How often do you see serfs protesting that the lord of the manor is taxed too heavily?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

These morons have been turned out in droves by puppet masters like Hannity and Limbaugh to do the gruntwork on their behalf. It's both sad and cynical and sick.

Next up: displaced workers protesting unemployment insurance.

[ananda]

1. So true.

So sadly true.

[lunatica]

2. the hungry protesting soup kitchens

[BlooInBloo]

3. Whenever the alternative is that people with brown skin might have a decent outcome.

[LSparkle]

4. Typical Thug tactics -- get people to vote/act against their economic interests

People are voting/advocating for groups they ASPIRE to
be a part of, not those who can REALLY help them become
better off. They've gotten workers to believe that
"union" is a dirty word ... so that we fight amongst
ourselves as opposed to turning on them. I keep hoping
that the "silver lining" of this economic downturn is
that people FINALLY WAKE UP and realize who our true
enemies are ... That's something Limpballs and his
ilk are SCARED TO DEATH of.

[arcadian]

17. The rich have also CONvinced them that they got rich through hard work.

When in actuality, they got there through family connections, unethical business practices and outright theft.

[4_TN_TITANS]

31. On Nashville NPR yesterday

they interviewed a protester complaining that he hoped to be rich someday and didn't want the tax increases on him when he makes it big.

The American dream - you have to be asleep to see it.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. The (soon-to-be)uninsured protesting universal healthcare. nt

[patrice]

6. What we need to do is have many, many grassroots community debates at all levels

big and small. Get the different sides together, agree to some polite groundrules, and debate, debate, debate so everyone can hear the facts and make up their own minds. This will also free at least some of the serfs from their fatal ignorance.

[Fire1]

22. Nope. Been there done that. Talking to them is like talking

to concrete.:banghead:

[Malikshah]

7. Actually it is quite common in pre-modern and modern history.

The upper class uses its control over the masses to squash the intelligentsia/intellectuals/middle class via populist rhetoric and their ability to control the fate of each individual lower class person. Lack of education, simplistic thinking, and irrationality all play their role.

[Demoiselle]

11. Isn't it true that the Russian peasants ...

were the last to embrace "the Revolution?" I'm betraying my teeny tiny smattering of knowledge on the matter...
but it seems to me that the Russian ruling class was convinced for a very long time that the serfs would never rebel, all
tied up as they were with ideas of loyalty to the master, religion and just plain ignorance.
Didn't work out that way....still....anybody out there with more expertise then I in the matter? (Not that that you'd need much to beat me on it.)

[rockymountaindem]

28. The peasantry in Russia was nearly as nonpolitical as anybody could be

There was a program devised by a Russian socialist group called Land and Liberty during the 1870s in which young socialists would live among the peasants like missionaries, performing charity and spreading their ideology. Keep in mind that these particular socialists were more of the Fabian variety at the time and weren't preaching violent revolution. In fact, they were convinced that the Russian peasant villages, organized into elder-dominated collectives called "mir", could be a model of Russian state socialism. The movement ended in utter failure, most of the participants were chased away because the peasantry couldn't understand a thing they were saying. A couple of them were burned as witches, or so they say. The failure of the movement helped spur the violent revolutionary movement People's Will, which ended up assassinating Alexander II in 1882.

The problem was that most peasants couldn't even conceive of politics at all. The only people the peasantry really hated was the strata of small nobility directly above them. Essentially, they all blamed their landlords for their plight, but not the system that kept the landlords in their position. In fact, most of them looked to the Tsar to save them from all their problems, as they believed he was the only person who could help them against the nobility, not realizing that the Tsar was merely the top level of the whole system.

[Gemini Cat]

26. Right.

With an unhealthy dash of stupid to add to that, makes for what we see today.

[applegrove]

8. You see it all the time in the USA.. In the 1800s in England Disralie

had to deal with the issue of there not being enough rich conservatives around for the conservative party to win elections. So he came up with the idea of pairing the rich person's conservative agenda with PATRIOTISM. And the rest is history. "Patriotism" lured many poor and middle class people into the fold of conservatism.

[lunatica]

13. On the hate side of that coin are the wedge issues

Homophobia, religion, and jingoism among them

[Matariki]

9. Horatio Algers Complex

works every time on those morans.

[Jeep789]

10. Proof that the war against education is working. nt

[nookiemonster]

12. You're absolutely spot on!!

The rubes do what the propagandists tell them to do. The Bougeois have no need to get their hands dirty.

Lotta stupid out there.

[TankLV]

14. "unemployment insurance"?!!!! SOCIALISM!!!!

[MadMaddie]

15. What will be fun to watch is when they serfs realize they have

been played like a fiddle....you know they turn on their own in a heartbeat!:nopity: :popcorn:

[girl gone mad]

16. It's very creepy.

[mdavies013]

18. I believe it is spelled morAn - I read it on a poster once.

[Lex]

19. What tools.

It's always sad to see.

[mwei924]

20. They all think they'll be millionaires soon..

.. even the ones who are close to kicking the bucket.

[mitchum]

21. That's why I hate that damn horse in Animal Farm even more than the fucking pigs

[lonestarnot]

23. Well the next up could be due to bank fees and debit card but they have no balls either.

:rofl: Ballix in a twistbags.

[JVS]

24. They're wrong, but in their defense I must point out that when the lord takes his higher taxes...

out of their hide the serf will naturally grumble at an increase too. Everything the lord has he takes from the serfs and now he'll try to screw them out of a bit more. Dare I say that the real solution is to get rid of the lord?

[anaxarchos]

25. It was very rarely seen...

Serfs, peasants, small freeholders, constantly and continuously rebelled against their lords. Peasant revolts were routine. They were a major pillar of the Reformation and the (well) hidden subplot of much of the history of the Middle Ages.

It takes decades of division to create what you see now:

Black/White, Middle-class/Working-class, taxpayer/ward-of-the-state, rural/urban...

Republican/Democratic?

You have every division imaginable... except the real ones.

[Stephanie]

27. That's the most hilarious thing about it

They are whining about the taxes on the richest while their own are being lowered, but somehow they're convinced they'll have to pay more one day in the future.

[underpants]

29. Pic of the day

[Stephanie]

35. That's Medea Benjamin of Code Pink

Hah!

[Wednesdays]

30. Exactly! My wife argued with a couple of her Repug co-workers today

And these are college-educated PAYROLL CLERKS, who are very much aware of the latest in tax laws...they're convinced that Obama's tax cut really won't be a tax cut at all, that it's really a bait-and-switch and that they won't be getting a tax refund next year.

My, how the propaganda machine is still very much alive and well. :eyes:

[prolesunited]

32. It's truly crazy

I read a story about a local protest and among them were two retired FEDERAL employees with signs that read, "Government is not the answer." The mind boggles. And I'm sure they would be happy to relinquish their pension and health benefits.

Another protester was an elderly woman collecting Social Security and Medicare. Ummm... where do you think that money is coming from? TAXES.

The disconnect among these protester is huge.

[leftofthedial]

33. Like a battered wife pummeling the policeman who rescued her

and is trying to arrest her battering husband.

[Kansas Wyatt]

34. Bottom feeders shoving their entire heads up the Wealthy Elites ass.

They think if they scream and holler, the Wealthy Elite will continue to reward their position and/or reward them more. These people are not typical brown-nosers or ass-lickers, they are radical brown-nosers and ass-lickers.

They see their chance to make it ahead of others, by their ignorant actions, but do not realize how much more they could have if they would just drop their, 'I'm so much more important and deserving than others' bullshit.