Sunday, January 17, 2010

BACK TO THE DARK AGES

"We have become a nation of fools being ruled by idiots controlled by corporate jackasses." GE 01/02/10

The rich get richer, and the poor keep getting poorer. The religious elite, and corporate America, have a stranglehold on our country and it's elected officials. Everything now is designed to enrich the wealthy and step on the throats of the working poor, and by working poor I mean the 80% of us who don't have any of the wealth.

I found this article in TPJmagazine. The original date it was printed was December 27, 2009. This shows how we are on the path to a return to the Dark Ages and if we don't do something soon, that's just where we will be.

Here's part of the article, the rest can be found here....

THE REINCARNATION OF THE DARK AGES

None Dare Call It RELIGIOUS FEUDALISM

By Loren Adams, 27 December 2009

The king taxed the peasants to poverty while the royals were exempt from paying any. Reason? Unjust tax codes were a design of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. That was the “targeted tax-cut” which invariably became law. “He who hath the gold maketh the rules.”

The Dark Ages was the birthplace of “Trickle-Down Economics.” The caste system was embraced, the church was simply a ruling arm of the monarch, and slavery was legitimatized by the religious righteous.

Republicans constantly decry labor’s “class warfare,” but this is the real war being waged across America. The cultural war is basically a derivative of class warfare – where the ruling class has employed white evangelicals to do their bidding: divide and conquer.

During the Dark Ages, wealth was exclusively inherited, not earned. The legal system was purchased like a commodity resulting in juryless trials, military tribunals, pronouncements by a king acknowledged as sovereign and commissioned by God to rule as if the voice of Providence Himself, executive orders usurping representation, taxation without representation, etc. Anyone disputing the monarch’s sovereignty was designated a traitor and summarily executed, tortured or banished to dungeon. These were the markings of the Dark Ages. Are they not similar to contemporary Republicanism so glaringly demonstrated during the Bush years?

America’s founders rejected the monarchial system where its legitimacy hinged on approval by the religious supremes. The “separation of church and state” concept of the new republic was established for that reason. Now we are sliding back into the realm where the head of state rides to power on a religious beast, where any successful candidate must be approved by the predominant religious system to win. Even our beloved Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign felt he must do pilgrimage to Saddleback Church and later pay homage to Pastor Rick Warren at Inaugural.

The Dark Ages were not only dark from plagues, they were darkened from ignorance, superstition and greed. The religious right denied the world was round; anyone disputing this “God-derived” doctrine was executed or imprisoned. Science was equated with Satanism. Thus, discovery, invention, innovation, and commercialism could not flourish, and the West plunged into poverty. Does America not see the similarity? A religious system that wages war on science, denies climate change, rejects evolution, and edits Texas texts for school children to include praise for Limbaugh, Beck and Palin is a system geared toward destroying not only scientific and environmental thought, but the foundation of economy.

The religious system was USED to gain power for monarchs similar to the way current political operatives USE the religious to further their own aims. In the Middle Ages, the doctrine of the “divine right of kings” precluded civil liberties; the king/queen equaled “divinity.” Potentates (royals) were considered surrogates of God. Power was passed down from father to son — Dynasties divinely ordained by entitlement. So, when we hear of world leaders or presidents bequeathed the title “Man of God,” watch out. It may not be long before civil liberties and human rights become casualties in the name of national unity and security — and with popular support — the masses duped by superstition. Remember the Bush theocratic dynasty.

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Consider this ominous fact: The average American’s income has remained flat since 1977 — 33 years ago, while the income of the richest 1% has more than tripled — 228% (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities). CEOs (corporate executive officers) incomes rose 400% in the 1990s to $10.6 million annual income per capita, while take-home pay for the average American, the 80%, rose zero percent.

Real life experience bears it out. Most Americans don’t enjoy the purchasing power they once did when a one-income family could raise children, purchase a home, car and college education for their kids. Now both parents work (if lucky enough to have a job) and still can’t keep up, resulting in less quality education, poor family relations, rising crime, and an eroding moral foundation.

Some in this country never learn from history. The greedy are blinded to the fact that refusing to care for others less fortunate ultimately leads to their own demise. The underlying truth may be that these tightfisted characters are not so much concerned about accumulating wealth as widening the gap. Yes, they delight in seeing the difference. Class consciousness means more to them than money in the bank. Thus, the motive defines the power struggle.

