Big Government Still Viewed as Greatest Threat

[sealybobo]

Big Gov't. Still Viewed as Greater Threat Than Big Business

I wish you guys would have listened to Thom Hartmann yesterday. Air America Noon to 3.

They were talking about the Great Depression, WW2 in Germany, Now, the Guilded Age, and every other time in history the BANKERS have taken over not only in America, but all over the world.

Why do you think America has problems with the Arab's and Venesuela? Our bankers don't control them, YET.

If you think you don't like your Federal Reserve being in private hands, consider how much they own Germany after WW2? Oh boy! The Germans people had absolutely no say in how much power these bankers got. We were starving them after WW2 was over. Disaster Capitalism at its finest.

Here they used WW1 & 2 to pass the Income Tax and in 1913 they bribed our politicians to turn over the Federal Reserve to them. Less violent than their takeover in Germany, but just as successful. Look into who owns the banks in Europe and America and you'll find a lot of the same people.

So don't think for a second the politicians are the root of the problem. One day, when you all get your heads out of your asses, they'll be the solution. They suck now because you suck now. You elected them. Actually, so do I. But at least I understand and I am ready for the revolution. And a lot of my progressive/liberal radio/tv personalities have spoken about this. The GOP made Ron Paul look like an idiot when he talked about this stuff. So did Glen Beck. That's because the GOP will be the party to protect the bankers once we do finally wake up.

How come China doesn't let our Federal Reserve bankers go in and manage their $ since its the right thing to do? Because they manage it themselves, like we used to do before 1913.

And corporations don't have to be "the enemy". It is just that over the last 8 years, they've been in power. So of course they are getting their way. Of course they are pushing for being allowed to hire/use cheap foreign/slave labor. You'd push for that too if you owned a corporation. But if you don't and you are labor, and you vote GOP, then you are dumb.

GM's restructuring plan subsodizes them sendng jobs overseas. We're the only country who isn't protecting jobs that are vital to our economy.

I find myself arguing this with people and there really is no argument. It is a fact we are doing this to ourselves. I'm sick of arguing facts.

 

[Xenophon]

For those of you who imagine that big money wasn't always in charge of this nation?

Do remember that George Washington put down America's first TAX rebellion on behalf of the EAST COAST ESTABLISHMENT importers of molasses.

And who were the people Saint George was screwing?

FARMERS who turned their corn into Shine in Pennsylvania, folks.

People who had no other choice but to turn their corn into shine so they could get it to market.

But since the RUM RUNNERS were this nation's best people, St. George called out the troops and killed American farmers on behalf of the big money merchantilists who he and most of the floundering fathers identified with.

Thinking that this ongoing class war started in America's industrial period of the 19th century, or that unionist were the first people who stood up to the MASTER CLASS is simply buying into one of the first great lies this nation was founded on.

Shays' Rebellion.

Not one of Geogie's finest hours.

 

[editec]

For those of you who imagine that big money wasn't always in charge of this nation?

Do remember that George Washington put down America's first TAX rebellion on behalf of the EAST COAST ESTABLISHMENT importers of molasses.

And who were the people Saint George was screwing?

FARMERS who turned their corn into Shine in Pennsylvania, folks.

People who had no other choice but to turn their corn into shine so they could get it to market.

But since the RUM RUNNERS were this nation's best people, St. George called out the troops and killed American farmers on behalf of the big money merchantilists who he and most of the floundering fathers identified with.

Thinking that this ongoing class war started in America's industrial period of the 19th century, or that unionist were the first people who stood up to the MASTER CLASS is simply buying into one of the first great lies this nation was founded on.

Shays' Rebellion.

Not one of Geogie's finest hours.

Yup!

But one of the best examples of my point about the myth that America was created for the benefit of the people.

We are all taught to revere GW, and of course there is much to say about the man that is laudable, too.

But I do tire of the deification of the floundering fathers as though they shat marble and walked on water.

They were men, just like we are, and they made some serious mistakes along the way just as we do.

And this nation has ALWAYS had a gentry class and an aristo class who have ridden on the backs of the rest of us since day one.

 

[Xenophon]

Some of us know history ed, it's our job to remind the rest what is up.

 

[sealybobo]

For those of you who imagine that big money wasn't always in charge of this nation?

Do remember that George Washington put down America's first TAX rebellion on behalf of the EAST COAST ESTABLISHMENT importers of molasses.

And who were the people Saint George was screwing?

