Again, if by government we mean the state apparatus, and that is what is
commonly meant by the word government, feudalism is not a government
either. Both feudalism and capitalism are economic systems. Before
feudalism there was a slave economy and before that there were various
forms of property relations that also required some sort of state
although the more egalitarian the economic system the less prominent the
state was. Remember that the state is an apparatus used by the ruling
classes to maintain their rule by force and violence or the threat of
force and violence. The exact form of the state can vary and depends on
what the ruling classes need in any particular period of history to
fulfill their purposes. Generally a monarchy is associated with
feudalism and republicanism is associated with capitalism, but that
association is not always the case. Again, I point to a comparison of
Saudi Arabia with Sweden.
On 5/5/2017 12:40 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Miriam,
Actually, I'm not too well read regarding the forms of government that
came prior to Feudalism. But whatever they were, I can bet that they
involved some people holding control over others. I think that every
form of government has or had two things in common, strong arm
control, and ignorance.
The power to hold some of the people captive, whether as slaves,
serfs, indentured or whatever, and the muscle to maintain that control
over long periods of time, then allows Ignorance to rule. Control can
be maintained by inventing an all powerful Being who knows all and
sees all. Control can be kept by mind control of young men, trained
and armed, who will defend the Controllers.
But my point is that no matter what names we give it, the pattern of
our governments appears to be the same. Does it matter if we accept
the sacrifice of young virgins to placate our Make Believe Gods, or
whether we gun down young Blacks in the street in order to keep the
population under our boot heel? Is a Serf, bound to his Lord's land
any less well off that the Slave, bound to his Master's plantation?
or the unemployed young Black man or woman trapped in the rat infested
slum? No hope is no hope no matter how it's served up.
So we have come to a place where we call "civilisation" this wonderful
world of technology. So many labor saving developments. So many
creature comforts. So many fun toys. But are we any freer? Can we
really call ourselves Independent? Shouldn't advanced civilization
include Hope, Self Respect, Opportunity, Security for both ourselves
and for our family?
When we are so conditioned that we can be herded by the use of fear,
then we are no closer to being civilized than Alley Oop.
On 5/5/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
Capitalism was the next stage. We moved from feudalism to something, a
system which encouraged industrialization. Capitalism was what did that. I
think that's what Joe meant.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2017 10:45 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Faint Praise for Barack Obama's Embrace of
Wealth
As a matter of fact, Miriam, I mostly agree, and enjoy Boardman's articles.
I was grumpy and picking knits...or are they nits? In fact, compared to
what I'm now hearing on NPR, Boardman is a breath of fresh air.
Perhaps I read Joe's comments too rapidly, since I do not have the luxury of
time and lots of underpaid staff as our Glorious Leader has, but I am not
convinced that Capitalism was an improvement over previous forms of
government. In fact, we've had to create a Fairy Tale, a Make Believe
Never Never Land in order to believe that Capitalism was the best road to
travel. In Truth, it is the road to Hell. And we are a long way down it,
with the corruption of Capitalism into Corporate Capitalism and the emerging
Corporate Nations. Think of all those glorious conquests by the Gold and
Jewel Seekers sailing around the world spreading Capitalism among the
backward locals. Since capitalism has built into its very fabric, Greed,
then it can never be controlled, and most certainly never be turned to as a
fair ruler.
As for our Fairy Tale ability to switch names to protect the guilty, the old
word, "Slave" has fallen out of Vogue these days.
"Incarcerated" is our New World term for Slave. And boy are we packing them
in! In case anyone wonders who will replace those sneaky Mexicans who creep
into our fields and underbid jobs needed by our young White boys, you know
them, the ones sitting of the steps of their single-wide, drinking beer and
cursing Socialists. Well, fear not, all we need to do is to send out our
well armed and well protected police, and round us up a bunch of them lazy
Black Boys.
And some of us never thought that the South could Rise Again.
