SURVEY: 47% of American Socialists Believe “taking violent action against the rich may be JUSTIFIED”

Source

http://www.theorganicprepper.com

by Daisy Luther

October 10, 2019

In a nation that has prided itself on the “American Dream” – the dream that anyone can become wealthy if they work hard enough and make the right decisions – it’s probably a shock to learn that a lot of folks no longer believe in capitalism.

But the shock goes even deeper than that. A report from the Cato Institute that examined Americans’ opinions on wealth and the wealthy says that 47% of American socialists believe that  “taking violent action against the rich may be justified.”

About the report

The Cato Institute is a think tank that performs independent, non-partisan research into a wide range of issues related to personal liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. You can learn more about the Cato Institute here.

The new report is entitled What Americans Think About Poverty, Wealth, and Work.

The survey…investigates attitudes toward the rich and the poor and examines what Americans believe about work, welfare, and social mobility. (source)

Many of the results seem to be right down party lines and in this political climate, are frighteningly predictable.

Let’s take a look at the findings.

Socialism vs. Capitalism

Opinions have taken a shift since 2016.

In 2016, Democrats were about as favorable toward capitalism (58%) as socialism (56%). But after President Donald Trump took office, Democrats became more favorable toward socialism. Today, 64% of Democrats have favorable opinions of socialism and 45% are favorable to capitalism. Republicans continue to have overwhelmingly favorable views of capitalism (77%) while only 13% have favorable views of socialism. (source)

Why did this shift occur?

According to half of the Democrats surveyed, President Trump caused them to dislike capitalism and lean more toward socialism.

At the same time, 44% of Democrats say that Trump has not influenced their views on capitalism vs. socialism. 72% of independents and 64% of Republicans reported that President Trump has not influenced their views on the economic model.

Overall, 59% of Americans favor capitalism and 39% favor Socialism.

Thoughts on Wealth

Opinions on wealth were varied. Here were some of the findings:

84% of Americans believe “there is nothing wrong with a person trying to make as much money as they honestly can.”

• 61% want to raise taxes on anyone who makes more than $200,000.
• 53% want to raise taxes to a whopping 70% on those who make more than $10 million.
• 65% of Americans over age 60 oppose the increased tax on people making more than $10 million, while 62% of those under 30 support the increase.

A worryingly slim majority of Americans do not believe that wealth should be redistributed from the rich to the poor.

• 62% oppose the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. (Where do they intend for that 70% millionaire tax to go?)
• Down party lines, here’s who believes in wealth distribution: 58% of Democrats, 36% of Independents, and 15% of Republicans think that money should be taken from the rich and given to the poor.

More than half of Americans (55%) believe that the distribution of wealth in this country is “unfair.” This is divided by age and political philosophy.

• 79% of Democrats find the distribution unjust.
• 55% of Independents find the distribution unjust.
• 67% of Republicans find the distribution just.
• 70% of people under 30 think the current distribution of wealth is unjust
• 61% of people over 65 think the current distribution is just.

The distribution of wealth (or lack thereof) will probably be a key factor in the next election. It was only a couple of years ago when a group went public about their desire to “expropriate” the assets of the wealthy and redistribute them to the poor.

Young people vs. old people

Let’s talk about younger people’s opinions versus older people’s opinions. Cato reports:

People under 30 are about 20–30 points more likely than Americans 65 and over to:

• believe the rich got rich by “taking advantage of other people” (52% vs. 27%)
• believe billionaires are a threat to democracy (51% vs. 26%)
• feel “angry” when they read or hear about rich people (44% vs. 11%)
• believe it’s “immoral” for society to allow people to become billionaires (39% vs. 13%)
• believe that citizens taking violent action against the rich may be justified (35% vs. 10%)
• support redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor (53% vs. 20%)
• support raising top marginal tax rates (62% vs. 43%)

Young Americans are about equally favorable toward socialism (50%) and capitalism (49%). In stark contrast, Americans 65 and over solidly prefer capitalism (76%) to socialism (34%). (source)

It is not out of line to blame our education system for pushing socialism and leftist professors who promote violence for these attitudes.  In fact, the Democratic Socialists of America urge socialists to become teachers to accomplish just this.

However, it might be consoling to note that when a similar survey was undertaken in 1978, more than half (54%) of Americans under 30 believed that wealth should be redistributed from the rich to the poor. The young people who were 18-29 then are 59-70 now, and you can see how their opinions have changed. That should provide some hope that the attitudes of current young people will change as they become more mature and have more life experience.

People have wildly varying views on how rich folks became wealthy.

