con CLASS WAR - FAUX 'DEBT CRISIS' MASKS MOVE TO WEAKEN SOCIAL AND MUCH, MUCH MORE - Michael Hudson w Amy & Juan #19.35 dn 07-22-11

This just in...

rot Congress In Secret Talks To Chop Social Security And Medicare To Avoid Apocalyptic Debt Default  07-26-11

 

 

MICHAEL HUDSON: As Mr. Obama's Deficit Reduction Commission said, we have to get rid of Medicare, we have to get rid of Social Security, put the Social Security funds into the stock market, create a stock market boom, create a new business for his—for Wall Street. He believes in trickle-down economics. ...

 

NjW: Now, WAIT JUST A DAMN MINUTE, BUSTER! Medicare would be fine if we'd just prevent the greed-besotted folks in Big Pharma, Big Insurance and the AMA from charging the Earth for their services and products, then screwing folks out of their rightful care when they really need it. And Social Security is SELF-FINANCED, fer crissakes!. By law, it may not run a deficit. Besides, there's some $2+ trillion in the "Reserves" kitty that's been building up since 1983 - supposed to hold us at current payouts until 2037, or thereabouts. So, what's Social got to do with the deficit?

 

In fact, quite a lot.

 

But, before we return to Amy, Juan and the Prof, perhaps you'd better read this first:

(you might want to be sitting down, in case any or all of this is news to you - while predictable, rank betrayal is upsetting, no matter the circumstance)

 

f age SOCIAL SECURITY - HOW THE U.S GOV'T & THE NEXI STOLE YOUR $2.5 TRILLION SURPLUS  alexanderhiggins  07-22-11

 

 

Now, let's rejoin the converation...

 

JUAN GONZALEZ: I also wanted to ask you about the connection to—from what's going on here to what's going on in Europe, and especially in Greece, the situation there. On Thursday, European leaders agreed to a new $155 billion bailout for Greece. ...

The connections, if any, between what's going on in Greece and Europe and the battle we're having here?

 

MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, Greece's should be viewed as a dress rehearsal for the United States. It's exactly the same thing. Greece didn't really get any bailout funds at all. All of the bailout funds were given by European creditor governments to the banks that held the Greek bonds. And Greece was told, "Well, there's a 50 billion euro loss on your bonds that have gone down. You have to sell off and privatize $50 billion of your land and property in the public domain." So every euro that the bankers lose, Greece has to sell off. And the idea is to carve up the government and privatize it, just like Illinois and Chicago and Wisconsin and California are doing. So it's a dress rehearsal for what's happening here.

AMY GOODMAN: If you talk about dress rehearsal, there are massive protests—there have been—in the streets of Greece, in Spain, when we were just in Britain, in London. What about here?

MICHAEL HUDSON: All of you—that you've seen are the protests in Madison, Wisconsin. And in the Greek square, in front of the parliament building, there were signs up to say, "We are Wisconsin." There was a very clear connection they were making that this is a worldwide struggle. What's happening across the world is an attempt by the financial sector to really make its move and say this is their opportunity for a power grab. And they're creating this artificial crisis as an opportunity to carve up the public domain and to give themselves enough money. They're taking the money and running, because they know that unemployment is going up. The game is over. They know that. And the only question is, how much can they take, how fast?

(before they must flee to avoid the wrath of an enraged citizenry  NjW)

The quotes above from Professor Hudson's last few minutes with Juan on Friday's Democracy Now needs to be tattood on the forehead of every American - in reverse! That way, every time s/he sees her/his reflection, they will be visibly reminded of the  level of betrayal by our government. Our misleaders have - every fricken chance they got - done nothing since the Civil War but play us like rubes, fresh in on the hay wagon. Time to wise up.

 

The way to bring this monstrous syndicate of shame down is to drop out of the toxic and destructive part of this society in every way we can. Once you start thinking about it, you will see there are myriad ways to be in America without contributing to the greedmeisters on Wall Street.

 

It won't be easy.

 

Remember, Capitalism 101 instructs that the ultimate (unstated, but inescapably logical) goal is to eliminate the competition. Any anti-consumer movement of size will pose a mortal threat to the powerful interests (The Nexi) in this society:

 

- weekly/monthly "sharefests" or areawide yard sales (both promote used stuff - no "growth" in that)  - local farm co-ops (do I have to tell you who might have a problem with that?)

- efforts to deprive government of immoral and confiscatory taxation (feeding the expired parking meters of others, warning of a speed trap up ahead, taking safety inspectors along with crime investigators - you get the picture)

 

An upcoming post will give you a some ideas and websites about what you can do individually to knock the props out from under this rickety edifice. It's more than you think.

 

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/22/pushing_crisis_gop_cries_wolf_on

 

PART 2

 

So, Obama's a Reaganite in Progressive's Denims. BFD. Were you really surprised?

 

For some of us, his walk has never lived up to his eloquent talk. But, to be fair, in the end, the force majeure of all that corporate money has swept all before it (not to mention the dismaying series of our Supremes' Federalist decisions). Could you turn down an offer of a million-dollar sinecure at a cushy perch in corporate heaven?

 

But, the heads of state and corporate power rest uneasy these days. As the petticoats have been lifted, enough of us have been able to glimpse the knobby knees of captains-of-industry under the pretty Spring frocks and movie-star visages (think TV news).

 

In response to the worldwide outrage at the attempts by The Nexi to cuckold (privatize) nation after nation, using the club of fiat debt in exchange for items of real worth, people - especially the young, whose world this always is - are saying, "Fuck this!"

 

It's one thing to settle for the staus quo ante bargain with the devil that implies, "You guys get to keep 99% of everything in exchange for providing us with a decent (social safety net), civil society and the right to raise our families in peace and maybe have a beer with the boys on Friday nights." This has actually been the case in much of the EU, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, et al (just don't spit your gum out the car window in that last one)

 

America has gone another route. Our Nexi preferred a 99.9% cut (still doable in a nation with an approximate national wealth of $200+ trillion). All was on track until 1929, when the greed grab was sidetracked for a half-century - 1929-1981.

 

Since Reagan's theft of the 1980 election, like JFK's (RFK & Mayor Daley), Nixon's first (Kissinger) and both of Dubya's (Rove), the boys have been back in town. And they've been bizzee litle beez. The systematic dismantling (deregulation and illegal non-enforcement) of laws passed during the 30s thru the 60s, expressly designed to reign in the worst excesses of Capitalist ethic and ethos (such as it is) - of administrations of both parties - have brought us to this low point in our brief history as a nation.

 

The world is now pushing back, from the Middle East to Madison. The Nexi is increasingly employing more devious and brutal tactics to stem the tide and blunt the attacks on the very foundations of their corrupt and anti-humane edifice. You can't attend a peaceful protest in any major city of the West (yes, France, Germany, et al) without bumping into very large men whose sole job is to precipitate a causus belli pretext that allows the cops and MSM to then spin the event in a way that discredits the true non-violent grassroots origins of such protests.

 

What frightens The Nexi most is that none of this is working any longer. As the Professor above says, the game really is up for them (except for most Americans, who don't quite get it yet.). You would think that, faced with the overwhelming will of the people, The Nexi would try to work a deal, as they have so often in the past. But, compromise is not in the sociopath's toolbox just yet; only hammers... and sandpaper (to erase the fingerprints).

 

Disaster Capitalism at its very best.

Nigel Watson  freethinker  727.493.1990 skype orbizen2
Blog: ORBizen Memo  http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

"There is no greater disaster than greed." – Lao-tzu

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti