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London Looks Like a Scene from "V for Vendetta"
Will we see this here?
What wrong with us? We may be witnessing the largest transfer of wealth ever from the working to the ruling class and we are PASSIVE.
What wrong with us? We may be witnessing the largest transfer of wealth ever from the working to the ruling class and we are PASSIVE.
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Maybe Michelle Bachmann is right. Maybe we do need a revolution. Or at least some torches and pitchforks like Colbert said.
April 1, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
We definitely need a revolution, but not of the kind Bachmann wants. Most Americans, despite knowning the ruling classes are picking their pockets, continue to trust that ultimately the thieves will take care of them. It's more than sad, but there you are. Since no leader that opposes the status quo is allowed to emerge in our corporate media without being destroyed there is no one to raise a flag round which those Americans who would rise up can rally. Yes, Obama said he was for change, but in the most limited DC sense of that word. If it wasn't clear to all prior to the election it should be like crystal now that Obama's definition of "change" does not include anything that will in any way threaten the status quo. His goal is to regain the glory and prosperity for those who are atop the status quo as is self evident in the case of the banking/finance handout. Only a revolutionary change in the distribution of wealth and power is likely ever to get the common citizens out of the trick bag our rulers have put us in.
April 1, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm getting mighty concerned about the foxes in charge of the henhouse. (no offense to bwak... I'm considering us all chickens in this case)
April 1, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's wrong with us? Well, for one thing, try putting up a post that says something along the lines of "we should have a massive protest" and watch all the articulate, smart, liberals go off on how that "doesn't work" and "doesn't make any difference", but instead what is best is to e-mail your members of Congress and so forth. It isn't mere laziness it's downright stupidity! You will also hear people go on and on about how since mass protests don't get the media attention they feel they deserve it is "ineffective"... as though the point is to get on tv as opposed to make clear to our leaders that we are a great and popular mass with power and we just might use it if they don't do their jobs to our satisfaction. I can assure you that when a million people are in the streets in New York or Washington our leaders are well aware of it and closely pay attention to it whether or not it gets the post position on the nightly news shows.
It's extraordinary really.
Despite the fact that mass protest has a long history of being effective on many levesl here in the states and despite the huge victories that have come, in part, in recent years all around the world as a result of mass protest, you will still get the naysayers who are perfectly happy disliking it from the comfort of their homes but who are unwilling to actually "do" anything about it no matter how bad it is or how bad it becomes. It's depressing how foolish this is but there you have it.
April 1, 2009 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
The civil rights movement had mass demos, the law, and the National Guard and Federal Marshals effecting change. In the Vietnam era, it was the fact that CBS brought the war into America's living rooms - at the dinner hour, no less - that turned the public against the war, not the demonstrations. In Chicago in 1968, your much-vaunted demonstrations helped elect Nixon - how'd that work? And in the runup to the Iraq invasion in 2003, millions of people marched worldwide. Sure stopped that one, hey. Give yourself a nice pat on the back.
I don't doubt your sincerity. Your grasp of history, reasoning skills, and powers of persuasion are another matter.
April 2, 2009 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's your point? I don't see you making one of any value whatsoever.
I do understand you are being pointlessly insulting, but that fails to persuade me in the slightest given that you apparently have no point to make and I couldn't care less about your opinion of my "grasp of history" or anything else simply because you don't get it and are apparently incapable of grasping the point. Maybe you're just too old eh grouch? Your empty and childish little insults have no foundation.
Everyone knows that decades ago mass protest worked in America and that they work all over the world up to the present day. There were a handful of large demonstrations against the invasion by Bush and that was a good and effective thing, but only a start. After that point virtually no other protests of any real scale occured in large part because of all the naysayers who claim "protests don't work and are passe" because they weren't satisfied with the tv coverage. But then, those people didn't attend the marches as did people like myself by the millions. Media coverage communicates to the general population, but with or without it, mass protest communicates to those in power which is the primary purpose of mass protest and if sustained, the message gets out to the public despite the virtual media blackout that was imposed at the time.
April 2, 2009 2:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
What exactly is this transfer from the working class to the wealthy?
I mean never mind that borrowers ripped off investors for trillions of dollars in the USA alone over the past decade. Consider who pays how much of the Federal taxes in this country.
Scenario: The wealthy stop producing taxable income, they live off their capital or shelter income (legally or not). And it doesn't have to be 100% stoppage.
What happens to the Federal Budget deficit?
April 1, 2009 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is OUR wealth. How is it that the top 1% quadrupled their wages over the past 30 years and the wages of everyone else has remained stagnant? Have they worked 4 times the number of hours?
