In 2009, the odds of Americans hoisting themselves off their La-Z-Boys and taking to the streets ranged from “not a chance” to “just about zero.”
Yet, anyone betting against the American Spirit would have placed a losing bet.
Out of work, pensions lost, can’t make the mortgage, can’t pay the electric, phone, cable, water bill, school tax, property tax, car payment, insurance, credit card, gas for the car, heat for the house … in 2008, millions were on the financial ropes. And ...“When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose, they lose it.”
THE FUSE
Early in 2008, with the global equity markets in free fall and financial conditions rapidly deteriorating, most Americans were persuaded to accept the necessity of government bailouts of brokerage firm Bear Stearns and the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortgage lenders.
But in late September, when the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) was proposed by George W. Bush, both the near trillion dollar size of the package and the encroachment of government into free enterprise provoked intense public opposition. Polls showed that as many as 90 percent of those who contacted their representatives and senators were against the passage of TARP, but TARP was passed.
The “Land of the Free” and “The Home of the Brave” had become the “Land of the Federally Subjugated” and “The Home of the Meekly Subservient.” The socioeconomic landscape of America had been so dramatically altered that it bore little resemblance to the nation of their forefathers or even their grandfathers.
Not only was TARP foisted upon the nation, when the inspector-general in charge of overseeing the bailouts demanded to know where the money went, the US Treasury refused to tell him!
The arrogance, the gall, the disrespect; the flagrant “to hell with the people” attitude was more than a simple disconnect between government and the people. Wall Street had hijacked Washington.
A democracy in name only, America was not a representative government. Elected officials represented those who paid the most to buy their votes … but only if the price was right. Money spoke louder than any words spoken by the majority.
[F]inancial and real estate interests spent $345.4 million to buy politicians and control legislation. Washington called it “campaign financing” and “lobbying.” Anywhere else it was called “bribery.”
THE GOLDMAN GANG
[W]ith TARP passed and the money in hand — and having demanded and been granted full power to spend it at his discretion — Paulson switched the game. Instead, hundreds of billions went to the Treasury Czar’s banking and brokerage buddies … the perpetrators of the financial crimes.
With Paulson in control, the Goldman Sachs Gang held the keys to the national treasury. And nothing would change when the new President and new crew of political prostitutes took over. There was no denying the extent of the Goldman Gang’s infiltration and its influence in both Washington and abroad.
[I]t was mob rule. Americans were being forced to pay “protection money,” but the money went to protect the crime families, not the American people.
The names — Summers, Dimon, Thain, Weill, Blankfein, Rubin, Mack — were among those rarely spoken without an appropriate introductory honorific: “brilliant,” occasionally “brilliant-brilliant,” sometimes “financial genius” and all credited with “storied careers.” … lifetimes of deal making, inside trades, market manipulation, influence peddling and sucking their way up to the top. They were the role models MBAs were enjoined to emulate.
JIVE TALK
[T]he complicit business and mainstream media winked and euphemized the activity under the rubric of “esoteric financial products” and “debt instruments.” But they were neither “products” nor “instruments” … They were white-collar schemes; financial phantasms conjured up … by organized crime families and their Ivy League whiz kids.
Crime fact was far more lurid than crime fiction … The mainstream media would report the incidents in dispassionate language for a day or two, providing no platform for dissenters. Invariably, they bowed to the authority of Mr. President and Mr. Fed Chairman and deferred to the expertise and opinions of PhD mouthpieces and enablers.
But as the financial systems continued to disintegrate and the economy continued to crumble, at long last the general public understood that next to nothing was being done for its “good.”
OPENING SHOTS
The April 15 tea parties and tax protests, the Fourth of July rallies, the summer Town Hall health care reform confrontations, and the 9/12 March on Washington protesting big government were opening shots.
Successive political regimes had been abrogating constitutional rights and encroaching upon personal freedoms for decades. The trend flourished under Bill Clinton, accelerated under George W. Bush and was sent into orbit by Barack Obama.
Decades of Executive Orders, unchallengeable magisterial edicts issued from the Presidential throne and laws such as the notorious Patriot Act deprived American citizens of basic rights, personal freedoms … They had become slaves and serfs of the State, owned and indentured with absolutely no say in how the affairs of State were conducted.
The banks were shaking down the people for every last dime and politicians were passing laws that made robbery legal. When the Mafia exacted 12 percent interest on loans, the government would crack down on the criminals for loan sharking. When the banks charged up to 30 percent on credit cards, it was called the cost of doing business.
The reality was that World War I didn’t begin with, nor was it caused by the assassination of the Archduke. It was much more complicated than that … So too with The 2nd American Revolution. What caused it and why will be reduced by establishment historians … allowing them to distort the facts and attribute the revolution to scapegoats of choice.
BRING IN THE CLOWNS
In those early stages, a handful of broadcast ideologues seized upon the unrest both as a cause celebre and a ratings booster. For eight years they were cheerleaders for George W. Bush’s wars … abrogation of the Constitution, bailouts, TARP … cheap money and big government policies that hastened America’s decline.
Now, hypocrites to a man … Never for a moment acknowledging Obama was implementing most of those Bush policies they had once so ardently supported.
In September 2009, a sneak preview of what was to come was aired in Pittsburgh, PA, the site of the biannual G-20 meeting of finance ministers, central bank governors, and leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies.
The city was cordoned off and closed down. Offices and shops were shut, traffic prohibited … wages and sales lost. Red terror alert precautions and martial law measures were taken in anticipation of protesters opposed to G-20 goals of globalization, a single currency, and a one-world-corporate-controlled government.
The corporate-controlled media reported and showed mostly peaceful protest marchers, outnumbered by heavily equipped anti-riot forces … [But the] uncontrolled Internet media reported and showed mostly peaceful protest marchers and innocent bystanders harassed, corralled, shoved, dragged and beaten …
The massed military might and crippling new riot control weaponry (LRAD ear-splitting sound cannons) tested on guinea pig protesters in Pittsburgh was a harbinger of how the government would respond to public pressure, civil disobedience, and any challenge to its authority … The mildest of disruptions would be stamped out with the fury and vengeance appropriate to putting down mob rule.
There would be anti-government forces bent on fighting power with power. They made a lot of noise, got a lot of press and served as convenient symbols of the Revolution. And just as a handful of masked radicals smashing windows and overturning cars (government plants or actual anarchists) are used by the press to discredit larger causes, so too would this handful of armed quixotic militia be used to denigrate the patriotic ideals behind the mounting revolutionary resistance.
Violent confrontations would not only fail, they would sabotage the principles and ideals of The 2nd American Revolution. For the Renaissance to flower and the Revolution to succeed, it had to be fought with minds, not guns.
Please read the whole thing here: The History of The Future: The 2nd American Revolution.
See also: Celente Flashback 2004.
As AGW Bullshit is definitely a fuse, this is only slightly off-topic, but more than slightly entertaining.
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/algores-agw-halloween-treat-from-fox/