“If Not Us, Who?” – Redefining Power

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Every time a deluded, Rush-parrot neo-con spouts the mantra, I want to go head-spinner like Linda Blair.

It goes like this, “Do you really want a cradle-to-grave nanny state like country x or y, while country z or z-scarier becomes the world’s new Super Power?”

The grim apocalyptic horns bast dramatically, followed by an admonition that technology is a blessing, and that none of the Social Democracies could have survived but by the grace of our boot straps.

Then they tell us there is no Garden of Eden, and to click our heels and repeat, “Capitalism is good. Corporatism is good. Modern living is here to stay!”

Besides the unbearably mixed metaphor and the horribly unbelievable plot line, history tells us this movie has failed over and over and over at the box office.

Never do they use facts to support the shop-worn lines, never do they consider people as a source of Power. Its always, serve the known masters, the devil you know is far better than the devil you don’t know. “If you kill the Masters, the next Master you are sold to could be MUCH, MUCH worse!” They always paint people with any amount of freedom as lazy, worthless, powerless and in grave danger from themselves. They never want us to know how much happier they are.

“There could be a Power Vacuum, and if not us WHO?” They say.

Oh shut the fuck up already. We know what your lies are. We know you want us to think it is the Elites keeping us safe from “ourselves” or scary “outsiders.”

YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

Sins of Omission – The Facts They Ignore.

Lets see how children do in “nanny states” versus the great, big, bad Super Power, that tries to brainwash us that our system, our Capitalist mantra is the VERY BEST notion EVAH!

Why? In the “Power States” all the assets go to those 1% holding the Power. Because in corrupt regimes, people are poor. Just look at all those goddamned “nanny states” there on the bottom of the graph, with their high, high taxes and no poverty!! How can that possibly BE? The neo-cons would have us believe if we pay taxes we starve, despite the obvious OPPOSITE being true statistically.

But, ya know, don’t let FACTS get in the way of your dogma, idiots.

They really want us to believe that THIS is GOOD for us. They want us to believe that if we keep giving to the rich, the jobs will come back, and we will prosper like we did in the 60’s and 70’s – despite the opposite being true. We did well then, because of Unions and Social Programs, and GOVERNMENT SPENDING on “We the People” not on making the Elites richer.

This is an example of how the top percent has grown from our bailouts alone this year:

Who has the cradle to grave Nanny State in the US?

The RICH.



Look at the places where the so called “nanny state” of the people do, in ranking of happiness and lack of struggle. What do every one of those countries have that we do not?

Nationalized Health Care. Social Safety Nets. Subsidized Higher Education.

How about “A CLUE?” You know, a clue to People being Important?

But lets now look at the SCARIER scary. If the US does not play “Master of the Universe” militarily, some other big bad country will overrun us, stack our bodies for kindling for the fires with which to cook our babies for brunch! Oh my! And Fat Chance!

We could half our budget, we could quarter our budget and still be untouchable. We are geographically well defended. We have nukes. We are FINE and would continue to be FINE.

It is not our huge military budget that keep us safe from other people, it is in place to make sure no one is safe from us – and our (or at least our Elites) ever endless greed in appropriating other countries wealth and assets. We want their oil. We want their cheap labor. We want dictators in place that will comply with privatizing their assets so that our Elites can make vast sums of money from creating slave-labor factories there producing whatever natural resources they have, and selling it back exponentially marked up to the People to which those assets truly belong.

Think about that. To the People to which those assets naturally belong.

We CREATE third world Countries out of Countries who were doing relatively well for their People. By Bomb, by Coup, by Military Threat, but mostly by Private Industrial takeovers.

There is no one in the World that is a threat to the United States, but those running it.

How to Redefine Power.

I read with interest the many fine ideas bouncing around the “Left” – creating local co-ops, or new businesses (with what seed moneys, I always wonder?) or detaching from the grid.

All fine ideas.

But it seems everyone stops short of the only answer that is truly the position of the far (wild, wild, even) Left.

A workers revolt.

Revolution.

It has to start with Unions. It has to start with demands for wages that meet the cost of living increases the past 40 years. It has to start with redefining Power.

Are we a powerful nation because we bully others, bully our own?

A “Nation” per se is an arbitrary construct made only of individuals who agree to a common interest.

What is our interest? To be able to say we have the most and richest rich people, with the biggest guns, and the biggest infant mortality rate, child poverty rate?

Of course not. We want to eat, sleep, be educated, be healthy, feel valued and not have the constant stressors of survival. Is not the true Power of a Nation in the well-being of its citizens?

People have to come to the understanding that WE should be the owners of our own industry. WE, not one or two men. That WE should profit off the system we serve. That our profits should be reinvested in infrastructure that SERVES the PEOPLE.

We must divest every penny from Wall Street, remove every dollar from the Banks. We must shut down our places of business, and take them by any means necessary back for the workers.

Widespread strikes, demonstrations, lock downs, boycotts, refusal to purchase anything from anyone who does not pay a fair wage.

We need to Nationalize Utilities and Oil. Nationalize Education again. (they are talking about making U of M a private school, removing funding – grr) We need to insist upon being able to make Health Care free. Stop paying insurance premiums – all of us. When we go to the doctors, pay them directly, and when there is no other source of payment? They damn well will take it.

We need to INSIST on green technology and DEMAND that unsafe food practices, deadly pesticides and pollution become intolerable.

We need to refuse to pay whatever portion of our tax money goes to the military, 36 cents on every dollar you pay, until they change the budget.

If not us, who?

The US could become the most POWERFUL NATION ON EARTH when we show other countries what POWER THE PEOPLE HOLD. The US could be the most Powerful Nation on Earth, when we spend our time, efforts and energies on helping other countries become self-sufficient and PEOPLE-CENTRIC, rather than serving the Elites.

As the biggest trading partner? We could set the Standard of Goodness, rather than Rape and Pillage.

We could help Turkey and Mexico’s people, the other graph-losers regain power for their people.

A Nanny World that takes care of its People, rather than a Kleptomaniac Planet that impoverishes its People to serve only a very few.

A Leftist Revolution.

Is that really so hard to envision?

It cannot happen until we are able to imagine it, speak freely about it, will it into being by including it in the realm of possible.

“Do you really want a cradle-to-grave nanny state like country x or y?”

Why yes. Hell yes! You say it like its a bad thing, when it is the best possible outcome!

“While country z or z-scarier becomes the world’s new Super Power?”

Not gonna happen, in fact, we could eliminate every enemy we have by being a beacon of Peace and assistance to their People’s Revolution.

“If you kill the Masters, the next Master you are sold to could be MUCH, MUCH worse!”

Not if we are our own Masters, we tend to treat ourselves well. Duh.

“Capitalism is good. Corporatism is good. Modern living is here to stay!”

Um, no. Communism is good. Socialism is good. Modern living is sustainable and equitable living.

What century are THEY living in? I want to move on to the next one.

You in?

“If not us, who?”

EXACTLY.