Zorra
Zorra's JournalAn observation of how and why the 1% Global Capitalist Oligopoly is lethal
to the survival, liberty, and democratic self-determination of the individual and collective destinies of the 99% worldwide.
First of all, please examine this article about a food shortage in Venezuela:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/13/world/americas/venezuela-food-shortages/index.html?hpt=wo_bn8
Now, please examine these two concurrent italicized paragraphs, which, in the context of the article, are actually completely unrelated:
Venezuela is not a poor country. It's the thirteenth largest producer of oil in the world and an important producer of minerals. But Jennifer McCoy, director of the Americas Program at the Carter Center in Atlanta says the country is paying for the centralization of the government and a socialist agenda pushed by President Chavez.
"His goal that he has stated is to deepen the revolution, to deepen and expand socialism and to show, I think, the country his vision of his socialist experiment," McCoy said.
In the first paragraph above, it states that Dr. McCoy is saying that "the country is paying for the centralization of the government and a socialist agenda pushed by President Chavez." However, the second paragraph, which is a quote by Dr. McCoy that the author of the piece is using to support the assertion of the first paragraph, has nothing whatsoever to do with the assertion.
Simply: Dr. McCoy stating this: "His goal that he has stated is to deepen the revolution, to deepen and expand socialism and to show, I think, the country his vision of his socialist experiment," does not in any way indicate that Dr. McCoy "says the country is paying for the centralization of the government and a socialist agenda pushed by President Chavez." They're completely unrelated in this context. It appears to be propaganda. The author of the piece is being disingenuous, appears to be pro-capitalist spin from MSM.
Chavez has recently regulated businesses, requiring them to disclose information so that their operations are transparent to the Bolivarian People's Government:
It's not just ordinary people who are worried about the situation. Under government guidelines published last month, producers of basic products, including foreign companies, must now register with government regulators and disclose how they produce, distribute and market their products, a move that has caused great concern among domestic and international companies operating in Venezuela.
It appears that businesses are punishing the Venezuelan people by hoarding food in retribution for being regulated:
Venezuelan authorities blame the shortages on some producers who have allegedly hoarded regulated products. According to officials, in a raid conducted in November, they found more than 200 tons of powdered milk hidden in a warehouse.
This is one reason why modern oligarchal global capitalism totally sucks, and how it destroys democracies.
It gives the 1% wealthy private interests the ability to withhold goods and resources necessary for the survival for the 99%. Governments have no real control of the 1%. They either have to do what the 1% wants, or the 1% can take respective extreme economic or even military measures to punish the 99%, and our legislators as well, for anything that the 1% deem as transgressions of or opposition to their will and desires.
For example: If President Obama tries to regulate the oil industry, the oil industry can withhold gasoline, causing a gas shortage and an economic crisis. This is vengeance, and it harms the 99%, as well as the popularity of the President. I believe that the oil companies did this exact thing to the people and to President Carter in the late 1970's to punish us and President Carter, and to help get Reagan elected.
Another example: President Obama attempts to regulate the banksters. The banksters don't want to be regualted. They make up some woo, because they can, and use it to cause an economic/financial crisis, punishing the 99% and President Obama, while they increase their profits off the woo.
Another example: A significant majority of the population wishes to establish a single payer form of public funded universal health care, say, somewhat similar to the Candian model. The vastly wealthy and powerful Health Insurance/Pharmaceutical Industry pressures legislators that they have co-opted through bribery to insure that the type of healthcare system that the majority desires cannot possibly be legislated into existence.
Etc. 1% control of our world is pervasive in most areas of our lives.
This is a primary reason why Occupy has come into existence. Our government has become essentially powerless to do anything that is not approved by the 1%. This problem cannot be solved through the current political process. Democracy is no longer functional. We are, essentially and literally, in the throes of the Global Dictatorship of the 1%. Not only do they control, globally, as an oligpoly, most of the factors and means of production, including most resources necessary for basic survival and heir distribution, but they also own an overwhelming share of the media, which they have been successfully using to control public information and opinion in order to consolidate their control over the globe without evincing significant populist democratic resistance.
