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#Post#: 5867--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of
the USA
By: AGelbert Date: November 9, 2016, 1:41 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Eddie link=topic=8128.msg115454#msg115454
date=1478694330]
I figure the Donald's first executive order will be to legalize
meth for the people who voted for him.
[/quote]
GOOD ONE! :emthup:
His team might come up with a (electronic only - mailing stuff
costs money, ya know) graphic sent to his base showing an equal
sign between his loyal supporters and, uh, see, below:
[center][img
width=300]
HTML http://static1.squarespace.com/static/54641690e4b0f2a48d5aefce/t/546989eee4b027698c28c2dd/1441065999361/?format=1500w[/img][/center]
#Post#: 5868--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of
the USA
By: AGelbert Date: November 9, 2016, 4:27 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Golden Oxen link=topic=8301.msg115488#msg115488
date=1478722589]
[quote author=agelbert link=topic=8301.msg115485#msg115485
date=1478721831]
[quote author=Golden Oxen link=topic=8301.msg115481#msg115481
date=1478719716]
[quote]If GO is happy about this (S)election, he will soon be
very disappointed. [/quote]
Your analysis of my feelings and future outlook of our situation
are as accurate as your totally wrong analysis of the election
Agelbert, which was presented with your usual manner of factual
pseudo scientific BS material.
One with half a brain would realize that a religious Gold Bug
zealot and Lite Doomer are not the makeup of a happy camper.
My only satisfaction comes from the end of the fucking Clintons.
Don't come fucking on me again AG, my future responses will not
be so kind nor generous in my understanding of your anger at
being conned by the Leftist MSM and their total Bull Shit
Propaganda that you swallowed hook line and sinker.
Kindly vent your anger at them in the future, not me.
[center]
[img
width=300]
HTML http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/wp-content/uploads/liberty-freedom-cc.jpeg[/img]<br
/> [/center]
[/quote]
My, my, what vitriol. All I said as that I believe you will
sorely be disappointed. Please feel free to describe exactly
what part of what I posted was "BS". I was disagreeing with you,
not attacking you. I am not angry at you. If you are not happy
about a Trump win, all you need to do is say so. There is no
need for such overt hostility.
I urge you to calm down. You are a good man that wants the best
for the USA. So do I. Peace, brother.
[/quote]
Sorry Agelbert. This election has angered the geezer and made
him very testy.
Never have I witnessed so many mediocre evil people in a
horrible never ending cacophony of lies and skullduggery.
Realizing they are actually the countries leaders has made it
all the worse for me. I feel as if I expired and am in Hell of
late.
A thousand apologies for misreading your posting.
Will take your splendid advice and stop posting for a while
until I recover my cool.
Regards, GO
[/quote]
Thank you, sir. Times are hard and we are all distressed by the
increasing number of cracks in the road of our lives when we are
increasingly in need of less misfortunes. The picture below is
a metaphor of this (S)election.
[center][img
width=800]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-071116130640.png[/img]
[/center]
Personally, I am not so much angered by the (s)election results,
as saddened by them. Besides the Trailer Trash Trump thing,
we've got a Governor in Vermont now that is going to make life
very difficult for wind and solar Renewable energy growth by
vowing to VETO ANY RE subsidies while ADDING lots of Republican
red tape baloney for RE project site approval and Organic
agriculture while simultaneously working diligently to protect
fossil fuel subsidies and other pollution product vested
interests along with GMO crops and commercial pesticide use on
Vermont farms. As if that wasn't enough grief, the white
supremacists here are VERY happy with the new governor.
Here's a map from 2015 showing the racist demographic in the
USA. Compare it with the map of Trailer Trash Trump's wins. I
may be wrong, but I thing that corroboration and causation are
linked.
The most racist areas in the United States
HTML http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/5/3/1381214/-The-most-racist-areas-in-the-United-States
This lady, although she does not reference any map, sees the
link too:
White Supremacy wins—for now.
By Denise Oliver Velez
Wednesday Nov 09, 2016 · 3:40 AM EST
732 Comments
[center]KKK cross burning (graphic at article link)[/center]
[center]attribution: Confederate till Death - English Wikipedia
[/center]
Time to wake up, you white people of good faith.
Look in the mirror.
See Amerikkka for what it is without the gloss.
See something black folks have been trying to tell you.
It’s not “populism” or “economic anxiety.”
Call it by name — White Supremacy.
I thought the black and brown firewall, with a little help from
our white friends would hold back the tide.
I was wrong. My bad.
Thanksgiving is coming. A time many of you gather with friends
and family.
Killing racism starts at home.
Maybe it’s time for you to start speaking up and fighting back.
Lord knows we black folks have been doin’ it for centuries.
My people survived slavery and Jim Crow.
We’ll survive Donald Trump too — though I’m sure there will be
deaths — there always are.
America has a white supremacy problem.
You are either part of the problem, or part of the solution.
Choose.
P.S. I ain’t leaving. The bones of my enslaved ancestors are
buried here. They helped build this place with blood, sweat,
tears, and laughter. I’ll fight on. In their name.
HTML http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/09/1594035/-White-Supremacy-wins-for-now
I'm not leaving either. The only way I leave Vermont and my
keyboard is feet first. Thanks again for your cordial apology
and reply.
God Bless you and yours.
HTML http://dl7.glitter-graphics.net/pub/2046/2046807qoer9uc27q.gif
HTML http://dl6.glitter-graphics.net/pub/2752/2752256x4e962185l.gif
#Post#: 6884--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of
the USA
By: AGelbert Date: April 16, 2017, 1:25 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The Founding Fathers of the USA did NOT believe in democracy.
And the so-called "Representative Republic" they founded ONLY
REPRESENTED LESS THAN 10% of the population. IOW, the UPPER
CLASS was the only cohort being REPRESENTED. [img
width=40]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-311013200859.png[/img]
That is called an OLIGARCHY.
And then it just got MORE oligarchical.
