Or not.
Let me get this straight: Batman is a billionaire named Bruce Wayne, but when Wayne drops out, everybody suffers. You see, it's what the billionaire does that creates profits, and without profits from his company, the world begins to fall apart--because he doesn't care. When he does care, everyone prospers; when he doesn't, poverty and misery extend over the land, because 'socialists' take over and enforce 'equality,' which in the vision of Dark Knight's Director, Jonathan Nolan comprises expropriation, not creation. And, of course, it's the bad guys who are socialists and egalitarian, and the good guys are for the "free market."
Never knew that's why there are billionaires, did you? They’re heroes, you see, who carry the world on their shoulders: that's why they have so much money!
The "free" market is hardly free, when there are billionaires like the Walton (Walmart) family, who underpay their employees--and their developing nation suppliers--so they can amass the largest (combined) fortune on the planet. The market isn't free, because large agglomerations of capital give firms oligopoly and monopoly power, enabling them to skew market prices to their own advantage, and laws and government "regulations," as well.
By mis-delivery, I received World magazine, which seems to be a mouthpiece for evangelical Christianity. I'll put it back in the mailbox tomorrow, so it can be correctly delivered to its addressee, about a mile and a half down the next road. The above came from World's review of Dark Knight Rising: it fell open to that page when I picked it up.
The review, and editorials and other articles reminded me of the ravings of Salvian, a fifth century priest, who denounced almost anything secular, or of the panegyrists, like Ausonius and Claudian, who recited their paeans to the powerful of their day: rising Senators, as well as the Emperor, "God's Vice-Regent on Earth."
Jonathan Nolan, especially, appears to parallel the fifth century panegyrist who went on for hundreds of verses about the virtues of Emperor Honorius, Heaven born: Honorius was clearly of below normal intelligence; he preferred to play with his roosters (one was named Rome), than attend to affairs of State. While Batman is not an identified present ruler, or candidate for office, it's easy to see him representing someone like Romney, or Bloomberg; his heroism and centrality to making Gotham work is almost a caricature of Romney's whole raison-d'être: I'm so wealthy because I know how to make the economy work.
In a way, that's true: he knows how to make it work for him, but not for the rest of us. He and his kind know how to skew the rules to favor themselves: as he says repeatedly, he didn't break any laws when he evaded taxes. Of course. His class, his fellow wealthy, paid for those loopholes fair and square.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
The Paraguayan Model
On June 22nd, Paraguay quickly impeached its leftist President, Lugo, and installed vice President Franco (from a right of center party), as the new President. A month later, the new President's government pushed forward negotiations with Rio Tinto Alcan for building a huge aluminum plant on the Parana River. It offered $700 million in infrastructure to enable the plant's construction, and agreed to thirty years of subsidizing its electricity supply from its two hydroelectric facilities, enough power to provide electricity to 9.6 million people, while many Paraguayans go without. All this for 2,500 jobs at a cost of about $560,000/job up front..
Former President Lugo had blocked Rio Tinto.
The former President had also blocked Monsanto's application to plant GM. Franco approved it, meaning that large-scale agriculture will continue to dominate the country, in tandem with Monsanto; the majority of landless peasants will continue to be excluded from landownership.
CBS played up, however, Franco's claim of issuing 79 land titles to landless people in his first 15 days in office, while the former government issued only 3 in six months, but it was the dispute over land reform that did in the former President. He had favored land reform, but had been unable to implement it, because of opposition by large landowners, including foreign corporations. The opposition blamed President Lugo for a confrontation between police and land occupiers in which seven police and 11 occupying peasants died. Lugo was impeached by Congress one day and expelled from office by the Senate the next, giving him only two hours to defend himself.
Large multinational corporations benefited from the change in government almost immediately. At the same time, Latin America's Mercosur governments, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and applying member, Venezuela have all denounced the "coup" and withdrawn their ambassadors.
The US pretends to be neutral, just as it was in Honduras, before recognizing the coup regime there, also a pro-business takeover.
Land ownership in Paraguay is even more extreme than the US's unequal distribution of wealth. Much of the land held by the elites was expropriated (sometimes violently) from campesinos who had lived and worked it; they held no legal title: it had been common land, or traditional landholding. Large tracts have been converted into agribusiness holdings, with widespread use of GM soy and intensive spraying of pesticides and herbicides. The toxins have literally driven out neighboring campesinos.
