Are we nearing a new American Revolution?

[vince]

Let me be sure I'm understanding you correctly: you're totally surprised that in the United States of America, a citizen did not have his "ass busted" by the secret police for behaving in a manner that is guaranteed to be legal by the highest law of the land?

Wow...eight years of Bush's draconian fearmongering has really fucked up the civic mindset of this country. :no:

And are you asserting that the person was a dumbfuck simply because he was armed? Or was there some actual statement he made that leads you to this conclusion?

Yes I am surprised, The Secret Service's job is to protect the POTUS. Given the history of Presidential assassination in your country and the many attempts and threats on the lives of Presidents, I would think they'd be more vigilant. And you know they are, constitutional rights or not. I assume this was just a mistake on their part. That's the surprising part. You don't seriously think they are going to worry about your second amendment rights when you flash a pistol around the President of the USof A do you? The police violate the rights of citizens everyday. Nothing unusual about that. Wrong, but not surprising.

I agree the civic mindset is fucked in the US, but it didn't start with Bush. It was already fucked before he took office, they wouldn't have had such an easy time of it trashing that "goddamned piece of paper" (I think that's how he put it), if the citizens had anything more than a faint clue.

As for his dumbfuck statements, I'll have to find the interview before I can quote him directly.

 

[suprdave]

wonder if the guy with the gun was a plant?

 

[B_New End]

Yes I am surprised, The Secret Service's job is to protect the POTUS. Given the history of Presidential assassination in your country and the many attempts and threats on the lives of Presidents, I would think they'd be more vigilant. And you know they are, constitutional rights or not. I assume this was just a mistake on their part. That's the surprising part. You don't seriously think they are going to worry about your second amendment rights when you flash a pistol around the President of the USof A do you? The police violate the rights of citizens everyday. Nothing unusual about that. Wrong, but not surprising.

I agree the civic mindset is fucked in the US, but it didn't start with Bush. It was already fucked before he took office, they wouldn't have had such an easy time of it trashing that "goddamned piece of paper" (I think that's how he put it), if the citizens had anything more than a faint clue.

As for his dumbfuck statements, I'll have to find the interview before I can quote him directly.

the SS made statements about it. the statements were pretty much, "we were aware, we kept an eye on the situation, but were unconcerned" They knew the guy meant no harm to the president. They knew he was there to make a point, and I would bet dollars to donuts, they deep down were glad he was doing it. SS is more than likely ex military, meaning more than likely staunch 2nd amendment.

I cant find the secret service quote at the moment. Sorry, I read it earlier today.

 

[HazelGod]

Yes I am surprised, The Secret Service's job is to protect the POTUS. Given the history of Presidential assassination in your country and the many attempts and threats on the lives of Presidents, I would think they'd be more vigilant. And you know they are, constitutional rights or not. I assume this was just a mistake on their part. That's the surprising part. You don't seriously think they are going to worry about your second amendment rights when you flash a pistol around the President of the USof A do you? The police violate the rights of citizens everyday. Nothing unusual about that. Wrong, but not surprising.

Oh, there was no mistake...the SS is quite vigilant. I assure you, they were keeping very close tabs on every armed individual within a wide radius of Obama. However, their duty to protect the POTUS and citizens' right to bear arms are not mutually exclusive. Just because people have become accustomed to police violating rights on a regular basis doesn't mean they're all sheep who will just accept it as the "way things are." That's exactly the message being sent by visibly armed civilians engaging in the political process.

That said, had anyone unholstered or shouldered a weapon at any time, the SS would have been all over them like stink on shit.

I agree the civic mindset is fucked in the US, but it didn't start with Bush. It was already fucked before he took office, they wouldn't have had such an easy time of it trashing that "goddamned piece of paper" (I think that's how he put it), if the citizens had anything more than a faint clue.

True, but his administration's very public disregard for the basic rule of law in this country for almost a decade has fostered a perception among the citizens that it's acceptable to ignore the law when it's convenient for one's personal goals. I commend the SS and all the associated law enforcement personnel covering these events for respecting the rights of the people involved. Despite all the media hysterics over their presence, they have proven that firearms in the hands of responsible owners are not a threat to the public safety...even in a setting as charged and contentious as a political rally.

 

[2322]

You forgot that anyone who appeared to be anti-Bush was herded into illegal, "free speech zones," blocks away from where the President was. The reason he spoke so often in front of military groups is because they could be ordered when to clap, laugh, and what questions to ask (if any were allowed).

Bush is a fascist though I tend to think he is simply too stupid to know it even if his underlings didn't. The US population has been trained to be rabidly anti-communist over the last 60 years yet we have ignored the threat posed by fascists even if it was glaringly obvious 70 years ago. It's as if that once the Axis was defeated, fascism just disappeared from the political discussion of this country. And that's horrendously dangerous because it means we don't see the monster when we see it forming.

If they will even believe you, it shocks Americans no end to learn that Europe functions on a capitalistic system, some places are even more hardcore capitalist than the US is and yet they maintain some social benefit programs of which the greatest is public health care. Despite this, we scream it's socialist and communist and doomed to failure, blah blah blah.

What country has greater personal freedoms than the US? The Netherlands.

What country has more laissez-faire business laws than the US? The Netherlands.

What country has a higher standard of living than the US? The Netherlands (though there are others).

What country has greater opportunity of upward economic mobility than the US? The Netherlands.

What country has one of the best medical systems in the world (based upon access, quality, and cost of care?) The Netherlands.

What country was stable, promoted religious and political freedom, and had the largest middle class before there was such a thing anywhere else in the world and the US wasn't even a glimmer in the eye of North Americans? The Netherlands.

What country do we Americans automatically paint as a socialist haven of stoner hippies and prostitute johns who all live to seek nothing but government handouts to pay for their immoral lives? The Netherlands.


My mother did the Grand Tour back in the 50s as a young girl. My very first trip to Europe was when I was 16 and she sent me as part of a language group at Dartmouth College. I went to France. Before I left she gave me a big pocketful of francs with the admonition, "use this to buy soda or bottled water because you shouldn't drink the water over there. You'll likely be drinking a lot of wine. Just don't drink too much." There's was no wink or nod. She was serious.

Uh-huh. This from a woman who graduated cum laude from Emma Willard, majored in French, and has a master's degree.

My mom's friend Ann and I had a conversation at dinner last night. She mentioned that as a girl she was sent to represent her family at her grandmother's funeral back in Rome. Her Italian family didn't get along with her father because they felt he married beneath himself. They lived in The Bronx in a 3 room apartment. Her whole family and their church gave Ann a care package to bring over to her family in Rome whom she had never met. So at the age of 19 she was packed on to a plane (a great expense in those days) to make it to her grandmother's funeral.

She arrived in Rome and her uncle met her at the airport. She saw him nod to the custom's officials who pulled her out of the line and delivered her straight to her uncle. He brought her outside to a waiting limousine where they drove up just beyond the Villa Borghese to Parioli, Rome's answer to the stretch of Fifth Avenue along Central Park. Behind the ancient creeky doors of the courtyard was a villa; a real villa. Ann was FLOORED. Marble, silk, paintings, and a whole household staff to wait on her hand and foot awaited. Yet there she was with her care package of candies, condensed milk, silks, and American dollars feeling a bit ridiculous. Certainly all Romans didn't live as opulently as her relatives did, but she had no idea they were rich. She was told they were well to do --- for Italy but that went in one ear and out the other. Did it mean they had separate bedrooms? Nobody could imagine that there were still prosperous people in Italy.

Somehow, the great majority of Americans really have no clue how other westernized countries live. Not all are prosperous and plenty, certainly Italy, do have problems with poverty, but they're not broke either. Our problem is that our country is filled with baby boomers who were raised to think of Europe as something of a basket case filled with people who pay horrendous taxes and live in tiny houses. They may not be poor, but they're certainly not as rich as the average American. That translates into the belief that their health care isn't as good (even believing that Canada and the UK are the only countries on earth... oh yeah and CUBA...with social medicine), their educational systems are rather pathetic save for a few old institutions, and that they're all raving socialists who can't save a Euro because the government takes all the Euros they earn.

Our myths about Europe are left over from when we were the world's dominant empire because we prospered when we believed those myths. In some twisted logic, if those myths were true when we were great, then we have to keep believing the myths because that's what will keep us great. Sounds a bit conservative doesn't it? Stay the course that worked, along with not just its policies but its myths and morals, because those were integral to all the other factors contributing to why we succeeded. They didn't just happen to be there, they happened to be necessary. This is the Fallacy of False Cause writ large, and in our case, writ with as much doom as Mene mekel men.

Empires have a ridiculously difficult time letting go of ideologies and memes that existed during the height of empire. It's part of the reason the elite in various empires don't see revolutions coming until they see the peasants knocking down the estate gates with pitchforks and flails. They don't abandon obsolete memes or systems. It's like being a buggy whip maker at the start of the 20th century seeing sales being to fall and concluding they simply need to lay off some workers, streamline production, and build a better buggy whip all the while ignoring that the buggy whip itself is obsolete.

The history of this kind of thing is that eventually the people of the old memes either die (naturally or not) and usually make a few last stands in the process. The traditional trigger has been war, but since World War II, we've seen a relatively, though not necessarily non-violent by any means, break-up of such societies. Some, like the UK and the Soviet Union, simply fell apart. Others faced revolutions (violent or non-violent as in Eastern Europe/Balkans), and others actually managed to adapt despite war and enormous social upheaval against the most unbelievable odds (like Japan or Spain).

(continued below if you're not bored to death yet)

 

[2322]

(continued from above)

Right now the US is finding itself with far more bills than it can pay. The great strength of the US economy comes not just from its industry, geography, and political stability but from T-bills forming the bulk of the world's currency reserves. The US has (or had) bars of gold sitting in Fort Knox and under the streets of Manhattan. The great majority of the rest of the world (yes China) backs their currencies with vaults full of American T-bills. As America's economy becomes more and more debt ridden, the value of those T-bills falls and countries then begin to sell those T-bills to anyone at discount prices. This will coincide with the opening of reputable (there are two or three dodgy ones now) oil bourses which are not denominated in US dollars. That means nations buying oil won't have to buy dollars to buy their oil. If we continue choosing between the traditional military-industrial complex which enforces US hegemony in the world and having a livable standard of living, and continue to favor the rifle over the (education/health care/poverty/infrastructure) social needs of We The People, we're going to find ourselves fairly fucked. Our government, GOP and Dem, are highly biased to that military-industrial complex and upon which our economic hegemony is based upon. AIG, Goldman Sachs, the IMF, and various other US-lead economic blockbusters rely upon that petrodollar and other nations' need for American dollars. That is where they make the vast bulk of their money. It's not from you or me or even people like Bill Gates. When you have guns you can be the de facto bully/ally for the oil producers and tell the oil producers how they're going to sell their oil and you get bet they're going to make it so we, the US, makes a bundle in the process.

But that only works so long as we can project our military forces anywhere in the world with reasonable assurance of dominating whatever we go after. Once that ceases to happen, then the bottom falls out. Right now, the American people, debt-ridden as never before, faced with declining standards of living, and a government that can keep everyone happy because it can't afford to, is beginning to really feel a pinch that started in the 70s and hasn't ever really recovered. We can see that with the economic opportunity and income disparity charts. We can see that with inflation (and I mean real monetary inflation, not price increases). We can see that with the vast swaths of this country laying in absolute ruin with no hope of recovery.

But the folks at the top tend not to see these things. Like the Russian or French aristocracy, they're flying around in private jets, building megayachts, and making shocking profits out of the unregulated hedge fund industry which has managed to fuck more Americans that anyone possibly knows and I don't mean hedge fund clients. The hedge funds work off of derivatives of existing assets that you and I buy for our retirement accounts and when derivatives dry-up or get traded, that all happens before the tsunami hits we little people (investors regulated by the SEC). Hedge fund people know to bail before we do (remember Martha Stewart landing her plane to make a phone call?). It's rigged. The markets have always been rigged in favor of the fat cats. Both my uncles who made enormous piles of fuck you money in the 20s which put them in the Social Register, Fifth Avenue limestone mansions, armies of household staff, and art collections with works by Matisse, Homer, Delacroix, Cassat, Wyeth, Turner, Renoir, and other A-list artists, were up hunting in Canada back in September 1929. Their broker sent a messenger up to find and collect them and get them back to Montreal ASAP. They sold every single stock they owned including that of their own company and less than a month later the entire stock market was hit. That's how the very rich stayed very rich and still do to this day. Only now they do it with hedge funds.

This is why both parties are reluctant to do what people want and know full well what people will eventually need. Health care in this country will one of the catalysts but there will be others. Most politicians hope that le deluge won't happen on their watch and blissfully ignore it. That's basically what happened in the Soviet Union. They knew they were playing musical chairs until one day the music stopped and there were no chairs. That's the course we're heading on and when that happens, all those foreign-held US dollars will come flooding back to us for pennies on the dollar. Then the US will be well and truly broke far beyond anything we can imagine. And we'll have to start rebuilding.

If we're smart, however, we'll bite the bullet and begin to dismantle all this now and implement something else. Obama and Congress do not seem willing or able to do this and indeed, they're the ones who are kept in power by the powers-that-be who back the industrial-military-petroeconomic complex who are too short-sighted and disconnected from ordinary Americans to understand that this is how revolutions come knocking when you least expect them.

So no. The militias aren't entirely whacko. Some of them get this, but the vast majority don't. What they are seeing that others aren't are symptoms of a breakdown even if they can't pinpoint exactly why or how it's happening. They're reactionary because they don't have the education or power to be proactionary.

I will say though, watch and be careful. Learn about how all this works.

And if you think I'm nuts, then you haven't lived my highly unusual life which has placed me at times in the center of the very rich and the very poor and still does to this day. Here I am living on Medicaid yet will be attending a ball as a guest at the Rockefeller's in a month. Why this is so is a long story but should give you a glimpse into how old money works. You can be broke but if you have a certain kind of pedigree (and I admit that I do only for illustrative purposes), that doesn't matter; you're still eligible.

With luck I'll snag a cute rich blond bear and my troubles will be over. :wink:

 

[B_New End]

the netherlands

Lol, thats funny, because as you were writing that, someone here offered to kick me out of the country to go to a better place, to which I replied, hey, get me to the Netherlands! LoL

And I'll agree with everything you said... except the blond bear part. :wink: You obviously get it.

 

[2322]

Lol, thats funny, because as you were writing that, someone here offered to kick me out of the country to go to a better place, to which I replied, hey, get me to the Netherlands! LoL

And I'll agree with everything you said... except the blond bear part. :wink: You obviously get it.

Howabout a Dutch national blond bear?

It's really odd but many of my friends are US expats living abroad because they see, as the survivalist/militia people say, "the shit is hitting the fan."

The US is largely conservative because we're still relatively close in time to when being conservative (Dem or GOP) served this country very well. If you look at Johari Windows comparing the US political parties to other western political parties of the same types, the GOP is far right of most large conservative parties elsewhere and the Democratic Party is only slightly to the right of center. We have no true leftist party of any size in the US. We have the choice of conservative and more conservative.

I'd love to live in The Netherlands. My college roomie lives in Ireland and even now that the Celtic Tiger is more a Celtic Bobcat, he wouldn't live in the US for anything. He has a much better standard of living than we do here. He comes back to visit his family and ship back cheap shopping bargains.

He'll never lose his house to non-payment of taxes so doesn't need to worry about it in his old age.

His kids will have a paid college education.

He gets goods government-provided health care.

He has a summer house in Donegal.

He has five bedroom house with two car garage.

He windsurfs, travels a lot, has vast amounts of vacation and family leave time.

His kids can walk around the village without worry.

He feels fairly treated and has risen in the county government agency he works for to a senior management position.

He and his family are not in debt.

He and his wife (an elementary school principal) each own a nice car.

Their tax rate is 42%, they pay a whopping 21.5% VAT (sales tax) on nearly all purchases, and yet they still manage to afford all that because of all the expenses and savings they don't need to plan for or pay for. As he says, "We may pay more in taxes than you do but then we don't have the expenses you do. We get for our taxes." What they get were big tax credits for having children, buying a dog, buying gas-efficient cars, renovating their home, and even got a tax break on buying their house in Donegal. But they even pay tax on their TV sets though when they went to buy an energy efficient furnace and other large appliances, they found themselves with a tax break that paid for the appliances!

They will never find themselves on the street, have a guaranteed pension they can live on, won't die broke because they need to pay for nursing or catastrophic care, and while their estate taxes are deadly, if they plan their estate right, their kids will get something other than a bunch of heirlooms.

It works and they're a thoroughly middle class college-educated Irish family living in County Westmeath, not a large city where salaries are far higher.

 

[SpeedoGuy]

wonder if the guy with the gun was a plant?

A potted plant.

It appears to be legal in Arizona to visibly carry in the vicinity of a political rally but that doesn't make it a good idea.

 

[Penis Aficionado]

Jason, I think that was the best explanation of how the world works that I've ever read.

 

[vince]

Thanks Jason. It's too bad more people don't travel. If they did they'd have the possiblity of having more than one perspective. Actually travelling is not necessary, it helps, but an open mind and curiosity is more important.

But I wouldn't choose The Netherlands. The people ae friendly and the dope is good, but it's too flat, too grey and too wet! Ireland is much nicer.

btw. I think the gun toting guy referred to earlier was interviewed on MSNBC by Chris Matthews. He was asked if the gun was loaded and he said "What would be the point of an unloaded gun?" or words to that effect.

 

[2322]

Thanks Jason. It's too bad more people don't travel. If they did they'd have the possiblity of having more than one perspective. Actually travelling is not necessary, it helps, but an open mind and curiosity is more important.

But I wouldn't choose The Netherlands. The people ae friendly and the dope is good, but it's too flat, too grey and too wet! Ireland is much nicer.

btw. I think the gun toting guy referred to earlier was interviewed on MSNBC by Chris Matthews. He was asked if the gun was loaded and he said "What would be the point of an unloaded gun?" or words to that effect.

You're welcome and I know you get this being largely an expat yourself.

I chose The Netherlands for a few reasons. First is because they all speak English, even to each other. Second is because I do have some Dutch ancestry and I feel a bit of a mystical pull to the lands of my ancestry. The Netherlands may be flat and dull but Ireland is even more gray and rainy and just plain dank for much of the year. I think their weather sucks. My one problem with The Netherlands is that it's a monarchy. Despite my thinking that Beatrix is an exceptionally capable monarch and the Dutch are ridiculously egalitarian, I have real problems pledging allegiance to a monarch. I didn't bow to Queen Elizabeth when I met her and I'm not about to start with any other (unless perhaps to an Asian monarch where from bowing to each other is as customary as shaking hands is here), much less accept one as my sovereign. I'm cool with constitutional monarchies and if the people they represent love them then great for them. Like when I met the Duchess of York, I properly called her, "Your Grace," out of respect for her position in her country but I didn't defer to her. If it's not my country I'm not about to go around telling other people how to run their democratic governments (absolute monarchs, dictators, and generalissimos are a different matter). I don't hate Liz, Bea, Al, or anyone else with a crown in the closet. Thailand's king has saved that country from becoming one big basket case many times and I really respect Juan Carlos for doing the right thing transitioning Spain from fascism to a modern constitutional monarchy at no small personal risk to his own life. I've thought long and hard about this but every time I go back to my Enlightenment roots and believe that equality in all aspects of the social structure and, particularly, the law, are essential for true freedom.

 

[Ed69]

Are we nearing a new American Revolution?

Short answer,Yes.All these thinkers think and can't see that the common man is fed up with the bullshit they spew.

 

[midlifebear]

Granted, I live (on purpose and because I can) outside of the USA, but from the e-mails I receive from old friends living across the United States the country has, over the last few years, had a serious culinary revolution. Sales for Hamburger and Tuna Helper are at an all time high.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Short answer,Yes.All these thinkers think and can't see that the common man is fed up with the bullshit they spew.

Thinking... public enemy #1. Wow.
If there was ANY way to make emoticons larger with the size tag I would do it right now.

Are we assuming that the "common man" doesn't think? Why don't you say what you REALLY mean and stop trying to hide behind catchphrases that mean nothing?

 

[B_Stronzo]

In my opinion the "revolution" has being going on for some time.

This board is a microcosm.

The revolution is between the haves and the have nots in my view VinylBoy. It's not very pretty to watch Americans pitted against one another based on economic background (for the most part) rather than perspective and intelligence.

Are we nearing a new American Revolution?

Short answer,Yes.All these thinkers think and can't see that the common man is fed up with the bullshit they spew.

We're all the 'common man' when it comes to the American experience. Who is it that you think's spewing the "bullshit"?

 

[Calboner]

The US is largely conservative because we're still relatively close in time to when being conservative (Dem or GOP) served this country very well. If you look at Johari Windows comparing the US political parties to other western political parties of the same types, the GOP is far right of most large conservative parties elsewhere and the Democratic Party is only slightly to the right of center. We have no true leftist party of any size in the US. We have the choice of conservative and more conservative.

Bill Maher, June 28, 2009 (transcribed from a video):

"People talk a lot about a third political party in America. We don't need a third party; we need a first party. You go to the polls and your choices are the guy who voted for the first Wall Street bailout or the guy who voted for the next ten. This week, we're hearing that a public option for health care is unlikely because it doesn't have the support of enough -- Democrats! Even Ted Kennedy's plan -- Ted Kennedy, yeah -- leaves 37 million uninsured. This is because we don't have a left and a right party in this country anymore. We have a center-right party and a crazy party. And over the last thirty-odd years, Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved to a mental hospital. So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge-fund managers, credit-card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture, and the pharmaceutical lobby -- that's the Democrats; and they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers, and Civil-War reenactors who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans, and who actually worry that Obama is a socialist."

 

[tripod]

wonder if the guy with the gun was a plant?

It is a carefully waged plan to show up with as many motherfuckers with guns at Obama's health care talks as they can come up with. The goal is to scare the shit out of liberals that are pushing for the public option plain and simple.

The goal is to intimidate Barack Obama as well...

I don't know if it is done with bulletin boards, blogs or meetings in bars or private places, but the "gun enthusiasts" are conspiring together to intimidate the political process.

Hmmm... armed people with a show of strength at political functions that are there to intimidate voters and politicians to drop the public option sounds like something that is familiar to me...

Can it be TERRORISM?

Armed people deliberately causing fear in voters and politicians to bring about a particular political goal.

These people are participating in terrorism against our country.

They are intimidating Americans through the threat of violence. Now the threat is loosely veiled as Americans exercising their right to bear arms and nobody has been actually hurt, but there is still intimidation and attempted coercion through their ostentatious display of firearms to bring about a political goal.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Calboner: Absolutely love "Real Time". Thanks for the post!

The revolution is between the haves and the have nots in my view VinylBoy. It's not very pretty to watch Americans pitted against one another based on economic background (for the most part) rather than perspective and intelligence.

Well, I've always thought a good portion of hate towards one another in this country has been cleverly disguised social class warfare. It's either coming from the people with money who are afraid someone wants to take everything they got, or from the poor people they've duped into believing that they're "just like them". If only people took some time to understand the reality and not just the rhetoric...

But what do I know? I'm just a "thinker".
At least I can add another label to some people's projected beliefs as to "what's wrong with (their) America". This makes me a "thinking, gay, black, circumcised male in an interracial, intergenerational relationship".

OMG the friggin' horror! Hide your children!!! :biggrin:

 

[2322]

It is a carefully waged plan to show up with as many motherfuckers with guns at Obama's health care talks as they can come up with. The goal is to scare the shit out of liberals that are pushing for the public option plain and simple.

The goal is to intimidate Barack Obama as well...

I don't know if it is done with bulletin boards, blogs or meetings in bars or private places, but the "gun enthusiasts" are conspiring together to intimidate the political process.

Hmmm... armed people with a show of strength at political functions that are there to intimidate voters and politicians to drop the public option sounds like something that is familiar to me...

Can it be TERRORISM?

Armed people deliberately causing fear in voters and politicians to bring about a particular political goal.

These people are participating in terrorism against our country.

They are intimidating Americans through the threat of violence. Now the threat is loosely veiled as Americans exercising their right to bear arms and nobody has been actually hurt, but there is still intimidation and attempted coercion through their ostentatious display of firearms to bring about a political goal.

No, not terrorism. If there are no plans to use the guns to shoot anyone and no gun is discharged, then it's not terrorism. Do not mistake exercise of Second Amendment rights for terrorism. That's a serious mistake.

There is nothing to prevent anyone from going to a town hall meeting with a gun in some states. That means if one side can tote a gun then so can the other.