Comments by Alice X - Chomsky Nader
Crony Capitalism starts with and ends with those in power who deliver to their clients.
The government of the US is a money laundering cartel to the Oligarchy.
What the hell are you talking about here?
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
You persist in revisiting the crimes of history gone by.
And thereby changing the subject from the here and now.
But let's join the the two
We have an Empire. Empires establish dominion through violence. They maintain dominion through violence.
We should be talking about the violence of this Empire.
Since WWII the United States has overthrown 30 democratically elected governments.
It is the greatest purveyor of state terrorism in the world.
As an Empire it exists to further the interests of its most global reaching affluent.
This has numerous precedents in history, since you seem so inclined.
For the English, the elements of the colonial elite ultimately superseded the landed aristocrats but then were superseded themselves.
Throughout history, Empires are inevitably overthrown.
Every Empire in history has been overthrown.
In the Academy award winning film, the King's Speech, the old Imperialist himself said in proclaiming resistance to the contemporary German Imperial onslaught that we will resist might makes right.
They gave the film an academy award but I was fucking falling out of my seat (I was only there because of my sweetie who is an English language academic). A phrase resisting might makes right from the Imperial Majesty of the Empire that slaughtered brown people by the millions was an irony I could not abide.
Gibbons question of the Roman Empire was not that it fell, but how did it last so long.
We are going to be no different, except in our longevity, which in the scale of history is going to be rather brief.
What are we going to do to effect the well being of our own citizens.
Marx wrote of the English Capitalists though he never used the term.
He was the most detailed commentator of the excesses of greed in his time. His thinking is still very relevant.
I part company with his notions of the state.
A full expression therein is for another time.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
There are many crimes of history. Even the Nazis were taken aback by the Japanese vis a vis Nanking.
But they got over it and went on to even more ignominious atrocities.
What are you saying?
We have drones killing innocent people flown by suburban kids turned murderers. Kids that were raised playing video games shooting make believe aliens.
Now they shoot human beings.
There are your games turned deadly lethal.
Search your humanity, will you please!
This is an empire run amok and turning in on itself.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Imperialism is not just a name, it is a concept.
Why do we have those bases, not for our national defense but at the behest of our global corporations.
When Germany sailed its battleships into Manila harbor in the early 20th century it was at the behest of their corporate interests.
That is what Imperialism is about.
You need to think this stuff through.
But then (and here is a real name), I consider you a Democratic Party Operative.
So there, take that courtesy of my intellectual heft.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.
Vladimir Lenin
Unfortunately for the Russians, Lenin kept the Czars secret police, and used them, capitalist rope or no.
There is another quote, by Bakunin:
Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness.
And yet another from Bakunin:
When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick."
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Ron, if you haven't read David Sirota's piece.
Who’s a real progressive?
Obama and Paul both hold positions anathema to liberals. Voters need to choose which ones to overlook
It is thought provoking. I recommend it.
But my subtitle would have been, CHOOSE YOUR POISON CAREFULLY!
When Ron Paul says he is against corporate welfare and the MICC, why not take him at face value?
I give him credit for saying those things because no one else is saying them.
But on social issues his blood is as cold as the rest of the reptiles.
I wouldn't vote for him. But then I wouldn't vote for Obama. I didn't vote for Obama last time.
When he flipped on FISA I knew he was a corporate tool and wouldn't prosecute any of the fat cats.
That has proved to be true. No war criminal prosecutions. No financial criminal prosecutions.
Only vigorous prosecutions of whistle blowers.
Last time I voted for the socialist. I stick with my principles.
I have to believe Abby finds resonance with the positive in Paul and overlooks the rest.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
alerta_alerta has attacked me repeatedly.
Sometimes officially deleted even before I have a chance to read it.
Though I don't have anyone on my ignore list.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Our government is a money laundering cartel.
From the essay The Predator State of 2006, precursor to the likewise titled book.
Galbraith:
Today, the signature of modern American capitalism is neither benign competition, nor class struggle, nor an inclusive middle-class utopia. Instead, predation has become the dominant feature—a system wherein the rich have come to feast on decaying systems built for the middle class. The predatory class is not the whole of the wealthy; it may be opposed by many others of similar wealth. But it is the defining feature, the leading force. And its agents are in full control of the government under which we live.
