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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen will we hit the tipping point in this country again?
What will be the event that breaks the camels back so to speak when enough people are so fed up that they demand a separation?
Corporations today have more power, influence and control over people and government then they did back in the 1700's in America.
That influence resulted in a DEMAND for change backed up with action...
'When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.......'
American's used to be willing to stand up for what is right now most would rather get along to get along and not make waves, roll over and take it yet again.
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cali
(114,904 posts)reaches critical mass.
Right now, people are still wrapped up in buying the newest phone with the most tricks.
StitchesforSnitches
(45 posts)one can't eat an iPhone nor will an iPhone protect you but you do look cool with the latest phone built by slave labor.
Oh well their choice to be a future victim.
Selatius
(20,441 posts)One of the aggravating factors that helped spark the American Revolution was the issue of British tea. It sounds stupid, but the reason why many Founders had major trust issues with corporations was that British Parliament, after much lobbying by representatives of trade groups in London, had granted a legal monopoly to the British East India Company to sell tea to the American Colonies. They were free to charge as high as price as the market could bear, and while tea itself wasn't a fundamental necessity, it did spark worry that Parliament could easily grant other monopolies to companies to sell things that were considered necessities or things that were in very short supply and were needed.
This issue added onto other issues that were outstanding between the colonists and the British Empire. The other big issue was the outlawing of colonial paper currency. Prior to the Currency Act of 1764, the individual colonies were free to issue paper money as a medium of exchange to facilitate trade and commerce and for the payment of debts in the absence of sufficient money from the British back home. When it was explained to banking institutions in London how paper currency in the colonies worked, that they were considered bills of credit instead of bills of debt whose introduction came at the expense of payment of interest to those banks from which the funds were borrowed, their representatives began lobbying British Parliament to outlaw the colonial currencies and require the colonies to pay its tax debts in gold coin borrowed from English banks with interest. They wished the colonies to be hooked into the same system that the rest of Europe was locked in to.
All of this added to hatred of corporations. It simply allowed small groups of people to become supremely wealthy, and they would use that wealth to buy favors and preferential treatment above everybody else who was poorer. People became tired of being screwed.
StitchesforSnitches
(45 posts)I also know that the Boston Tea Party was an indirect message to the king too. If the FF's wanted to really send a message to the.king they could have easily attacked or taken over close to 100 undefended or lightly defended facilities owned by the crown in metro Boston yet the FF's instead decide to dress up as Indians, get in small boats at night in Boston harbor to dump some tea bay instead.
Funny how so few even bother to look at who actually owned tea.
Corporations with the help of the GOP and some Dems are attacking education where the result will be generations of morons who will blindly support corporations.
Selatius
(20,441 posts)I think George Carlin said it best:
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)It was a classic false flag operation. Kind of like making a bomb threat under the name "Saleem".
StitchesforSnitches
(45 posts)ala Susan Smith
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)There was no attempt to blame the tribes, the whole of the Colony was aware of those tea ships, which were anchored for 20 full days as the conflict came to a head. The Sons of Liberty were open in their intention to oppose the status quo. The destruction of the tea began after a meeting with about 7,000 present, lead by Sam Adams. When the meeting ended without another plan, those who planned to destroy the tea left the meeting and went to the ships. Everyone knew it was the Sons of Liberty, most of them had to leave Boston afterward.
The disguises were both practicall and symbolic, the hope of individuals to go unidentified and symbolic in that at that time, the native apparel and styles were a statement of their American as opposed to British self identity. They were not attempting to actually pass as tribe members. They were dressing up as Americans in the most distinct and undeniable way they could.
It was not 'false flag' as the Sons of Liberty were known as the group destroying the tea, it was announced, it was the culmination of months of tension, and three weeks of specific attention to the two ships waiting in the harbor. The destruction of the tea took 3 hours, afterward they protesters swept up the decks and when they found a lock had been broken on one of them, they replaced it the next day. The ships were American owned, the tea was British. The crews and officers of the ships had verbal contact with the protesters.
There was no attempt to shift the blame, as it was intended as a message from the Americans. They wanted the Brits to know they did it. Collectively.