One of the biggest points of disparity was opinions on how rich people attained their money. Liberals and conservatives are completely at odds regarding this.

• Strong liberals say the top drivers of wealth are family connections (48%), inheritance (40%), and getting lucky (31%)
• Strong conservatives say the top drivers of wealth are hard work (62%), ambition (47%), self-discipline (45%), and risk-taking (36%)
• Strong Liberals say the top causes of poverty are discrimination (51%), an unfair economic system (48%), and a lack of educational opportunities (48%)
• Strong Conservatives say the top causes of poverty are poor life choices (60%), a lack of work ethic (52%), breakdown of families (47%), and drugs and alcohol (47%) (source)

With these differences in perspective, it is easy to see how difficult it would be for liberals and conservatives to come to a consensus regarding policy to “fix” the poverty in America.

What attitudes most influenced people’s points of view?

According to this report, there are two major factors that influence people’s points of view regarding capitalism vs. socialism: resentment and compassion. The report says:

Statistical tests find that resentment of high achievers has about twice the impact as compassion for the needy in predicting hostility toward capitalism and support for raising taxes on the rich. However, compassion is a better predictor of support for increasing welfare benefits. Both resentment and compassion predict support for socialism. (source)

At the same time, 69% believe that billionaires became wealthy by creating value for others, and 65% believe that the nation is better off when people become wealthy because they, in turn, will invest in businesses that create jobs.

Most Americans (82%) believe that people should be “allowed” to become billionaires. However, this really breaks down in the Democratic party, where 54% of them believe that billionaires are a “threat to democracy.” Unsurprisingly, 65% of socialists believe that “allowing” billionaires is immoral.

And this is where things get kind of scary.

There are more people than you might think who believe that “citizens taking violent action against the rich” is acceptable. Here are the people who believe that it is acceptable in some situations to be violent toward the wealthy.

• 17% of Americans in general
• 47% of socialists
• 36% of liberals
• 35% of those under 30

One must wonder what they mean by “violence.”

Do they mean that violence should be used to expropriate the wealth or violence should be used just for the sake of harming the wealthy for the audacity of being financially well-to-do? Do they want to use guillotines like the people in the French Revolution to enforce their goals of wealth distribution?

Conclusion

At this point, there’s a hard push toward socialism in this country.

Most folks who believe in socialism don’t see the correlation between those policies and the collapse of Venezuela for example. They don’t understand that every time in history that food production was collectivized, people died of starvation. On the other hand, a lot of the vocal people who are against socialism have views that appear to be condescending and judgmental, neither of which is going to win over hearts and minds.

As someone who has been dirt poor despite my very hard work, I find the opinions that cite laziness and drug use to be downright offensive. As someone who managed to dig myself out of poverty, I find the concept of having the results of my hard work “redistributed” to be equally offensive.

Also note: this article is based on the Cato Institute’s statistics – this isn’t an opinion piece.

What do you think of the results of this survey? Do you believe there will be violence against the wealthy? Do you think the push for socialism will continue until we no longer recognize the United States as the land of opportunity?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the findings. Do they seem accurate to you? Do you have any personal experiences that support or contradict the survey? Please share those stories in the comments.

And try to keep it civil – this only has to be volatile if we allow it to be.

Please visit The Cato Institute to read more details of this survey on the state of our union, and share your thoughts in the comments.

About Daisy

Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, voluntaryism, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, The Organic Prepper. She is widely republished across alternative media and she curates all the most important news links on her aggregate site, PreppersDailyNews.com. Daisy is the best-selling author of 4 books and runs a small digital publishing company.  She lives in the mountains of Virginia with her family. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

 

A Spirit Of Lawlessness Has Descended Upon The Streets Of America

Source

endoftheamericandream.com

by Michael Snyder

July 23, 2019

 

We have raised an entire generation of Americans that have no respect for the law, and now we are reaping what we have sown.  I cannot even begin to tell you how alarmed I am by some of the videos that I have been watching lately.  As you will see below, all over the nation young people are brazenly flouting the law, obstructing and assaulting law enforcement officers, and committing criminal acts in large groups.  I think that “lawlessness” is perhaps the best word to describe what is happening, and many believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.  I have so much respect for the good law enforcement officers across the country that put their lives on the line day after day to protect all of us, but I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes at this point.  If you wonder why I would say such a thing, just consider what just happened in New York City…

In a series of shocking videos, NYPD officers can be seen being doused with buckets of water and pelted with projectiles as they tried to do their jobs (in one video, the officers were in the middle of making an arrest).