Our rulers deliver favors to their clients. These range from Native American casino operators, to Appalachian coal companies, to Saipan sweatshop operators, to the would-be oil field operators of Iraq. They include the misanthropes who led the campaign to abolish the estate tax; Charles Schwab, who suggested the dividend tax cut of 2003; the “Benedict Arnold” companies who move their taxable income offshore; and the financial institutions behind last year’s bankruptcy bill. Everywhere you look, public decisions yield gains to specific private entities.
For in a predatory regime, nothing is done for public reasons. Indeed, the men in charge do not recognize that “public purposes” exist. They have friends, and enemies, and as for the rest—we’re the prey. Hurricane Katrina illustrated this perfectly, as Halliburton scooped up contracts and Bush hamstrung Kathleen Blanco, the Democratic governor of Louisiana. The population of New Orleans was, at best, an afterthought; once dispersed, it was quickly forgotten.
This is the third Bush term.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Where will you find a court not in on the con?
Maybe you will, but it will end up before the Supremes and then your jig will be up.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Look forward, not back. This is an election year, time for maximum spin and its doctors.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
As regards your fact based world.
The Democrats and Republicans have morphed multiple times in history.
The Republican Teddy Roosevelt was considered a progressive. After leaving office and thus the Presidency to Taft he was unhappy with the results. He decided to run again but was too late to challenge Taft as a Republican. We formed his own party and ended 2nd to Wilson of the Jim Crow Democrats.
The Wilson Democrats won again 1916 with the pledge to stay out of the war but then with Creel Commission started a propaganda campaign to turn the anti-war public into rabidly anti-Germans.
Afterwards came the first Red Scare and Palmer raids held by the Democrats.
Do you think going back one hundred years vindicates or vilifies either party unfairly. Facts are facts.
FDR started off in the Great Depression started in a moderate and unsuccessful way.
It was socialist candidacy of Upton Sinclair for governor of California that really moved the Democrats to the left. They have been shifting back every since.
In 1933they passed Glass-Steagall, in 1935 Social Security, Welfare, Unemployment, the WPA and the Wagner Act which brought the US into the modern age of labor law.
But then came WWII. The WPA was disbanded. After the war Truman was slow to deal with the great employment downdraft and the Republicans took the Congress in 1948.
They passed the National Security Act which established the MICC as a jobs program, Truman signed it.
They passed the Taft Hartley Act which repealed part of the Wagner act and allowed so called right to work state laws. Truman vetoed it, he was overridden.
The Dems have talked about but never done anything about Taft Hartley.
In the 60's The Dems passed the Civil Rights act, Medicare and Medicaid and funded the Vietnam War.
They held the Congress during Watergate but Ford's pardon ended the rule of law.
The Church Committee in response to revealed CIA abuses established the FISA court.
So I could go on but let's jump to the 90s and Bill Clinton's DLC Democrats, because with the DLC they lost their soul.
Clinton ends Welfare.
In 1999 he repealed Glass Steagall setting the stage for recent collapse.
In 2000 he overturns the State Bucket shop laws of 1907.
His FBI has Canivore project which was the precursor to Bush's massive surveillance program. Obama said he would fight the FISA revamp and retroactive immunity, when the fight came he folded and went with the passage.
The Dems fell in line for the Patriot Act, for the AUMF, for the FISA scandal. For the Bank bailouts, for the renewal of the Bush now Obama tax cuts and for the NDAA. The last which authorized indefinite detention.
And of course Obama has claimed the authority to assassinate even American citizens. Something that he has already done.
He is conducting a drone war which is killing innocent people.
So my point is, from my fact filled world, what positive things in history vindicate the current moral bankruptcy of both parties.
Nothing.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
How about we end the Empire?
The MICC and perpetual war?
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
This site is mainly about the stupid things that Republicans say, and there is never a shortage there.
Too bad you don't recognize how corrupt and morally bankrupt the Democrats are.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
it's a radical left-wing website
Your title says leftist but you quote him as saying left-wing.
What can I say, don't I wish.
I do my best being a radical leftist as I am.
Radical, ie looking for fundamental and thorough reform resulting in, vis á vis Leftist, economic and social equality, of opportunity, of results.
I'm guilty your honor.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
You keep changing the subject because your arguments are specious.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