By necessity, Occupy came into being. We, the free sovereign People, the 99%, are compelled to take direct action. We recognize that the 1% has evinced a design to reduce us under absolute despotism. It is now unquestionably our right to throw off government by the 1%, and to provide new guards for our security and the security of all future generations.
It appears that our only option at this time that is a viable means of throwing off this dictatorship and re-establishing control of our individual and collective destinies is mass all encompassing non-violent direct action conducted in unison.
One example of this type of action is a coordinated general strike and boycott by a majority of the populace, united for the purpose of re-establishing a means to achieve the natural rights to individual and collective self determination and the the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in which they collectively determine to be the most reasonable way possible.
Occupy needs the support of as many of you, the 99%, as is possible if we are ever to live in a world where liberty, justice, and equality are possible for the greatest possible majority of people.
Recognize and understand the immutable fact that the 1% does not have divine or any legitimate sanction to rule us.
Stop recognizing them and their minions as having power and authority over us.
Whose authority? Our authority.
Whose power? Our power.
Whose world? Our world.
Keep hope alive.
Solidarity.
Occupy.
peace
love
LOL! It seems very clear to me that you were promoting Occupy.
IMO, you did pretty much lay bare the nature of OWS. That nature just happens to totally scare the shit out of people that live by fear, aggression, violence, hate, and greed.
Like you said in your post, "OWS seeks to replace the entire political, social, and economic culture with a wider sense of human community. It already conducts itself in that manner." I would go even further, and say that OWS is already in the process of replacing the entire political, social, and economic culture with a wider sense of human community.
To authoritarian conservative personalities, the tangible aura of collective human compassion and power to bring about inevitable constructive positive change that characterizes the nature of Occupy is terribly confusing, and overwhelmingly frightening.
I feel sorry for them to an extent; but their harmful, hateful, destructive self and mass delusions and illusions are becoming unsustainable and more lethal to everyone and everything with each passing day, and the world as they know it must necessarily drastically change or they will inevitably kill the planet. We simply can't put up with this childish behavior anymore. They are going to have great difficulty coping without someone in authority to tell them what to do, and authoritarian conservatives by nature lack imagination and the capability to comfortably adapt to new circumstances as well. They'll just have to cope with our peace and love, like we've had to cope with violence and hate. From our perspective, this is a no brainer; but prisoners often become fully dependent on their abusive captors, and abuse becomes the comfortable norm for them.
Fortunately, there's nothing they can do to stop this idea whose time has come.
It will take time for the change to fully manifest, but the power of love has already overcome the love of power, and there is no way to stop it now.
Very thoughtful. "We must vote for the better candidate in this election" -
That's a big part of the bottom line. And I totally get your post, but...
This last beating of progressives/liberals by Congress and the President in his reversal of his previous stance regarding vetoing the NDAA, has sparked new outrage among progressives posting here, and caused another spate of posts critical of Congress and the President.
I'm not saying that we progressives/liberals should STFU, but seriously, what's the use anymore, except for progressives/liberals to express outrage? Or, then again, maybe we are actually helping hone the debating skills for ardent Obama supporters, so that they can more easily convince Independents and fence-sitting Democrats that are not very politically aware to vote for Obama.
*At this point before the election*, I'm very sincerely glad that there are some people that are such ardent supporters of Obama that this may cause them to not be overly cognizant of possible faults in the President's tenure so far.
Those among us that are not overly pleased with his Presidency, while we will vote for him, do not have the enthusiam in our hearts that is needed to go out and actually work to get him elected.
This is a shame, and we have good reasons for feeling the way we do, and it sucks, but it is what it is.
It's either Newtie or some other fascist tool, and a stronger fascist Congress, and a stronger fascist SCOTUS, or Obama and as many Dem Congresscritters as we can get in there. on edit Most importantly, it could mean the end of the fascist SCOTUS that selected Bush and brought us the Citizen's United decision.
Hopefully, the ardent Obama supporters here will do much, much more than just post defensive arguments on DU, and will get out and get active for the cause that they so vehemently support with opinions from their keyboards.
