The heart and mind of a 1%er. It ain't pretty.

[KentuckyWoman]

If you get close enough to an actual 1%er it may take a little time to see the putrid swill that has replaced the human soul. I've spent years working closely with them and it's not for the faint of heart.

Oh sure, there's quite a few "good ones" .... but let's face it, if the majority of 1%ers were all Warren Buffets and George Clooneys we would never have needed Unions in the first place or "occupy" anything.

This is a group that overall not only wants all the candy for themselves but actually ENJOYS the idea that everyone else is starving to death, desperate and crawling to them begging for a scrap of bread.

All my life we've been trying to legislate these parasites into playing fair. You cannot legislate this. It's like fighting roaches in an apartment building. Get them out of one apartment and they just go to another. They will figure out some other way to suck off the labor of workers.

The absolute only way to get anything for workers is to bond as a mass and demand it. Washington DC won't do it. Your state won't do it. YOU and YOUR NEIGHBORS and YOUR COUNTRYMEN have to do it. One giant mass FUCK YOU is about all that will create change.

Don't buy their slave made shit.
Don't shop at their slave labor stores.
Don't feed the beast by taking on debt.
If you are stuck working for a slave labor type employer give them only a fair work for whatever they pay you and do everything you can to get out of that situation.

Consume less and buy fair labor made goods from sources that treat workers fairly.

Talk it, walk it, live it. Loudly or quietly I don't care but only as a mass are we going to make any change.

[madokie]

1. No doubt about that

[JNelson6563]

2. I'm with you!

While I do not foresee a mass strike anytime soon, it is very realistic to aim at peoples' buying habits. To affect change on a large scale will actually require a large, long-term effort. We can all start with ourselves, of course, but then we have to do all we can to influence others.



Julie

[Kalidurga]

3. This is what I have been telling people for a while now

I am starting to cook more from scratch. I know it's not much, but every little bit helps. People started doing this enmass a while back because of the economy, but I would like to see people keep doing it. I would like to see people doing this to reach a goal like hey lets see how much money we can keep out of the hands of the 1%.

[LiberalLoner]

20. +1 I do that too, also have a small garden.

[RadicalGeek]

4. Easier Said Than Done Though

Unless the economy of the Zero Marginal Cost Society takes hold.

And even then, there's the matter of infrastructure

[NYC_SKP]

5. "Washington DC won't do it." Hell, they own most of Congress.

Don't buy their slave made shit.
Don't shop at their slave labor stores.
Don't feed the beast by taking on debt.
If you are stuck working for a slave labor type employer give them only a fair work for whatever they pay you and do everything you can to get out of that situation.

Consume less and buy fair labor made goods from sources that treat workers fairly.

Talk it, walk it, live it. Loudly or quietly I don't care but only as a mass are we going to make any change.

[ancianita]

6. Has there ever been a successful national work stoppage event? Or national tax strike?

Those would seem to be the big "fuck you"s.

It's a big country. So, using your cockroach/parasite analogy, it seems that the only way to change their ways is to deal with the whole building all at once, "as a mass," which is why I raise the above possibilities.

While I can appreciate all your suggestions, and have lived by them, I've seen that when it comes to anything other than a war, these allegedly united states have never really been united. Media blackouts about large scale attempts to change the 1%'s practices haven't helped.

[Dustlawyer]

7. The way too do it is to take away their control of government, then bust up the media and

banking oligarchies. You accomplish the former by fighting for and achieving Publicly Funded Federal, State, and Local Elections (PFE's). If they cannot bribe our politicians with campaign contributions they cannot control them (have to address the "Revolving Door" as well)! Then we will have Representative Democracy again.
Once we have PFE's we can accomplish the latter, busting up the media and banking Oligopolies. We can stop the brainwashing because the media use the Public Airwaves. Require truth in the news so they cannot legally lie because they are "Entertainment" (Fox News won an appeal under this reasoning)!
Until we do this we will achieve virtually nothing on Climate Change, public education, infrastructure, wars....

[Octafish]

8. What Dustlawyer said.

Only the Federal government has the authority and resources to level the playing field. Unfortunately, Reagan introduced the idea that they were the problem, not the solution. Ever since, those in power have followed Speaker Sam's adage: "To get along, go along."

Regarding the current crop of corruption (going back to Jan. 20, 1981):

Neil Barofsky Gave Us The Best Explanation For Washington's Dysfunction We've Ever Heard

Linette Lopez
Business Insider, Aug. 1, 2012, 2:57 PM

Neil Barofsky was the Inspector General for TARP, and just wrote a book about his time in D.C. called Bailout: An Insider Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.

SNIP...

Bottom line: Barofsky said the incentive structure in our nation's capitol is all wrong. There's a revolving door between bureaucrats in Washington and Wall Street banks, and politicians just want to keep their jobs.

For regulators it's something like this:

[font color="red"]"You can play ball and good things can happen to you get a big pot of gold at the end of the Wall Street rainbow or you can do your job be aggressive and face personal ruin...We really need to rethink how we govern and how regulate," Barofsky said.[/font color]

CONTINUED... http://www.businessinsider.com/neil-barofsky-2012-8

"Integrity is for paupers." -- traditional saying, ABCNNBCBSFixedNoiseNutworks

[rhett o rick]

41. Exactly correct EXCEPT we have no strategy to " achieving Publicly Funded Federal, State, and Local

Elections (PFE's)." We have no, none, nada, strategies to get our representatives to accomplish what needs to be done.

We must hurt them (legally of course) until they are willing to bargain. It's essential that we align with some of the 1% that recognizes that the current direction will bring about total destruction of our economy and our Democracy. We need another Teddy Roosevelt and/or Franklin Roosevelt. They were members of the 1% that believed in helping person-kind.

[EEO]

9. Mr. Burns

[albino65]

10. There are other small things

that can be done, which if adopted by many can make a difference.

National boycotts that are coordinated through forums. (You can stop buying Koch produced items)

Buying from food cooperatives that are user and producer owned. We are part of one and actually get cash back from purchases we make over time. The co-op also supports low income people with surplus food and a community garden.

Grow some of your own food. You would be surprised by what you can grow in a few raised beds.

If you eat meat, only buy from sources that are local and treat their animals humanely.

Spread the word and encourage each other. (DU)

GOTV (You might not be able to legislate this, but you might change the conversation)

[KentuckyWoman]

55. Victory Gardens.

We won't put big agribusines out of business. And really that's not the goal. But when enough .... one family at a time .... says thanks but no thanks and takes what little cash they have to buy from the farm stand or trade seeds and veggies with the neighbors it does speak to them in a language they understand..... money.

Likewise with money or clothing or anything else. The Mississippi River's biggest floods came about one raindrop at a time.

Thanks for understanding me.....and thanks for doing what you can do.

[JEB]

11. Abbie Hoffman quote:

"My critique of democracy begins and ends with this point. Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce."

[jwirr]

12. Excellent advice. This alone could change a lot of what is wrong.

[marble falls]

13. I am so with you on this. They make money killing us, doctoring us, burying us. We need to get free.

Kick them where it hurts: their wallets.

[raouldukelives]

14. My experiences sadly echo yours. They are laughing at us.

Every dollar into and hour logged in support of Wall St is a direct assault on a sustainable path for our planet and fills the coffers of those dedicated to destroying our hopes and our voice.
We are jumping off a climate cliff. As my mother used to say. "If everyone else was jumping off a cliff, would you?" For most people, it seems the answer is yes.

[hfojvt]

15. nice story

I guess, but everyone else is NOT "starving to death". In fact, not even close. Most people are not even close to starving to death.

And this

"Don't feed the beast by taking on debt. "

Well, it's kinda hard to buy a house or a car without taking on debt, and by buying a house one is able to "not feed" the landlord beast.

As for this

"All my life we've been trying to legislate these parasites into playing fair. You cannot legislate this."

I disagree strongly. You can legislate rules. The problem in my life since the mid 1970s is that these people have taken over the legislatures and have been making laws in their favor. And some presumably well meaning people in the year 2000 "fed the beast" by voting for a 3rd party. And other members of the working class feed the beast by not bothering to vote.

If we don't have enough of a mass to even win elections, then we are not gonna do much with a boycott.

[840high]

43. Once I made a list of

all the companies DU wants to boycott. Can't live like that.

[Glaisne]

16. The stunning success of the 1%ers

Is their success in dividing and polarizing the working class using issues such as abortion, guns, gays, religion, etc. To the point that we hate each other more over these issues than anything else. The working class no longer see their unity as an economic class but are wholly divided among red and blue (for those who pay attention, the remainder are just clueless which works even better for the 1%ers).

The economic royalists learned their lesson after TR and FDR. Back then the working class where united in their economic class and saw very clearly what was happening to them from the economic policies of the economic royalists. They rallied behind the Roosevelts and gave them the political capital to do the right thing for the working class. That would not happen today. The economic royalists learned their lesson and become experts at using propaganda, messaging, buying politicians, rigging or stealing elections and even assassinations (e.g. JFK, RFK, MLK) to prevent the working class in the dark, divided and ever united under an economic agenda again.

[DesertDiamond]

17. So true! Unity is essential! And there is one other thing we need to do.

We need to defeat the three poisons of greed, anger and foolishness. We need to start with ourselves and do a powerful internal revolution, clear out our own darkness. When we do that, it will have a ripple effect to those around us, and the world at large. In Buddhism we call this "doing our human revolution." For a revolution to work, it is about doing our own inner transformation and uniting to defeat injustice. We can do that, and we will! Let's go win!

[logosoco]

18. Very good points!

I have been living this way for many years (reduce, reuse, make do, watch were you buy from), don't know if it has made a difference, because things seem as bad as ever (even more so with so much production leaving the country to slave labor).

My two oldest children had their first jobs in union grocery stores, they did not like paying the dues so much, but understood why it was a good thing.

A few years ago, a roofing company came in to re-do the roofs of the apartment buildings next to our home. Those crews worked very hard. I wanted to ask them if they were paid by the hour or the job, because if it was hourly work, they were working too hard!

I hope to see the day when the big corporations see that by under paying workers everywhere, they have destroyed their own consumer base. It has to happen eventually.

Sometimes I feel like my little steps aren't making a difference, but I will keep at it and show these ways to my grandsons and hope, with everyone else, it will snowball!

[lovemydog]

22. It will snowball logosoco!

Keep on kicking butt! Have a great day!

[pansypoo53219]

19. i gleefully live on the outside of consumerism. i found estate sales. resale clothes.

harder for underwear. ebay makes it getting paid to shop.

[lovemydog]

23. Go commando, if that floats your boat.

[AndyTiedye]

30. No Way My Wife Will Do That

The Koch brothers do own the patents for every kind of breathable, stretchable fabric there is,
It's kind of hard to boycott that entirely.

No way will my wife go braless.

I wear cotton for bicycling, even though it gets soaked with sweat almost immediately,
but I still have to own a few of those padded shorts, and all of those have some lycra.

We buy post-consumer recycled toilet paper and paper towels, in the hope that those aren't made by the Koch empire,
the brand isn't on any of the lists, but nobody seems to know how much of the paper industry the Koch's actually own.
The same applies to many other consumer products.

[BrotherIvan]

39. International Paper I heard is a non-Koch TP brand

For paper towels, we have switched to cloth and it is A-MA-ZING. The kind we have is made for babies, but it never stains, is incredibly absorbant and gets softer with each wash. Seems stupid to buy at first, but since we haven't bought paper towels since we bought them two years ago and they look great still, I can't see when I will have to replace them. And I can use them as dish towels and oven mitts too. Ha!

[lovemydog]

21. I'm with you KentuckyWoman.

I'm doing my best in the wild wild west. Stopped using a big bank. Stopped using credit cards. Stopped taking on debt. Use a local credit union. Consume less than ever. No longer work in a corporate job.

You meet resourceful people who share your interests and are creative at helping you barter and fix things. When I splurge (like getting a new video game or going to a restaurant) it makes it more enjoyable because it feels like a luxury rather than some every day thing.

I agree that this is the most meaningful way to create change. I still vote too - for the most progressive candidate in every election.