The stunning footage, which was first spotted online on Monday, shows the brazen young men in Harlem and Brooklyn dousing cops with water and, in one frame, an officer gets beaned in the back of the head with an empty red plastic bucket. The attacks on the officers started as they were arresting another young man, and in the video, they can be seen handcuffing the man while he was splayed out on the hood of a car.

How would you respond if you were attacked like this?

If I was a police officer in that situation, I would not have been able to let that kind of abuse go, and those young attackers would have learned the hard way that there are very serious consequences for assaulting a police officer. But this is what happens when we raise an entire generation without any values whatsoever.

These young people are just doing whatever seems right in their own eyes, and similar things are happening all over the nation.

For example, a “flash mob” recently stormed into a North Face store in Wisconsin and stole $30,000 worth of merchandise…

A band of shoplifters who formed a ‘flash mob’ and rushed into a North Face store are accused of stealing $30,000 worth of merchandise, according to a report in the Kenosha News.

Dramatic video obtained from the Pleasant Prairie Police Department shows the group of ten shoplifters walk into the store, before quickly grabbing as many items as they can carry and rushing out.

How cold-hearted do you have to be to do something like this?

An even larger flash mob stormed a Walgreens in Philadelphia on the 4th of July…

Philadelphia police have released surveillance video showing dozens of teens vandalizing and stealing from a South Street Walgreens on the 4th of July. The incident happened at the store on the 1800 block of South Street in the Graduate Hospital section of the city.

As you can see from video footage of the incident, the young people seemed to take great joy in the crimes that they were committing.

If things are this crazy now, what will things look like when economic conditions get really bad and those young people get really desperate? Elsewhere in Philadelphia, a pack of teen girls was viciously attacking random female victims that they came across in the street, and video of the attacks caused quite a bit of outrage…

A gang of teenage girls filmed themselves targeting female strangers in random attacks on the streets of Philadelphia.

The disturbing video shows the girls approaching their unsuspecting victims on the street before proceeding to slap them and wrestle them to the ground.

The violent video sparked outrage when it was shared online.

Of course, many of these young criminals will end up in prison, but in many cases that will just mean that they will learn how to be even better criminals from those they are incarcerated with.

And the truth is that in many instances our prisons are completely and utterly out of control.  For example, it is being reported that one prison down in Mississippi allegedly put the gangs in charge at one point.

Everywhere you look there is lawlessness.  This week when ICE officials showed up to arrest an illegal immigrant in Nashville, the man’s neighbors formed a human chain around him in order to keep that from happening…

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived at a Nashville home Monday in an attempt to detain a man there, neighbors and activists gathered to support the man, who remained shuttered in a van with a child for hours before the agents left.

And once the agents and police officers they had called to the scene finally drove away, neighbors who had kept the man and the boy fed, hydrated and cool, formed a human chain from the van to the house as the man and the boy shuffled inside.

In the end, the ICE officials left and the illegal immigrant got away.

When there is a complete and utter lack of respect for law enforcement on a widespread basis, that is a recipe for chaos.

And without a doubt, our nation is on the brink of great chaos.  Just consider these numbers…

After a week that saw President Trump and his foes toss toxic words at each other, there is now a warning that the next phase could be “violence.”

Nearly 8 of 10 Americans told the Pew Research Center that supporters for both sides could “act” on the politically charged rhetoric with violence. It was higher for Democrats, 91%, than Republicans, 61%.

It is not going to take much of a spark at all to set off the kind of civil unrest that I have been repeatedly warning about.

Day after day, the mainstream media is stirring up more anger, frustration, strife, discord, and division.  I have never seen more hatred in America than I see right now, and it is exceedingly difficult to imagine how all of this could possibly end well.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The Endand Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

America’s Homeless Working Poor, Film and Review

Source

stuartbramhall.wordpress.com

Dr. Stuart Bramhall

Posted on July 19, 2019

The Working Poor and Homeless in the US

Four Corners (2017)

Film Review

This Australian documentary challenges whether job growth in the US (25 million new jobs in ten years) really represents economic recovery. The film makes three important points: 1) the vast majority of new American jobs are minimum wage part-time jobs, 2) well-paid middle-class jobs continue to vanish, and 3) approximately one-half of US workers live in poverty.

The film follows three families. The first, in Orlando Florida, consists of a single mother of three who works 70 hours a week for Dunkin’ Donuts and MacDonald’s. Earning $8 an hour, she and her family live in a cheap motel because they can’t afford rent. She sleeps 1-2 hours a night, and her mother-in-law provides childcare while she works.

The second family is a couple with two children who live in a homeless camp in the parking lot of a Seattle church. The wife works full-time as a cashier at Seattle Center, and her husband takes temporary construction jobs when he can find them. Most of the camp residents are employed workers with kids.