I'm supporting Elizabeth Warren and Alan Grayson, Dennis Kucinich, the Wisconsin recall movement, Move to Amend, and participate in, and support Occupy. These are people and organizations that have earned my respect and trust, and can therefore enthusiastically support.
Here's hoping that the ardent Obama supporters can generate the enthusiasm that the rest of us have lost over the last 3 years. If they cannot, I will not blame myself if Obama loses the election. I will have voted for him, and will be bummed if he loses. But Occupy, by virtue of its genuine progressive democratic nature, totally encompasses my ideals and beliefs, and directly acts on making these ideals come to fruition in real time. There is no ambiguity. I know exactly where Occupy stands and what we seek to achieve. So that is my focus now, and it is what I am enthusiastic about.
Like so many other progressives/liberals, I am bitterly disappointed at the many gains the 1% has made over the past 3 years, to the detriment of the 99%, enough so that we were forced into starting a movement dedicated to protecting and promoting the democratic interests of the 99%.
So, get out there and go get 'em, Obama supporters, I wish you success, and also wish I could sincerely share your enthusiasm.
peace
Support Occupy if you really want to see all this changed.
The 1% is in control of the government.
They are never going to let you vote them out.
Belief in the current illusion of democracy is preventing change.
Make a real difference. Occupy. Unite in solidarity. Change our world for the better forever.
The movement for democracy has begun. The only thing that can change the world is you.
We are the 99%. The people, united, can never be divided.
I'm thinking Gov. Brian Schweitzer or Elizabeth Warren in 2016. It's way too late
to challenge Obama now. He's better than any republican, so most of us will vote for him. No progressive/liberal would be stupid enough to run against Obama now, and damage the chances of a Democratic incumbent beating a republican.
Just the possibility of ending the nightmare of our current fascist SCOTUS should be enough to bring any reasonable progressive/liberal to the polls to vote for Obama.
If Obama and Congressional Dems continue to preside in their current corporatist vein for the next four years, they may permanently destroy the Democratic Party. Many of us are totally fed up with corporatism, and we want the Democratic Party to be the opposition to the republican corporatist party, not their ally.
And there is the possibility that Obama will actually govern more progressively, although the recent reversal of course in the decision not to veto the NDAA is very disheartening for progressives in this regard, so most progressives have little hope for change at this point. Habeas Corpus and the protection and preservation of civil liberties is dear to the hearts of real progressives.
Hopefully, the Occupy movement will continue to be successful and will pick up a great deal more support, and will have even more of an impact on the national conversation by 2016. People will be desperate for real progressive leadership by then; and with any luck, we will have forced Congress, through direct action tactics, to draft and pass a constitutional amendment that takes all the money out of political campaigns and prevents "bribery" of elected officials.
Occupy
This Beautful Speech by Secretary of State Clinton
is so fitting for our new LGBT forum..
Sec. Clinton To UN: ‘Gay Rights Are Human Rights, And Human Rights Are Gay Rights’
- “Like being a woman, like being a racial religious tribal or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are gay rights.”
- “Well, in reality, gay people are born into and belong to every society in the world. They are all ages, all races, all faiths; they are doctors and teachers, farmers and bankers, soldiers and athletes, and whether we know it or whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends and our neighbors.”
- “Some believe homosexuality is a Western phenomenon… but gay people belong to every society in the world…. Being gay is not a Western invention, it is a human reality.”
- “In all countries, there are costs to not protecting these rights, in both gay and straight lives lost to disease and violence and the silencing of voices and views that would strengthen communities and ideas never pursued by entrepreneurs who happen to be gay. Costs are incurred whenever any group is treated as lesser or the other whether they are women, racial or religious minorities or the LGBT.”
snip---
“Those who advocate for expanding the circle of human rights were and are on the right side of history, and history honors them… We are called once more to make real the words of the universal declaration. Let us be on the right side of history.”
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/12/06/383003/sec-clinton-to-un-gay-rights-are-human-rights-and-human-rights-are-gay-rights/
Bravo!
(Cross posted from kpete's post in soapbox. Thanks kpete!)
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Member since: Tue Sep 23, 2003, 11:05 PM
Number of posts: 27,670
