for budhaboy - Welcome to Rome

[plural]

In response to this post

you are missing something my dear man

you still think of this along a democrats vs republican line
when Al Gore was the man
who introduced and championed
the customerization of the american public

the plan was brilliant, and was executed almost flawlessly
allow people a level of individual access to government
which they had never had, and which allowed their needs to be addresssed
on an individual basis.

we cheered in selfish greed while they turned us from
citizens [shareholders] to customers

you see by allowing people to address their needs specifically
it removed the greatest power of the citizen
community

it used to be that you had to organize and
rally the people to get the government to respond to you
sure that was harder, but it also vetted out the worst ideas

now people, through the courts and "enhanced" regulatory systems
can go argue and deal with government solely on the basis of their needs
they do not have to frame them in a community sense
or even think about what would be good for the community

but most important in all of this
is who is taking advantage of this new access

it is not joe public
it is the lobbyists
where PACs used to have memberships
now they have mailing lists

all they need is the money now
to work the system
they dont need to rally support

We do not live in a two party system
it is a one party system
and the democrats and the republicans
are both pawns of that ruling party

look at donor lists
the vast majority of large donors
give to both parties
heavily

hedging their bets?

in a way they are

the goal of the ruling class
is what ruling classes always want

to maintain the status quo

so they funnel money to both sides of an issue
so that each side can keep fighting and drag things out
and eventually it goes off into limbo without ever being resolved

you see they only have to appear to be addressing what
the customers want,

if you do not want change to happen
draw two diametrically opposed lines
use rhetoric to draw people to either side
provide equal resources to each side
so that one can never really gain a significant advantage

then people argue it in the streets
watch congress argue it on c-span
until
finally they get bored or move on the next issue
then the original idea
forgotten and ignored gets put aside
perfectly unchanged and
the status quo is preserved

so then the question is

why did it change this time?

why did this election swing in one camps favor?

quite simply because
for once, someone in the ruling class
wanted something to happen

perhaps it is as simple as reversing some of the minor changes
which have occured in the past few years
but
that would be foolish to believe
considering most of those have already been gutted
in one way or another

no there is something bigger in the works
and the war in iraq
[which will start around january]
is more than just a pretext
it is a cloak to hide and distract us
from what is really going on

Remember back in two thousand
when CNN called florida for Gore
the entire bush family came on television
with smug looks on their faces
and said, nope isnt going to happen

they knew damn well
exactly what was going to happen

now
just a few weeks ago
the bush administration
called this election as well
said that not only would the republicans keep what they had
but they would gain seats in both houses

it is not pretty strange
to be so confident when historically
the party who holds the white house
looses seats in congress during an off year election

just to keep the seats they had would be a historic victory for the republican party
but they went a step further with confidence they predicted the most unlikely of scenarios
[according to historcal trends]
and
well you can look at the election results
I do not need to recap them

all of this matters little to me
when it goes south, which it will
I wont be affected

you see my family plays the game
but we have also hedged our bets
in case one of the bigger dogs decides to have our lunch

unlike most americans we have a plan of retreat
houses have been bought
citizenship papers need only signatures
and with the snap of a finger
the entire family moves to a more friendly country

and if anything I have told you
doesnt scare you
that should

Comments

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

while on one level you make sense because human being are flawed, and will take full advantage...

Your statement: to remain rich and to pass their wealth on to their children

doesn't entirely jibe with reality given that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are staunch advocates of the Inheritance tax. Their reasoning: The history of the Morgans, the getty's etc... have shown that people who inherit MASSIVE wealth are total fuckups, and by keeping that wealth in the hands of bafoons is not the best use of capital.

[plural.livejournal.com]

he may not pass the majority of his wealth
to his kids but they will never be poor either

take me for example, my kids are not going to inherit cash from me either
[other than perhaps a token amount]

but I have set up trusts
to support certain areas of their lives
[like education]
which will leave them substantially better off
than most people

I agree that people who inherit large amounts of money are fuckups, of course they were fuckups before they inherited the money as well

the problem is not the inheritance
but that they have never had to work for anything in their lives

and by work I do not necessarily mean employment, rather that everything has been handed to them without them even having to ask for it.

that is what made them fuckups
vast quantities of money
just made it more obvious

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

>>vast quantities of money
>>just made it more obvious

touche