But, all sleazy joking aside, nothing has really changed since the day when
Columbus first lied to the Natives who welcomed him and his butchers to
their shores. And we've lied, and bullied our way across this entire
continent and beyond...way beyond. And all the litter we see about us, all
the trash and the broken bodies and the ruined cities and the pollution and
the foulness of greed driven barbarians, all of that and more are part of
Capitalism.
But nothing is going to change until enough of us toss aside the Fairy Tale
Book and draft a new Bill of Rights. A Bill of Rights that includes All
People, All Life, All that goes into making Mother Earth our Garden of
Eden.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/4/17, joe harcz Comcast <joeharcz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I understand. No disagreement here.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2017 5:44 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Faint Praise for Barack Obama's Embrace
of Wealth
Joe,
I wasn't implying that we disagreed. We're saying the same thing in
different ways. I just posted a long New Yorker article about
possibilities
for Trump's impeachment that I learned about on the Nation's podcast,
Start
Making Sense. It will probably be in next week's Audible's summary of
The New Yorker on BARD. It doesn't give me much comfort, however.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of joe harcz
Comcast
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2017 5:16 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Faint Praise for Barack Obama's Embrace
of Wealth
Where is our disagreement if any? For I think that Trump is an absurd
clown
put in place by his corporate masters and dillusions of the people by
same not unlike Hitler or Mussolini. A narcist now out of control of
his masters.
BTW I can't believe this shit is happening. Regardless, I don't
disagree with a word of what you say here Miriam.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2017 3:12 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Faint Praise for Barack Obama's Embrace
of Wealth
Well, if you look at the phenomenon of Trump, or if I do, I see three
dimensions. He's really mentally disturbed. People say, "Narcissistic
Personality", which may be the correct diagnosis. I don't know. But
what I do know is that he can't concentrate, , doesn't have a clear
understanding of issues , and is focused on himself and his own
gratification. He's self-centered and he is good at manipulating in order
to get what he wants.
So take that personality and add to it that he's extremely wealthy and
wealth, in this society, gives you power. But he's heading up an
incredibly corrupt political party which Noam Chomsky says, is the
most dangerous organization in the world because its policies are
leading to the destruction of life on our planet. But the third part
of the picture is that this is a symptom of what western civilization
has evolved into. This is where Capitalism or something has led us
because Obama and the Clintons and all of the corporate Democrats held
the door wide open. But the Democratic Party turned right in the 70's
because of all of the money and planning and organization of folks
like the Heritage Foundation, The Koch Brothers, The Kato Instsitute,
the Peterson Institute, all evolving from the resistance to the New
Deal.
Miriam.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of joe harcz
Comcast
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2017 1:04 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Faint Praise for Barack Obama's Embrace
of Wealth
The self serving, and often outright corruption of entitled democrats
is only outshadowed by the shameless fascism and outright kleptrocracy
of the republicrats. I too wring my hands at this outrage of Obama. I
really do.
But, I also shuck at the horror of the outright and utter and obvious
corruption and perfidy of Trumph which expands this corruption and
horror by expodential ammounts of waste, fraud, abuse, nepotism and,
again utter kleptroracy! It is not to absolve Obama here at all, but
rather to look at thins in matters of degrees.
I guess I'm comparing things here under the historical eyes of the
Weimer Republic and those under the rise of Hitler.
Actually those are apt outlooks in my mind as we are raising now
between revisiting things that were injustice, and corrupt towards
days that are existintial threats towards the viability of humanity
itself and, indeed all life on this planet.
Still they are worth talking about, as are subsets.
I still rage against the corrupted machinery against our civil rights
as people with disabilities for example that is ongoing.
Realistically I state here and now that no ex-President, and more
importantly, no human being or citizen of this planet wshould be
denied a certain quality of life. In other words we all want,
including those of us who are nominal socialists, a good life,
including one that has material comforts. That is what nominal
socialists or fellow travelers always wanted when push came to shough.
We want a world that is just, and in which all have enough to eat,
with comfortable abodes to protect us, and with things like health
care for all, and with clean, potable water, transportation, effective
communications and so on and so forth.
