Why is it all converging now?

[Stinky The Clown]

Rising energy costs, falling currency values, rising food prices, falling values for private assets.

Etc.

Two words:

Wealth

Disparity

It is not a local issue. It is happening on a worldwide basis.

Why are we afraid of a class war?

What do we have to lose?

[Hydra]

1. 1.

It's converging now by plan

2. We are afraid to stand up for ourselves, and more afraid to stand up for someone else.

I'll just be eating my :popcorn:

I rattled pots and pans for 7 1/2 years now- most people only care when it hurts them, though, and those people don't deserve my help or pity.

[JuniperLea]

2. "They" managed to hide the class war for a long time

Some of it is mistakenly hidden behind racism.

We have nothing; therefore, we have nothing to lose.

I'm ashamed to say it out loud, but I've worked with and for some seriously wealthy individuals and families most of my adult life who count their fortunes in the billions (many millionaires are soon to find they don't have enough money to survive... mark my words) and the thought in the back of my head is that I'll be safe, because I'm the person who gets things done for them... they don't even have to touch their filthy money as long as they have me. Sickening, I know. I feel lame. Self preservation will make you do things you never want to admit.

[lonestarnot]

3. Shock and awe. Naomi Klein, 'Shock Doctrine.'

[Warpy]

4. Chains provide a feeling of security for some people

while change is seen as providing only massive inconvenience.

Fortunately, more and more people are being chafed by their chains and are ready to shed them.

When wealth collects at the top and debt is pushed down toward the bottom, the system will collapse as any top heavy edifice is wont to do.

[Donnachaidh]

5. You have to wake up the dunderheads who still think it's a Republican vs Democratic war

They buy into the *we live in the land of the free* malarkey and still think that what they have to say counts. And as long as they're plugged into reality TV and video games, and they don't lose too much of their *stuff*, they are going to continue to believe it's a red vs blue game.

For some, it's going to take losing everything before they realize we've all been set up, and it started 30 years ago or more. :shrug:

[ThomWV]

6. Remember what Buffett said? Well, their side is winning because our side doesn't fight back.

[grasswire]

7. it's not a coincidence.

Trash the world, buy up its assets for pennies. It has been the path of the elites for centuries. They break the egg, then scramble it.

Democracy appears to have been a fraud perpetrated on us to placate us. Prosperity appears to have been a sop designed to comfort and distract us while they lined up the ducks.

It's gut wrenching to come to that realization.

Skull and Bones society has been teaching its members for generations to manufacture chaos as an opportunity for personal gain.

[bdamomma]

13. your last comment rings true.

and someone once told me if you did research on all the Presidents and VP's one or both came from Yale, or some other ivy league school, it's a frat boy thing and a competition.

[grasswire]

15. if you google "Skull and Bones chaos"

...you will find a lot of references. Here's a tidbit from one:

"
New World Order through constructive chaos


Hegelism is the foundation of the “New World Order” created through the process of “Constructive Chaos”. Papa and Baby Bush, members of the Order of Skull and Bones, are advocates of the “New World Order”. The Bush wars we have seen in the Middle East so far are part of that process of “Constructive Chaos” advocated by Hegelism. This process, not yet completed, makes it imperative that Bush remains president.


Bush, who attended Yale like his father and grandfather, belongs to an order called the “Order of Skull and Bones” whose American chapter was founded and continues to exist in Yale College since 1832. This order was first founded in Germany. It is based on the philosophy of Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, then chairman of the University of Berlin who advanced the theory that the masses must devote their absolute obedience to the State which he called the “final end” in the “march of God in the world”. In this way, Hegel theorised, “The State has the supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State.” Hegelism is the foundation of the “New World Order” created through the process of “Constructive Chaos”. Papa and Baby Bush, members of the Order of Skull and Bones, are advocates of the “New World Order”. The Bush wars we have seen in the Middle East so far are part of that process of “Constructive Chaos” advocated by Hegelism. This process, not yet completed, makes it imperative that Bush remains president. Bush senior’s failure to get re-elected was a setback in the process of the “Constructive Chaos” necessary to create the New World Order."

[GliderGuider]

8. Try this:

Rising world population + rising material expectations leads to us encountering limits to growth in resources & ecology.
The encounter with limits leads to rising social & economic problems.
Those problems lead to us increasing our social complexity to cope with them.
The increase in social complexity leads to an increase in the level of hierarchy to administer the growing complexity.
The increase in hierarchy leads automatically to increasing wealth disparity: wealth and power are drained from the bottom of the hierarchy to pay for the cost of complexity and are concentrated at the top of the hierarchy in the hands of the administrators.

To look at it again in the other direction:

Increasing wealth disparity is an inevitable result of an increase in the degree of hierarchy in a society.
The hierarchies grow to manage increasing complexity.
The complexity comes about as a response to growing problems within the civilization.
The problems are the result of hitting resource and ecological limits.
The limits are encountered because a growing world population wants to increase its material wealth at any cost.


The whole chain of events is inevitable given our culture's "lethal memes": constant growth is the only way humans can live; and the world consists of just two classes of things, humans and resources. There is no technical or political solution possible for this problem, especially when you consider it on a global scale. The USA is just a microcosm of the shared culture that holds sway in every nation on the planet.

[BadgerKid]

10. IOW, he who controls the natural resources, wins.

At least that's my take based on your interesting description.

It's just occurring to me now as I type that therein lies a partial explanation of why we haven't yet nurtured renewable energy. If people were largely self-sufficient, they would be out from under the control of others. Being self-sufficient doesn't provide any guaranties though.

[GliderGuider]

14. Close

In a hierarchic society, those at the top always control the natural resources. They are the keepers of the keys. Whether it's the granaries of early Egypt or today's oil wells and industrial farms, the whole reason to have a hierarchy with a top is to control natural resources.

In a society as big and complex as ours, true self-sufficiency is a mirage.

[LynzM]

9. In a word: GREED.

It is not that there are not enough resources to keep everyone in the world food, clothed, and warm. It is that doing that is not *profitable*, and doesn't allow the rich to get obscenely richer.

[GliderGuider]

12. No, it's the natural dynamics of our global growth culture.

Slapping a moral dimension on it doesn't help. It's an inevitable outcome of the way we view ourselves and the world we live in, and our behaviour resulting from those beliefs.

Wealth disparity always increases in a hierarchic society. Think of Middle Ages feudalism with its mass of dirt-poor peasants and a tiny, obscenely rich ruling class. We're seeing the same situation played out on a vastly larger scale, and it's due to the same impersonal forces. It's not due to a flaw in human nature, it's the natural dynamic of a complex adaptive system stuck in growth mode.

The answer to the problem would be to move to a more egalitarian society, but that's neither politically nor technically possible any more. In fact, it may not have been possible since the development of totalitarian agriculture 10,000 years ago gave humanity the means to outgrow its habitat.

[bdamomma]

11. it is a class war, and it's becoming clearer everyday.