The third individual is a middle-aged machinist in Erie Pennsylvania who has been just been laid off from General Electric Transport after 13 years. The factory is moving to Fort Worth Texas. GE anticipates cutting wages in half because Texas in a non-union state. In addition to losing millions of industrial jobs when manufacturers moved overseas in the eighties and nineties, the US lost an additional five million industrial jobs in the last 15 years.

On The Edge Of Disaster: 59 Percent Of Americans Are Living Paycheck To Paycheck

Source

endoftheamericandream.com

by Michael Snyder

May 16, 2019

Living on the edge, being dragged down by debt, and having little hope for the future is no way to live.  But that is precisely where most Americans find themselves in 2019.  Despite a supposedly “booming economy”, the middle class continues to shrink and most of the country is barely scraping by from month to month.  In fact, a brand new survey that was just released by Charles Schwab discovered that 59 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck…

Overall, 59 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, according to the survey of 1,000 U.S. adults by Charles Schwab.

However, the Millennial generation (people ages 23-38) was the most likely to struggle in between payday, at 62 percent, followed by Generation X (60 percent), Generation Z (55 percent) and Baby Boomers (53 percent).

I realize that those numbers look really high, but this is really where we are at as a society.

In fact, a study that was just conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago found that 51 percent of all “working adults” would not be able to cover basic necessities “if they missed more than one paycheck”…

Missing more than one paycheck is a one-way ticket to financial hardship for nearly half of the country’s workforce.

A new study from NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent social research institution, found that 51% of working adults in the United States would need to access savings to cover necessities if they missed more than one paycheck.

So when the next recession strikes, millions of Americans that suddenly lose their jobs could find themselves facing financial disaster almost immediately.

The survey that was just released by Charles Schwab found that there are a lot of reasons why Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and “rising college debt” is one of them…

‘Spending is certainly one factor,’ said Terri Kallsen, executive vice president for Schwab Investor Services.

‘But especially for younger Americans, we know there are factors beyond their control that make it difficult to save, including rising college debt, stagnant wages and the high cost of living, particularly in urban centers,’ she told DailyMail.com.

Today, Americans owe more than 1.5 trillion dollars on their student loans, and it is a bubble that keeps getting worse with each passing year.  The following numbers about our growing student loan debt crisis come from CBS News…

Currently, 43 million Americans have student debt. The average household with student debt owes almost $48,000 and 5.2 million borrowers are in default.

Meanwhile, college costs keep rising. At Ohio State, a public university, in-state students pay $27,000 a year. Stanford University costs $74,000.

Personally, I don’t know why anyone would ever pay $74,000 a year to go to Stanford.

And as far as Ohio State and other public universities are concerned, the truth is that you can get a better education from the Internet without too much effort.  I spent eight years studying at public universities, and the quality of education is a joke.

But we fill the heads of our high school students with all of this nonsense about how college “is the key to a bright future”, and we encourage them to not even worry about how much it will cost.

So they pile up enormous loans, and many of them don’t even realize that they are destroying their financial futures until it is too late.

When 25-year-old Taylor Smith first discovered how high her student loan balance had gotten, she immediately had a panic attack…

To pay for her education at Texas A&M University, Smith worked full-time throughout college. She also cobbled together 11 student loans.

“I probably graduated with about $53,000 in student debt,” Smith said. “That number hit me for the first time my last semester of college. And it was the first time I saw the full balance. And I had a panic attack immediately.”

Our system of higher education is deeply broken, and radical change is desperately needed.

Another reason why Americans are living paycheck to paycheck is because of social media envy.  The following comes from USA Today…

Call it keeping up with Instagram.

Thirty-five percent of Americans admit they feel pressured to spend more than they can afford after seeing images of their friends’ lives on sites like Facebook and Instagram, according to Schwab’s 2019 modern wealth survey. The FOMO effect is most dramatic for young adults. About half of millennials and 44% of Generation Z (those born approximately between 1995 to 2015) acknowledge their spending habits are at least partly shaped by social media.

Once upon a time, Americans were concerned about keeping up with the neighbors, but these days social media is where everybody shows off.

And this is particularly true when it comes to Instagram.  As far as I can tell, Instagram is the perfect social media platform for narcissists.  Everyone is constantly posting photos that show how attractive, wealthy and adventurous they are, and those with the most followers tend to be ultra-attractive, ultra-wealthy and/or ultra-adventurous.

But for most of us, life is not a constant stream of Instagramable moments.  Instead, life is about doing the laundry, trying to save some money on the groceries and scooping poop out of the cat litter.