We want and wanted a world where "jealously" didn't reign the day
either, for we shouldn't covet ty neighbors goods per se, a valuable
construct that was perverted by the ruling class by the way.
What that meant is that things shouldn't be based upon exploitation
and abuse and that things, material things, and, prosperity relatively
speaking should be shared for the common benefit and thecommon good
and the commonweal.
Republican capitalism was a great leap forward ironically over prior
systems. Problem is that it devolved and ignored the basic premise of
raising all boats and shared eexperiences and results in ever
escallating crisis and injustices. Slavery was replaced by wage
slavery. And power was held along with most wealth in tinier and tiner
hands until it all led to the tiniest of hands with Trumph.
BTW that wealth was not created by those tiny hands either but, rather
the hands of the working class, even as defined today; which is to say
the producers of whatever we now define as real wealth itself.
Oh but, I poke my head above and beyond list frays here to say: "Shame
on you Obama," even though I at the same time really wish for another
four years, again relatively speaking.
For crying out lough this Trump thing makes me think (and again
relatively) nostalgectically for the days of Reagan or G.W. Bush for
crisake?
For now we've devolved from thehypocritical to the stupid to the
innately cruel.
And that is a recipe for more than disaster. It is a recipe for human
extinction as Carl suggests and, perhaps, as an aside a repudiation of
Darwin, but I digress.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2017 12:18 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Faint Praise for Barack Obama's Embrace
of Wealth
I love Bordman. He does an opinion piece each week. Like Robert
Scheer, he's a product of the Vietnam anti-war movement. Innitially, I
saw a headline or heard a short snippet about Obama's $400,000 speech
and I thought, "No wonder he was so supportive of Hillary. He's doing
exactly what she's been doing. These corporate Democrats represent
themselves as a people's party and then they shamelessly make millions
based on having held office". So I was really happy to read an article
that expressed my outrage at Obama and the rest of them.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2017 10:44 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: jamesjarvis98 <jamesjarvis98@xxxxxxxxx>; Matthew
<mcblack@xxxxxxxxx>; footballmania <footballmania@xxxxxxxxx>; delores
selset <dselset@xxxxxxx>; Jennifer Ford <dandjford88@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Faint Praise for Barack Obama's Embrace
of Wealth
As I began reading this article, I thought, "Here is an example of a
No News Article. I mean, who cares what the Obama's do with the rest
of their lives, or how richly they are rewarded for playing patsy to
their Billionaire Masters? The only difference between the Obama's
and all their predecessors, including Gentleman Jimmy Carter, is the
color of their skins.
It is the reward for being Faithful to the Establishment.
But the article did pick up toward the end, and is well worth wading
through the padding(after all, Boardman does need to crank out words
in an effort to make his living).
But I personally feel that time needs to be spent on how Barack Obama
and those who "graced" the Office of the Leader of the World'
Mightiest Empire came to be such War Lords and Murderers. Like Donald
Trump and Bushes I and II, and Bill Clinton, and the Mighty Mouth,
Ronald Reagan, Ford and Nixon and beyond, Barack Obama is simply a
product of our American Empire's Capitalist System.
Capitalism, like Cancer, depends upon growth and expansion. A fast
moving cancer never stops to allow its Host to rebuild before continuing
to grow.
Nor does Capitalism. Capitalism long term goals are short term profits.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can grab today, is the driving
motto.
So we working class folk came to this place in our history through our
own weaknesses. We bought into the Capitalists belief that wealth is
the sign of success, and great wealth is the sign of genius. We
accepted the belief that we can expand forever. Even understanding
that our Planet Earth has certain hard and fast limits, we go forward
as if there is no tomorrow...and that may well be our future. We have
become Consumers, not Workers.
Everything in today's world is "sponsored" and we must buy buy buy in
order to keep our hopes alive.
We even vote into office the very people who will defend the
Capitalists right to fleece us. I turned on the Mariner, Angels game
last night and the first words over the TV speakers welcomed us to the
name of the Corporation that paid to have the right to call this
baseball stadium by their name.
And it was said over and over.
