Plutocracy

Plutocratic Forces Crippled Democracy, And Why It’s Up To Us To Fight Back

October 20, 2016 Ralph Nader, www.alternet.org Strategize! Democracy, Plutocracy

By Ralph Nader for Alternet - In the 1920s, near the end of his spectacular career as our country’s most prominent fighter for working people, labor leader, presidential candidate, orator, and all-around progressive Eugene Debs was asked by a reporter: “Mr. Debs, what do you regret the most in your lifelong struggle for justice?” Debs looked at him and replied: “What do I regret the most? I regret that the American people can have almost anything they want under our Constitution, but they seem not to want much of anything at all.”

The Third Capitalist Party

August 14, 2016 Travis Richard Sweatte, www.jacobinmag.com Educate! 2016 Elections, Capitalism, Democracy, Libertarian Party, Plutocracy

By Travis Richard Sweatte for Jacobin Magazine. United States - In the aftermath of the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton may have a commanding lead, but it’s clear that she won’t be able to win over segments of Bernie Sanders supporters and other independents. Many Americans — repulsed by both Clinton and Trump — are eager to cast a protest vote for a third party. Predictably, mainstream commentators have roundly criticized these candidacies, evoking the memory of Ralph Nader’s Green Party run in 2000 and the specter of “election spoiling.” Much of this hysteria has centered around the “Bernie or Bust” campaign, which is increasingly associated with the Green Party candidacy of Jill Stein. But despite the liberal press’s endless hand-wringing over the remote possibility of Stein spoiling the race for Clinton, the fact is that the Green Party is by no means the largest third party in American politics.

Waging A Revolt Against Plutocracy

August 2, 2016 Chuck Collins, www.inequality.org Resist! Plutocracy

By Chuck Collins for Inequality - Nico House was in the streets last week outside the Democratic National Convention with Revolt Against Plutocracy. He is a self-described “political revolutionary,” inspired by the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders. House, 27, was a paralegal in the U.S. Army and a student at UNC Chapel Hill. He is working to raise funds for investigative documentaries about political corruption and posts regularly to the blog Revolt Against Plutocracy.

Newsletter – US Democracy Crisis: Illegitimate System

June 4, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www,.popularresistance.org Newsletter 2016 Elections, Corruption, Democracy, oligarchy, Plutocracy, Revolution, TPP, Transparency

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. Two years ago we wrote that the task of the movement is to build national consensus. We have shown in previous articles that national consensus is being reached on many issues, but the government is not responding to the public consensus. We have also reported on research that shows the US is really an oligarchy operating in the worst democracy in the western world. The government's lack of responsiveness to the people and elected officials who fail to represent the people’s views are resulting in a crisis of democracy. This week the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs reported on that crisis. They found the legitimacy of US government has disappeared

The System That Chooses & Elects The President Is A Farce

June 4, 2016 Mohsen Abdelmoumen, www.ahtribune.com Educate! Democracy, Hillary Clinton, oligarchy, Plutocracy

By Mohsen Abdelmoumen for the American Herald Tribune. The super-rich whose interests lie with Wall Street, the global corporations, and what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex, own and control both the Democrat and the Republican parties and their candidates. This shared monopoly prevents any anti-oligarchy party from emerging effectively to compete, under their rigged laws at the state level for establishing and funding national political parties. It's a hell of a system, a total fraud on democracy, painted up to look like democracy. This is why even in an election year as controversial as this one, most Americans will not vote. The majority of Americans have lost faith in what has become a charade that betrays their interests.

Politics Of The New Abnormal

May 1, 2016 Editors of Solidarity, www.solidarity-us.org Resist! Democracy, Democracy movement, Plutocracy

By Editors of Solidarity, Right here and now, the urgent necessity for the army of Sanders supporters must be not to give up the fight. The results of the primaries and the delegate count are important, but not decisive in shaping the future. Don’t take the dead-end corporate politics of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party as “the best we can do.” Mass action can get results, whether it’s at home in the progress of the Fight for $15 campaign — or abroad, where street protests forced out the prime minister of Iceland over the Panama Papers revelations of offshore accounts and monstrous tax evasion by the global one-tenth of one percent. And could there be any clearer demonstration of the rigged system that Bernie Sanders is talking about? The “normal” pattern of the U.S. political cycle is that election years derail social movements, draining their energies into whatever looks like the lesser evil. Perhaps this most abnormal of elections will prove to be an exception.

The Movement Will Continue No Matter How The Election Turns Out

April 19, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Strategize! Bernie Sanders, Corruption, Democracy, oligarchy, Plutocracy

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. Below is an announcement of a partnership between Popular Resistance and Resistance Against Plutocracy which created the 'Bernie or Bust Campaign.' This is not an electoral alliance but a movement building alliance. We recognize the incredible work the Bernie Sanders campaign has done to build national consensus around the issue of the unfair Wall Street dominated economy and the corruption of the US electoral system by big money interests. We also recognize that despite the national consensus on these issues an independent mass movement is essential for creating the trasnsformational change need. We hope other supporters of Sanders 'political revolution' recognize that a revolution does not coincide with an election but is much bigger than an election. The people need to build a movement that is able to impact whoever is elected president, as well as congress, state legislatures and local governments. We need to unite Sanders supporters with the popular movement.