If you try to keep up with the fantasies that you see on Instagram, the truth is that you will go broke really quick.

And study after study has found that is precisely where about half the country currently is…

A study from home repair service HomeServe USA found that roughly 50% of consumers either have nothing set aside to cover an emergency or less than $500 put away. And research from the Federal Reserve has indicated that roughly 4 in 10 Americans couldn’t afford a $400 emergency.

One of the things that I always stress with my readers is that if you ever want to make financial progress in life, you have got to start building wealth.

If your paycheck goes up, that doesn’t mean that you should start spending more money.  Instead, you should look at it as an opportunity to start saving more money.

But for most Americans, the future is now, and that means that most of them will ultimately end up facing financial disaster down the road.

 

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The Endand Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

A Million Americans Are Living In Their RVs As The American Dream Continues To Be “Redefined”

Could you imagine living in an RV on a permanent basis?  On the one hand, such a lifestyle can offer a sense of freedom that is absolutely exhilarating.  Instead of being tied down to just one place, you can freely travel the country and live anywhere that you want.

Source: A Million Americans Are Living In Their RVs As The American Dream Continues To Be “Redefined” – End Of The American Dream

endoftheamericandream.com

by Michael Snyder

Nov 15, 2018

Could you imagine living in an RV on a permanent basis?  On the one hand, such a lifestyle can offer a sense of freedom that is absolutely exhilarating.  Instead of being tied down to just one place, you can freely travel the country and live anywhere that you want.  Such a lifestyle makes it easy to escape the cold in the winter and the heat in the summer, and if you don’t like your neighbors you can literally leave the next day.  But of course there are a lot of negatives too.  Life in an RV can be extremely cramped, there is very little privacy, and most people have to cut their possessions way, way down in order to fit all their things into an RV.  Living on the road constantly can get really old, because you have to sacrifice many of the comforts of a traditional home in order to live such a lifestyle on a full-time basis.  But without a doubt, more Americans are choosing to go this route than ever before.  In fact, the RV Industry Association says that a million Americans now live in their RVs full-time…

A million Americans live full-time in RVs, according to the RV Industry Association. Some have to do it because they can’t afford other options, but many do it by choice. Last year was a record for RV sales, according to the data firm Statistical Surveys. More than 10.5 million households own at least one RV, a jump from 2005 when 7.5 million households had RVs, according to RVIA.

Living in an RV is certainly a lot less expensive than living in a traditional home, and that is one of the big things that is drawing people to this lifestyle.

A 30 year mortgage is essentially a suffocating lifetime financial commitment for many people, and so a lot of Americans are choosing to embrace the RV lifestyle in order to escape those financial chains.  One family that the Washington Post recently interviewed says that they are “redefining what the American Dream means”…

“We’re a family of four redefining what the American Dream means. It’s happiness, not a four-bedroom house with a two-car garage,” said Robert Meinhofer, who is 45.

The Meinhofers and a dozen others who spoke with The Washington Post about this modern nomadic lifestyle said living in 200 to 400 square feet has improved their marriages and made them happier, even if they’re earning less. There’s no official term for this lifestyle, but most refer to themselves as “full-time RVers,” “digital nomads” or “workampers.”

Some are willingly choosing the RV lifestyle because they want more freedom, but others are doing it out of economic necessity.

But in almost every case, those living the RV lifestyle still need to work, and the jobs that they are able to get often don’t pay very well…

Most modern nomads need jobs to fund their travels. Jessica Meinhofer works remotely as a government contractor, simply logging in from the RV. Others pick up “gig work” cleaning campsites, harvesting on farms or in vineyards, or filling in as security guards. People learn about gigs by word of mouth, on Workamper News or Facebook groups like one for Workampers with more than 30,000 members. Big companies such as Amazon and J.C. Penney even have programs specifically recruiting RVers to help at warehouses during the peak holiday season.

So it can be tempting to dream of hitting “the open road”, but the reality of the matter is that many of these people spend long hours cleaning public toilets or stuffing boxes for big retailers.

For other Americans, even the RV lifestyle is out of reach financially, and so they are living in their vehicles.

Even though the U.S. economy has supposedly been “booming” for the last couple of years, the number of Americans that live in their vehicles has been rising very rapidly.  In fact, CBS News has reported that the number of people living in their vehicles in King County, Washington increased 46 percent in the past year alone…

The number of people who live in their vehicles because they can’t find affordable housing is on the rise, even though the practice is illegal in many U.S. cities.