In both Honduras and Paraguay, their takeovers put a small elite, backed by foreign corporations, back in control after a short-lived challenge to their power.
Will the US do something similar through unlimited billionaire and corporate campaign funds? Paraguay looks more like Fifth Century Roman society than does the US, so the parallels between the US and Paraguay highlight US similarities to Roman Senators' takeover of all wealth and power prior to Rome's fall.
Former President Lugo had blocked Rio Tinto.
The former President had also blocked Monsanto's application to plant GM. Franco approved it, meaning that large-scale agriculture will continue to dominate the country, in tandem with Monsanto; the majority of landless peasants will continue to be excluded from landownership.
CBS played up, however, Franco's claim of issuing 79 land titles to landless people in his first 15 days in office, while the former government issued only 3 in six months, but it was the dispute over land reform that did in the former President. He had favored land reform, but had been unable to implement it, because of opposition by large landowners, including foreign corporations. The opposition blamed President Lugo for a confrontation between police and land occupiers in which seven police and 11 occupying peasants died. Lugo was impeached by Congress one day and expelled from office by the Senate the next, giving him only two hours to defend himself.
Large multinational corporations benefited from the change in government almost immediately. At the same time, Latin America's Mercosur governments, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and applying member, Venezuela have all denounced the "coup" and withdrawn their ambassadors.
The US pretends to be neutral, just as it was in Honduras, before recognizing the coup regime there, also a pro-business takeover.
Land ownership in Paraguay is even more extreme than the US's unequal distribution of wealth. Much of the land held by the elites was expropriated (sometimes violently) from campesinos who had lived and worked it; they held no legal title: it had been common land, or traditional landholding. Large tracts have been converted into agribusiness holdings, with widespread use of GM soy and intensive spraying of pesticides and herbicides. The toxins have literally driven out neighboring campesinos.
In both Honduras and Paraguay, their takeovers put a small elite, backed by foreign corporations, back in control after a short-lived challenge to their power.
Will the US do something similar through unlimited billionaire and corporate campaign funds? Paraguay looks more like Fifth Century Roman society than does the US, so the parallels between the US and Paraguay highlight US similarities to Roman Senators' takeover of all wealth and power prior to Rome's fall.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Climate Disruption and Global Warming
It's no coincidence that we've lost power (electric) three times in the last month due to "violent" storms. Since over 60% of the US is suffering from a severe drought, the corn and soybean crops even for the upper Midwest are in the process of being lost, and the west is going up in flames, we consider ourselves lucky.
Bill McKibben of 350.org fame, has pointed out that there is an easy way to explain our problems: through three numbers (Rolling Stone, 07/19/2012).
The one thing the failed environmental conference in Copenhagen agreed to in 2009, was that a global rise in temperature of more than 2 degrees Celsius had to be avoided. Considering that global temperature has only risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius, and we have seen dramatic changes already, that 2 degrees Celsius agreement looks overly indulgent.
It is the 327th month that global temperature averages have been higher than global averages in all of the 20th Century. In addition, the US had the warmest Spring ever recorded, by a huge margin, a third of Arctic summer ice has disappeared, the oceans are 30% more acidic (threatening much marine life) and the atmosphere over the oceans is 5% wetter, opening the world to severe flooding.
Yet the Rio environmental summit this Spring was not attended by any important national leader, and the issue of global warming, or "climate change," seems to be a non-issue in the Presidential and Congressional/Senatorial campaigns in the US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases driving global warming.
Two other figures sum up our global predicament. The first, McKibben identified is 565 gigatons of carbon, the amount the world can add to the global atmosphere with a four in five chance that we won't exceed the 2 C target. One in five chances, however, says that even this figure is too high. This may especially be true, since the amount of carbon already released has not yet been fully realized in the 0.8 degrees rise in global temperature. Global climate changes have a lag time. 565 gigatons means the amount of additional coal, oil, gas, methane and burning forests the earth might be able to sustain, before we exceed the 2C limit. Yet, except for the recession year of 2009, the world has been pouring out more and more carbon into the atmosphere every year.