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714183337.bmp
[quote][center] Alexander Hamilton QUOTES[/center]
Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of
democracy
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/tissue.gif,
but in
moderate governments. [img
width=40]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-280515145049.png[/img]<br
/> [img
width=40]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-051113192052.png[/img]<br
/>
The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God;
and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed,
it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing,
they seldom judge or determine right.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/301.gif
[img
width=40]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-051113192052.png[/img]<br
/>
Power over a man's subsistence is power over his will.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/acigar.gif
To all general purposes we [img
width=50]
HTML http://www.smilies.4-user.de/include/Spiele/smilie_game_017.gif[/img]<br
/>have uniformly been one people, each individual citizen
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/acigar.gif
everywhere enjoying
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/pirates5B15D_th.gif
the same
national rights, privileges, and protection. [img
width=60]
HTML http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9HT4xZyDmh4/TOHhxzA0wLI/AAAAAAAAEUk/oeHDS2cfxWQ/s200/Smiley_Angel_Wings_Halo.jpg[/img]<br
/>
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/ugly004.gif
It's not tyranny we
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/acigar.gif<br
/>desire; it's a just ;),[size=14pt] limited, federal governmen
t.
[img
width=40]
HTML http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9HT4xZyDmh4/TOHhxzA0wLI/AAAAAAAAEUk/oeHDS2cfxWQ/s200/Smiley_Angel_Wings_Halo.jpg[/img]<br
/>[img
width=80]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-241013183046.jpeg[/img]<br
/> [img
width=30]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-300714025456.bmp[/img]<br
/>
Alexander Hamilton[/quote]
[center]
[img
width=440]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-090315203150.png[/img][/center]
[quote]
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts,
and murders itself.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/shame.gifThere
never was a
democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/tissue.gif
John Adams[/quote]
Agelbert NOTE: If you haven't figured it out the code language
about the word "people" and the word "we", let me spell it out
for you. The phrase "We the People" in the hallowed documents of
the founding of the USA had NOTHING to do with the "PEOPLE"
mentioned in the above quotes about democracy and it's allegedly
self destructive "extremes". The word "WE" is defined as the
CITIZENS, a tiny subset of the "people", NOT the "turbulent"
subset of the "people". These fellows knew how to spin a yarn,
didn't they?
Also, the alleged "certain" cause of the "failing" of
democracies is an interesting point of selective lack of
knowledge among these Founding Fathers back then.
The fact is that the common historical CAUSE of the downfall of
any attempt by we-the-people on earth, in any country, to
institute a democratic form of government back then, and to this
day, is NOT what the Founding Fathers were crying crocodile
tears about. THAT IS, democracies DON'T "commit suicide", unless
you want to call it SUICIDE BY [s]oligarchy[/s] COP! [img
width=100]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-241013183046.jpeg[/img]
Consequently, there is only one thing to be said for much of the
erudite, polished, stirring, colorful, heart string pulling,
loyalty inducing, patriotic [s]oligarchy self serving[/s] prose
by the Founding Fathers then, and most people that claim the USA
is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people
today (SEE BELOW).
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-111214174727.png[/img][/center]
#Post#: 7314--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of
the USA
By: AGelbert Date: June 11, 2017, 9:38 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://www.redstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Constitution-burning.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][font=times new roman]Impeach the U.S. Constitution
[/font][/center]
Posted on Jun 10, 2017
By Paul Street
I am always darkly amused when I hear one of my fellow Americans
call for a return from our current “deep state” plutocracy and
empire to the supposedly benevolent and democratic rules and
values of the nation’s sacred founders and Constitution.
Democracy was the last thing the nation’s founders wanted to see
break out in the new republic. Drawn from the elite propertied
segments in the new republic, most of the delegates to the 1787
Constitutional Convention shared their compatriot John Jay’s
view that “Those who own the country ought to govern it.”
As the celebrated U.S. historian Richard Hofstader noted in his
classic 1948 text, “The American Political Tradition and the Men
Who Made It”: “In their minds, liberty was linked not to
democracy but to property.” Democracy was a dangerous concept to
them, conferring “unchecked rule by the masses,” which was “sure
to bring arbitrary redistribution of property, destroying the
very essence of liberty.”
Hofstader’s take on the founders was borne out in historian
Jennifer Nedelsky’s comprehensively researched volume, “Private
Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism,” in 1990.
For all but one of the U.S. Constitution’s framers (James
Wilson), Nedelsky noted, protection of “property” (meaning the
people who owned large amounts of it) was “the main object of
government.” The non-affluent, non-propertied and slightly
propertied popular majority was for the framers “a problem to be
contained.”
[center][img
width=440]
HTML https://washingtonsblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/americansdon27ttrust.jpg[/img][/center]
Full EXCELLENT article:
HTML http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/impeach_the_us_constitution_20170610
Agelbert RANT: How did we get to this MESS?
The Constitution and the attitude towards people and property
that the founders learned from their European history is a good
place to start. The Industrial Revolution and the fossil fuel
empire accelerated the decay and degradation of the government
and the environment.
The Constitution is a pro-slavery document!
Much has been written about the Revolution being, at it's core,
an attempt to immunize the colonies from the "disturbing" (to
Jefferson and friends) move in England at the time to outlaw
slavery. But the industrial revolution and how the elite
parasitic modus operandi called "capitalism" benefited massively
from mass production is the main historical influence that led
to our polluted world and pissant wage structure of today.
It is said the word "saboteur" derives from the Netherlands in
the 15th century when workers would throw their sabots (wooden
shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the
cogs, fearing the automated machines would render the human
workers obsolete.
Notice how the word "saboteur" has a negative connotation. This
shows who controls the historical narrative. I believe the Dutch
laborers weren't just concerned about obsolescence; they were
concerned about controlling how much they got paid for their
labor. Mass production was the beginning of a massive
concentration of wealth by greedy machinery owners that refused
to pay equitable wages.
This is what "Capitalism" is really all about. It is sold as
free market this and that but, in practice, it is nothing but
elite parasitism. When the English gentry wanted to corral the
peasants into working in the factories, as well as use more of
their land to raise sheep for fleece free from peasant
interference, they came up with a pack of thinly justified
herding mechanisms (Enclosure Laws) that stripped the peasants
of their ability to live off the land.
The peasants were not buying the con that working in a factory
was a better deal than living off the land. They had to be
forced. They were cognizant of the FACT that the factory owners
were not going to pay decent wages or provide adequate working
conditions.
Today, all this disguised tyranny called capitalism is festooned
with gobbledygook terms like competitive advantage and
arbitrage, along with a plethora of terms from the masturbatory
imaginations of bored economists, but it continues to be about
elite parasitism.
In the financial area the vampire proboscis is usury but that is
not the whole story by a long shot.
Patent law is another huge part of RHIP that was NOT put there
to protect inventors UNLESS those inventors were from the upper
class. The bottom line is the control of the populace for the
power, profit and pleasure of the TPTB.
Enclosure
In English social and economic history, enclosure or
inclosure[1] is the process which ends traditional rights such
as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land
formerly held in the open field system. Once enclosed, these
uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases
to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used
for the process that ended the ancient system of arable farming
in open fields.
Under enclosure, such land is fenced (enclosed) and deeded or
entitled to one or more owners. The process of enclosure began
to be a widespread feature of the English agricultural landscape
during the 16th century. By the 19th century, unenclosed commons
had become largely restricted to rough pasture in mountainous
areas and to relatively small parts of the lowlands.
The process of enclosure has sometimes been accompanied by
force, resistance, and bloodshed, and remains among the most
controversial areas of agricultural and economic history in
England. Marxist and neo-Marxist historians argue that rich
landowners used their control of state processes to appropriate
public land for their private benefit.
This created a landless working class that provided the labour
required in the new industries developing in the north of
England. For example: "In agriculture the years between 1760 and
1820 are the years of wholesale enclosure in which, in village
after village, common rights are lost".[2] "Enclosure (when all
the sophistications are allowed for) was a plain enough case of
class robbery".[3][4]
HTML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
The following video tells the real story of capitalism's birth
and growth through the power the elite obtained in the
industrial revolution, how the poor were demonzed as being
"lazy" for attempting to avoid the horrors of factory work by
staying on, and living off, the land. They had to be forced,
along with their children, to do so.
[center]
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0nM5DU4ADI&feature=player_embedded[/center]
[move]Then things got worse when the USA got going with its
fossil fuel based industrial Revolution.[/move]
The mass production factories created a new type of slavery
without the pejorative connotation of being race linked but it
was still slavery. When enslaving African Americans was no
longer cost effective due to farm machinery, new ways to enslave
them, and the poor whites as well as any other ethnic poor, had
to be invented. After all, the elite did not like one bit the
idea that the increased efficiency of a laborer could provide
that laborer with more free time and a better life.
The 1% had conniption fits thinking about all those people out
there having the time to sit, think and figure out how TBTB were
gaming them. No, the elite developed a plan to "keep em' busy".
The guilt trip sermons from pulpits all over America went out
after the Civil War to demonize leisure and glorify "nose to the
grindstone" work as being "God's Will". BALONEY! The elite's
"work ethic" includes years of "sabbaticals", "learning
experiences", "naval gazing" and "introspection" that translate
to long stretches of time doing absolutely nothing productive.
I think that's wonderful and should be available to all of us as
a means to a healthier and happier mindset. That's why the elite
do it. For them to then turn around and unleash their propaganda
water carrying lackeys solemnly mouthing the "don't be lazy,
work your fingers to the bone for us" baloney on the populace is
the epitome of duplicity.
Fossil fuel backed corporate tyranny has been going on for over
a century and has its roots in the gilded age and fossil fuel
FAKE cost effectiveness which enabled the oil corporations to
concentrate wealth and steal our democracy from under us while
offloading all the environmental costs on the people and the
biosphere.
Renewable energy sources are not new. They were crushed in the
late 19th century through fossil fuel energy oligarch co-opting
government subsidies for oil and coal and also through profits
from slave wages for miners and many others while, all the
while, the claim was made that fossil fuels were "cheaper". This
article covers all this and more:
Hope for a viable biosphere: Why fossil fuels were NEVER cheap
or cost effective
HTML http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2012/07/17/hope-for-a-viable-biosphere-of-renewables/
In the article you will learn the REAL reason for Prohibition.
Hint: it had NOTHING to do with people drinking booze and
EVERYTHING to do with eliminating ethanol (ethyl alcohol) as a
competitor for Rockefeller's gasoline fuel.
It is no coincidence that, right after ethanol, a higher octane
fuel than gasoline (115 vs 93-95), became illegal in the early
1920s, Rockefeller came out with the poisonous tetra-ethyl lead
additive to raise the octane of gasoline to ethanol's level so
gasoline could now be burned in high compression, more powerful
engines. He destroyed the competition with Prohibition and added
more poisons to our atmosphere to boot.
Also you will read about how, before automobiles came out in the
late 19th century, Rockefeller's refineries would flush gasoline
(19 gallons are produced for every 42 gallons of crude oil
refined) in the rivers at night because it was a waste product.
Hope for a viable biosphere: Why fossil fuels were NEVER cheap
or cost effective
HTML http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2012/07/17/hope-for-a-viable-biosphere-of-renewables/
I firmly believe that a corrupt hierarchy that gained enormous
power during the gilded age by using the force multiplier of the
industrial revolution to garner their wealth became so arrogant
that they began to view absolutely all human activity as a
commodity along with natural resources as well.
This morally repugnant rationalization enabled them to justify
their despotic practices because, with this "commoditization of
everything" meme, they had divorced themselves from the
responsibility for good stewardship of the earth and humane
behavior to employees.
Noblesse oblige, or whatever small amount of it remained when
the industrial revolution began, died with the gilded age in a
sea of greed.
The power of the 1% has enabled them to defend the claim that
energy, land and labor are not fictitious commodities even
though they are fictitious. The 1% are controlling the narrative
and they continue to shove it down our throat. The Federal
Reserve and their banking friends couldn't run a lemonade stand
successfully with their brand of economics policies, but there
they are, claiming to be experts. It's Orwellian.
Human nature is what it is, BUT, the industrial revolution
allowed an oligarch to garner wealth for 10,000 while he had
been previously limited to lording it over a handful of serfs
and slaves while sparring with the other small time tyrants.
The people that came to America from England were, according to
what I have read, from different areas in the UK that predicated
their behavior patterns before they stepped off the boat (four
distinct areas I believe). Some argue the Cavaliers that went to
run the Southern Plantations were the worst of the lot but they
were ALL rapaciously willing to exploit the land and the "wrong"
people without reflection.
The US constitution is a rhetorical masterpiece because it
applied to a VERY tiny group of the population. In practice,
everyone but landed white men were excluded, while the "all men
were created equal" rhetoric was "piously" positioned in the
document. It was breathtaking in its hypocrisy.
A free black, who built his own working clock out of hardwood
parts, became an astronomer and computed the ephemeris used by
mariners in the day. He wrote to Jefferson demanding that
Jefferson stop insisting that blacks were mentally inferior to
whites and offered to debate him and have a mathematical
contest. Jefferson flat refused to even acknowledge him.