Wealthy get taxed and get something in return. They get access to resources. They get an educated working class. They get the benefit of technological developments that provide them with the tools they need to innovate. They get the roads they need to bring their products to market. They get a safe environment to live and work in.
April 1, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what?
and capital gains are not wages, silly.
April 1, 2009 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what? I thought we were talking about wealth and its' transfer betwixt socioeconomic classe?. Capital gains = wealth. As far as that goes, if per capita wages increase at a disproportionate rate between low/mid range wage earners and high rang wage earners, that in essence = wealth transfer. Add to the mix Lowering tax rates on the rich as happened in the past 23 years, and that also = transfer of wealth.
April 2, 2009 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not disputing the common line about how the very rich have gotten richer while the common man is barely holding his own. But it was unclear in the OP just which wealth transfer is on tonnyb's mind -- income disparity or the TARP etc. fiascos which seem to be taking money from future taxpayers and giving it to the investor class to cover or prevent investor class losses. So I asked which wealth transfer was at issue for tonnyb.
What happens to a society which depends on taxes on a tiny fraction of the population (high incomes) to pay for governmental bodies and services for everyone?
The point is that if the "wealthy" pay a huge fraction of taxes, then the bailouts are using what will be future taxpayer money largely from the future wealthy to pay off current arguably wealthy investors.
Thus "So what?" since the reply didn't seem to begin to address the questions/point.
April 2, 2009 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
The wealthy stop producing taxable income?
That means more income for everyone else. The only reason why the wealthy pay most of the income taxes now is that they have rigged the system so that the top 10% have captured 50% of the income gains of the past forty years. The top 1% gained more than all the bottom 50%.
April 2, 2009 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
April 1 was yesterday.
"The wealthy stop producing taxable income?
That means more income for everyone else."
No, it means a huge drop in government tax revenues.
If the wealthy stop "working" the country goes down the toilet even faster, and not just because the government falls or borrows tons more to cover huge deficits.
April 2, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of London, what is with Her Majesty and that freaking handbag? Why on earth does she have that with her during her photo op with the Prez and My First Lady (who looks pretty darn fab, if you ask me)? I know John Stewart has riffed on this enigma in the past, but what's up with it??
April 1, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
A girl doesn't want to be caught without her iPhone, her lipstick and her flask of vodka.
April 1, 2009 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
lol I thought the same thing upon seeing those photos. "Why the hell is she carrying her purse? Isn't she going to be staying put for a while?"
April 1, 2009 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
She has the handbag for the same reason my Grandmother used to get dressed up to the nines every day until she died, CLASS.
April 2, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't mean social class, I just mean she's a classy old broad.
April 2, 2009 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
We shall see. I think many are letting the political processes play themselves out and are hoping for the best. However, soon will come the time when people will believe they've waited long enough, and the process of shoveling their money into banks has played itself out.
I have a feeling this summer is going to be a hot one and the heat often makes tempers flare.
April 1, 2009 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
ok ok. If they do not pay it back to us, we refuse to shop at wall mart or watch reality shows.
i dont know. what can the powerless do but make noise
April 1, 2009 11:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Protests can change things. However, all the large demonstrations and protests in the run up to the war with Iraq did nothing. But then again, Bush/Cheney are not Obama/Biden.
A link for you --
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/02/g20-china-world-power-economy
April 1, 2009 11:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
A handful of mass demos as we had prior to the Iraq invasion don't magically stop wars. Only by sustained and ongoing protest does the tactic work and then not by itself. Other actions and organizing also need to take place so a sustained and growing popular movement can make a difference. History proves this to be true and it's an important distinction. Mass protests accompanied by and as a part of a mass movement to organize popular sentiment is what makes the difference. In europe they don't protest a meeting like the one in London as an isolated thing. There is ongoing organization and activity behind it. We don't do either here, though there's no reason it wouldn't succeed.
Even though the public doesn't really support the Iraq War, there's virtually no antiwar movement in America and that lets the President and Congress off the hook since there's no real pressure to shut down the imperialist effort in Iraq. BEcause there's no antiwar movement they don't need to respond to antiwar sentiment in any way and, you may have noticed, they don't.
April 2, 2009 3:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
At least it doesn't like London in "Children of Men". . .
April 2, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL. ;)
Best Comment On Thread.
April 2, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
--A.A. Gill, Larger Than Life in London, April 4.
Pictures like this can be deceiving (anyone who has actually been to New Year's in Times Square over the last decade or so knows the type of crowd control he describes and how photography can make it look like something great is going on.)
April 6, 2009 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink