DU vs. FB and being on online activist/hobbyist

I like DU. It's the mother ship where I get all my progressive info and news that is non-existent in our current AGENDA DRIVEN CORPORATE PROPAGANDA that is the remnants of our once robust MAIN STREAM MEDIA.

I'm a very small scale progressive activist - strive to be well informed, try to talk to my Congressman when he hosts Town Halls, create bumper stickers, participate in local government, go see speakers like Chris Hedges and Phil Donahue when they're speaking locally, engage friends and passerby in "current events", read and post on DU and, lastly, engage people in my interest groups on FB.

My three main interest groups on FB are; Frank Zappa, race cars, and liberal politics.

Well, car guys skew pretty conservative, but there are liberal progressive car guys, so I occasionally jump in if the subject is about "current events". One of my favorite subjects is the current state of AMERICAN OLIGARCHY, so if such a discussion is going on, I read it, and if comfortable, add my two cents.

DU is a narrow special interest group of somewhat like minded people. Posting on DU is like preaching to the choir, you reach people that already agree with you. NOT SO ON FB. The political spectrum on FB is a much better cross section of what real Americans think. So the opportunity to open and change minds is much greater on FB. As a benign activist, I find this an appealing opportunity. And when I engage people there and elsewhere, I'm pleasantly surprised over how many Americans "get it" when it comes to the state of Oligarchy in America, as witnessed most recently by the brazen and obnoxious Wall Street Bailout Provision in the recent Cromnibus bill. That made it in your face obvious that our government is supine and servile to the interests of Wall Street at the expense of the interests of those of us unfortunate enough to be in the bottom 99.9% of the economic ladder.

How brazen can you be? Wall Street triggered a near SECOND GREAT DEPRESSION in 2008. Dodd-Frank tried to fix the most egregious excesses, so that taxpayers won't have to cover the losses from trillion dollar stock derivative bets gone bad, and now the next time they burst a bubble, we'll have to risk another GREAT DEPRESSION and watch people loose their jobs homes pensions dreams and security ONCE AGAIN! As the Oligarch's lavish themselve with multi-million dollar bonuses, at taxpayer expense, as their reward for doing "God's work."

BRAZEN BRAZEN BRAZEN

And my point is not so much what I wrote below, but the response after from an average American Car Guy that explains it as succinctly as possible, and expressed much better than I can! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE! No, sorry, that's not it. TO SERVE MAN is actually a cookbook for aliens. No, sorry, that's not it. THE OLIGARCH'S HAVE PURCHASED THE GOVERNMENT TO TURN US ALL INTO INDENTURED CORPORATE SERVANTS! Yes, that's it! That's it! ENJOY.

Lastly, the great Chris Hedges, who knows his way around contemporary revolutions, says that all that is needed to trigger a revolution is for 1% of the population to be engaged in political change. I'm just trying to get that word out in my tiny orbit to help nudge that number of politically active to 1%. Pretty obvious that the Oligarch's efforts to divorce average Americans from their system of government is working to their advantage, considering the record low voter turnout in the last election.

-90% Jimmy






90% Jimmy: What's weird about our current American Oligarchy is just what are the goals of these ultra wealthy and powerful that have purchased our entire Democracy? They truly seem to want all our wealth, property, retirement, labor, and all of "the commons" we own together as a nation, like parks and other public properties. They really seem to be striving to create a world straight out of the middle ages. Poverty and struggle and economic servitude for the masses, and excessive wealth for the tiny few that hold all the power.

America proved without a doubt after WW2, furthering the policies of The New Deal, we could enjoy shared economic prosperity for all. 40 hours a week for one wage earner could support the needs of an entire household.* Now it takes two incomes working at least one job each to hang on to what's left of our dream. One of the many fundamental things done during the Depression is enacting substantial PROGRESSIVE TAXATION; the more you earn the greater the percentage of your income goes to taxes. One of the most important things progressive taxation was designed to prevent is having a certain small group of people end up with so much wealth the only thing they have left to buy is the United States Government. AKA; "Legislative Capture". And the Oligarch's have been working to this end for at least the last thirty years. And so now we have such anti-Democracy perversions as "corporations are people" and "money is speech" legal doctrines courtesy of very recent Supreme Court Decisions. Thirty years of undoing laws designed to prevent Oligarchy have been dismantled by purchasing our political system. The result is the America we have now. These rich people may be rich, but they conduct themselves like predatory animals with the suffering they create seemingly only to satisfy a crack whore magnitude of raw greed. Our formerly level playing field is tilted at 45 degrees and the refs base their calls entirely on who hands them the biggest wad of cash.

To put it another way; OUR INSTITUTIONS ARE INFESTED WITH CORRUPT SOCIOPATHS

*early postwar American would seem downright third world for those of us in 2014. No home or car A/C, rabbit ear TV's, radio, no computers, no microwaves, refrigerator ice makers, austere bare bones necessities.






Average American car guy: Jim, you ask what they want...what their goals are? Simple.

Feudalism.

The best ways to control large masses of population is to keep them ignorant/uneducated, in poor health, hungry, and just broke enough to survive.

Once that goal has been met people will do anything you want them to do, believe anything anything you want them to believe.