Stars: Virginia Eubanks, Chris Hedges, RJ Eskow, Alex Lawson, Richard Wolff, Harriet Fraad, Stephanie Kelton, Jimmy Dore, Josh Androsky, Lee Camp et al., Mike Figueredo, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Mark Steiner, D.D. Guttenplan, Thom Hartmann, Jeff Sharlet, and Nick Brana.
This weekend compilation of enlightening videos is a little shorter and less varied since I was traveling all week, short on time, and cut off from the Internet most of the time. Still here are insightful videos esp. on the economy, its relationship with government spending and tax cuts, the SCOTUS show around Kavanaugh, the latest tax heist, the amazing political con job keeping so many folks bedazzled, fighting for election integrity and to break up the big banks, the ongoing media war, a very comprehensive speech by a major fighter for the people (Chris Hedges), and a tip of the hat to the burgeoning People’s Movement.
I. Government Spending & Economy
Mark Blyth gave a good explanation connecting private and public debt and savings and government spending & the economy:
Once again a lively and very informative mix of videos to grow our political awakening, awareness, and ideas. Stars: Ralph Nader, Mike Figueredo, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Jimmy Dore, Richard Wolff, Chris Hedges, Nomi Prins, Ana Kasparian, The Rational National, Emma Vigeland, and our future president Nick Braña (in order of appearance). Topics:
Once again a wide range of online videos about the wrongs of our world and our fight to fix them. Don’t forget to share. Stars and outlets: Jimmy Dore, Kyle Kulinski, The Real News, Democracy Now, Gayle McLaughlin, Richard Wolff, Mike Figueredo, The Majority Report, Yanis Varoufakis, Jesse Ventura, and others on:
The People’s Wishes
Media
Oligarchy (Plutocracy) vs Democracy
Political Corruption
The People’s Fight
Economic Truths
Historic Causes
Poverty and Ethics
Empire
I. The People’s Wishes
Polls reveal popular policies:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for: “Majority Supports Progressive Ideas ” and “Data for Progress“)
II. Media
Corporate media blocking a constructive public conversation:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: »Bernie Yells At Chuck Todd, Stunned By Stupid Question: “Of Course Not!”«)
III. Oligarchy (Plutocracy) vs Democracy
The mentality of the lords and our suffering society. Billionaire’s quote: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Billionaires Justifying Their Wealth: ALWAYS Great Content“)
Comment: “Generational theft”, one of those manipulative brainwashing canards from the establishment, suggests that the old are stealing from the young. News flash: the young will become old and wish to retire when their bodies give out. That’s what Social Security was invented for, to ensure at the public level what t the private level often fails, say when senors’ kids died or are too poor themselves to help them through that difficult last phase of life.
Comment: The “entitlement problem”… When I think of an entitlement problem, I think of the billionaires (the 1%) and their right and left hands (the next 10 to 20%) who live in privilege that 99.9% of them were born into (the others being gold diggers and unscrupulous business predators such as hedge fund managers). They think they are entitled to owning the whole world and having us unwashed masses exit purely to serve them and powder their asses. But those very same demon lords paid PR crooks in “think tanks”, the twin-party tyranny, and the mass media to flip the term and accuse out of luck working class Americans of “entitlement” when they gratefully accept desperately needed help from a government that was created by our founders specifically to lend such help as part of serving the people. The hypocrisy and entitlement thinking of the parasites and predators living a demon lords life at the top of our dungheap society, such as this guy squeezing his wealth from thousands of Home Depot workers, are really stunning. Their motto: Me and my friends have done well. So, what’s the problem?
Antidemocratic philosophies and machinations:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Democracy in Chains: The Radical Right’s Stealth Attack on American Democracy“)
IV. Political Corruption
The party bosses personally rig the primaries:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Progressive Catches Dem’s Rigging Ballot Selection In New Jersey“)
Why not to vote Republican (no reason to vote “Democratic” either):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Republican Voters Get SLAPPED With Reality“)
Let’s not forget that voting for establishment “Democrats” is also self-defeating for the American People.