Jefferson was a great writer but a ruthless opportunist, as were
all the founding fathers.
The constitution has never, even to this day, been applied
across the land and I am fully aware of the Calvinist doctrine
in the US after the civil war that maintained that "The people
must be kept poor so they will remain obedient".
If the industrial revolution had improved the lives of everyone
across the board, as was promised, we would have a different
world. But no, the people with access to capital deliberately
made life worse for the poor and used divide and conquer tactics
to create Jim Crow strife to sucker the poor whites into not
looking at who was REALLY impoverishing them.
All this is as old as human nature. For that reason I tend to
look with a jaundiced eye at any claim to greatness or foresight
by the founding fathers of the US Oligarchy with Representative
Republic lipstick..
I continue to believe the force multiplier of the industrial
revolution increased the power of these oligarchs and decreased,
in an equal proportion, the small amount of democracy we had.
I know how England and Europe operated even before the
industrial revolution. They wanted everything not made in
England (machinery and crafted goods) to have zero competition
and everything coming from the colonies to be agrarian goods
(commodities). The North and South had a different spin on how
to make a buck but they were both equally complicit (at the
elite level) in fostering tyranny for profit.
I realize the main decision makers involve a smaller percentage
than 1% and the 99% suffer from a serious infusion of fecal
coliforms in their glial cells resulting in colonization of
their amygdala and their prefrontal cortex. IOW they are being
continuously brainwashed with bullshit so their base urges are
amplified and their critical thinking skills destroyed. But
nevertheless, I see more virtue and hope in the 99% than the
soulless reptiles in the catbird seat.
#Post#: 9809--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of
the USA
By: AGelbert Date: June 7, 2018, 1:07 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]The U.S. is Not a Democracy, It Never Was[/center]
June 6, 2018 Posted by Addison dePitt
[center][center][img
width=800]
HTML https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/UScapitol-Lincoln.jpg[/img][/center][/center]
HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL
DEPENDS ON IT.
One of the most steadfast beliefs regarding the United States is
that it is a democracy. Whenever this conviction waivers
slightly, it is almost always to point out detrimental
exceptions to core American values or foundational principles.
For instance, aspiring critics frequently bemoan a “loss of
democracy” due to the election of clownish autocrats, draconian
measures on the part of the state, the revelation of
extraordinary malfeasance or corruption, deadly foreign
interventions, or other such activities that are considered
undemocratic exceptions. The same is true for those whose
critical framework consists in always juxtaposing the actions of
the U.S. government to its founding principles, highlighting the
contradiction between the two and clearly placing hope in its
potential resolution.
The problem, however, is that there is no contradiction or
supposed loss of democracy because the United States simply
never was one. This is a difficult reality for many people to
confront, and they are likely more inclined to immediately
dismiss such a claim as preposterous rather than take the time
to scrutinize the material historical record in order to see for
themselves. Such a dismissive reaction is due in large part to
what is perhaps the most successful public relations campaign in
modern history. What will be seen, however, if this record is
soberly and methodically inspected, is that a country founded on
elite, colonial rule based on the power of wealth—a plutocratic
colonial oligarchy, in short—has succeeded not only in buying
the label of “democracy” to market itself to the masses, but in
having its citizenry, and many others, so socially and
psychologically invested in its nationalist origin myth that
they refuse to hear lucid and well-documented arguments to the
contrary.
To begin to peel the scales from our eyes, let us outline in the
restricted space of this article, five patent reasons why the
United States has never been a democracy (a more sustained and
developed argument is available in my book, Counter-History of
the Present). To begin with, British colonial expansion into the
Americas did not occur in the name of the freedom and equality
of the general population, or the conferral of power to the
people. Those who settled on the shores of the “new world,” with
few exceptions, did not respect the fact that it was a very old
world indeed, and that a vast indigenous population had been
living there for centuries. As soon as Columbus set foot,
Europeans began robbing, enslaving and killing the native
inhabitants. The trans-Atlantic slave trade commenced almost
immediately thereafter, adding a countless number of Africans to
the ongoing genocidal assault against the indigenous population.
Moreover, it is estimated that over half of the colonists who
came to North America from Europe during the colonial period
were poor indentured servants, and women were generally trapped
in roles of domestic servitude. Rather than the land of the free
and equal, then, European colonial expansion to the Americas
imposed a land of the colonizer and the colonized, the master
and the slave, the rich and the poor, the free and the un-free.
The former constituted, moreover, an infinitesimally small
minority of the population, whereas the overwhelming majority,
meaning “the people,” was subjected to death, slavery,
servitude, and unremitting socio-economic oppression.
[center]
HTML https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/US-capitol-founding-fathers.jpg
Founding Fathers: as plutocratic oligarchs, they harbored deep
reservations if not outright hostility to the idea of genuine
democratic rule.[/center]
Second, when the elite colonial ruling class decided to sever
ties from their homeland and establish an independent state for
themselves, they did not found it as a democracy. On the
contrary, they were fervently and explicitly opposed to
democracy, like the vast majority of European Enlightenment
thinkers. They understood it to be a dangerous and chaotic form
of uneducated mob rule. For the so-called “founding fathers,”
the masses were not only incapable of ruling, but they were
considered a threat to the hierarchical social structures
purportedly necessary for good governance. In the words of John
Adams, to take but one telling example, if the majority were
given real power, they would redistribute wealth and dissolve
the “subordination” so necessary for politics. When the eminent
members of the landowning class met in 1787 to draw up a
constitution, they regularly insisted in their debates on the
need to establish a republic that kept at bay vile democracy,
which was judged worse than “the filth of the common sewers” by
the pro-Federalist editor William Cobbett. The new constitution
provided for popular elections only in the House of
Representatives, but in most states the right to vote was based
on being a property owner, and women, the indigenous and
slaves—meaning the overwhelming majority of the population—were
simply excluded from the franchise. Senators were elected by
state legislators, the President by electors chosen by the state
legislators, and the Supreme Court was appointed by the
President. It is in this context that Patrick Henry flatly
proclaimed the most lucid of judgments: “it is not a democracy.”
George Mason further clarified the situation by describing the
newly independent country as “a despotic aristocracy.”