The third figure, however, is the most devastating. It is 2,795 gigatons, the amount of carbon contained in the proven reserves of all the oil/coal/gas companies and countries, (Venezuela to Canada). Why devastating? This number represents the assets of producer countries and companies. If they're not allowed to burn it, their "investments" become worthless. That's why Exxon and others spend hundreds of millions to persuade us there is no global warming.
The economic system will destroy the planet for most humans--by orders of magnitude worse than the Roman Empire's desertification of the Mediterranean world in the fifth Century.
Bill McKibben of 350.org fame, has pointed out that there is an easy way to explain our problems: through three numbers (Rolling Stone, 07/19/2012).
The one thing the failed environmental conference in Copenhagen agreed to in 2009, was that a global rise in temperature of more than 2 degrees Celsius had to be avoided. Considering that global temperature has only risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius, and we have seen dramatic changes already, that 2 degrees Celsius agreement looks overly indulgent.
It is the 327th month that global temperature averages have been higher than global averages in all of the 20th Century. In addition, the US had the warmest Spring ever recorded, by a huge margin, a third of Arctic summer ice has disappeared, the oceans are 30% more acidic (threatening much marine life) and the atmosphere over the oceans is 5% wetter, opening the world to severe flooding.
Yet the Rio environmental summit this Spring was not attended by any important national leader, and the issue of global warming, or "climate change," seems to be a non-issue in the Presidential and Congressional/Senatorial campaigns in the US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases driving global warming.
Two other figures sum up our global predicament. The first, McKibben identified is 565 gigatons of carbon, the amount the world can add to the global atmosphere with a four in five chance that we won't exceed the 2 C target. One in five chances, however, says that even this figure is too high. This may especially be true, since the amount of carbon already released has not yet been fully realized in the 0.8 degrees rise in global temperature. Global climate changes have a lag time. 565 gigatons means the amount of additional coal, oil, gas, methane and burning forests the earth might be able to sustain, before we exceed the 2C limit. Yet, except for the recession year of 2009, the world has been pouring out more and more carbon into the atmosphere every year.
The third figure, however, is the most devastating. It is 2,795 gigatons, the amount of carbon contained in the proven reserves of all the oil/coal/gas companies and countries, (Venezuela to Canada). Why devastating? This number represents the assets of producer countries and companies. If they're not allowed to burn it, their "investments" become worthless. That's why Exxon and others spend hundreds of millions to persuade us there is no global warming.
The economic system will destroy the planet for most humans--by orders of magnitude worse than the Roman Empire's desertification of the Mediterranean world in the fifth Century.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Crony/Cartel Capitalism
Rachel Maddow made a case (07/16/12) that Sheldon Adelson, the $25+ billionaire pouring over $100 million into Republican campaigns, has something very specific to buy: immunity from criminal prosecution for violating the US's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He made his money on a huge gambling enterprise in Macao by buying Chinese compliance, probably with million-dollar bribes.
The same week, the LIBOR scandal broke, revealing that global big banks have been fixing borrowing rates to their advantage: the market is not operating freely; a cartel was manipulating it. The Justice Department is reportedly building a case to prosecute the LIBOR collaboration; defendants might include regulators as well as bankers.
This same week, Romney has been caught claiming one thing--that he retired from Bain Capital VI in 1999, to run the winter Olympics in Utah--while official filings with the SEC said another: that he was sole owner, CEO, President and Chairman of the Board until 2002, when Bain was bankrupting companies and outsourcing workers. Actually, it was also doing that before 1999.
Pressure is building on Romney to release his income tax returns going back 20+ years, instead of the 2 he's so far revealed. It's not only Democrats, including Obama, who are pressuring him, but conservatives like George Will; he hopes the release might contain the damage.
We already know that banks found all sorts of creative ways to wrest billions from ordinary people--homeowners, investors, you name it: from shepherding credit-worthy minorities into high-cost subprime loans, talking others into deceptive balloon mortgages, to selling toxic bundles of mortgage securities and betting against their own products that had been designed to fail. In addition, HSBC just admitted to massive money laundering of Mexican drug billions.
The financial industry, authors of these frauds, was bailed out by US taxpayers. Now, Wall Street is funding Republicans over Democrats, in the election campaign, because Democrats passed the Dodd-Frank "reform," which though extremely watered down, does, at least, make an attempt to regulate the financial industry.
