Wise long forgotton words from Thomas Jefferson............

[YeahSureRight]

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

-- Thomas Jefferson


We were told, warned and we ignored his words....we are now at the EXACT same place TJ was in back in the day.

[graham4anything]

1. Thomas Jefferson- "All men are created equal" but not women, and not any minority. Not 82% of dem.

That Thomas Jefferson meant what he said only those men like him were considered equal.
Nothing Tommy said was more important than what specifically he did not include in his most important statement, and our most important right.

[reusrename]

21. I don't understand what your point is.

If you think slavery is a bad thing, why would your sig line read the way it does?

Why would you want to stay on this path we are on?

I really don't understand where you are coming from.

[Democracyinkind]

4. Wouldn't it be great if he really said that?

Last time I checked, there was no reason to believe that he actually did (sadly...)

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln.asp

[Democracyinkind]

6. It must have been updated since I last looked.

As far as I can see, the actual letter was never produced. Or do you think the excerpt you quoted relates to the actual letter rather than another copy?

Personally, I would love to be able to quote that legitimately. It's very prescient.

[Progressive dog]

23. big red button with FALSE next to it on above link

[geckosfeet]

3. Prescient. Piles'o'cash have been a corruptive influence for many a government.

"corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country"

Allowing the wealthy aristocracy and corporate megaliths to flourish is the politicians quid pro quo for lobbyists, campaign donations and lucrative consulting positions with private firms. The constituency has shifted form being the US citizen, to the wealthy 1% and corporate money machines.

[OldRedneck]

7. "This exact quotation has not been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson . . . "

"This exact quotation has not been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. . . . "

http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/end-democracyquotation

[intaglio]

8. The actual Jefferson quote (Thanks OldRedNeck)

is pretty prescient and describes pretty much what has happened in all democracies.

a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and monied incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry

1825 letter to William Branch

[YeahSureRight]

9. True it is not a 100% direct quote but that is also true of many historical quotes

However the quote is generally attributed to him and reflects pretty much what is historically accurate.

The point of my post was to generate a discussion on the moneyed interests in our government not the historical accuracy of a widely used quote by a founding father.

If you are interested in having a discussion on historically accurate quotes verses generally attributed quotes feel free to start your own thread.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. "generate a discussion on the moneyed interests in our government"

A fucking slave owner rapist who littered the U.S. with his progeny and name is surely not the one to use to "generate a discussion on the moneyed interest" because HE was "the moneyed interest".

From Frederick Douglass in 1852

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927t.html


But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

[nineteen50]

11. What was he doing

blowing the whistle from inside the moneyed?

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Jefferson took full advantage of his status

and wasn't about to let it go. His slaves were sold off by auction, per his instructions, after he died.

He was a fucking hypocrite.

[nineteen50]

14. Yet racism and slavery are still a hugh problem

today.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. Correct

meaning that for time immemorial, this has been an issue that has never been tied solely to "moneyed corporations". It's tied to humanity itself and the evolution of societies. It is human nature. And to single out a time period or some nebulous "corporation", misses that there is something in human nature that has and continues to establish hierarchical societies (whether based on wealth, familial lines, religion, physical prowess, or age, e.g., "Council of Elders", etc).

My issue with DU of late has been the superficial presentations used to argue against what "we" (humans) are, which has sadly been a human societal "norm" since humans have peopled the earth - all as a means to proffer an ideology that would purportedly "fix everything" once and for all. This doesn't mean that I embrace "corporatization". Far from it. But I do believe that given what is essentially a "constant" (hierarchy) that has been around for tens of thousands of years, one can try to work around it and/or build a protective firewall to mitigate its detriments, in order to strive for a better life.

[nineteen50]

20. Those biases of hierarchy are taught but so is thought policing.

How to educate without bias becomes the question.

[BumRushDaShow]

22. From an evolutionary perspective

the base biases most likely helped to establish survival of the species (in a literal sense), as a whole, in the presence of specific threats.

However on a higher level, from the sociological aspect of societies, additional layers were added that were purported and promoted to "enhance" the base biases, but often exasperated problems because these did not always apply equally across the entire society.

The difficulty then becomes trying to tackle an almost infinite number of combinations and permutations, to find the set that might apply favorably to the most number of people. And that is where all the fuss happens because inevitably, what might benefit 90% might be at the detriment of the other 10% (see the minority populations in countries world-wide).

And my issue has been this - there are those who refuse to recognize this state of affairs and insist on "100% or nothing", whereas I strive to keep looking for that elusive combination that can benefit as many as possible but recognize that everyone is not going to be helped or pleased.... and -the key- try your darnedest to make accommodations for them.

My mother always told me that "life isn't always fair" and she damn sure is right.

[raouldukelives]

18. Exactly. Like someone today investing and supporting Foxconn.

Then claiming to be progressive. Actions define not just you, but your legacy.

[DhhD]

12. The exact same place only past that, when corporations became people.

[Gore1FL]

15. Here is the full letter

Poplar Forest near Lynchburg, Nov. 12, 16
Dear Sir,

—I received your favor of Oct. 16, at this place, where I pass much of my time, very distant from Monticello. I am quite astonished at the idea which seems to have got abroad; that I propose publishing something on the subject of religion, and this is said to have arisen from a letter of mine to my friend Charles Thompson, in which certainly there is no trace of such an idea. When we see religion split into so many thousand of sects, and I may say Christianity itself divided into it’s thousands also, who are disputing, anathematizing and where the laws permit burning and torturing one another for abstractions which no one of them understand, and which are indeed beyond the comprehension of the human mind, into which of the chambers of this Bedlam would a [torn] man wish to thrust himself. The sum of all religion as expressed by it’s best preacher, “fear god and love thy neighbor” contains no mystery, needs no explanation. But this wont do. It gives no scope to make dupes; priests could not live by it. Your idea of the moral obligations of governments are perfectly correct. The man who is dishonest as a statesman would be a dishonest man in any station. It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately. It is a great consolation to me that our government, as it cherishes most it’s duties to its own citizens, so is it the most exact in it’s moral conduct towards other nations. I do not believe that in the four administrations which have taken place, there has been a single instance of departure from good faith towards other nations. We may sometimes have mistaken our rights, or made an erroneous estimate of the actions of others, but no voluntary wrong can be imputed to us. In this respect England exhibits the most remarkable phaenomenon in the universe in the contrast between the profligacy of it’s government and the probity of it’s citizens. And accordingly it is now exhibiting an example of the truth of the maxim that virtue & interest are inseparable. It ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of it’s people, but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe. I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. Present me respectfully to Mrs. Logan and accept yourself my friendly and respectful salutations.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=808&chapter=88352&layout=html&Itemid=27

[mckara]

16. Human Nature Never Seems to Change

We radicals have work to do!

[struggle4progress]

17. ... Earliest known appearance in print: 1994 ...

http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/end-democracyquotation