Wednesday, January 27, 2016

TRNN - Howard Zinn On Trickle Down

  From 2008

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4 comments:

Glynn Kalara said...

Taxes are the only way $$ can be redistributed from the top , so that's why a full out assault has been waged by the right these last 50 yrs on the tax system. The idea that lowering taxes on the wealthy creates more wealth for society goes way back to before the Kennedy era. These policies were actually deployed to their fullest extent after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia swung in a few yrs. from a totalitarian Communist state to a free market Capitalist state, with the resultant 3 decade Depression and the creation of a small group of billionaires owning everything of any value in that country. Sound familiar? It should because the same wrecking crew that basically hammered Russia flat is doing the same thing here. The end result will be a Corporatist ( neo-Fascist) economic and politically reality. Russia having far less of a democratic past transited easily back to it's present authoritarian crypto-Capitalist regime with a dictator ( Putin) on top. Here , we restrict who can be President by making election hugely expensive affairs that mostly only the rich can afford to run. What's scaring the hell out of the pundits and the PTB is that two candidates are doing an end run around this system. Sanders on the left is raising millions from millions and TRUMP has billions himself to throw into the ring. Of course these two come from the opposite ends of the populist spectrum of politics. TRUMP is a demagogue and a racist among other nasty stuff. What he primarily is is a shape shifting would be Dictator like Putin. Sanders is the opposite, he keeps telling his following this struggle is about YOU not me it's about you and whether YOU and your kids are going to own and run the Gov't or the whether the Plutocrats are going to own and run it. Right now in all honesty it's Plutocrats 99 to our 1 in this contest. Does that mean we can't win? Maybe, well see soon enough.

11:05 AM
Jim Sande said...

Crap, I wrote out a big comment and deleted it to fix up my grammar and did not copy it. One point I wanted to make beyond what you mention is that roughly 30% of the population wants the plutocracy! They want an authoritarian ruler! That's nuts but it's baked into the population.

1:06 PM
Glynn Kalara said...

That 30% has been there since the founding fathers and is probably there in most societies. It's a carry over from pre-history humanity where the clan , tribe etc. was ruled by an Alpha male or Alpha Female. Democracy evolved slowly from these times , but for most of human history a dictatorship of one sort or another was probably the norm. There is some disputes among Sociologists and Archaeologists on this issue. A few say that Hunter gather societies were more of a consensus affair, it's hard to prove. They also once thought that hunter gathers didn't do warfare. That belief was recently upended by finding a murdered band of hunter / gathers that was obviously attacked and killed by "others." Anyway, the 30% for a King /Dictator/Emperor is no surprise. On the left the corollary belief is for a Messiah figure. That too usually ends up badly. It's interesting to know for what it's worth , but in Hitler both beliefs came up badly. many Germans saw Hitler as a Christ figure sent to redeem Germany and the World at the same time they hated democracy and wanted a King back. Sanders certainly meets none of the above criteria. Trump on the other hand does.

1:36 PM
Jim Sande said...

Thank you, that's fascinating information.

2:13 PM

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