Other businessmen, represented by the Koch brothers, abhor regulation, and are willing to pay millions to avoid it. They want to be free to pollute, while society pays the price, and to run unsafe plants, again, while society pays the costs they incur on workers and environs. So, they push millions on super-pacs, hoping to bury Obama and Democrats in negative ad-hysteria. Their aim: to elect Romney and a Republican Congress, both of which will be expected to do their bidding.
This is the world that Citizens United has unleashed. It is not "free enterprise." It is not market capitalism. It is crony/cartel capitalism, dominated by a few extremely wealthy, who want laws to permit their corruption. It is a coordinated effort by the selfish class, like fifth century Roman Senators, to dominate the US, and then "the known world," just like the Roman Senators of old.
br>Buy Attila's autobiography here http://www.amazon.com/Attila-Told-his-Scribes-ebook/dp/B00855M90G.
The same week, the LIBOR scandal broke, revealing that global big banks have been fixing borrowing rates to their advantage: the market is not operating freely; a cartel was manipulating it. The Justice Department is reportedly building a case to prosecute the LIBOR collaboration; defendants might include regulators as well as bankers.
This same week, Romney has been caught claiming one thing--that he retired from Bain Capital VI in 1999, to run the winter Olympics in Utah--while official filings with the SEC said another: that he was sole owner, CEO, President and Chairman of the Board until 2002, when Bain was bankrupting companies and outsourcing workers. Actually, it was also doing that before 1999.
Pressure is building on Romney to release his income tax returns going back 20+ years, instead of the 2 he's so far revealed. It's not only Democrats, including Obama, who are pressuring him, but conservatives like George Will; he hopes the release might contain the damage.
We already know that banks found all sorts of creative ways to wrest billions from ordinary people--homeowners, investors, you name it: from shepherding credit-worthy minorities into high-cost subprime loans, talking others into deceptive balloon mortgages, to selling toxic bundles of mortgage securities and betting against their own products that had been designed to fail. In addition, HSBC just admitted to massive money laundering of Mexican drug billions.
The financial industry, authors of these frauds, was bailed out by US taxpayers. Now, Wall Street is funding Republicans over Democrats, in the election campaign, because Democrats passed the Dodd-Frank "reform," which though extremely watered down, does, at least, make an attempt to regulate the financial industry.
Other businessmen, represented by the Koch brothers, abhor regulation, and are willing to pay millions to avoid it. They want to be free to pollute, while society pays the price, and to run unsafe plants, again, while society pays the costs they incur on workers and environs. So, they push millions on super-pacs, hoping to bury Obama and Democrats in negative ad-hysteria. Their aim: to elect Romney and a Republican Congress, both of which will be expected to do their bidding.
This is the world that Citizens United has unleashed. It is not "free enterprise." It is not market capitalism. It is crony/cartel capitalism, dominated by a few extremely wealthy, who want laws to permit their corruption. It is a coordinated effort by the selfish class, like fifth century Roman Senators, to dominate the US, and then "the known world," just like the Roman Senators of old.
br>Buy Attila's autobiography here http://www.amazon.com/Attila-Told-his-Scribes-ebook/dp/B00855M90G.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Romney and a Two-Class Society
In Fifth Century Rome, there were two sets of laws: one for honestiores and the other for humiliores. As you might guess from the words, the former were Senators and a few others: not slaves or serfs; the latter were slaves, serfs, non-citizens and everyone else.
It seems that we are now developing a similar system: Romney may well have committed multiple felonies (on taxes and SEC filings), yet no charges have been filed, and probably won't be. Further, even if he did not commit felonies, it's startlingly obvious that the "carried interest" loophole, which allows him to file his income as if it were capital gains (15% instead of 35%), is comparable to the kinds of privileges enjoyed by the honestiores--and he has enjoyed many others.
Even more egregious, it's clear from the LIBOR scandal, as well as the robo-signing scandals and other bank and corporate misdeeds, that huge thefts were carried out by banksters, CEO's, etc. Yet, so far, no one has even been charged, let alone gone to jail, except for people like Bernie Madoff, who didn't play by the rules, and didn't get away with his multimillion-dollar thefts. The LIBOR, EURIBOR and other rate-thefts, may amount to hundreds of billions of dollars, since they affected interest rates on an estimated $10-600 trillions worth of transactions. Since those thefts affected other elite institutions (banks, municipalities, corporations, even countries), it is more likely that there could be huge civil penalties incurred, but I'll bet practically no one goes to jail.