[center]
HTML https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Obama_Profile_in_Courage_Award_61499.jpg-0d3ec_c0-145-3900-2418_s885x516-520x303.jpg
Ruling class collaborator Obama: a master public relations
stroke—pure symbol and no substance— when the oppressors needed
to recharge their legitimacy.[/center]
When the American republic slowly came to be relabeled as a
“democracy,” there were no significant institutional
modifications to justify the change in name. In other words, and
this is the third point, the use of the term “democracy” to
refer to an oligarchic republic simply meant that a different
word was being used to describe the same basic phenomenon. This
began around the time of “Indian killer” Andrew Jackson’s
presidential campaign in the 1830s. Presenting himself as a
‘democrat,’ he put forth an image of himself as an average man
of the people who was going to put a halt to the long reign of
patricians from Virginia and Massachusetts. Slowly but surely,
the term “democracy” came to be used as a public relations term
to re-brand a plutocratic oligarchy as an electoral regime that
serves the interest of the people or demos. Meanwhile, the
American holocaust continued unabated, along with chattel
slavery, colonial expansion and top-down class warfare.
In spite of certain minor changes over time, the U.S. republic
has doggedly preserved its oligarchic structure, and this is
readily apparent in the two major selling points of its
contemporary “democratic” publicity campaign. The Establishment
and its propagandists regularly insist that a structural
aristocracy is a “democracy” because the latter is defined by
the guarantee of certain fundamental rights (legal definition)
and the holding of regular elections (procedural definition).
This is, of course, a purely formal, abstract and largely
negative understanding of democracy, which says nothing
whatsoever about people having real, sustained power over the
governing of their lives. However, even this hollow definition
dissimulates the extent to which, to begin with, the supposed
equality before the law in the United States presupposes an
inequality before the law by excluding major sectors of the
population: those judged not to have the right to rights, and
those considered to have lost their right to rights (Native
Americans, African-Americans and women for most of the country’s
history, and still today in certain aspects, as well as
immigrants, “criminals,” minors, the “clinically insane,”
political dissidents, and so forth). Regarding elections, they
are run in the United States as long, multi-million dollar
advertising campaigns in which the candidates and issues are
pre-selected by the corporate and party elite. The general
population, the majority of whom do not have the right to vote
or decide not to exercise it, are given the “choice”—overseen by
an undemocratic electoral college and embedded in a
non-proportional representation scheme—regarding which member of
the aristocratic elite they would like to have rule over and
oppress them for the next four years. “Multivariate analysis
indicates,” according to an important recent study by Martin
Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, “that economic elites and organized
groups representing business interests have substantial
independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average
citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no
independent influence. The results provide substantial support
for theories of Economic-Elite Domination […], but not for
theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy.”
[center]
HTML https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/George-Washington-Mount-Vernon-OverseeingSlaves-600x285.jpg
G. Washington overseeing slaves. A routine task of all white
colonial masters.[/center]
To take but a final example of the myriad ways in which the U.S.
is not, and has never been, a democracy, it is worth
highlighting its consistent assault on movements of people
power. Since WWII, it has endeavored to overthrow some 50
foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected.
It has also, according the meticulous calculations by William
Blum in America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy, grossly
interfered in the elections of at least 30 countries, attempted
to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders, dropped bombs on
more than 30 countries, and attempted to suppress populist
movements in 20 countries. The record on the home front is just
as brutal. To take but one significant parallel example, there
is ample evidence that the FBI has been invested in a covert war
against democracy. Beginning at least in the 1960s, and likely
continuing up to the present, the Bureau “extended its earlier
clandestine operations against the Communist party, committing
its resources to undermining the Puerto Rico independence
movement, the Socialist Workers party, the civil rights
movement, Black nationalist movements, the Ku Klux Klan,
segments of the peace movement, the student movement, and the
‘New Left’ in general” (Cointelpro: The FBI’s Secret War on
Political Freedom, p. 22-23). Consider, for instance, Judi
Bari’s summary of its assault on the Socialist Workers Party:
“From 1943-63, the federal civil rights case Socialist Workers
Party v. Attorney General documents decades of illegal FBI
break-ins and 10 million pages of surveillance records. The FBI
paid an estimated 1,600 informants $1,680,592 and used 20,000
days of wiretaps to undermine legitimate political organizing.”
In the case of the Black Panther Party and the American Indian
Movement (AIM)—which were both important attempts to mobilize
people power to dismantle the structural oppression of white
supremacy and top-down class warfare—the FBI not only
infiltrated them and launched hideous smear and destabilization
campaigns against them, but they assassinated 27 Black Panthers
and 69 members of AIM (and subjected countless others to the
slow death of incarceration). If it be abroad or on the home
front, the American secret police has been extremely proactive
in beating down the movements of people rising up, thereby
protecting and preserving the main pillars of white supremacist,
capitalist aristocracy.
Elections are run in the United States as long, multi-million
dollar advertising campaigns in which the candidates and issues
are pre-selected by the corporate and party elite. The general
population, many of whom do not have the right to vote or decide
not to exercise it, are given the “choice”—overseen by an
undemocratic electoral college and embedded in a
non-proportional representation scheme…
Rather than blindly believing in a golden age of democracy in
order to remain at all costs within the gilded cage of an
ideology produced specifically for us by the well-paid
spin-doctors of a plutocratic oligarchy, we should unlock the
gates of history and meticulously scrutinize the founding and
evolution of the American imperial republic. This will not only
allow us to take leave of its jingoist and self-congratulatory
origin myths, but it will also provide us with the opportunity
to resuscitate and reactivate so much of what they have sought
to obliterate. In particular, there is a radical America just
below the surface of these nationalist narratives, an America in
which the population autonomously organizes itself in indigenous
and ecological activism, black radical resistance,
anti-capitalist mobilization, anti-patriarchal struggles, and so
forth. It is this America that the corporate republic has sought
to eradicate, while simultaneously investing in an expansive
public relations campaign to cover over its crimes with the fig
leaf of “democracy” (which has sometimes required integrating a
few token individuals, who appear to be from below, into the
elite ruling class in order to perpetuate the all-powerful myth
of meritocracy). If we are astute and perspicacious enough to
recognize that the U.S. is undemocratic today, let us not be so
indolent or ill-informed that we let ourselves be lulled to
sleep by lullabies praising its halcyon past. Indeed, if the
United States is not a democracy today, it is in large part due
to the fact that it never was one. Far from being a pessimistic
conclusion, however, it is precisely by cracking open the hard
shell of ideological encasement that we can tap into the radical
forces that have been suppressed by it. These forces—not those
that have been deployed to destroy them—should be the ultimate
source of our pride in the power of the people.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gabriel Rockhill is a Franco-American philosopher and cultural
critic. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Villanova
University and founding Director of the Atelier de Théorie
Critique at the Sorbonne. His books include Counter-History of
the Present: Untimely Interrogations into Globalization,
Technology, Democracy (2017), Interventions in Contemporary
Thought: History, Politics, Aesthetics (2016), Radical History &
the Politics of Art (2014) and Logique de l’histoire (2010). In
addition to his scholarly work, he has been actively engaged in
extra-academic activities in the art and activist worlds, as
well as a regular contributor to public intellectual debate.