Have a good day. Keep kicking ass!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

24. One thing they also believe is if money is rare to the poor it makes their money worth more.

[AikidoSoul]

25. Agree 100% and our family does practice this as best we can

Wish we had a complete list on DU of those brands and companies that are screwing the environment and people in general.

A list. With its own category up in the left hand side of DU's Home Page under TOPICS.

[BrotherIvan]

40. Not a bad idea

But looking for small, family-owned companies isn't difficult. Sometimes they are rwnj, so that's a problem. Look for Made in the USA, shop on Etsy for quite a few things, look online and you will find great deals from small companies with amazing quality made by US workers.

[hamsterjill]

26. Beautiful post!

Well written, absolutely 100% correct, and timely!

DU Recommend!

[highmindedhavi]

27. Stop voting them to office

nt

[taught_me_patience]

28. I disagree with this post

First off, you have too many generalizations and not enough concrete examples nor statistics to back up your post. Here are a couple of concrete examples of 1%ers... I have two family members that are way into the 1%. The first works at an insurance company and the direct result of his labor generated over 40MM in profit to the company and he took home $4MM for the year. Shouldn't we laud the fact the labor was rewarded with a generous cut of the profit. Would you prefer that he made 200k and the company took all the profit for themselves? The second is a small business person who repeatedly risked hundreds of thousands of (personal) dollars and toiled under the most stressful conditions to create a successful business. Often, as a small business owner, he would work 12 hours a day for months straight. Shouldn't that type of risk be rewarded with financial gain?

Secondly, I completely disagree with your solutions.


Don't buy their slave made shit. This will severely limit you to very expensive made-in-america items.
Don't shop at their slave labor stores. Insane... there would be nowhere to shop
Don't feed the beast by taking on debt. Stupid financial advice. There is good debt and bad debt... It would be impossible for most outside of the 1% to purchase a house based on this advice
If you are stuck working for a slave labor type employer give them only a fair work for whatever they pay you and do everything you can to get out of that situation. Nonsense. You should perform the task required by the job description. If it seems like too much work for the pay, then move on.

Consume less and buy fair labor made goods from sources that treat workers fairly. What do you mean by "treat workers fairly"? The statement is so ambiguous? Should I not buy a coffee from starbucks because the barista makes $9/hr? What about the coffee shop where the barista is making $9/hr but the owner is making nothing or losing money? Are you suggesting "fair" is a matter of what percentage of profits workers make?

[KentuckyWoman]

57. I am a business owner.

Your example is someone generated 40 mil in profits and got to keep 4. Not 40 mil in SALES but profits. So you tell me what do you think is so fair about working your ass off and 90% of the wealth you create goes to someone else.

That's horseshit. I own my business. We gross 4-6 mil a year have an open wage policy. Part of the profits go back into the business but most go back to employees. Even at this low level I can promise you no one who works for me is idiotic enough to sit by and put up with me sitting on my butt taking 90% of the fruits of their labor. Anyone who can generate 40 mil in pure PROFIT is going to tell an employer to put up or go get bent. As well they should and proves my point exactly.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

29. Wallyworld has taken away our shopping choices.

There are no alternatives in small towns. We have to buy groceries at at Wallyworld. There are no farmer's markets within fifty miles and I have to drive twenty miles just to get to an evil Walmart. It's easy to tell people to shop at small businesses when you're in the city and they actually have small businesses and people with some wealth/disposable income.

Where I live there is no wealth and the very few small businesses alienate their customers. I have had people in small businesses actually ARGUE with me and my husband. They are incapable of making appointments for definite dates and times to show up. One business (an air conditioning business) called my husband up and griped at him because WE WENT OUT OF TOWN. They can't make appointments. We let them keep the coil they had ordered and didn't get to put in our house because they bitched at us. We used someone else. They are mad about that black guy in the White House and it spills over into everyday life. They're angry all the time.

I have no way of finding clothing not made in sweatshops. I don't want to wear clothes someone else has sweated in and shed dead skin in.

I know how to sew but don't have anywhere to put a cutting board and it would take many hours to make a dress with the proper structure and details. I have an all steel sewing machine made in the 1950s. I know how to do pattern drafting.

There are many financial transactions I cannot make without a credit card. So I pay it off every month.