V. The People’s Fight
Great ideas, including the building of a broad progressive tent (~6:56):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Why Are Million$ Pouring Into CA Lt. Governor Race?“)
News Update on the People’s Grass Roots Fight: A Teacher running amazingly successfully against a party boss, being blocked out by the media, and having an army of volunteers…
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Progressive FIERCELY Challenging Corrupt Corporatist Dianne Feinstein“)
VI. Economic Truths
The truth about risks and profits (risks for us, profits for the rich). Workers run more risks than entrepreneurs and investors:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Economic Update: Another Gilded Age“)
Gist: We are always being told that capitalist inequality is justified by entrepreneurs/investors taking risks with their wealth when they invest into businesses. In truth, if they are half-way smart or well consulted, their eggs are never in a single basket. Meanwhile, workers who “choose” to work for them can loose their jobs, employability, homes, healthcare, and families when those entrepreneurs/investors or their CEOs make mistakes or callous decisions. As workers, in our current system, we live at the mercy of the plutocrats, A.K.A. the 1% and their henchmen.
Money is political, bank magic, inflation, deflation, gold standard, bitcoin, growing fascism, system analysis, DM, healthcare profiteering, pretenses of right-wing populists, changing the conversation…:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “A Brief History of Capitalism. Yanis Varoufakis Interview“)
VII. Historic Causes
How our society of plight and suffering was built:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “The American Industrial Revolution“)
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Just the Facts: The Emergence of Modern America- The Gilded Age“)
VIII. Poverty and Ethics
Morality Revival: The New Poor People’s Campaign fights Policy Violence.
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: ““It’s Time for Moral Confrontation”: New Poor People’s Campaign Stages Nationwide Civil Disobedience“)
IX. Empire
Empire’s Dark Side (esp. interesting the unconstitutionality of U.S. wars and empire 12:43 min in):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Empire In Crisis & Bruce Fein”)
~
Ending Note:It takes me at least 100 hours of spare time each month to research and write news updates and analysesand work on my book. Please widely share links to these articles, so this work is not for naught. You can alsohelp in other ways (including much needed financial support).Only together can we change this messed-up world. Let’s do it!🙂
Hello, friends. If you have enough of a life (or perhaps too little of a life left by your money-making work) to vet a lot of videos yourself, but you’d like to keep the political fire in you burning, here are some decent videos to watch this weekend. My time this weekend was quite short, too, but these videos I don’t regret watching:
Obama is the new Bill Clinton, making LOADSSSSS of money from his just finished presidency:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Obama Gives Finger To Country—Takes $400K From Wall Street”)
Back in November, I wrote that the establishment had won the election. It’s nothing new, of course. The oligarchs have owned our politicians for decades, and will continue to do so if we – the people – don’t start fighting back effectively. Rubber-stamping the establishment’s candidates on election day isn’t the way to fight back. Neither is losing ourselves in their dog-and-pony shows, like the current anti-Trump hysteria, which deflects us from the anti-establishment war we should be waging. Not that there aren’t terrible Trump deeds that need opposition, mind you; we just shouldn’t lose sight of the main target or let neoliberal sell-outs place themselves at the front of our protests and marches to co-opt us.
Naturally, where the presidency was concerned, the establishment had already won the election back on July 26th, when the cheating DNC installed the vastly unpopular establishment candidate Hillary Clinton over the very popular people’s candidate Bernie Sanders as the “Democratic” nominee. From that moment, our country’s course was set for yet another establishment president (Clinton or Trump). Only a massive voter shift to the Green Party’s Jill Stein could have turned that ship around. But we voters apparently aren’t yet smart enough to break out of the DemPublican voter jail without a popular leader showing us the way. It’s time that we grew some brains — for example to build a third party for Bernie Sanders (or his close associates) to pull in millions of awakened voters who used to be part of the “Democratic” base but now know that the “Democratic” party has abandoned them. On the “down-ballot” ticket, we could still have accomplished a great deal in November by, for example, using the Berniecrats List for informed voting, a list I recommended repeatedly. But, it didn’t happen. Little bloggers like me spend our nightly hours trying to inform our fellow Americans so as to give us all the knowledge the corporate mainstream media deny us — and, yet, so many people who could subscribe to our blogs and recommend them to their friends, just don’t. Imagine if more people did, creating a chain reaction which would make all of us so much better informed… You can simply sign up for email notifications of new posts in the right sidebar here. But I digress.