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The political will of the radical right is more stubborn than ever. Not only do they want to defeat Health-Care Reform, they want to rid the country of any safety-net, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and any other “socialist” program. It’s all “socialism” or “communism” to them. . . “un-American.”

They hide their greed behind such noble causes as “individualism,” “patriotism,” “character & family values” and “national security,” but all the while their ultimate aim is the same. Proudly they wave the flag and claim to be the lead standard bearers for patriotism; all the while we recall they’re missing in action when it really counts; wealthy family ties shield them from risk. Only the rich initiate wars, mostly the poor fight them. The double standard of justice comes from obscene wealth. Principles can be compromised at a price. And so can religion, their primary weapon of choice.

In similar manner, they buy off religious organizations and congressmen, hire the best lobbyists, and manipulate enough voters through the religious system to change laws for their benefit. Their aim? To further concentrate the wealth and leave the rest of the country destitute if need be. Their “compassionate conservatism” is hypocrisy cloaked in a sound-bite.

In future years it will be written that the real enemy of our times was not communism or socialism (as many Tea-Baggers scream), but rather the re-emergence of a form of feudalism in alliance with theocracy or what The Family (“C-Street”) calls “Dominionism.” The Handmaid’s Tale was not too far off.

In place of mote-defended castles surrounded by thatched-roof shanties will be “gated communities” [sporting high-tech surveillance to keep the homeless and servant-class out] surrounded by metal trailer shanties housing 21st Century serfs. Recall “Hoovervilles”? The new shanty-towns should be aptly named “Bushvilles.” We’ve come a long way in 1,200 years or so.


There is a video from Thom Hartmann that runs just over 11 min.

Go read the rest and watch the video.

6 comments:

One Fly said...

Welcome back Gramps!

Riot Kitty said...

Some scary stuff. I wonder why everyone puts up with this shit.

Unknown said...

Yes indeed, scary stuff.

Anonymous said...

Most Americans do not know what the Dark Ages are. They would have to have a grasp on Early Modern European History, in order to recall this era, and then pay attention to our own news and politics long enough, to make the connection.

I ain't holdin my breath.

Welcome Back Gramps!

Grandpa Eddie said...

Thanks, One Fly. It's great to be back.

Riot Kitty: When you say "Dark Ages" to most people, they don't have a clue what your talking about....the rest of us just have to keep fighting against it.

mike302000: Yeah...very scary.

Seeing Eye Chick: Yeah, too many people using the same books they use in Texas.
And thanks, I'm glad to be back.

A World Quite Mad said...

There is a legend, that as Benjamin Franklin was walking out of the Continental Congress, a woman asked him, "Do we have a Republic or a Monarchy?" to which he replied, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

The founders were intelligent people, but they couldn't save us from ourselves. Being closer to the Medieval period than we are, they were painfully aware of what they were turning away from. They had fled the religious wars of Europe, and they wanted something different here. It seems that nothing ever really changes.

I want to clarify one thing though, about the article. The monarchs were actually the ruling arm of the Church, not the other way around as the article suggests. No one ruled without the blessing of the Church. Look at Raymond-Roger Trencavel, who refused to surrender the Cathar "heretics" in his midst, and was betrayed during a parlay with the "army of god" in front of the walls of Carcassonne, taken prisoner, and died in his own dungeon, most think by poison. What is now Southern France was overrun by the armies of the Church for allowing people with heretical beliefs to live there. And when I mean live there, I mean they didn't burn them at the stake. Modern apologists have argued that it was a land war, and well it did become that, but that's not why war was declared, nor why it continued for thirty years and was one of the bloodiest wars in Medieval Europe.

In the medieval period, people scapegoated others, especially Jews. Christians in the Middle Ages murdered Jews en masse. It's called blood libel, that and they believed that the Jews killed Jesus, though this isn't the case, and it's completely erroneous for a number of reasons, not least of which that the Jewish Priests would never have met on the Passover and to suggest it implies an ignorance of Jewish law, and secondly that they would have stoned him had they found him guilty of any religious "crime". The Romans killed him (if he ever even lived), because it was political, but I digress. All of the anti-Semitism of the Medieval period up to the modern era culminated in the Holocuast, and you can take that to the bank.

The point of this is, right now the Religious wingnuts in this country are busy scapegoating Muslims. Humanity has already been down this dark path a few times before now, and for some reason we're almost on it again. We never learn anything. And I think it's a willful ignorance on the part of many. They don't want to know, they don't want to think about it, and they don't want to confront it, because that might mean taking responsibility for it and doing something about it.