The OP is talking about things that might be easy if you're in a city.

I'm sick of politically correct goddamn hippie vegans who think you're bad if you don't drive a Prius or a bicycle and shop anywhere but Trader Joe's. We don't have any of these politically correct chains near where I live. I have to drive 150 miles to a Costco.

If I didn't drive a car I would get run over by people who don't look where they are going. I've nearly gotten killed by an old man in a huge pickup when I was driving a small car and he didn't look where he was going. He was stopped to make a left turn and said he "didn't need to look in the direction he was turning". He's gonna kill somebody. I went in front of him when he was stopped and saw his grill right outside my right passenger window. I floored it and saw his front bumper go, in my right side mirror, past my right back bumper by a couple of INCHES. We'd be dead if I hadn't floored it just in time.

[LiberalElite]

50. Kentucky Woman didn't

say anything to warrant this:

"I'm sick of politically correct goddamn hippie vegans who think you're bad if you don't drive a Prius or a bicycle and shop anywhere but Trader Joe's. We don't have any of these politically correct chains near where I live. I have to drive 150 miles to a Costco. "

Just do what you can to subvert the 1%. Is that too much?

Signed,
a " goddamn hippie vegan" who is only sometimes politically correct.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

52. The 1%, the Walton family, has taken away our choices.

You have not given me any concrete solutions to my situation.

I don't know what I can do where I live to subvert the 1%. Nearly all the small businesses are incompetent. I can't even find someone to pull my goddamn weeds in my yard around my flowerbeds. But the poor people here swear up and down they'll work for me for ten bucks an hour and all the ice water they can drink. And they don't show up. If they're so desperate for work why do they promise what they don't deliver? Like telling time and knowing what day it is?

As I said, there are dead downtowns and no local businesses, and the local businesses that are there usually actively alienate their customers. Did you read the part about merchants ARGUING, refusing to make appointments with me and my husband and then wondering why we don't want to deal with them?

Did you read what I said about incompetent local businesses that don't listen to me?

I had three different worthless plumbers dig trenches and look busy and not do what I told them to do to fix my plumbing problem. They won't listen. I refused to pay the last one because he wanted to take out my 40 year old camellia tree that my grandmother planted.
If you want to kill my plants and trees, then you are permanently on my shit list.

We don't have alternatives.

[KentuckyWoman]

58. I really do understand your frustration

I'm sorry you are so frustrated but I'm glad too. Means you care. Nothing I said implied one size fits all so I know your frustration isn't with me. I'm 25 miles from a dollar store. 50 from Kroger and Walmart and Lowes. Yard sale is king here in eastern Kentucky. And yes I've even seen (not bought) 2nd hand undies up for sale when the neighbor's uncle died. (even ickier).

Look you do what you can do.

[blkmusclmachine]

31. The 1% that runs our Government is absolutely sociopathic. I'm convinced of it.

[Doctor_J]

45. A lot of the actual members of th government are too

Look at people like Darrell Issa, Newt Gingrinch, Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz.

[valerief]

32. DON'T SIGN UP FOR THEIR WARS! Only they benefit from them. nt

[Veganhealedme]

33. recced nt

[SidDithers]

53. People deserve a living wage now...nt

Sid

[TBF]

34. You had me at "one giant mass FUCK YOU" -

but this is going to involve a lot more than gardening.

Strikes, sit ins, and breaking shit.

See you on the streets - because that is what it is going to take.

Solidarity.

[calimary]

35. You're being overly generous, KentuckyWoman.

You assume they have a heart in the first place. The answer would be NO.

And instead of "mind" - just change one letter. What they do have, mostly, is "mine."

[stillwaiting]

36. Love your post, but I think we must loudly do this. We must boldly do this.

The only way we can get this country to wake up is to be loud.

We will annoy many, and I don't care. The Tea Party, social conservatives, and libertarians sure as hell don't shut up, and neither will I.

[Dont call me Shirley]

37. I was raised by a 1%er, I know the sociopathy intimately.

1. Enjoy causing others pain (emotional, mental, physical, sexual), in any combination.

2. Enjoy torturing and killing animals.

3. Are only happy after they have caused everyone around them upset.

4. Pathologically lie.

5. Have not true generosity, no concept of sharing, only "give" when they want something of greater value than what they have to offer.

6. Highly manipulative.

7. Intimidation used as a common behavior.

8. Lack compassion, empathy, sympathy, wisdom, intimacy.

9. Intentionally withhold resources from spouses, children, lovers, friends.

10. No sense of personal boundaries "what's mine is mine, what's yours is mine too"

11. No understanding of another persons personal privacy.

12. Highly reactive when they are caught doing something bad.

13. Extremely divisive, probably due to excessive jealousy and envy.

[Melurkyoulongtime]

38. JFCWTBF

is wrong with these assholes?

[Doctor_J]

44. They're sociopaths

No conscience.

[YOHABLO]

42. A good start would be to have some drastic campaign finance reform .. and also pass an

Amendment to the Constitution that would permanently state: that Corporations are NOT People i.e. Citizens United repeal. So how do we get this done. We get out the progressive voters and try to educate the public as best we can. The truth is no longer found in MSM. The truth went Underground.

[MrMickeysMom]

46. This is great advice...

It's hard to get the "don't shop at their slave labor stores", but that's because a pair of work pants can set you back a bunch. The food movement is the answer to SOME of this by teaching people to garden inside and out.

None of it's happening fast enough, but you're right… You have to walk the walk…

[elzenmahn]

47. Money is a form of power...

...and Power DOES NOT CONCEDE WILLINGLY.

Never has. Never will.

It must be DEMANDED and TAKEN. NON-VIOLENTLY. But Taken.

[Phlem]

48. "as a mass"

that's it exactly, hard to get everyone to comply though. That way of thinking can be foreign to *cough* a lot.

[TxVietVet]

49. KentuckyWoman, you tell 'em.

I'm with you. I'm a retired union member. I stand with the working people of America.
Buy AMERICAN MADE.

[RKP5637]

51. Well said! Most have the callous sociopathic makeup that successfully fuels their greed

and compulsions to take more and more and more while rolling over those around them. I have known them, it is a compulsive sickness. And in our society, they are highly rewarded with immense wealth. And many delight in the suffering of others because they have won and the others lost. It is sport to them.

[greatlaurel]

54. Wonderful post. Thank you very much. We must join together and not fall for divide and conquer.

It is so sad to see the number of posts defending the sociopaths. However, this is a great post for exposing those who would work to divide and conquer from within the forum. Well done!

You are right about not spending our limited resources at corporations who work against our well being. Walmart is hurting big time. People are just not shopping there. Look at what Walmart just did to force their workers to buy new uniforms. That is an act of desperation by a corporation that is failing very fast. Darden Restaurants is another right wing outfit that exposed themselves and has lost progressive customers in droves and is now in serious trouble.

[senz]

56. All of this is good, but it cannot succeed unless we use our beautiful government

the way our founding fathers/mothers intended us to use it. We MUST find a way to use the power of the vote to control our own government. We ARE the people. WE are the reason this nation exists. Seriously: they did not fight for the 1%. They fought for US.

The 1% are trying to buy off OUR government (it's called bribery), but if this country, this nation, is to succeed, we must literally muscle them out (we don't have the $$ but we do have the numbers).

We must take back the government. There's no other way.

[sabrina 1]

59. Hoarders of money are disturbed individuals. We are their enablers when

consume what they sell us. Fast Food, Gas, Sugar etc. Starve the beast, become self sufficient. We don't need most of what we buy. Don't blame them, blame those who can't live without the latest IPhone.

[mountain grammy]

60. Considering the original 1% were plantation owners who "worked hard for their fortunes"

while slaves labored in the fields, and convinced the working poor to go out there and fight and die for my rights. When the working poor decide to quit dying for the privileges of the 1% and when we have public financing of campaigns, the system will change. I will go to bed and dream of that miracle..

[marym625]

61. AMEN Sister!

Well said

[Cayenne]

62. Call them something other than 1%ers

My doctor is a one percenter. About $250k puts you into the 1% bracket and that does describe working people.

[Enthusiast]

63. Kicked and recommended!

Right on, KentuckyWoman!