Yet, consider how easy it is for a young black or Hispanic male to be jailed. All they have to do is walk down a street in NYC with a little bit of pot in their pockets and have a little bad luck. The US now has by far the largest per-capita prison population on the planet, which is saying something, since we're competing with the likes of Russia and Communist China.
Also, consider that police departments in the US have been militarized: equipped with high tech weaponry, and even armored personnel carriers and tanks. This weaponry is not targeted against the Romney's of this world, our honestiores. But it's already been used against the Occupy movement in Oakland, and we'll see it out in force for the political conventions. It could be used against any popular revulsion to elite rule. The same is true of the rapidly increasing surveillance programs.
Attorney General Holder aggressively raids and prosecutes medical marijuana dispensaries and whistleblowers (he wants to catch Julian Assange, too), but he and Treasury Secretary Geithner (both with strong links to Wall Street), have been extremely forgiving of banks and other large corporations--and their leaders.
If Romney and Republicans win control, this pattern will be consummated, but even if Obama and Democrats win, the US will be well along its way towards the two-class society found in Fifth Century Rome.
It seems that we are now developing a similar system: Romney may well have committed multiple felonies (on taxes and SEC filings), yet no charges have been filed, and probably won't be. Further, even if he did not commit felonies, it's startlingly obvious that the "carried interest" loophole, which allows him to file his income as if it were capital gains (15% instead of 35%), is comparable to the kinds of privileges enjoyed by the honestiores--and he has enjoyed many others.
Even more egregious, it's clear from the LIBOR scandal, as well as the robo-signing scandals and other bank and corporate misdeeds, that huge thefts were carried out by banksters, CEO's, etc. Yet, so far, no one has even been charged, let alone gone to jail, except for people like Bernie Madoff, who didn't play by the rules, and didn't get away with his multimillion-dollar thefts. The LIBOR, EURIBOR and other rate-thefts, may amount to hundreds of billions of dollars, since they affected interest rates on an estimated $10-600 trillions worth of transactions. Since those thefts affected other elite institutions (banks, municipalities, corporations, even countries), it is more likely that there could be huge civil penalties incurred, but I'll bet practically no one goes to jail.
Yet, consider how easy it is for a young black or Hispanic male to be jailed. All they have to do is walk down a street in NYC with a little bit of pot in their pockets and have a little bad luck. The US now has by far the largest per-capita prison population on the planet, which is saying something, since we're competing with the likes of Russia and Communist China.
Also, consider that police departments in the US have been militarized: equipped with high tech weaponry, and even armored personnel carriers and tanks. This weaponry is not targeted against the Romney's of this world, our honestiores. But it's already been used against the Occupy movement in Oakland, and we'll see it out in force for the political conventions. It could be used against any popular revulsion to elite rule. The same is true of the rapidly increasing surveillance programs.
Attorney General Holder aggressively raids and prosecutes medical marijuana dispensaries and whistleblowers (he wants to catch Julian Assange, too), but he and Treasury Secretary Geithner (both with strong links to Wall Street), have been extremely forgiving of banks and other large corporations--and their leaders.
If Romney and Republicans win control, this pattern will be consummated, but even if Obama and Democrats win, the US will be well along its way towards the two-class society found in Fifth Century Rome.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Run Against Congress!
Even the conservative Chamber of Commerce blames Congress for the US's fiscal inaction! Ben Bernanke has said, many times, that the Fed is only doing what it can with monetary policy, because Congress isn't doing what it should with fiscal policy. So, the Fed puts forward Quantitative Easing, keeping interest rates at rock-bottom and shifting its portfolio from short to long-term assets to drive down the price of longer-term borrowing, as well as "printing" money. But everyone knows that isn't enough.
What is really needed, Bernanke implies, and Economist Paul Krugman has stated repeatedly, is government spending on stimuli, to enliven job markets, plus bring teachers, police, etc., back to work.
Congress is split; it is split between fiscal "hawks" and "doves(?)." The former, dominated by GOP Tea Partyers, claim, like a blindered former friend of mine, that "debt is debt," and The Government must stop borrowing at all costs.
The "doves" don't know what to do, because the conservative-led media has persuaded a near majority that government must cut spending NOW. But the costs really are tangible, and the GOP's solution--cut taxes on the so-called "job creators"--isn't going to create jobs, except maybe in China, only a larger deficit, probably more speculation with the extra money freed for the speculators, and draconian cuts to the programs that allow people to hang on by their fingernails, like Food Stamps.
Krugman agrees that once we are out of this recession/depression, the US will have to begin to pay down its overhanging debt, but now is not that time. Now, the US should borrow money; it's at historically low rates, because the US is the safe harbor for troubled money the world over. Now we should spend money to re-invigorate the economy: spend it on helping states re-hire their laid off workers, spend it on rebuilding and improving our shabby infrastructure and education and spend it on new ventures, like alternative energy industries, all of which will expand the tax base.
Some businesses are not hiring because no one knows what the deadlocked government will do. But why hire if there is no demand for goods and services, anyway? If demand were injected into the economy, companies would hire workers. The Fed can't cause that; only Congress and the President can.
But Republicans are vehemently opposed to any policy that would help Obama's reelection, and vehemently opposed to any further debt. Democrats, on the other hand, are timid, and too many of them are beholden to interests that want deadlock, or little government action--except on their behalf: the selfish class, I've called them.
That's where we stand today. We could go down the road to near-permanent Depression if we choose "austerity" and tax cuts for the wealthy. That's the direction the Roman Empire took in the 4th and 5th Centuries.
Obama should run against Congress, and for a huge new stimulus, instead.
What is really needed, Bernanke implies, and Economist Paul Krugman has stated repeatedly, is government spending on stimuli, to enliven job markets, plus bring teachers, police, etc., back to work.
Congress is split; it is split between fiscal "hawks" and "doves(?)." The former, dominated by GOP Tea Partyers, claim, like a blindered former friend of mine, that "debt is debt," and The Government must stop borrowing at all costs.
The "doves" don't know what to do, because the conservative-led media has persuaded a near majority that government must cut spending NOW. But the costs really are tangible, and the GOP's solution--cut taxes on the so-called "job creators"--isn't going to create jobs, except maybe in China, only a larger deficit, probably more speculation with the extra money freed for the speculators, and draconian cuts to the programs that allow people to hang on by their fingernails, like Food Stamps.
Krugman agrees that once we are out of this recession/depression, the US will have to begin to pay down its overhanging debt, but now is not that time. Now, the US should borrow money; it's at historically low rates, because the US is the safe harbor for troubled money the world over. Now we should spend money to re-invigorate the economy: spend it on helping states re-hire their laid off workers, spend it on rebuilding and improving our shabby infrastructure and education and spend it on new ventures, like alternative energy industries, all of which will expand the tax base.
Some businesses are not hiring because no one knows what the deadlocked government will do. But why hire if there is no demand for goods and services, anyway? If demand were injected into the economy, companies would hire workers. The Fed can't cause that; only Congress and the President can.
But Republicans are vehemently opposed to any policy that would help Obama's reelection, and vehemently opposed to any further debt. Democrats, on the other hand, are timid, and too many of them are beholden to interests that want deadlock, or little government action--except on their behalf: the selfish class, I've called them.
That's where we stand today. We could go down the road to near-permanent Depression if we choose "austerity" and tax cuts for the wealthy. That's the direction the Roman Empire took in the 4th and 5th Centuries.
Obama should run against Congress, and for a huge new stimulus, instead.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Mormons and Bishop Romney
Joseph Smith, Mormonism's founder, spun a whole saga, spanning about a thousand years of "history," beginning with Eli, a prophet, who led his people out of Jerusalem before the Captivity--he prophesied Jerusalem's doom. He and his son, Nephi, led his people to--the New World! And prophesied the coming of Jesus Christ.
Smith creates a whole alternate history derived from the supposed translation of the golden tablets (by him, with the aid of the angel Moroni). The 'Nephites' depart from the sinners of Israel for the New World (America), but are continually attacked by the descendants and followers of Nephi's evil brothers. The skins of these apostates darken, and they are shown using only stone implements: guess who they are! The tablets, revealed by the angel, were "given back" to him by Smith, after the translation was completed.
This alternate history continues until almost 400 years after Jesus' death and resurrection--his "believers" in the New World receive confirmation of his existence and resurrection-- but later turn wicked, except for Mormon--and Moroni--and all but Moroni are killed in battle. However, the golden tablets survive--to be found over a thousand years later, by Joseph Smith!
Quite a story! Having written a novel of a man's life, who appeared once in an account of a Roman-Greek's visit to Attila's court (I, Zerco, on the website link), I know how such stories can be spun--if you have a good imagination.
Afterwards, Smith, had quite an excitin souri and Illinois (apparently leading rebellions)-- and was killed by a mob as he attempted to escape it, outside his second prison, in Illinois.
Not only did Smith 'translate' untraceable golden tablets, he had continuing revelations, published later. His successor, Brigham Young, cemented Mormons' practice of polygamy (he married about 55 women), but was apparently illiterate. He was also racist: at his instigation, black people were denied priest-hood or sacraments until a Mormon leader abolished the prohibition in 1978, 101 years after Young's death.
Although most Mormons now repudiate Brigham Young's racist teachings and polygamy, Mormonism still is based on an alternative history much like the fiction of Orson Scott Card (a Mormon).
Romney isn't just a believer and large donor: he's a Bishop, possibly equivalent to priest. He's admitted, obliquely, that he baptized dead people, as do other Mormons, one of whom baptized Anne Frank!
Quite aside from his questionable claim that, as a (vulture) financier, he knows how to fix the US economy, do Americans realize the strangeness of Romney's religion?
He's the quintessential one-percenter, figure-head for the corporate/wealthy's coup d'état, and a believer in a fantastic fiction. If elected, he'd mark the takeover of the American Senatorial class, much like Roman Senators' unchallenged dominance in the Western Roman Empire's last century.
And would we all have to become Mormons?
Smith creates a whole alternate history derived from the supposed translation of the golden tablets (by him, with the aid of the angel Moroni). The 'Nephites' depart from the sinners of Israel for the New World (America), but are continually attacked by the descendants and followers of Nephi's evil brothers. The skins of these apostates darken, and they are shown using only stone implements: guess who they are! The tablets, revealed by the angel, were "given back" to him by Smith, after the translation was completed.
This alternate history continues until almost 400 years after Jesus' death and resurrection--his "believers" in the New World receive confirmation of his existence and resurrection-- but later turn wicked, except for Mormon--and Moroni--and all but Moroni are killed in battle. However, the golden tablets survive--to be found over a thousand years later, by Joseph Smith!
Quite a story! Having written a novel of a man's life, who appeared once in an account of a Roman-Greek's visit to Attila's court (I, Zerco, on the website link), I know how such stories can be spun--if you have a good imagination.
Afterwards, Smith, had quite an excitin souri and Illinois (apparently leading rebellions)-- and was killed by a mob as he attempted to escape it, outside his second prison, in Illinois.
Not only did Smith 'translate' untraceable golden tablets, he had continuing revelations, published later. His successor, Brigham Young, cemented Mormons' practice of polygamy (he married about 55 women), but was apparently illiterate. He was also racist: at his instigation, black people were denied priest-hood or sacraments until a Mormon leader abolished the prohibition in 1978, 101 years after Young's death.
Although most Mormons now repudiate Brigham Young's racist teachings and polygamy, Mormonism still is based on an alternative history much like the fiction of Orson Scott Card (a Mormon).
Romney isn't just a believer and large donor: he's a Bishop, possibly equivalent to priest. He's admitted, obliquely, that he baptized dead people, as do other Mormons, one of whom baptized Anne Frank!
Quite aside from his questionable claim that, as a (vulture) financier, he knows how to fix the US economy, do Americans realize the strangeness of Romney's religion?
He's the quintessential one-percenter, figure-head for the corporate/wealthy's coup d'état, and a believer in a fantastic fiction. If elected, he'd mark the takeover of the American Senatorial class, much like Roman Senators' unchallenged dominance in the Western Roman Empire's last century.
And would we all have to become Mormons?
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Plantation America
…is what we're entering. It's why the elites no longer seem to care if people are employed, or desperate. It's why a significant portion of the elite is determined to repeal the healthcare law, now that the Supreme Court has upheld it. The hoi-polloi must be driven down, like the slaves of yore.