Newsletter: End The Security State

February 20, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Black Panthers, Capitalism, Inequality, Infilitration, NSA, Occupy, Plutocracy, Privacy, spying

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The conflict between democracy and state repression, often claimed as necessary to protect our safety and security, has moved the United States consistently toward a greater national security state that has become inconsistent with people’s privacy and freedom; as well as their ability to exercise First Amendment protected political activities. The depth of surveillance – including infiltration of political movements, cameras to enforce traffic laws and monitor activities almost everywhere in populated areas, aerial surveillance of neighborhoods and protests by helicopters, drones and airplanes and digital spying, have created a pervasive surveillance apparatus that undermines privacy, political activity and communication. We cannot have a real democracy with this level of surveillance.

How The Two Major Parties Helped Destroy Democracy

February 14, 2016 Frank Castro, www.truthout.org Educate! Corporate duopoly, Democracy, Elections, Plutocracy

By Frank Castro of the Hampton Institute for TruthOut. United States - Politics, at its barest, is a market characterized by power-and the struggle for how power will be distributed. As CrimethInc illustrated some time ago, in this market ideas function similar to currency. Delineated by ideas which can build capital enough for the acquisition of more power, and those which might unbind power, political parties are tethered to the same basic operating principles of any capitalist enterprise. They must solidify market share in the realm of ideas and grow, wherever and whenever possible, or go bankrupt. Incubated within this constant power play, self-preservation becomes the party's central priority; and it does not matter if the ideas which accomplish this outcome are beneficial to the electorate or detrimental, so long as it achieves the imperative to survive.

Sedition, Subversion, Sabotage: A Long-War Strategy For The Left

January 31, 2016 William T. Hathaway, www.popularresistance.org Strategize! Capitalism, Plutocracy, Resistance

By William T. Hathaway for Popular Resistance. As the viciousness of capitalism engulfs ever more of us, our yearnings for change are approaching desperation. The system's current leader, Barack Obama, has shown us that the only change we can believe in is what we ourselves create. To do that, we need to know what is possible in our times and what isn't. The bitter probability is that none of us will see a society in which we'd actually want to live. Even the youngest of us will most likely have to endure an increasingly unpleasant form of capitalism. Despite its recurring crises, this system is still too strong, too adaptable, and has too many supporters in all classes for it to be overthrown any time soon. We're probably not going to be the ones to create a new society.

Newsletter: Defeating The Oligarchs

January 30, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Banks, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Ferguson, Finance and the Economy, Flint, health, Mining, oligarchy, Plutocracy, Solitary Confinement, TPP, Uranium, Water

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. People in the US are taught that the way to create change is through voting. But in reality, voting in the US is very limited and ineffective. In an article, “Don’t Count on Elections: Organize or Die” the authors examine the myriad of ways that elections fail to create change; how they are designed to place a middleman, your representative, between you and the change you want and how elections tend to reinforce the status quo rather than change it. They point to South Carolina where there have been numerous attempts to rid the state of the Confederate Flag, but it was not until an activist climbed up a flag pole and took it down, that the government finally acted. Direct action, at the right moment, was more powerful than elections.

Research: Rise Of The Global Imperial Plutocracy

January 26, 2016 Sean Mcelwee, www.salon.com Educate! Capitalism, Democracy, Plutocracy, Ruling Class

By Sean Mcelwee for Salon - Since the beginnings of democracy, debate has raged as to how responsive politicians are to their constituents. Though such debates stretch back centuries, only recently have academics gotten the ability to use data to test how well legislatures represent the people they ostensibly serve. So far, the evidence hasn’t been kind, with two leading academics arguing recently that, “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

Newsletter – Democracy, Not Corporatocracy

January 23, 2016 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Bernie Sanders, Climate Change, Corporatocracy, Davos, Democracy, Elections, Gas, Global Redisgn Initiative, oligarchy, Open Debates, Plutocracy, TPP, Wealth Ineqaulity

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese forPopular Resistance. What does a corporatocracy look like? Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, says, “the sovereign state is obsolete.” Instead, WEF’s goal is to give a greater role for corporations in global governance through “40 Global Agenda Councils and industry-sector bodies.” In essence, the Global Redesign Initiative of the World Economic Forum seeks to privatize government. The next battle to stop corporate government on a global scale will be the TPP. Stopping the TPP will be a tremendous victory of popular power over corporate power. We can stop the World Economic Forum's vision of a global governance redesigned into a corporatocracy and create a world of popular democracy for a livable future for everyone.

Newsletter: After The Crash…

January 9, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter #BlackLivesMatter, Banks, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Capitalism, carbon free nuclear free, Climate Change, Community Banks, Credit Unions, Debt, Debt-Free Money, Democracy, Economic Democracy, Education, Eric Holder, Federal Reserve, Finance and the Economy, Foreclosures, Guaranteed basic income, Income, Income inequality, Infrastructure, Living Wage, Medicare, Medicare for all, Minimum Wage, Occupy Movement, Plutocracy, Poverty, Public Banking, Student Debt, TPP, Tuition, Unemployment

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The economic agenda described here would create a radical transformation of the economy from a top-down system designed for the wealthiest, to a botton-up system that creates a foundation for an economy that benefits all. Putting in place this economy would move us from a plutocratic economy to a democratized economy where people have economic control over their lives. It is a radical shift – how can it happen? There is only one path – the people must be educated, organized and mobilized to demand it. We need to change the political culture to one where the necessities of the people and protection of the planet are the priorities of the economy. If predictions are correct, the next economic collapse will deeper and more damaging than the 2008 collapse. It will be a tremendous opportunity to demand radical economic change. It is one the movement for economic, racial and environmental justice should be preparing for now.

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