FARMERS who turned their corn into Shine in Pennsylvania, folks.

People who had no other choice but to turn their corn into shine so they could get it to market.

But since the RUM RUNNERS were this nation's best people, St. George called out the troops and killed American farmers on behalf of the big money merchantilists who he and most of the floundering fathers identified with.

Thinking that this ongoing class war started in America's industrial period of the 19th century, or that unionist were the first people who stood up to the MASTER CLASS is simply buying into one of the first great lies this nation was founded on.

Shays' Rebellion.

Not one of Geogie's finest hours.

Yup!

But one of the best examples of my point about the myth that America was created for the benefit of the people.

We are all taught to revere GW, and of course there is much to say about the man that is laudable, too.

But I do tire of the deification of the floundering fathers as though they shat marble and walked on water.

They were men, just like we are, and they made some serious mistakes along the way just as we do.

And this nation has ALWAYS had a gentry class and an aristo class who have ridden on the backs of the rest of us since day one.

Actually, our founding fathers were not rich men and could have made themselves Kings and Noblemen if they wanted, but they didn't.

In 1760, the conservatives in North America were those who were loyal to the hereditary aristocracy of the British Crown. By the 1780s, as the Constitution was being written, the royalists had left the country for Canada or the UK and the remaining conservatives had shifted their advocacy of aristocracy from one based on genetics to one based on wealth.

The liberals who dominated the Founders and Framers of this nation, however, disagreed. They thought that if there should be any sort of an "aristoi" it should be based on merit, and change from generation to generation.

John Adams was among those who believed in an aristocracy based on wealth and privilege. His concern was that if "the rabble" were allowed to completely govern the country, they would vote themselves all the wealth in the nation, reduce it to bankruptcy, and collapse the American Experiment. In support of his viewpoint, he often quoted the essentially anti-democracy Greeks like Plato and Aristotle. The conservatives represented by Adams have, since the founding of this nation, argued for an "artificial aristocracy" based on wealth.

Jefferson and the liberal Founders like Madison, Franklin, Washington, and - particularly - Tom Paine, believed, on the other hand, that if the largest portion of the people were given the largest portion of the power of governance, then they would correct errors they themselves made, and correct them quickly because of the impact they'd have on themselves. In their support, they quoted Locke, Rousseau, and the experience of the Iroquois Confederacy. The liberals represented by Jefferson and Paine have, since the founding of this nation, argued for a meritocracy based on "the best and the brightest" rising up from among the people to enter public service.

Early on in the debate, the Adams side won most of the argument. The President would be elected not by the people, but by "wise elders" appointed by the states (the electoral college). The Senators would not be elected by the people, but appointed by the politicians of the states, with the overt and clear purpose of representing the interest of wealth and capital in those states. Only the House of Representatives was to be directly elected. (It wasn't until 1913, with the passage of the 17th Amendment, that we began to directly elect US Senators - the result of the progressive movement that arose as a backlash against the Gilded Age.)

As Jefferson wrote to Adams on October 28th, 1813, when they were both elderly and out of office:

"I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. .
"There is also an artificial aristocracy, founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents..

Challenging Abramoff's "Artificial Aristocracy"

 

[editec]

Some of us know history ed, it's our job to remind the rest what is up.

Historians are those people doomed to watch people who don't read history repeat the same kinds of mistakes over and over again, X.

 

[sealybobo]

Some of us know history ed, it's our job to remind the rest what is up.

Historians are those people doomed to watch people who don't read history repeat the same kinds of mistakes over and over again, X.

The Railroad Barons Are Back - And This Time They'll Finish the Job

The Guilded Age all over again.

 

[editec]

Actually, our founding fathers were not rich men and could have made themselves Kings and Noblemen if they wanted, but they didn't.

Actually George Washington was probably the weathiest man in North America, Sealy.

They could have tried to make themselves nobles, but they'd have failed because the sense of a democratic nation had infected the people with a new identity.

Better to live the lives of the peers while pretending to be supporters of a democratic republic, eh?

Now not every floundering father was enormously well off, and many of them died insolvent (Jefferson for example) but that's not because they gave away their fortunes for the betterment of the commonweal.

At least Washington had the decency to give his slaves their freedom upon his death.

 

[sealybobo]

Actually, our founding fathers were not rich men and could have made themselves Kings and Noblemen if they wanted, but they didn't.

Actually George Washington was probably the weathiest man in North America, Sealy.