Follow on twitter: @GabrielRockhill
HTML https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/06/06/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-never-was-2/
HTML https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/06/06/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-never-was-2/
#Post#: 9810--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of
the USA
By: AGelbert Date: June 7, 2018, 1:39 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center] [center][img
width=300]
HTML http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle-pics/Flag_of_the_United_States.png[/img][/center][/center]
[center]The U.S. is Not a Democracy, It Never Was
HTML https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/06/06/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-never-was-2/<br
/>
[/center]
Excellent article. Thank you, RE. [img
width=30]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-141113185701.png[/img]
And yes, of course the U.S. was never a democracy. If you have
any doubts, just look at the ORIGINAL Constitution and, to add
plutocratic insult to injury, all those "Amendments made along
the Orwellian mindfork way.
[center]The Constitution is a pro-slavery document[/center]
Much has been written about the Revolution being, at it's core,
an attempt to immunize the colonies from the "disturbing" (to
Jefferson -he was furious years later when Haiti obtained
independence and violated even the good parts of the
constitution by authorizing to give the French plantation owners
money and weapons to quell the rebellion - , many other
founding fathers and their wealthy friends) move in England at
the time to outlaw slavery.
The industrial revolution and how the elite parasitic modus
operandi called "capitalism" benefited massively from mass
production is the main historical influence that led to our
polluted world and the cruel poverty wage structure of today.
The mass production factories created a new type slavery without
the pejorative connotation of being race linked but it was still
slavery.
When enslaving African Americans was no longer cost effective
due to farm machinery, new ways to enslave them and the poor
whites as well as any other ethnic poor had to be invented.
After all, the elite did not like one bit the idea that the
increased efficiency of a laborer could provide that laborer
with more free time and a better life. The 1% had conniption
fits thinking about all those people out there having the time
to sit, think and figure out how TBTB were gaming them.
No, the elite developed a plan to "keep em' busy". The guilt
trip sermons from pulpits all over America went out after the
Civil War to demonize leisure and glorify "nose to the
grindstone" work as being "God's Will". Few evils in human
behavior exceed that of the act of conning people that trust you
into willingly allowing themselves to be exploited based on the
claim that it's what the are OBLIGATED to do because the person
IN AUTHORITY speaks for GOD. There is a special place in hell
for these elite predatory capitalist water carrying apologists
that wear the cloth. >:(
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/362577/350wm/V2000034-Aerial_view_of_factories_during_the_19th_century.-SPL.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/images/20030037-r<br
/>copy.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Factory owners displaying their "work ethic"
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-220216203149.gif<br
/>[/center]
The elite's "work ethic" includes years of "sabbaticals",
"learning experiences", "naval gazing" and "introspection" that
translate to long stretches of time doing absolutely nothing
productive. I think that's wonderful and should be available to
all of us as a means to a healthier and happier mindset. That's
why the elite do it. For them to then turn around and unleash
their propaganda water carrying lackeys solemnly mouthing the
"don't be lazy, work your fingers to the bone for us" bullshit
on the populace is the epitome of duplicity.
It is said the word "saboteur" derives from the Netherlands in
the 15th century when workers would throw their sabots (wooden
shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the
cogs, fearing the automated machines would render the human
workers obsolete.
Notice how the word "saboteur" has a negative connotation. This
shows who controls the historical narrative. I believe the Dutch
laborers weren't just concerned about obsolescence; they were
concerned about controlling how much they got paid for their
labor.
Mass production was the beginning of a massive concentration of
wealth by greedy machinery owners that refused to pay equitable
wages.
[center][img
width=180]
HTML http://www.opednews.com/populum/uploaded/wemeantwell-23439-20130307-234.jpg[/img][/center]
This is what "Capitalism" is really all about. It is sold as
free market this and that but, in practice, it is nothing but
elite parasitism.
When the English gentry wanted to corral the peasants into
working in the factories, as well as use more of their land to
grow sheep for fleece free from peasant interference, they came
up with a pack of thinly justified herding mechanisms (Enclosure
Laws) that stripped the peasants of their ability to live off
the land.
The peasants were not buying the con that working in a factory
was a better deal than living off the land. They had to be
forced.
They knew damned good and well that the factory owners were not
going to pay decent wages or provide adequate working
conditions.
Today, all this disguised tyranny called capitalism is festooned
with gooblygock terms like competitive advantage and arbitrage
along with a plethora of terms from the crooked imaginations of
bored economists but it continues to be about elite parasitism.
In the financial area the vampire proboscis is usury but that is
not the whole story by a long shot. Patent law is another huge
part of RHIP that was NEVER there to protect inventors UNLESS
those inventors were from the upper class.
The bottom line is the control of the populace for the power,
profit and pleasure of the TPBT.
[quote]Enclosure
[size=10pt]In English social and economic history, enclosure or
inclosure[1] is the process which ends traditional rights such
as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land
formerly held in the open field system. Once enclosed, these
uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases
to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used
for the process that ended the ancient system of arable farming
in open fields. Under enclosure, such land is fenced (enclosed)
and deeded or entitled to one or more owners. The process of
enclosure began to be a widespread feature of the English
agricultural landscape during the 16th century. By the 19th
century, unenclosed commons had become largely restricted to
rough pasture in mountainous areas and to relatively small parts
of the lowlands.
The process of enclosure has sometimes been accompanied by
force, resistance, and bloodshed, and remains among the most
controversial areas of agricultural and economic history in
England. Marxist and neo-Marxist historians argue that rich
landowners used their control of state processes to appropriate
public land for their private benefit.