Sara Robinson (Alternet, 06/28/12) offers an intriguing theory: the wealthy now most articulate, most politically active, increasingly dominant, are from a different aristocracy than men like FDR, or even George H.W. Bush. They have not, she points out, inherited the Puritan-based values of social justice and noblesse oblige, derived mostly from the Northeast. Instead, like the younger Bush and Mitch McConnell, they inherit their ideas from the plantation aristocracy of the Tidewater South, and ultimately from the even more brutal plantation society of the West Indies.
The plantation heritage emphasizes the 'divine right' of the elite to lord it over their slaves--and everyone else, brutally, if necessary. It also rejects the idea that the elite has an obligation to aid those less fortunate, or the later idea that equality is a good: it's not: it's an evil, in their eyes, to be beaten down (literally). Further, freedom, for them, is only individual, and only realized fully by elites, because they should have the freedom to suppress everyone else.
You could go further back and draw parallels between the Puritan vs Plantation aristocracies to the European feudal regimes vs the latifundias lorded over by the Roman Senators towards (and after) the break up of the Roman Empire. The process of Senatorial takeover parallels our own: yeomen peasantry, urban proletariat, and the middle class were all driven into serfdom, under the control of the few Senatorial families monopolizing all wealth. Anyone not of Senatorial rank was treated like a serf.
In feudal society, there was at least the idea that nobility had an obligation to protect and look after their subjects, although this often degenerated into something more like the late Roman system. Its degeneration led to the French Revolution and the English Civil War, but also to social democracy in most of Europe.
It is the southern, plantation ethos that pervades the Tea Party, or rather, its funders, like the Koch brothers and Karl Rove. They are not constrained by ideas of justice, the rule of law or fairness. The Kochs, for example, believe they have a god-given right to pollute the air, water and land and shouldn't have to pay for the damage they do to anyone else; that's their justification for adamantly opposing any kind of environmental regulation: they call this "freedom."
Looked at this way, the contest between conservative and liberal/progressive, between Republican and Democrat, is a contest between two elite cultures, or tribes. The older, more established northeastern ethos appears tired, and lacking conviction. The brash, southern and western tribe pours its resources into gaining dominance.
It doesn't look good.
Sara Robinson (Alternet, 06/28/12) offers an intriguing theory: the wealthy now most articulate, most politically active, increasingly dominant, are from a different aristocracy than men like FDR, or even George H.W. Bush. They have not, she points out, inherited the Puritan-based values of social justice and noblesse oblige, derived mostly from the Northeast. Instead, like the younger Bush and Mitch McConnell, they inherit their ideas from the plantation aristocracy of the Tidewater South, and ultimately from the even more brutal plantation society of the West Indies.
The plantation heritage emphasizes the 'divine right' of the elite to lord it over their slaves--and everyone else, brutally, if necessary. It also rejects the idea that the elite has an obligation to aid those less fortunate, or the later idea that equality is a good: it's not: it's an evil, in their eyes, to be beaten down (literally). Further, freedom, for them, is only individual, and only realized fully by elites, because they should have the freedom to suppress everyone else.
You could go further back and draw parallels between the Puritan vs Plantation aristocracies to the European feudal regimes vs the latifundias lorded over by the Roman Senators towards (and after) the break up of the Roman Empire. The process of Senatorial takeover parallels our own: yeomen peasantry, urban proletariat, and the middle class were all driven into serfdom, under the control of the few Senatorial families monopolizing all wealth. Anyone not of Senatorial rank was treated like a serf.
In feudal society, there was at least the idea that nobility had an obligation to protect and look after their subjects, although this often degenerated into something more like the late Roman system. Its degeneration led to the French Revolution and the English Civil War, but also to social democracy in most of Europe.
It is the southern, plantation ethos that pervades the Tea Party, or rather, its funders, like the Koch brothers and Karl Rove. They are not constrained by ideas of justice, the rule of law or fairness. The Kochs, for example, believe they have a god-given right to pollute the air, water and land and shouldn't have to pay for the damage they do to anyone else; that's their justification for adamantly opposing any kind of environmental regulation: they call this "freedom."
Looked at this way, the contest between conservative and liberal/progressive, between Republican and Democrat, is a contest between two elite cultures, or tribes. The older, more established northeastern ethos appears tired, and lacking conviction. The brash, southern and western tribe pours its resources into gaining dominance.
It doesn't look good.
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