They could have tried to make themselves nobiles, but they'd have failed.

Better to live the lives of the peers while pretending to be supporters of a democratic republic, eh?

Now not every floundering father was enormously well off, and many of them died insolvent (Jefferson for example) but that's not because they gave away their fortunes for the betterment of the commonweal.

At least Washington had the decency to give his slaves their freedom upon his death.

They'd have failed? Looks like they are succeeding. Look at Cheney & Haloborton. Isn't he a billionaire now?

 

[Xenophon]

Some of us know history ed, it's our job to remind the rest what is up.

Historians are those people doomed to watch people who don't read history repeat the same kinds of mistakes over and over again, X.

We are seeing it in this thread, note Bobo ludicrous assertion that the founders were not rich or conservative, and only conservatives remained loyal to the crown.

He is very likely a product of the broken education system.

 

[sealybobo]

Actually, our founding fathers were not rich men and could have made themselves Kings and Noblemen if they wanted, but they didn't.

Actually George Washington was probably the weathiest man in North America, Sealy.

They could have tried to make themselves nobiles, but they'd have failed.

Better to live the lives of the peers while pretending to be supporters of a democratic republic, eh?

Now not every floundering father was enormously well off, and many of them died insolvent (Jefferson for example) but that's not because they gave away their fortunes for the betterment of the commonweal.

At least Washington had the decency to give his slaves their freedom upon his death.

There were good men back then, and there are good men today (Obama).

Thomas Jefferson laid out in an 1816 letter to Samuel Kerchival what today would be a blistering attack on the conservative/corporate war on labor and Bush's union-busting planned privatization of over 700,000 government positions.

"Those seeking profits," Jefferson wrote, "were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government. No other depositories of power have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their charge."

He added: "I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. ... We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. ... [Otherwise], as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, ... and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow sufferers."

 

[sealybobo]

Liberals, on the other hand, subscribe to the notions of the founder of today's Democratic Party -- Thomas Jefferson -- that if the government doesn't actively participate in regulating how the game of business is played, the middle class (what in Jefferson's day were the "yeomanry") would vanish.

The United States has had two great periods of what we today call a middle class. The first was from the 1700s to the mid-1800s, and was fueled by virtually free land for settlers. People owned the means of their production (their farms), could sell their surplus, and had time to be among (as deTocqueville pointed out) the most well-educated, politically active "non-aristocrats" in the world.

As big business grew in the 1800s after the Civil War, the farm-based middle class collapsed, in large part because the early progenitors of companies like today's Cargill or ADM came to control the sale and distribution of farm produce. Middle class farmers rose up, created the Grange movement as part of their own way of competing with the big ag companies, and -- seeing that their "representative government" was being taken over by the largest corporate interests -- launched the Populist and Progressive movements.

Step one was to limit the size of corporations to limit their power -- thus the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1881 (still law, but unenforced for all practical purposes since Reagan.)

Step two was to take Teddy Roosevelt's advice that, "We must drive the special interests out of politics. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being. There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains." Progressives pushed hard, and in 1907 a law was passed (still on the books) making it illegal for corporations to give money to politicians. It needs to be expanded.

 

[sealybobo]

But the conservatives -- who since the days when John Adams called working people "the rabble" and Alexander Hamilton suggested they should play no (or only a token) role in government -- fought back. A true middle class represented a threat to the aristocrats and pseudo-aristocrats of America's conservatives. They may have to give up some of their power, and some of the higher end of their wealth may even be "redistributed" - horror of horrors - for schools, parks, libraries, and other things that support a healthy middle-class society but are not needed by the rich who live in a parallel, but separate, world among us.

 

[sealybobo]

As Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1784, "Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual." And, as earlier noted, as wealth rises, so should taxes -- "geometrically."

 

[midcan5]

This should be easy.

Was the S&L caused by big government (BG)?
Was the housing and security markets collapse caused by BG?
Was tax relief for the rich caused by BG?
Is outsourcing caused by BG?
Is purchasing cheap from China caused by BG?
Are walmart wages caused by BG?
Was Iraq caused by BG?
Were the deficits caused by BG?

None were, all were caused by bad decisions, bad policy. Obviously for conservatives fear of the imagined is more real than the real issues, but didn't the past many years since Reagan, Gingrich, Cheney, Bush prove that over and over again? When you have no idea what the problem is fixing it is sorta hard.

"Why Conservatives Can't Govern" by Alan Wolfe
The Conservative Nanny State