New Zealand’s Ian Miller, an esteemed commenter, says:
“Patrice, you seem to be against the American way of life. Horrors! It has always been like this… Now you cannot get anywhere near power without the expenditure of massive amounts of money, so your friendly plutocrats are a necessity. As an aside, I do not admire this way of doing things at all, and I feel that America would do better by cleaning up its own system than trying to impose “democracy” on others. As for the “progressives”, in that system of entrenched interests, how could they possibly change anything?”
Let me answer Ian’s main points. First a graph and a question: if Americans own nothing are they still Americans?
No Wealth, No Power, No Democracy
[If the graph was extended to the left, in earlier times, one would observe the richest Americans used to be not even half as rich, for the first 130 years of the USA. The wealthiest European 2%, in feudal times, that is the aristocracy, used to be about as rich as they are now, relatively speaking! Under Obama, the lines have strongly crossed the .1%, the very wealthiest, are richest than ever. No wonder even the “blacks” refused to vote for Obabla this time!]
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“Patrice, you seem to be against the American way of life”:
I don’t know what the American way of life is. In 1940, the population of the USA was around 120 million. In 1980, it was around 250 million, and now it is around 330 million (there are 11 million Obama wants to make official; some objects).
Since I got to California, the population more than doubled. So what is California? Many of the recent immigrants are desperate to exhibit their Americaness, and are more American than the (“real”) Americans. So they go around, barely speaking English, and exhibiting the flags of the local “Baseball” team. They just arrived from Cuba, and the nine year old son spends (wastes) his weekend in “Baseball” practice.
“Baseball”, being a completely uninteresting activity, is perfect to judge the dedication of overseas self-propelled slaves at becoming thoroughly “American”…
There are many American way of lives, and American ways of thinking and feeling. . Many Americans, even in California, even born there, are dirt poor. Then you can meet people who immigrated from Germany or France to Silicon Valley, made a small fortune, and are now dejected, because they complain there are too many Asians, too many too rich Asians, competitive too much, educated too much, Asian too much…
The Silicon Valley, the USA’s main engine, is, first of all, an international phenomenon. I would even say a post-national phenomenon. The USA is a world-country.
However, simultaneously, plutocracy is growing, and Obama is its prophet (now past expiration date).
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“Horrors! It has always been like this.”
Yes and no. True, Washington was from a prestigious colonial family (an ancestor had been general, etc). However, English America, after the “Barbarian Years” of endured servitude, did not present the sort of gigantic gap in wealth observed today.
Colonel, and then rebel and president Washington was pretty demoniac, and a plutocrat in that sense. Washington finished as maybe the richest man in the USA. However, he owned only 200 slaves or so, and his fortune paled, and was even insignificant, relative to the richest Europeans. Tolstoy was probably richer. The Tsar owned things all the way to America.
The first American billionaire was Carnegie, and he was to the left of the entire Democratic Party. Actually he was so much left, and persuasive, that the first generation of American plutocrat was genuinely philanthropic.
One can say that, for half of its life, the USA was strongly democratic (barring racial slavery, and religious, sexual discriminations).
The USA had, initially, a very strong unionized workforce.
Plutocracy became powerful in the USA, after the USA flew to the rescue of victory in 1918. I have explained this in detail in the distant past (I should have written a book from these essays, but did not find the time!) Basically the sacred union between politics and plutocrats allowed to first confiscate, and then control, Germany. The result was Nazism, which, fortunately, but not accidentally, for the USA, and its plutocrats, ran out of control, devastating Europe, and allowing them to control the entire world. For a while, a succession of presidents (FDR, Truman, Ike, JFK, Johnson) was able to shield the USA from its own plutocracy.
But Nixon changed all that, as he remade the healthcare system and put plutocrats such as his friend Kaiser (well named!) in charge, thanks to subsidies. After that, it was all the way down.
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“Now you cannot get anywhere near power without the expenditure of massive amounts of money, so your friendly plutocrats are a necessity.”
That was Obama’s trite excuse. That’s why he spent his presidency begging the wealthy. Actually it’s a stratagem, so he will be rich thereafter, like Clintons. (And very differently from Truman, an ex-Senator, who lived extremely modestly after his presidency. When asked why he did not cash on his career, he replied that it was a question of dignity of the office.)
When Obama got to power, everything could be done, the situation was ideal. However, the head of the “Democratic” Party was 100% rotten. All they could say, was that they needed the Republicans to agree. At that point, progressives ought to have gone in the streets, and protest. But they did not, because they had not enough education to know what was wrong, and not enough passion to care.
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“…I feel that America would do better by cleaning up its own system than trying to impose “democracy” on others.”
Yes and no. If one had not intervened in Syria, or Ukraine, one would have encouraged Putin to become Hitler some more. In Libya, it was important to take the mad Khadafy down. (I know it’s a mess, but I have explained for years, one has to get rid of Islam as a political force, and this is part of it; the Punic and Berber civilization that is 3,000 years old, has more rights than the Islamists, whom I detest as much as Middle Age Catholics.)
Earth is a very small planet, not one of these aqueous giant Neptunes just discovered. We are all neighbors. Although I am pro-Iranian, I am against Iran getting nukes, because it would be nuke state too far. Many Iranians, even in the government, probably feel this, and they are delighted the P5 + 1 group is contracting the Iranian government on this (the We The People of Iran, ill-informed, want nukes, not reflecting that just one nuke can take Teheran out, killing ten millions).
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“As for the “progressives”, in that system of entrenched interests, how could they possibly change anything?”
As I have said many times, the “Progressive Movement” has to think, and feel right, first. The problem of “progressives” all around the world (not just the EU and the USA), is that they do not have a clear, logical wish list.
Many “progressives” are fanatically anti-nuclear. But there is no solution to the CO2 Armageddon without nukes: known nukes… for example Thorium, or Fusion. Armageddon is around the corner, and it will not be progress (at least, not the easy way). OK, we are incredibly lucky that the Sun is getting quiet. See my 2009 essay:
Many “progressives” are completely unaware of the fabulous heist of 2008=2009. They are like babes, and their meal was stolen by financial plutocrats, and they do not have enough knowledge of even know that!
“Austerity”, truly more and more theft by the richest, is stealing their jobs, their futures, their hopes, and soon, everything else.
I made hard changes myself. When I discovered Obama had turned to the Dark Side (for help, advice, hope and shelter), I got literally depressed (fortunately I am a mountain runner, and that can be even more depressing, when the night comes, and the cold, and thunder).
It’s enlightening to follow Paul Krugman’s evolving thinking; the more time goes, the more he comes my way, away from plutocrats, towards “Synthesis Found: Governmentalism”(hence Krugman’s recent apology to Japan)… but he still has a long way to go!
A logical, futuristic wish logic is what I am trying to suggest.
I say: The first thing “Progressives” have to change, is their minds. The world will follow.
Meanwhile, for relaxation, and physical exercise, let me suggest that European “progressives” go down in the streets, and get rid of the Thief In Chief, Jean-Claude Junker, just elected head of the European Commission. That is also a problem for the USA: we pay more and more taxes precisely because the greatest fortunes in the world do not pay any tax (or get subsidies!). Some of the stealing goes through that den of thieves Luxembourg, one of several (including Great Britain and the USA: see my old: USA, Den Of Thieves: https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/usa-den-of-thieves/).
All they got to know is the boss, same as the old boss, because they don’t know what hurts them.
Pain is not just a feeling, it is a knowledge.
Patrice Ayme’
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 