Constant advertising for pennies cost per mention. And that is where
our genius is being focused. New improved methods of getting your
name in front of the suckers, and new improved gadgets to replace the
beads and shiny bobbles we used to bribe the Natives who were blocking
our expansion back on Manhattan Island. And just like a flock of
pigeons, we peck away at the shiny toys, desiring to keep pace with
modern technology and dine on the dwindling resources of Planet Earth.
No, Barack Obama is not the problem, anymore than is Donald Trump.
Even Capitalism is not the root of the problem. The problem we must
solve, if we care to survive, is our own foolish, herd-like mentality
that causes us to believe that we can rape and abuse this Planet Earth
forever. If we can't come to our senses soon, then our Ship of Fools
will be dashed upon the cruel rocks of oblivion.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/3/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Barack Obama. (photo: Susan Walsh/AP)
Faint Praise for Barack Obama's Embrace of Wealth By William
Boardman, Reader Supported News
03 May 17
If the Obamas aren’t living the American Dream, then who is?
Now they are offering the man $400,000 for making just one 60-minute
speech (and another $400,000 for a 90-minute speech). That $400,000
is more than twice the average net worth of most Americans at their
wealthiest ($194,226 in 2011, mostly in the worth of a home). A
Credit Suisse survey in 2014 put Americans’ average net worth at “a
whopping $301,000,” still well below what rich people will pay for a
one hour speech by a former president.
Even Obama’s annual pension is more than what most Americans own (his
pension is $205,700 plus roughly $150,000 in perks). Speaking at a
rate of
$400,000 per hour translates to $16 million for a forty-hour work
week; even if the speech takes a day to prepare, that’s still $2
million a week. An annual household income of $450,000 puts you in
the top one percent. It takes an income of almost $150,000 to be in
the top ten percent. Most Americans don’t even dream of a payday in
the millions.
Why shouldn’t he go for it? That $400,000 speech is almost as much as
his taxable income in 2015 ($436,035, from publicly released tax
returns). In 2015, the Obamas paid $81,472 in federal income tax,
more than Americans’
average annual household income of $55,775). Citizen Obama is already
way richer than 90% of his fellow citizens (and almost all Kenyans
probably), so why shouldn’t he try to increase that gap between
himself and the hoi-polloi? At the same time why shouldn’t he be
trying to narrow the much more gigantic gap between himself and his
mega-rich play-pals, like Richard Branson (net worth over $5 Billion)
or David Geffen (net worth over $7 Billion). Barack and Michelle
Obama together have a net worth of only $24 million or so, up from a
mere $8 million when he became president. Or to put it in
perspective, when he became president, Obama was already in the top
one percent of wealthiest Americans.
None of this is meant to suggest that the Obamas are doing anything
wrong in the way they are living their post-White House lives,
insofar as we know.
At
least he’s not crying poor the way Hillary “dead broke” Clinton did
when departing Pennsylvania Avenue. Nor has he been smarmily coy like
then-Presidential multi-millionaire Bush telling The New York Times
that, in retirement, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the
ol’ coffers.”
In fairness, it should go without saying that, in the White House,
President Obama was probably, on balance, preferable to his most
recent predecessors, and is still a notch above the current incumbent.
That said, Obama’s presidency was mostly an ineffectual limp rag of
minimal horror that looks good mainly in contrast to the glaringly
worse high crimes and misdemeanors of others. There’s no good reason
he shouldn’t cash in in the same ways his less worthy predecessors
have. Obama fits quite comfortably into the cliché of useless,
self-regarding ex-presidential lifestyle to which the only recent
arguable exception is Jimmy Carter.
Responding to Obama’s acceptance of the traditional emoluments of
out-of-office, the flusterings of the twitterati have often portrayed
themselves as shocked, shocked to find that there’s post-presidential
enrichment going on (but they express that shock with none of the
patent irony of Captain Renault in Casablanca). The moral fatuity of
these nattering nabobs of nonsense is nothing new, it has long been
the ruling class’s farcical manner of flattering itself that it has
actual principles beyond just having more. The last few minutes of a
Bill Maher clip illustrate the dominant mind bubble, where only
billionaire Nick Hanauer reveals any sense of the greater good,
wishing Obama had spent time building houses for Habitat for Humanity
and identifying wealth disparity as tearing the country apart. The
three show biz millionaires at the table don’t even acknowledge
either point.