This created a landless working class that provided the labour
required in the new industries developing in the north of
England. For example: "In agriculture the years between 1760 and
1820 are the years of wholesale enclosure in which, in village
after village, common rights are lost".[2] "Enclosure (when all
the sophistications are allowed for) was a plain enough case of
class robbery".[3]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-3"[4][/quote]
HTML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
HTML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
The following video tells the real story of capitalism's birth
and growth through the power the elite obtained in the
industrial revolution, how the poor were demonized as being
"lazy" for attempting to avoid the horrors of factory work by
staying and living off the land. They had to be forced, along
with their children, to do so.[/I]
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/l0nM5DU4ADI[/center]
The only proper economic system that humans should engage in is
the egalitarian socialism that the early Christians engaged in
as shown in the Book of Acts in the New Testament. The Apostles
were the top dogs but they received no special privileges and
had to work as hard as anybody else.
The elite despise egalitarianism so they invented all sorts of
euphemisms for tyranny like capitalism, as well as 20th century
Soviet Communism. It's six of one and half a dozen of the other.
They all end up with a few reptiles in the catbird seat making
life miserable for the rest of us.
That is one of the reasons why, in my articles on Renewables, I
am adamantly opposed to scaling up renewable energy sources into
centralized power generating facilities UNLESS they are
nationalized.
Privatization of centralized power leads to pollution and
illicit profits which are then used to buy the government.
Decentralized renewable power generating facilities provide
stable, secure and long term jobs free from the feast or famine
fun and games so favored by predatory capitalism.
Capitalism REQUIRES an insecure labor force so they can be
fleeced and set to fight against each other for jobs.
Sustainability eliminates all this tyranny and returns the
proper view of human existence that everyone should be entitled
to a decent lifestyle.
The 'cog in the wheels of industry' view of humans and their
labor as commodities is WRONG and has must be rejected by
civilization.'Creatively destroying' human quality of life for
profit is [I]good psychopathic criminal behavior, not good
business.
#Post#: 9814--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of
the USA
By: AGelbert Date: June 7, 2018, 5:53 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Surly1 link=topic=4824.msg155332#msg155332
date=1528399695]
[quote=Eddie]But that hardly makes the process of stealing a
citizen's own money morally or ethically right. All my life I
was taught the burden of proof when people were charged with a
crime is on the government. Civil forfeiture is an end-run
around that.
It. Is. Not. Right.
[/quote]
Civil Forfeiture is the "legal" equivalent of a mob shakedown. I
am ABSOLUTELY convinced that these practices are put into place
to discredit the very idea of government, the better to "drown
in the bathtub" per the Norquist ideal, and fully and finally
realize the Randian divine condition. Libertarian governance is,
at the end of the day, a war of all against all with bigger fish
eating smaller.
[center][img
width=600]
HTML http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-capitalism-is-the-legitimate-racket-of-the-ruling-class-al-capone-60-70-56.jpg[/img][/center]
[/quote]
True.
I have often pondered the genesis of the use of the term
"Liberty" to define license, as in, "libertine". They are two
different words, but I long suspected the libertines, who eschew
any and all standards of morality in their "dog-eat-dog" world
view, co-opted the term "liberty" early on in this nation's
history.
My suspicions were confirmed in a recent article by a historian
about the tumultuous history of the "Liberty" issue in the early
years of the USA (that almost destroyed the country at the
start!).
It is quite interesting, as it sheds light on much that is going
on right now. The "Liberty" thing, for too many, actually means
the freedom to avoid the constraints that responsible government
imposes on citizens for the common welfare. To hide this fact,
these proclaimers of their right to "Liberty" always paint the
government as "abusive" and themseves as "victims of tyranny".
In fact, they are mostly ravenous wolves out to fleece whoever
they can with as few laws as possible between them and the
routine plundering of their fellow man.
That doesn't mean they don't like laws! Oh no! They engage in
routine conspiracies and corruption to GAME the laws for their
benefit. Despite what they claim, they do not mind government as
long as THEY are the invisible hand controlling the government.
All the while, they, like the Kochroaches today, hypocritically
claimed that "government was tyranny attacking their liberty".
They are still at it, pushing the con that they "just want to be
left alone and have their property respected". In truth, they
want all the rest of us to NEVER be given a moment of peace from
their predations.
Check it out.
JUN 02, 2018 TD ORIGINALS
[center]American History for Truthdiggers: Liberty vs. Order
(1796-1800)
HTML https://www.truthdig.com/articles/american-history-for-truthdiggers-liberty-vs-order-1796-1800/[/center]
SNIPPET:
Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” —John Adams in a letter to
his wife, Abigail (1775)
“[A social division exists] between the rich and the poor, the
laborious and the idle, the learned and the ignorant. … Nothing,
but force, and power and strength can restrain [the latter].”
—John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson (1787)
Two quotes from the same person. Barely a decade between the two
utterances. How can a man be so conflicted? John Adams, who
helped lead the revolution against British “tyranny,” would
later become a president apt to suppress dissent and restrict a
free press at home. Well, Adams was a complicated man, and the
United States was—and is—a complicated nation.
Full article:
[center]American History for Truthdiggers: Liberty vs. Order
(1796-1800)
HTML https://www.truthdig.com/articles/american-history-for-truthdiggers-liberty-vs-order-1796-1800/[/center]
#Post#: 9816--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of
the USA
By: AGelbert Date: June 7, 2018, 9:10 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Surly1 link=topic=937.msg155345#msg155345
date=1528419917]
[quote author=agelbert link=topic=937.msg155339#msg155339
date=1528408253]
However, considering what the Bilderbergers consider to be a
'Present-Truth' world, I think it is rather Orwellian of them to
be concerned about a 'Post-Truth' world. Their concern [img
width=20]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-250817135149.gif[/img]<br
/>has always been about making sure the TRUTH was NOT known abou
t
how elites have irresponsibly and mindlessly plundered the
people and the environment for centuries. That has not changed,
despite the headline.
[/quote]
The "truth" being, of course, what the Bilderbergers [img
width=20]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-311013201314.png[/img]<br
/>[img
width=20]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-311013201314.png[/img]<br
/>[img
width=20]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-311013201314.png[/img]<br
/>define it to be.[/quote]
Orwell lives. [img
width=20]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-311013201314.png[/img]
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-050515144544.png[/img][/center]
#Post#: 10189--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of
the USA
By: AGelbert Date: July 4, 2018, 11:27 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Did the Founding Fathers Lead the American Revolution
for the Pursuit of Liberty — Or Personal Greed?[/center]
[center]Two political scientists are that the founding of the
United States was less idealistic than we were led to believe.
