Basically, they’re scared….

[Junkdrawer]

Most of us have noticed the HUGE swing to the Right in the media. Now, the concentration of the ownership of the media into fewer and fewer hands explains this bias to some extent, but I think the biggest factor is being ignored.

America is rapidly changing from a middle-class nation to a poor nation with a small middle class and a small but obscenely wealthy upper class. So those with some privileges left are scared shitless that the “great unwashed” will rise and take away those privileges.

Want to know why the Electronic Voting machine scandals go unreported in the corporate media? Do you think those in the media with six and seven figure incomes want democracy when the ranks of the poor grows by leaps and bounds?

Now, this Pseudo-Democracy does have its drawbacks. Power corrupts and absolute power...well you get the picture. So there they sit…allowing, hell contributing, to a level of corruption that would put Ferdinand Marcos to shame, and yet even more afraid of empowering an overwhelming number of poor.

Bill Moyers said the same thing (albeit with more tact) a short while back in his “Losing The American Revolution” speech:

…

Then you open Jared Diamond's new book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail to find the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar's description of an America where rich elites cocoon themselves "in gated communities, guarded by private security guards, and filled with people who drink bottled water, depend on private pensions, and send their children to private schools." Gradually, they lose the motivation "to support the police force, the municipal water supply, Social Security, and public schools." Any society where the elite insulate themselves from the consequences of their action, Diamond warns, contains a built-in blueprint for failure.

…

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2005/06/06/losing_the_american_revolution.php

Look: Either we live in a society where the rulers are held in check or we don’t. You can’t have it both ways. Oh, you might fool the majority into believing the democracy is still alive, but the rulers know damn well that the game is rigged. And they’re the ones we all really need to fear.

[blue cat]

1. I pray every single day

that the truth about Diebold be known.

[scarletwoman]

2. Good post -- thanks!

I appreciate your elucididating this particular facet of the class war.

k & r

sw

[glitch]

11. Second this. K & R nt

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. Industrial England - just as Karl was in London writing down his thoughts

at London School of Economics, was in precisely the same position.

The top layer was petrified that the underclass would rise up and take away their toys and their grandeur, their slaves and their maids. They were, by far, the most pampered in any society, at least at a time when five pounds would equal 6 months of salary for 1/2 of the population, and a bequeath of 50 pounds a year made one rich.

Marx lived in poor circumstances and knew quite well the differences between the classes.
I wonder how badly we need to shake those on top before decent changes start coming?

[Junkdrawer]

5. ...and then Universal Suffrage came along and Reform eclipsed Revolution

Social class

Up until the 19th century, many Western democracies had property qualifications in their electoral laws, that generally meant that only people who owned land could vote. Today, those laws have largely been abolished. However, in some countries the practice still applies, although perhaps unintentionally, as most democratic countries require an address for the electors to be qualified to vote. In practice, this may exclude many who have not the means to own or rent living quarters, such as the homeless. Many countries also discriminate on the basis of criminal or psychiatric record (see below), which are very strongly correlated with class and race.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffrage

We used to be proud of that. How many history lectures have you heard that crowed "Marx never anticipated the reform of Capitalism"?

So what do we do? We destroy the very thing that made reform possible.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. great point. We are seeing the very dismantling of our success at this

very minute.

[oneighty]

4. And the meek shall inherit the Earth

Hey maybe so I say unto thee that bear false witness.

Holy shit!

180

[KoKo]

6. TIVO is taking their "Advertising Revenue" away from them..they are very

scared. Hence the movement to go against the Bloggers who are getting the TRUTH OUT TO POWER.

The OLD GUARD knows they are "dead on the Bush Empire" and they see it all imploding before their eyes.

Why else would Wolf Blitzer have to work 6 DAYS A WEEK ON CNN if they could afford someone else? What's with that.

Why else would MSNBC be doing TABLOID TV? and CNBC going with "Woosh Sounds" in it's reporting of Dow/Nasdaq so that the "kids/traders" will think they are really the "KOOL KIDS" on the block.

Check out this post as to what's happening with our Internet Bloggers:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/06/03/01_blogosphere.html

[OffWithTheirHeads]

7. One of my favorite Gore Vidal quotes

"If the poor knew how much fun the rich were having, they would rise up and eat them."

[Junkdrawer]

9. .

[Junkdrawer]

12. .

[Junkdrawer]

13. .

[stop the bleeding]

10. Yep - you said it, good post

[TahitiNut]

14. "Any society where the elite insulate themselves from the consequences ...

"Any society where the elite insulate themselves from the consequences of their action, Diamond warns, contains a built-in blueprint for failure."

Amen!!! That's absolutely correct! :thumbsup: