“If we are only organizing for elections, we are not going to win the world that we need.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Part 1 Understanding the situation
I would like to start with some quotes:
“The old right-left business is anachronistic. That is not the way we think about politics any more. It is anti-establishment vs establishment.”Robert Reich
“Americans are not happy. And for good reason: They continue to suffer financial stress caused by decades of flat income. And every time they make the slightest peep of complaint about a system rigged against them, the rich and powerful tell them to shut up because it is all their fault.
One percenters instruct them to work harder, pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stop bellyaching. Just get a second college degree, a second skill, a second job. Just send the spouse to work, downsize, take a staycation instead of a real vacation. Or don’t take one at all, just work harder and longer and better.
The barrage of blaming has persuaded; workers believe they deserve censure. And that’s a big part of the reason they’re unhappy. If only, they think, they could work harder and longer and better, they would get ahead. They bear the shame. They don’t blame the system: the Supreme Court, the Congress, the president. And yet, it is the system, the American system, that has conspired to crush them.
“https://www.nationofchange.org/2019/05/03/the-real-reason-american-workers-have-it-so-hard/
“Bill Whitaker: So should taxes on people like you be raised?
Ray Dalio: Of course.
Bill Whitaker: You say of course.
Ray Dalio: Of course, One way or another, the important thing is to take those tax dollars and make them productive.
Bill Whitaker: Very, very recently the idea has been that cutting taxes on people like you will promote productivity.
Ray Dalio: Yeah, I– I– that– I– that doesn’t make any sense to me at all– any sense at all.
Bill Whitaker: So, it’s gotta be through taxation?
Ray Dalio: Yes. Am I saying something that’s controversial?
“Ray Dalio says wealth inequality is a national emergency
“Political scientists have documented the ways in which money influences politics in certain political systems, converting higher economic inequality into greater political inequality. Political inequality, in its turn, gives rise to more economic inequality as the rich use their political power to shape the rules of the game in ways that favor them—for instance, by softening antitrust laws and weakening unions.
Using mathematical models, economists such as myself have shown that this two-way feedback loop between money and regulations leads to at least two stable points. If an economy starts out with lower inequality, the political system generates rules that sustain it, leading to one equilibrium situation. The American system is the other equilibrium—and will continue to be unless there is a democratic political awakening.”
The American Economy Is Rigged
“Frankly, the only reason anyone in the USA could possibly be happy with their government is due to sheer ignorance of how well people in other nations live.”
Daniel Albert
“American citizen living in Germany here.
I get asked often about how long I will stay in Germany and why Germany. I want to stay indefinitely and the reason why is precisely because the USA is not the best country in the world (there is no such thing). I am treated better and have more opportunities in Germany.”
What is something that you can do in your country that a person in America cannot do? – Quora
“It’s true that they didn’t work much–not by American standards, anyway. In the United States, full-time salaried workers supposedly laboring 40 hours a week actually average 49, with almost 20 percent clocking more than 60. These people, on the other hand, worked only about 37 hours a week, when they weren’t away on long paid vacations. At the end of the workday, about four in the afternoon (perhaps three during the summer), they had time to enjoy a hike in the forest, a swim with the kids, or a beer with friends—which helps explain why, unlike so many Americans, they are pleased with their jobs.”
“The Nordic model starts with a deep commitment to equality and democracy, because you can’t have one without the other.“
After I Lived in Norway, America Felt Backward. Here’s Why.
“When the facts are hidden, that’s the end of democracy.”Jill Wine-Banks
https://sound.wmnf.org/sound/wmnf_181003_110617_radioactivityW1_189.MP318:22
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”Edmund Burke
In 2009 the Democrats had the White House, a solid majority in the U.S. House, and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. The results:
Americans Living in Poverty in January, 2009: 43,000,000
Americans Living in Poverty in November, 2016: 49,000,000
Americans on Food Stamps in January, 2009: 30,000,000
Americans on Food Stamps in November, 2016: 49,000,000
American Homeownership Rate in January, 2009: 67.5%
American Homeownership Rate in November, 2016: 62.9%
American Labor Force Participation Rate in January, 2009: 65.7%
American Labor Force Participation Rate in November, 2016: 62.7%
American Union Members in January, 2009: ~16.1 million
American Union Members in November, 2016: ~14.6 million
Since 2008, all of the gains in the economy have gone to the top 10%, ALL of it, with all but a small fraction of those gains going to the top 1%. NOTHING for the bottom 90%!
As I said before, Obama ran on “hope and change”. The “change” was that instead of the very top getting MOST of whatever economic growth we had, they would instead get ALL of it. That was the “change”. The “hope” was that we would not notice that.
Robert Reich on the Economy, Recession and OWS
And, what was the response of the voting public?
As you might have guessed, this did not solve the problem. Instead, things got even worse. This is because the anger from people who are oppressed does not go away. Instead it is like a volcano that silently builds up pressure until it explodes into an eruption. That is what happened with the “Arab Spring” that touched off Occupy Wall Street. That is what happened with the George Floyd protests. That (along with false beliefs about reality) is also what happened with the storming of the Capitol building on Jan 7, 2021.