Igel
(35,270 posts)Corporations were small unless granted a patent by the king.
(Note that "patent" has also changed its meaning a bit.)
Without something like the kind of corporation we have in the US you have two sizes of business: the first is small, perhaps family run; the second is large and state-sponsored.
The US despised the second kind. They tend to serve the interests of the state--or the state blatantly serves the interest of their business, the corporations. You wind up with all kinds of subsidies. If the state provides lots of services to the population, then the business is milked (hedge-fund style) for money; if the state's actors just benefit from the money from the business, then the business is run for the benefit of the state at the expense of the population. 1970s Britain, the USSR for most of its existence, even the PRC serve as examples of these.
The first kind of business, small and family-run, can't be a GM or a Microsoft, or even a medium-sized start-up for very long. Such businesses can exist, but they are almost always owned by a family or a small number of partners and then have to pass the wealth down, pretty much strictly in the family. And if estate taxes are large enough, they're simply liquidated or spread so thin as to be ungovernable. By the time your business is up and running on a large and efficient scale, it's time to pack it in and start over, trying to sort out who'll get the patents and equipment and try to replicate what you did. If you're very lucky, you can set up a kind of family dynasty, but the US didn't like that and most liberals consider this to be the worst kind of corporation possible.
The US corporation is a kludge. It's a way of having medium- and large-size businesses that can survive more than the last decade or two of an owner's lifespan.
bighughdiehl
(390 posts)I have been waiting since 2000. Since most people are basically sheep who vote their pocketbook
instead of their principles, one can be forgiven for thinking that recent economic times would
have done the trick, but I see no evidence of this. OWS should be about 10 times bigger,
if that were the case. I'll bet in 2016, if not 2012, people will have gotten so jaded on
Obama's hope and change half-assed happy horseshit(and this was probably the plan
all along), that someone making GWB look like FDR will be elected. All bets off as to who
gets fascistically rounded up or how much of the remaining safety net gets shredded,
or who gets bombed to distract from the deteriorating situation here.
Look at how big, protests in Europe had to get for the people's grievances to
get half-half-half-half-heard. Those will never happen here.
I cannot help believing that between Faux Snooze, talk radio, shitty education, long stressful
working hours and commutes, high fructose corn syrup, crazy medievalist evangelical cults, stupid reality shows,
internet porn, psychopharmaceuticals to placate those few who see what's going on and quite logically
get depressed, and the latest "cool" finger-fuck toys from Samsung and Apple
from which the "hero" generation Y can send their latest inane tweets and LOLs, that the 21st
century American corporate elite have either concocted or stumbled upon history's first true example
of conditions that together constitute "mind control".
In the past, people who were much less "educated" knew when it was time for a change.
I guess 21st century Americans must be dumber than the most backward
medieval peasants, even they revolted from time to time. But our cars, mcmansions, and
finger-fuck toys from Apple and Samsung make us think we're such hot shit. We are not sophisticated,
we are just overly busy, and that is largely what "they" count on.
I live in a "swing" area that has called the winner in most presidential elections for a looong time.
And yet, I meet fewer libs/lefties in a year here than in a week in a couple small towns in the midwest and south
where I have lived. My whole family and everyone else around here did not wake up all through the fucking
Bush administration. There is a certain tall building that is famous around here. It is as if there is a mind-control ray
broadcaster on top of it to which I and I alone became inexplicably immune in 2000. I am the only person around
here who understands the point of having a constitution, bill of rights, rule of law, etc. People around here who
were hunky dory with Bush shredding all these things during his reign, are now pissed at Obama over the
airport scanners and gropings. I told them to just wait until bad things start to happen to white middle-class people. They
do not remember me telling them that. They believe that Bush-world was a utopia and Obama's civil-liberties
curbs arose out of a vacuum like magic. There is no reasoning with any of this. The people around here
with lots travel and "education" under their belts are no better, in fact. I also told people 5, 6,7 years ago
what would happen with the economy and why. They have forgotten that and now believe, as with civil liberties
matters, that our economic troubles arose out of the blue, out of a vacuum the second after
Obama was inaugurated but before his ass even warmed up the seat in the oval office.
If reasonably educated, genteel, formerly moderate before they lost their fucking minds after 9-11
people are this far gone, this delusional, this brainwashed, this out of touch with reality, then I cannot
imagine how you guys in the south cope without daily pharmaceutical assistance.
The American experiment is over. It is done. Time to hunker down, survive, and make a small difference
locally if you have reason to believe even that much is possible. Do not buy a house, especially if you are single,
and then buy much less than what you can afford. Get roommates if you have extra bedrooms.
Start saving money if possible. Grow a big garden if possible. Get a job closer to home if possible.
Pay off debts if possible. Buy an occasional toy if you cannot resist and keep it as long as it works.
For most people not all of these things are possible, but a couple of them should be. If everyone does these
things, the economy will collapse almost overnight and people will get a good slap-in-the-face instead
of the Orwellian slow burn we have been subjected to. Whatever direction such a scenario would send
things politically, I just want to get it over with. The past 5-10 years have been like a long-ass wait
in a doctor's office while he takes his sweet time getting some test results. Bad news is better than
no news.
The police are not your friends, no matter how law-abiding you are. This past fall I was in the wrong place
at the wrong time one day and got harassed by two buzz-cutted bellicose roided-up freaks who tried to
get me to confess to knowing much more about the situation than was the case. I could tell by the looks
on their face and their snide high school bully tone that they knew what they were doing. Then they got baffled
that I did not crack. If I wasn't nearly a fucking albino they would have just beat me unconscious. They did not
seem to even care to grab who they already knew was the perp. I was also
seeing how occupiers were being treated. Yeah, cops are assholes. They are in it to push the less powerful around.
Enforcing the goddamn law is secondary.
Survive, minimize your grind by minimizing your expenses, then chill out. Good fucking luck if you are unemployed.
StitchesforSnitches
(45 posts)I was prepped and ready for any and all eventualities before prepping was in....started in the 90's and fully prepared just before B vs G.
And for those that are not prepared good luck cuz you will need.
rrHeretic
(52 posts)Even though you'll probably get a lukewarm response here since most of these people fit into what you described regarding the middle of the roaders, your comments hit home for me and a few others. Especially
since I, like you, had one of those encounters with the cowards in blue who hide behind badges and guns. My
actions were totally harmless or so I thought. A traffic cop screamed at me to move my commercial vehicle
which I'd been parking in the same place for a couple of weeks before he showed up for the first time.
As he yelled at me in front of some of his friends, who were laughing, I pretended I was writing his badge
number down while starting up my vehicle to move. He saw this, went ballistic, put his hand on the butt of
his gun, and yelled at me to get the fuck out of the vehicle because he was going to arrest me.
I diffused the situation by immediately assuming the submissive beta role - hunched shoulders, downcast
look of fright, etc. I'm white and that's probably the only reason it ended okay for me. But in my mind there
were two things rolling around:
1. What if I had been a black or hispanic teen caught by this bastard around 3 in the morning in a poor neighborhood? What would've been the result then? I think we know.
and
2. The rage I was feeling inside almost bubbled over even though the moron didn't catch it. I just kept thinking that if I knew for sure I would have gotten away with it, I would have run the bastard over, several times, with my vehicle.
They're really all cowards. Just look at their reaction when they tried to intimidate a recent OWS march in California. Another group, calling themselves anarchists, put themselves between the OWS folks and the pig patrol. The pig patrol immediately backed off and moved aside to let the marchers pass. An eyewitness said he saw something in the cops' eyes he'd never seen before - fear.
If I were there I probably would have shouted "Welcome to the revolution motherfucker!"
Survival, as you note, is all that is left for us.
RKP5637
(67,084 posts)the past decade plus. The only hope might be when it all falls apart and something comes from the remaining shreds. Most people live their lives in ruts, never looking up or out.
sendero
(28,552 posts).. when I thought as things got bad enough (and they are RIGHT NOW IMHO), people would get more serious about understanding what is happening and doing something about it.
Not any more.
People just believe what they want to,they are not remotely interested in fact, logic, anything. They believe what talk radio tells them.