The number of people residing in campers and other vehicles surged 46 percent over the past year, a recent homeless census in Seattle’s King County, Washington found. The problem is “exploding” in cities with expensive housing markets, including Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco, according to Governing magazine.

Meanwhile, the ranks of the homeless continue to surge all across the country as well.  More than half a million Americans are currently homeless, and that number just keeps getting larger and larger.

All of the things that I have just shared with you are signs that the middle class in America is rapidly evaporating.  Once upon a time, America had the largest and most vibrant middle class in the history of the world and homebuilders struggled to build new homes fast enough to keep up with the demand.  But over the past decade the rate of homeownership in the U.S. has fallen steadily as the middle class has shrunk.  More people than ever are living in RVs, in their vehicles or on the streets, and this trend is going to accelerate greatly once the next economic downturn kicks into high gear.

But I definitely do not want it to seem like I am dissing the RV lifestyle.  Members of my own extended family are living in their RVs by choice, and they seem to absolutely love it.

If living in an RV will enable you to escape the rat race and live a much happier life, then go for it.  The RV lifestyle is not for everyone, but many that have made the jump say that they will never go back.

And considering the times that are ahead, being able to relocate very rapidly is a good option to have.  There isn’t a whole lot of room in an RV, but at least you can pick up and leave whenever you like.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Finian Cunningham: The American Scream

© AP Photo/ Dana Verkouteren

Source link

sputniknews.com

Finian Cunningham

Aug 23, 2018

Just like when the medieval executioners tortured their prisoners to scream out for “mercy”, so today two former aides of US President Donald Trump are put being on the rack to extract a begging response. If they finger the president, then maybe mercy will be shown to the prisoners.

Trump’s former lawyer and his campaign manager are facing lengthy prison sentences for financial fraud and political campaign irregularities. Michael Cohen could get five years in jail, while Paul Manafort faces a soul-crushing 80 years behind bars. A de facto death sentence, given his age.

The set-up here is so obvious and pathetic. Both men are being dangled by the feet ahead of their sentencing, with the blatant purpose of forcing them to incriminate Trump, and in that way, Trump’s political enemies finally get their long-held objective of impeaching the president.

This is how the “American Dream” really operates. It’s dirty, grim, and brutal, and has very little to do with democracy or rule of law. Forget the emblems of supposed American civility, the white-picket fences, apple pie in bourgeois comfort, old glory fluttering down at the courthouse, and all those other imaginary democratic virtues.

READ MORE: GUILTY: Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort Face the Music…

American politics has more in common with Francis Ford Coppola’s classic movie, The Godfather, illustrating how organized crime is intertwined with politicians and lawmakers. Mob practices are more the currency of American politics than dainty civic duties. In reality, it’s not the American Dream, it’s the American Scream.

READ MORE: Trump Praises Manafort: ‘Such Respect For a Brave Man!’

The impossibly perfect American Dream is nevertheless so powerfully ingrained and inculcated in the popular psyche by Hollywood and national myth-making propaganda, it is hard to see the brutal reality.

When the American military obliterated Japanese civilians with atomic weapons, or incinerated children in Southeast Asia with napalm, or when it organized death squads to mutilate peasants in Central America, such practices can be easily obscured because of the opium that is the American Dream and its seductive, illusory vanity.

Even when an American president is hideously assassinated in broad daylight by his own security services, the people are not awakened from the impossible “dream”.

American politics is as dirty and as criminal as it gets. Assassinating foreign leaders, overthrowing governments, subverting and rigging elections, brainwashing the public with lying news media and think tanks, militarizing “allied” societies in the name of “protection”. These are some of the realities that define the US capitalist power system, at home and abroad.

One of America’s most celebrated presidents John F Kennedy began his term in the White House under sordid conditions. Talk about interference? It is well-documented Kennedy’s election was secured by the Chicago-based Mafia, under crime boss Sam Giancana, rigging the ballots in key states to give Kennedy the decisive vote over rival Richard Nixon in 1960.

READ MORE: Truth and Lies: Media’s Misdirection of Manafort Verdict and Cohen Plea

Admittedly, JFK seemed to undergo a genuinely personal and political evolution during his brief presidency, when he subsequently desired to normalize Cold War relations with the Soviet Union. His perceived betrayal of the Mafia and the US military-security apparatus probably cost him his life when he was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963, three years into his presidency. It is claimed that the CIA and Mafia worked together to organize the killing involving teams of snipers. The hapless Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged shooter, was only a patsy, which the “great and good” American media have used as an odious cover-up ever since.

