We've lost balance that made us great - Anchorage Daily News

[Blue_In_AK]

Elise Patkotak writes another great opinion piece about the Occupy movement. She's been on a roll. I think this is about the fourth in a row.

http://www.adn.com/2011/11/01/2150071/weve-lost-balance-that-made-us.html

Many people who read my column last week felt that I was selectively picking the revolutions that fit my preconceived notion of the problems America faces today. Sure, they said, there was the French Revolution. But what about Cuba and China and Russia? Those revolutions led to communism. And what about South America and Africa where so many revolutions led to despotic rulers?

Well, folks, I'm here to tell you that you are all right. Because the point is not the revolution. The point is what caused the revolution. In each and every case you had a powerful and rich elite controlling the political and financial life of a country. And you had another group of people with nothing left to lose.

<snip>

Here's how I view this situation. Picture a seesaw. On one end are the poor. On the other end, the rich. In the middle, holding everything steady, is the middle class. Throughout the 20th century, this middle class grew and prospered and, as it did, it created one of the greatest countries this world has ever known.

But now something's changed. The rich and poor still occupy opposite ends of the seesaw but the balance has gone awry. The rich have become so rich, their end has soared into the air. The poor have become so poor that their end is solidly planted on the ground. And the middle class? Well, unfortunately, their place in the middle meant that when the tip occurred, they slid downward toward poverty. The balance they provided is being lost.

<snip>

I too want to take back my country. I want to take it back from corporate greed and politicians who have sold their souls for a chance at power. Corporations are not people. And all revolutions are not the same except for the roots most share -- the desire of the common man to wake up in the morning with some hope that today will be better than yesterday and tomorrow will be even better than today.

Take that away and people will have nothing left to lose.

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2011/11/01/2150071/weve-lost-balance-that-made-us.html#ixzz1cZbhg8mF

[tabatha]

1. Yep, exactly.

What we have seen is the Gaddafination of the US by the no-taxes Koch brothers.

[DeSwiss]

2. K&R

People easily confuse the form of governance with monetary systems. But given the paucity of education in America at-large, this is understandable.

It matters not what form of government is applied on the top, its the underlying concentration of power that controls it that matters. All governments and their monetary systems are creatures of those who control the power, no matter what form of democracy (or lack thereof) appears to be its foundation. The true foundation is based upon those who hold a nation's wealth.

And I'm not sure if Americans can wake-up in time to do anything at this point. It seems that only catastrophes can force our ignorance of each other and the stereotypes labelled onto the differing groups by the TPTB to keep us fighting each other and not them, has been able to galvanized "we the people" into a single focus.

The bullshit lies about 911 haven't done it. The Iraq War WMD lies haven't done it. Torturing our ''enemies'' hasn't done it. Building torture prisons hasn't done it. Using Predator drones to kill innocent babies hasn't done it. Trillion-dollar thefts of taxpayers money hasn't done it. Surveillance of our phone calls, our emails -- of us, that hasn't done it either.

One day Americans may wake-up to realize that the system they've bought into was never going to work because it was flawed from the start. And everything, every upheaval and conflict we've suffered through until this day, have been the result of those flaws existence.

- But if they do wake-up it'll very likely be only because it it to late to do anything too change it......

Today we use paper proclamations to denote a person's so-called 'rights.' And just like laws, they are culturally biased, artificial concoctions which attempt to solve recurring problems by simply declaring something with words on paper. Rights, in fact, have been invented to protect ourselves from the negative byproducts of the social system itself. And once again instead of seeking a true solution to a problem, we invent these patches by way of paper proclamations in an attempt to resolve them. This does not work. It has never worked. There is really no such thing as an inalienable right outside of the culture in which it is assumed. We are making this up. Therefore liberties need to be inherent in a social system by design not alluded to ambiguously on paper.

In the Bill of Rights of the United States, there is an attempt to secure certain freedoms and protections by way of mere text on paper. Now while I understand the value of this document and the temporal brilliance of it in the context of the period of its creation, that does not excuse the fact that it is a product of social inefficiency and nothing more. In other words, declarations of laws and rights are actually an acknowledgment of the failures of the social design.

There is no such thing as 'rights' - as the reference can be altered at will. The fourth amendment is an attempt to protect against state power abuse, that is clear. But it avoids the real issue, and that is: Why would the state have an interest to search and seize to begin with? How do you remove the mechanisms that generate such behavior? We need to focus on the real cause.

I’m not saying that laws and rights are not needed at this time. They certainly are. But we need to hone our focus toward solving the actual problems. And by the way for all the nationalists out there, I'm not attacking the US Constitution. However, it's not the answer. It's naive to think that this document has that much relevance. I am a fan of people like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, I believe that there is a place for the work that they do. But it's not the answer. The history of America is just like the history of every other country on this planet: It is a history of deception, fraud and corruption. There is nothing to 'return to' for the integrity was never there to begin with. We must move forward, not backwards.

We have to understand that government as we know it today, is not in place for the well being of the public, but rather for the perpetuation of their establishment and their power. Just like every other institution within a monetary system. Government is a monetary invention for the sake of economic and social control and its methods are based upon self-preservation, first and foremost. All a government can really do is to create laws to compensate for an inherent lack of integrity within the social order.

In society today the public is essentially kept distracted and uninformed. This is the way that governments maintain control. If you review history, power is maintained through ignorance. ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPmHaTirnCc">Peter Joseph

[roguevalley]

3. awesome, blue