One of my favorites is that Obama is a "Marxist" or even a "socialist". When someone says that, I have heard all I need to hear. I know I am dealing with a complete and utter fool who believes whatever talk radio tells them. Nothing will save these people, they are simply beyond all hope. And yes I will laugh when the shit hits the fan and their utter foolishness catches them completely off guard. It will almost be worth it.
bighughdiehl
(390 posts)"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
NNN0LHI
(67,190 posts)They were part of the problem rather than the solution.
Don
CrispyQ
(36,413 posts)I hardly know anyone who pays much attention to what's going on politically. If they watch news, it's network, CNN or FOX. In the primaries in 2008, I sported a Joe Biden bumper sticker. A co-worker, an intelligent woman, said to me, "I didn't realize you were a republican."
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Jeb Bush....bet on it.
TomClash
(11,344 posts)A rising tide lifts all boats! 
See my sig line if you want the answer to your question. 
TBF
(32,001 posts)we haven't really experienced austerity in this country in a widespread manner yet.
We already experienced that shit back in the 80s and 90s. Europeans are just getting
round 1 and are rightly wound up about it. We sat still for round 1 and we are about
to sit still for round 2.
TBF
(32,001 posts)we saw jobs leave. At that point we still had safety nets. They've been working to dismantle those for sure.
But widespread austerity? I don't think we're there yet.
Response to StitchesforSnitches (Original post)
piratefish08 This message was self-deleted by its author.
sorefeet
(1,241 posts)Find me a Canadian wife
obliviously
(1,635 posts)
kickysnana
(3,908 posts)The banks are in trouble again here and there and everywhere.
I got a desperate call from a second cousin in Nashville Tennessee age 40 looking for any kind of work. I hadn't talked to him since I was down doing genealogy in 1999. He said he like security jobs but would do anything. He has one brother working and one in the military but I just read on DU that all noncom positions were up for review this year and perhaps up to 50% of the military might be eliminated. Probably some bluster to that to get Congress to act but surely there will be some reduction there.
So I call a friend who had done security in the past but was unable to break into security once his family moved to Duluth for his wife's job. Still not able to work security and he had heard that things were not goo here. The next day an article in the Tribune said that Minneapolis Public Housing cut their security budget by 59% causing the company that did most of the work for them to lay off over 30 people.
My son works at a dealership and last week they eliminated the second shift mechanics and cut half the support staff of the body shop.
All the over 50's computer people are either working as needed and/or Target Stockroom overnight.
North Dakota is hiring in the oil fields but there is no place to stay and absolutely nothing to while you are there and the winters are brutal.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)No amount of economic catastrophe, civil rights losses or corporate malfeasance is going to get the reality tv numbed population off the couch.
The most powerful thing citizens can do now is to stop accumulating mall crap and credit card debt; move your money (to local credit unions and banks),grow as much food as your situation allows, etc., you know the drill. That will hit them in the only place it hurts - the bottom line.
Of course, if enough people actually do check out of the consumerist lifestyle, I expect that advocating boycotts will become the next 'terrorist act'.
cali
(114,904 posts)because enough people won't check out of the consumerism lfestyle. I did it decades ago- first by choice and now by necessity. Too much of anything clutters and chokes me. I just can't stand it. And there's a contemplative aspect to living simply that really appeals to me.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)I could easily afford a new vehicle, cable tv, a 'smart' phone, newer clothing, but the appeal hasn't been there for a very long time.
Just saying that widespread economic action would have much greater effect on the PTB than any number of protests or encampments, if only..
bhikkhu
(10,711 posts)if you stop buying stuff from them, they fold more or less right away.
I have to say, all the marching and so forth seems to be ineffective, and somewhat doomed to failure lacking a plan. It misses the essentially democratic basis of corporate power.
cali
(114,904 posts)
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)Unfortunately the tendency is always toward fascism-like government, no matter who is in power. And it takes vigilance, intelligence, and energy to keep them at bay.
Too many lazy people. This is why I am furious about the automobile. Yes, the automobile. Our lives are so easy that we are not inclined to lift a finger.