[/center]
By Cody Fenwick / [font=times new roman]AlterNet[/font]
July 3, 2018, 5:45 PM GMT
Americans, like citizens of countries around the world,
celebrate their country's Independence Day with pride and
reverence for the people who founded the country. In the United
States, we tell a powerful story of the country's founding as a
break from the tyranny of the British crown and away from King
George III's relentless taxation without representation, a break
which led to the Revolutionary War.
But is this merely a myth meant to inculcate patriotism?
Political scientists Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith
have argued that we should question the American founding story
as a noble crusade.
Instead, they see the founding of the United States as the
result of the unabated greed of the founders.
In their book The Spoils of War, Bueno de Mesquita and Smith
expand on their theory of political action as deriving largely
from the personal ambitions of rulers and politicians in power.
They apply this theory to the American presidents, and they
begin their case with no lesser figure than President George
Washington.
Washington, they argue, had deep financial interests in land.
One estimate ranks him as the 59th richest man in all of
American history, and he died with 60,000 acres to his name
across Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky, Maryland, and
West Virginia, the authors write.
But the market for land that Washington would use to become so
rich was under threat from the British government prior to the
war. In 1763, the king issued a proclamation restricting the
colonization of the Ohio Valley, where the Ohio Company — to
which Washington was tied — had sought to profit handsomely. The
proclamation dimmed the prospects for profit.
The king's imposition became even worse in 1767 when he
proclaimed that all land west of the Alleghenies belonged to the
crown, completely nullifying the Ohio Company's land acquisition
ambitions.
"For Washington, however, all future paths, whether as a
landowner, a canal builder, or a military hero, lead back the
benefits he derived from the Ohio Company," the authors write.
"It was a catalyst for his success."
So while many average colonists may have little quarrel with the
king over these seizures of land — land which was, quite often,
inhabited by Native Americans — men with ambitions for wealth
and power saw these proclamations as an affront.
The authors note that the king's effort to restrict colonists'
use of uncolonized land is even mentioned in the Declaration of
Independence.
Two other famous decrees from Britain are also commonly cited as
part of the incentive for revolution: The Currency Act and the
Stamp Act. But both these laws, passed by parliament, had
exaggerated effects on wealthy colonists, like the founders,
compared to their effects on the rest of the people.
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were also both, like
Washington, historically wealthy men who engaged in land
speculation. John Hancock was another founding father from elite
stock: he is reportedly the 56th wealthiest man in American
history.
Bueno de Mesquita and Smith write:
Through tough business dealing, prudent spending, and a superb
eye for opportunities in land acquisition and other businesses,
George Washington turned himself into a phenomenally wealthy
man. And then the economic world around him was turned
topsy-turvy by new policies emanating from Britain. These
policies and the threat they represented to his, and many other
founding fathers', personal interests were a great impetus for
revolution.
In the end, it's not clear that the authors develop a knock-down
argument for their case. While they persuasively show that the
founding fathers may have had compelling financial interests at
stake at the time of the revolution, they don't argue
conclusively that war was the most efficient or reasonable
tactic for them to increase their wealth.
And they aren't able to show that, even if financial interests
were a motivating factor for many of the founding fathers to go
to war, these interests were necessarily the deciding factor.
However, the authors' argument that going to war was the wrong
decision, on the other hand, is much more persuasive.
One of the major reasons to regret the war is the effect
American independence had on Native Americans.
Despite their claim in the Declaration of Independence, the
founding fathers and early colonists did not have a right to
take the land from Native Americans who already lived in the
Ohio Valley and beyond — and the coming conflicts over this land
would spill much blood.
So had the colonies complied with the king's demands on this
front, much of this unjustified theft and violence might have
been avoided.
Vox's Dyland Matthews makes a similar point:
American Indians would have still, in all likelihood, faced
violence and oppression absent American independence, just as
First Nations people in Canada did. But American-scale ethnic
cleansing wouldn't have occurred. And like America's slaves,
American Indians knew this. Most tribes sided with the British
or stayed neutral; only a small minority backed the rebels.
Generally speaking, when a cause is opposed by the two most
vulnerable groups in a society, it's probably a bad idea. So it
is with the cause of American independence.
Moreover, the taxation without representation issue could have
been solved, Bueno de Mesquita and Smith argue, had the king and
British parliament simply allowed the American colonies to have
representation. And if the American colonies stayed a part of
Britain, they would have then abolished slavery in 1833 under
the Slavery Abolition Act, many years earlier before the United
States, in fact, achieved that end of the abominable
institution.
The authors contend that had the southern colonies attempted to
rebel to preserve slavery as the southern states did in 1865,
they would have faced not only opposition from the north, but
also from the British empire. This superior force could have
reduced the chances of a bloody civil war.
Without the Revolutionary War, the United States would have
likely ended up following a path much more similar to that of
Canada. That is, while vestiges of imperial rule would linger,
the country would have eventually won its independence without
resorting to armed conflict.
So was it greed that drove our founding fathers to go to war?
Perhaps, though it remains uncertain. But whatever the
motivation for the war that led to American independence, it was
probably a mistake.
Bueno de Mesquita and Smith's argument reminds us that it is
always worthwhile to examine leaders' motivations for bringing
nations to war and to question a country's founding myths. As an
apocryphal James Madison quote warns: "The truth is that all men
having power ought to be mistrusted." [img
width=50]
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HTML https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/did-founding-fathers-lead-american-revolution-pursuit-liberty-or-personal-greed
#Post#: 11057--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Anti-Democratic Elite Fix Was IN From The Very Start of
the USA
By: AGelbert Date: November 9, 2018, 3:58 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]The Senate Is an Institutional Barrier 😈
👹 💵 🎩 to Democracy[/center]
BY Sohale A. Mortazavi, Truthout
PUBLISHED November 9, 2018
Even though Democratic candidates for the Senate won millions
more votes than their Republican challengers, it's the
Republicans who will maintain control of the Senate. This is now
the sixth out of the last 10 Congresses in which the GOP has
controlled the Senate without representing a majority of voters,
raising questions about whether this legislative body needs
reform -- or abolition.
Even entirely excluding the more than 6.4 million votes cast in
California, where no Republican senatorial candidate appeared on
the general ballot, Democrats still secured 6.4 million more
votes nationally, an 8-percentage point lead.
Excellent article: [img
width=50]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418200416.png[/img]<br
/>
HTML https://truthout.org/articles/the-senate-is-an-institutional-barrier-to-democracy/
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