READ MORE: JFK’s ‘Peace Speech’ and The Road Not Taken

Anyway, let’s get back to Trump. It seems obvious that the prosecution of his former aides is all about a vendetta against Trump, to get him out of the White House. The US political establishment, or deep state, has never accepted this “outsider” as the president. His stated preference to normalize relations with Russia is a particular red line. The whole “Russiagate” saga has been concocted in order to delegitimize Trump’s election and to have him “taken out” as the figurehead for the deep state.

Prosecuting two of Trump’s former associates was bound to dig up plenty of dirt. Because dirt is endemic to how American big business and politics operate. It should not be surprising that Trump and his former friends are inculpated for bank and tax fraud and paying off hookers. That’s how the system pretty much works, and those transgressions are only the surface.

© Sputnik / Ted Rall

Look at how Trump’s rival Hillary Clinton was involved in political bribery and vote rigging, as well as soliciting foreign interference from trying to get “Russian dirt” on Trump. Not just Clinton, but the senior law enforcement and intelligence services under the Obama presidency were also involved in this massive subversion of American democracy.

What’s going on with Trump’s two associates facing jail time is the Mob’s equivalent of threatening to cut ears off a hostage unless the hostage squeals to betray another, more important target.

Already, it seems the coercion is working. Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen is reportedly “ready to cooperating” with the so-called Russia probe led by former FBI chief Robert Mueller. Mueller is a long-time operator for the deep state with his own baggage of criminal skeletons, such as lying over the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction ruse to wage a genocidal war on that country. His appointment as the chief inquisitor to entrap Trump is therefore apt.

Cohen is said to have “interesting things” to tell the Mueller inquisition concerning Trump and allegations of collusion with Russia to get him elected. Those allegations are, for any sane person, a risible farrago of lies and fantasies. No evidence has ever been produced despite two years of investigation and prosecutions. The only crimes uncovered so far are financial fraud, American-style.

But, we can be sure, that Cohen, a sniveling, greasy attorney, will deliver “information” to hang Trump in order to save his own skin from five years in the clanger. Expect more and bigger lies about Russia.

By the way, there are no good guys in this squalid drama of American politics. Trump and his gang are as rotten as the rest of the barrel.

The former New York real-estate hustler may deserve some credit in that he at least is not psychotically anti-Russia. Another indirect credit to Trump is that the whole debacle he has provoked with the deep state goes to expose the profound decay and corruption in American politics.

Just to show how Trump is no better than the rest. This week he told media that he would consider lifting economic sanctions off Russia if Moscow made “concessions” on Syria and Ukraine. On Syria, the Trump administration wants Russia to use its leverage to get Iran out of the country in order to pander to Israeli concerns.

So there you have it. Just like the gangsters at home are leveraging Trump’s associates with pain in order to get them to squeal and betray the president, we see the same sordid mentality and methods being played by Trump himself with regard to Russia. The sanctions he has slapped Russia with could be removed, he says, if Moscow does Trump’s bidding on Iran.

The American Dream? It’s a nightmare that screams with crimes and corruption. When will the people awake?

The views and opinions expressed by Finian Cunningham are those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

Fake America

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Author: Gordon Duff

Aug 14, 2018

Europeans are told America is religious, but “church going” Americans too often exhibit an undercurrent of hate mongering and hypocrisy that is impossible to not recognize, except among themselves.

Similarly, an education in history or sociology in America is akin to studying science fiction as fact.

Economics, as taught at America’s top business schools, is more fiction than fact, more fake than fundamentals.

Many, too many, feel America’s love affair with prevarication and fakery is new-found, a thing of recent times, from the continual lies and gaffs of Trump to the bumbling idiocy of his predecessor in outright ignorance, George W. Bush.

At its heart, America is a fake nation with fake institutions, fake religions, a fake government and fake people.  Anyone who comes to America notes it.  Tocqueville, the author, in his first commentary on America, “Democracy in America,” began chronicling America’s descent into “hokeydom” in 1831.

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other. (Tocqueville)

There was a time when a version of Tocqueville, albeit one deeply censored, was still taught in schools.  His books were never assigned, never discussed, not even for history majors in universities, only covered in deeply sanitized lectures by academic hacks grasping at tenured positions.

We might also cover Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (Columbia University Press 1935) which debunks that document so many of us swore to protect and defend as a useless rag penned by counter-revolutionary forces intent on handing power to Britain’s banks while starving out America’s military veterans and small farmers.

Beard, once America’s most prominent historian, isn’t taught anymore either.  His works were the basis for all legal education in the US.  They have been in the dustbin for decades, next to Tocqueville.

Revisionists, the most aggressive and realistic of which are mostly called conspiracy theorists today, are too often a lazy lot, shy of scholarship and bereft of the discipline needed to make one’s mark in history.