With the establishment winning our elections, the question arises if there are parts of the establishment rising above others, a question also instrumental in understanding the trends of change in our economy where traditional capitalism has moved on not only to crony capitalism (which buys up our government and uses it as a cash cow) but also casino capitalism where, rather than profiting from the building and running of productive industries, the biggest capitalists – who are top investment bankers – merely shift investments around, gamble with them on the stock markets, and manipulate commodity markets, with the result of sucking ever more prosperity and wealth out of every aspect of people’s lives until life itself becomes unaffordable to more and more of us. (There is a short article which illuminates one of the many dirty tricks they use. It’s a good entry into the subject to help open people’s eyes: “Parasite Capitalism: The Economic Model of the 21st Century”)
So, in the economy, banksters have risen to the top. The point I wish to make in this article, is that the same is true in our politics. Trump, the “swamp drainer” has not only appointed so many billionaires that their combined net “worth” exceeds that of the bottom two thirds of Americans (if I understand this not so clearly done calculation right), but he has literally stuffed cabinet positions and other appointments with banksters, especially from the probably most criminal of all investment banks, Goldman Sachs, whose Wikipedia entry looks like an FBI rap sheet.
Trump is clearly a close friend of the big banks, or their straw man, or even puppet. That’s bad enough. But what about the alleged opposition, the “Democratic” Party? Well, we just had a new DNC chair elected for the “Democratic” Party (not democratically elected by the party’s base, of course — don’t ever expect democracy from the “Democratic” party or the GOP!): little known Tom Perez. What do we know about him and the banks? Personally, I haven’t been following his career, but there are some very red flags. For example, ex-president Obama threw his weight around to shoe him into the contest when it looked that the Sanders-friendly Keith Ellison would get the position despite the fact that our oligarchy prefers Clinton-friendly establishment operatives like Perez and the “Democratic” party has obliged it for the last three decades. That, if you recall Obama’s relationship with the big banks, is a clear link to the banksters. Remember how Obama adopted and continued Bush II’s bailout of the big banks (rather than bailing out the people) after they tanked the world’s economy? And how he used our (the people’s!) hard-earned tax dollars to do so when so many of us lost our homes, jobs, pensions, and careers, doing next to nothing for us…? And that wasn’t all! Unlike in prior bubble bursts, none of the culprits went to jail. Obama’s administration saw to that! Indictments were not even attempted! Obama, who had received massive campaign contributions from the banksters in 2008 as the banking crisis was brewing, and who – just like Trump – made many bankster appointments, and who gave Goldman Sachs a $20 billion tax dollar gift (a handsome return on their 2008 campaign investment of $994,795 wouldn’t you say?), was a straw man of the big banks in the Oval Office, just like Trump is now. And so, the banksters are holding the new administration AND the DNC’s chairmanship in their hands. Winners across the board. And we, the people, have once again lost across the board.
Oh, and if you think that the link I just described is weak, a brief Internet search quickly reveals more links of Tom Perez to the banks. He has an established record of not taking on the banks; both at the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor. An article in The Intercept goes over Perez’ record and concludes: “Both Perez and Ellison support pro-labor policies. But Ellison shows that he also wants to oppose concentrated financial power. Perez represents the finance-friendly status quo that has relegated Democrats to minority status.”
So, I hope that you who read this will keep the fire in you burning to fight our corrupt establishment, and that you will share information like this with your friends and family, and anyone else you have political conversations with — letting them know what is happening behind the scenes. This blog is a regular source for information and analysis that can keep us all informed and shape our strategy for pushback as well as a vision for a better world. I urge you to revisit and refer your friends and family, as well.
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Financialization is a scheme of legalized robbery.
Quotes:
“So, it is not surprising that the quality of our lives has gone down via sinking income and rising living costs for all these decades while our smarmy politicians tell us through their lying teeth that our economy keeps growing.”
“For many of us, the water is up to our necks, and the same is true for the communities, plants, and animals we need to survive. Even our climate is toppling over. How much longer will we tolerate this system of death?”
If, like me, you were impressed by the quotes in the revealing video Money as Debt which I showcased in part one of The Dark Side of Money – and you would like them in writing for future reference – here are the most powerful ones I wrote down:
Our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess. ~ Irving Fisher, economist & author
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist. ~ Kenneth Boulding, economist
