to gain it back under more favorable circumstances. Those who are brave never think that a war is hopeless. Being brave is not only a matter of an individual’s courage when he faces danger but to the same extent a matter of the expertise that he has gained through hard work, pain, and sacrifices to boost his self-confidence. We must acquire this expertise by working constantly and consistently. We lack combat experience. Hence, we shall hold our own against a battle-tried opponent only if we learn what is relevant from developments (in the war abroad) and then apply our insights with extensive training. — Lieutenant General Herbert Constam, “Instructions on Combat Tactics,” January 1941. Quoted in Stephen Halbrook’s The Swiss and the Nazis, page 151.
LikeLike
Ingemar,
And how do you propose to first awaken the troops, drunk on cheap Wal-Mart goods made in China? I think one thing Osama understood, and we do not yet comprehend, is that the world does not respond to conventional battle tactics. Egypt and Chile know what we misunderstand.
LikeLike
Blue light special of American made guns, ammo and reloading supplies?
LikeLike
No difference between Mitt and Barry.
LikeLike
That’s a great clip, not even a non sequitur. You’re having a lucid interval!
He said he was a useful idiot “in the view of his fellow hedge fund” people, or a traitor to his class. Since the whole of economic theory underlying low taxes is bullshit marinated in hogwash, he’s not at all an idiot, and is greatly useful to the 99%.
To understand politics better, it might help you to view Obama as a dog on a leash. It’s 2012, he’s up for reelection, Wall Street is his biggest backer, so he is allowed to say the stuff he is saying about taxes. not a word of it is genuine.
If you simply remove names and parties from the activities in DC over the last three years, you cannot tell which party is in power. That is what you really need help in understanding.
LikeLike
When I saw it I knew it had “Mark” written all over it.
LikeLike