Ah, but there’s the rub, history now is fake, laundered, rewritten, fabricated from fake narrative with fake characters and fake struggles.  One of the driest reads of all time was John Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, the necessary scholarly work needed by a young presidential candidate to prove his metal.  Yet it’s subject matter, heroes unseen and unappreciated, is more important today than ever before.

It was Kennedy who recognized Robert Taft’s worth in trashing the fake Nuremberg trials.  Taft, a senator from Ohio, gave up the probable presidency in 1948 because he opposed trying Nazis as war criminals based on fake laws passed ex post facto.

Another favorite of mine from Kennedy’s work is John Quincy Adams, recognized for breaking away from the Federalist Party, the real “muscle” behind the then and now present global banking cartel that sits at the heart of the “right” in Britain and the United States.

Most Americans themselves are aware of the heroes in their past.  Few understand anything of Washington, what he risked, his tenacity in face of continual defeat and, to an extent, his failures as well.  We don’t blame Washington, and well should not, for failing to recognize all that might transpire in his name.  With Alexander Hamilton at his side, pecking away day after day, a voice for sloth, for theft, for immoderation, Washington was certainly poorly advised.

Key, in may respects, was America’s love affair for military veterans, not just leaders but men of physical courage as well.  The military caste system and “push button warfare” of today has mitigated much of that tradition with so many of today’s “heroes” bespewn with fake medals for fake acts in fake wars for fake causes.

Men like Andrew Jackson, the glaring opposite of Donald Trump, fought their own battles, gun or sword, stood against political enemies based on values and didn’t hide behind fake “faith.”  If Jackson carried a bible, he would have used it as a weapon to throw rather than as a shield to hide behind as so many do today.

There is a reason we began with Tocqueville.  Russian’s are among the most religious people on earth despite their half century of communist rule.  When a Russian worships, it isn’t for show.  The same is true in Poland and much of Germany.

Few Americans are aware to what extent France, Italy and Spain have abandoned religion.  Their history still recognizes how the Church aligned itself with monarchy and right-wing extremism, how it suppressed intellectuals, fostered ignorance and opposed social advancement.

Religion in America is, today, doing what religion in those nations had done for centuries, perhaps with fewer burned alive but, do note, there would not be millions locked away in America’s prisons without the self-righteous “hokeydom” of America’s religious fakes.

Similarly, without the failed institutions, failed and fake academia, a failed and faked military, a failed and fake government and, perhaps most glaring of all, the meteoric rise of custom designed fake information delivered by ubiquitous “devices, “would not represent the threat it does today.

There have always been Americans who have recognized, to an extent, what Tocqueville saw and expressed with such eloquence and clarity or, to a lesser extent, the rot at the center of America’s form of government outlined in Beard.

For the best of those, it brought about a search for heroes and saviors of a kind, a search that brought men like Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy to the forefront, men of grace and courage.

Gone awry, the same search, with ignorance and fear as guiding principles, brought us Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and the Bush-Trump duo, split by an anecdotal and truncated Obama presidency crippled by a Wall Street hijacked congress.

You see, with no functioning institutions, with no real “checks and balances” in a government long ago engineered for failure with the overthrow of the Articles of Confederation and the erasure of the Founding Father’s ideals, all that is left is “cult of personality” and dictatorship.

For those doubting such words, perhaps Jefferson’s might provide a reminder.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Where Jefferson’s words from 1776, written for educated elites, some, perhaps many, who had suffered financially at the hands of British misgovernment, call for action and individual responsibility, today such words might well be a source of terror.

The America that abided slavery for the better part of a century might well abide the same.  At her roots, America was never intended to be a colonial power or a global policeman.  Tocqueville’s observations nearly two centuries ago made the reasons clear, that the fakery that had taken hold even then made real greatness would remain forever unachievable.

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

It has become easier to fake goodness, to simply invent it, “tweet” about it rather than do it.  America smears, America blames, it points fingers, it accuses, it punishes, it bullies, and it has done so for most of its existence.

The moments of greatness have been fleeting, now not even a memory.  Americans lie to themselves, to each other out of shame and humiliation.

Americans who believe in nothing, and this is the heart of America’s religion, delusion, disinformation, fakery and fraud, religions of intolerance and hate, or so it is for many millions, turn to their fake god to justify their fears and weaknesses.

This is why America is fake.  America’s history is fake, its wars are fake, its “greatness” is fake because it is all based on self-deception, on beliefs chosen not from moral certainty and values but to serve the baser instincts, the worst of humanity, greed, lust and envy.

Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of  Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”