So, what is the answer? To understand what is needed, you must first understand why we have this situation in the first place.
Once again:
“The old right-left business is anachronistic. That is not the way we think about politics any more. It is anti-establishment vs establishment.”
Robert Reich
Our fundamental economic problems did not start in 2009. To see how we got here you need to go back much, much further than that, back to before the Revolutionary War.
After the fall of Rome, most of the people of the world were under some kind of centralized authority such as a king or emperor. This was the case in Colonial America where we overthrew the king (establishment) and set up democracy (anti-establishment).
Except that it was not a true democracy. Only white men who owned land were allowed to vote. The king was gone, but in his place there was a new establishment of plutocrats that used their wealth and power to gain more wealth and power. They did this by taking resources that belonged to all of us and using it for themselves. Here is one example of how it worked:
The 100-Year Capitalist Experiment That Keeps Appalachia Poor, Sick, and Stuck on Coal
Why do these resources (land, water, minerals, and so on that existed before Columbus came over and were not being used by Native Americans, as well as knowledge gained from science and technology) belong to all of us? Because, otherwise, either they belong to nobody (in which case nobody should be allowed to use them), or they only belong to certain people (in which case there is no equality before the law).
Remember James Watt – Secretary of the Interior, 1981-1983? He made sure that the time honored tradition of plundering public lands for private profit continued.
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1858691_1858690_1858648,00.html
Another example was the great land giveaway to railroads who were allowed to sell public land for whatever they could get for it and keep all the money for themselves. There were other giveaways of minerals, timber, and many other resources that mostly benefited the rich.
Again, these are our resources, owned by all of us, but going to very few of us.
There were many reforms, from the ending of slavery to the creation of labor unions to allowing women to vote that brought some equality to the picture, most notably the New Deal of 1932 which resulted in prosperity and a rising middle class during the 1950’s – at least for those who were white.
This narrowed the gap between the rich and poor a little bit, but it wasn’t long before that gap was to widen again:
A more recent example is the massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top that occurred from 2000–2009 because of out and out fraud committed by those at the top to steal from those at the bottom.
which lead to the mess we have today. Basically,
1. The top 10% donates money to candidates in both the Republican and Democratic parties so that it does not matter who wins.
2. They then try to get us to think it matters which party wins (it usually doesn’t) and line up about half of us to favor one party and the other half to favor the other party, mostly with social issues that don’t matter much to them, at least not as much as the economic issues that make them richer and richer at our expense.
3. They make sure that third parties are marginalized and powerless.
The result:
40% of Americans do not have $400 for an emergency expense like a car breaking down, despite working multiple jobs.
This is why Donald Trump won. Who bailed out the big banks that did a massive Ponzi scheme that caused 9 million Americans to lose their homes? The Democrats. Who else can you vote for that can win and get into office? The Republicans.
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Part 2 Building the solution
By now, you may feel like this:
But it is nowhere near this hopeless. The good news is there are many things we can do to turn things around and produce a new world of abundance and prosperity for everyone with a cleaner environment and fewer social problems.
The bad news is that it is going to take years of work. However, the results will be worth it.
Here’s what we can do and how we can do it:
Step 1. Learn about science and skeptical thinking.
Here are some good places to start.
https://thelogicofscience.com/
Step 2. Learn about other countries.
Many people in other countries live so much better than we do. They work fewer hours for a higher standard of living. They have better healthcare with better outcomes for half the total cost we pay – including taxes. They have faster internet at one fourth the cost. Their trains are also faster. College education is far more affordable, usually free. The crime rate is much lower. And so on.
How do they do it? For one thing they have more political parties than we do that elect people to office. Most of them have Proportional Representation, where the more votes a party gets the more seats it has in the legislative body.
That can’t be done in the United States without major constitutional changes at both the federal and state levels. However, we can use Ranked Choice Voting to select candidates. For us, it is the key to bringing about a true multi party political system where you need to form coalitions with other parties to get things done instead of everyone either being in your party or the dreaded, evil, other party.
https://act.represent.us/sign/ranked-choice-voting
Step 3. Issues, issues, issues. Learn about them and form issue groups.
Learn about as many issues as you can, especially what we know from other countries. Form issue groups with people who care about them. These groups will form the nucleus you will need to get candidates elected to office who can bring about better policies. Do this NOW. If you wait until there is an upcoming election, you will have waited too long.
“They [people who were not on your side] change when you are there on the ground and doing the work, building the unions, common struggles, tenant struggles, talking to people about health care. It’s a long slog. There’s no shortcuts.”
Max Elbaum
https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-november-9-2020/
How to get grassroots support for progressive policies
https://archives.kpfa.org/data/20201109-Mon0500.mp3
Step 4. Unite the issue groups into a powerful coalition that will change the world.
Whatever issue is the most important to you, not much will be done about it without the help of people who are more concerned about another issue. And, as long as everyone is fact based – science based, wanting what is best for all of us, and understanding that this will take a lot of work, time and patience, we can have a world that is much better than anything that has ever existed before.