But then there’s Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both of whom
seem to be running for president in 2020.
Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts and former Harvard
Law School professor, said on SiriusXM, referring to news of Obama’s
$400,000 speaking fee:
I was troubled by that … One of the things I talk about in the book
[This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class]
is the influence of money. I describe it as a snake that slithers
through Washington and that it shows up in so many different ways
here in Washington…. There's more of us than there is of them. And
we've got to use our voices and our votes and fight back.
Warren’s use of “us” is rather elastic, since she and her husband
have a net worth of roughly $8.75 million, enough to be at the bottom
of the top one per cent by wealth. The couple’s annual income of
roughly
$950,000 is well within the top one percent. She received an advance
of $525,000 for her book, This Fight Is Our Fight.
Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont and former congressman,
told
CNN:
Look, Barack Obama is a friend of mine, and I think he and his family
represented us for eight years with dignity and intelligence. But I
think at a time when we have so much income and wealth inequality ...
I think it just does not look good…. It's not a good idea, and I'm
sorry President Obama made that choice.
Sanders is not among the top one per cent in wealth or income. He and
his wife have a net worth of roughly $1.6 million, putting them
comfortably within the top ten percent. The couple’s joint income of
$205,271 in 2014 is also well within the top ten percent. For all of
that, Sanders does in fact “remain one of the poorer members of the
United States Senate.”
The point of all this has nothing to do with hypocrisy, which may or
may not exist in any of these examples. What’s truly “troubling,”
what really “does not look good,” is that, in retrospect, Obama now
appears the consummate huckster, a man whose gulls remain full of
admiration for the man they fail to realize has fleeced them from
beginning to end with empty eloquence. And now the dark joke is that
those who benefitted most from all that empty eloquence are willing
to pay handsomely to hear more of it.
THAT should be troubling, yet few seem troubled by it.
And that’s all you really need to know to understand why we’re where
we are now, no longer with a charm shark but with an unabashed con
man as leader of the free world: the richest president in our
history, a user and abuser who is richer than all prior presidents
combined, a man whose wealth was not built on actual slavery like
Washington’s, but close enough by treating people like slaves without
even the obligation to feed or house them.
The idealized Obama would have – might have – led the resistance to
President Trump. But then the idealized Obama might have led the
resistance to Obamacare in favor of single payer, might have led the
resistance to the Honduran military coup in favor of democracy, might
have led the resistance to Saudi genocide in Yemen in favor of human
rights. In 2009, President Obama said, “I did not run for office to
be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street,” although
he managed to do as much. Obama’s campaign included the notion that
Wall Street fat cats should pay their fair share in taxes. That
hasn’t happened, but at least some of those cats are paying a fair
share to him.
And that’s all fine and good and ironic and amusing and unimportant.
What matters is what he does – and what Warren does, and what Sanders
does, and what the rest of our real and would-be leaders do, where
they stake their futures. Recently Obama spoke reflectively [video]
about his own
future: “What is the most important thing I can do for my next job,
and what I’m convinced of, is that although there are all kinds of
issues that I care about, and all kinds of issues that I intend to
work on, the single most important thing I can do is to help in any
way I can prepare the next generation of leadership to take up the
baton and take their own crack at changing the world.”
Really? The single most important thing is to kick the can down the
road?
When the house is on fire, the single most important thing is to call
an architect?
Just as the Bush presidency set the conditions for Obama to become
president, so did the Obama presidency set the conditions that have
produced President Trump. Obama entered the White House with the wind
at his back, with Democrats in the majority in Congress, with the
country ready for hope and change and serious leadership. The result,
eight years later, is not pretty. Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems.
Or maybe it’s worse.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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