These are familiar words related to political power in the U.S.: incumbency (and its power); partisanship (party over policy); and though perhaps a bit less familiar, corporate dominated systems (the Corporate Duopoly / Legacy Parties; or as I still think makes sense, the Two Party Front for the Oligarchy). I came across two reports that [...]
Tag Archives | duopoly
In Not Shocking News From “Sequestered” DC Electeds
Where to put the emphasis? On Republican efforts to “avoid a showdown”? Obama’s efforts to “resolve fiscal fights” by calling the “opposition”? Or Dems abandoning “strong opposition” to the “GOP spending bill”? Can anyone even pretend to be surprised at any of this? Obama being Obama. Republicans being Republicans. Democrats being Democrats. We the People [...]
The ‘2nd American Revolution’ Explained by Way of a Graph
Discussion of “income inequality” is considered an out of date topic by some, but it’s as real, as significant and if we’re looking with open eyes and not through Duopoly supplied blinkers, as in-our-faces at this moment as it was when, for the obvious example, the Occupy movement made it “news.” The graph is via [...]
The ‘People’s House’ When ‘Corporations Are People’
It isn’t fair to focus on the House of Representatives, since the SCOTUS decision on Citizens United, popularized as “corporations are people,” is just as evident in the Senate and the White House. But that whole “People’s House” description of the House of Representatives makes it an excellent example of how the meaning of “people” [...]
Chris Hedges on ‘Debt Peonage’: That 1% – 99% Chasm Didn’t Disappear With the Corporate State Suppression of Occupy
“Stop beating the dead horse,” I was chastised when I kept paying attention to the Occupy movement beyond that sliver of attention deemed newsworthy. The movement evolved, still continues in various projects. I’ve never stopped paying attention. And for good, or really bad, reasons: the inequalities it helped reveal remain. Chris Hedges has also continued [...]
The Duopoly Has the Middle Class Wrapped Around Its Middle Finger
And the Oligarchy has the Duopoly wrapped around its middle finger. In both cases, Duopoly and Oligarchy regularly use that finger to signal what they think of all of us who don’t live at the top. The response of We the People, We the Electorate, We the Used and Manipulated very often includes participating in [...]
500 Years of Resistance [VIDEO]
Yesterday on Facebook I noticed a couple of posts making fun of the actions of Idle No More, a “worldwide indigenous movement,” and other groups acting in solidarity with INM. That came as I was thinking about what I’d read at Idle No More; at Roar Magazine, “A continuation of 500 years of indigenous resistance”; [...]
Compromising with Medicare and the Top Tax Rate
Yesterday Ezra Klein, at the Washington Post, wrote a piece that’s gotten a lot of attention. (emphasis added throughout post) The fiscal cliff deal comes clearer: a 37% top tax rate and a higher Medicare eligibility age Right now, the fiscal cliff negotiations are proceeding on two tracks. One track includes the press releases, public [...]
The ‘Fix the Debt’ Coalition of the Very Wealthy: The Rest of Us Need to Pay Attention
The Fix the Debt coalition is gaining more attention, no doubt in large part because its members are being very vocal and public. They are not shy about making known their interpretation and solutions of what ails the economy. And of course, another neat crisis – replete with “fiscal cliff” and “doomsday” gamemanship – is [...]
Austerity, Imposed From the Top To Bottom: The ‘Fix the Debt’ Spin
Some information and analysis follows, as we continue considering the DC created “fiscal cliff” (for example, see Fiscal Cliff & Shared Sacrifice: If You Build It, They Will Come), the debt/deficit, austerity, shared sacrifice, and all the other spins, going on for decades, on why the tiny number of people at the very top deserve [...]
Estimated 8000 Protest Austerity in Dublin: ‘Come Back St. Patrick. It’s Still Full of Snakes’
The quote in the headline is from a sign held by one of the thousands who participated in an “anti-austerity” march in Dublin on Friday. Follow the link to The Journal article that provides details and some great photos. The demonstration, organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, is protesting cutbacks ahead of the [...]
Fiscal Cliff & Shared Sacrifice: If You Build It, They Will Come
These were all built by and for those who will profit from them; our job is to come to accept what we’re told about them: deficit reduction; fiscal cliff; shared sacrifice; entitlements; Grand Bargain; austerity; disemployment (Lambert Strether’s excellent term); privatization; too big to fail. That’s just a partial list, of course. Feel free to [...]
Online Petitions for Secession from All 50 States
Should this raise some at least semi-serious questions? From RT: 700,000 Americans petition the White House to secede from the US In the one week since US President Barack Obama won his bid for re-election, representatives from all 50 states have filed petitions with the White House asking to secede from the United States. … [...]
Obama, Congressional Leaders Hold Fiscal Summit on the Edge of the ‘Fiscal Cliff’
The ‘Fiscal Cliff’ was designed, largely, by the people who today will get together for a high-level meeting to talk about “now what do we do?” Maybe perched on the edge of the “cliff” they created will be inspiring. After all, their political futures are in play. From ABC News: The stakes could not be [...]
The ‘Brilliance’ of Occupy’s Rolling Jubilee Consumer Debt Cancellation Project (VIDEO)
The “brilliant” description of the Rolling Jubilee project is from Charles Eisenstein at The Guardian. At The Nation, Pat Garofalo introduces the initiative this way: Members of Occupy Wall Street — various branches of which have recently been saving families from foreclosure and aiding victims of Hurricane Sandy — have launched a new initiative. Coined [...]
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