The Pitchforks are coming! a warning from a 1% er.

[treelover]

The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats By Nick Hanauer
Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires
June 28, 2014 "ICH" - "Politico" - - You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38938.htm

Quite an unusual article by a multi-billionaire, who argues level of inequality are getting so severe in the U.S that it is moving towards feudal times or at least 1788. In some ways it looks like a spoof but if its true then it is very revealing.

 

[SpookyFrank]

So he'll be giving all his money away tomorrow morning then?

 

[treelover]

Of course he won't, he wants a Roosevelt type New Deal, its his warnings to his peers which is salient

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Another article by him:

"Finally, A Rich American Destroys The Fiction That Rich People Create The Jobs"

http://www.businessinsider.com/rich-people-do-not-create-jobs-2011-12

 

[free spirit]

That's almost exactly what I've been arguing for for years, if we're going to have a capitalist system then let's at least have one that makes some sort of vague sense, neoliberalism is a failed capitalist model that sows the seeds of its own collapse by concentrating wealth in the hands of a tiny minorty at the top who then don't spend the money, and deprives the majority who would spend that money of the means to spend much beyond the bare basics of survival.

It's not just the middle class though, it has to extend all the way to the cleaners and burger flippers, I'm not sure why he singles out the middle class (perhaps as a way of it appearing less radical). Speed of money being recycled around the economy basically, on top of the social justice side of things it makes sound economic sense where neoliberalism doesn't.

 

[treelover]

The 1% will just invest in pitchforks, any opportunity to make a buck

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/03/10/america-police-military-weapons-column/5789445/

btw, maybe this is why U.S police are getting weapons off the military, I thought this was tin foil stuff, but this is from U.S.A Today.

Oh, and U.S universities like Ohio State!

 

[Maurice Picarda]

It's not just the middle class though, it has to extend all the way to the cleaners and burger flippers, I'm not sure why he singles out the middle class (perhaps as a way of it appearing less radical). .

Always remember that Americans mean C1s/C2s by the middle class, rather than Bs.

Excellent article, though, and applies just as well over here. Minimum wage boosts, controls over zero hours contracts: that's the path to deficit reduction.

 

[jusali]

Nice one if this kind of thinking gathers pace we might smash this neo liberal distopia that seems to have so much momentum.
I'm no economist however I am capitalist consumer and even I know filtering all the money to a rich elite at the top is absurd and recipe for disaster.
I liken money to blood (in a capitalist body) if you have to much blood in one place you got an anurism waiting to burst.
Money needs to flow and when it is hoarded, as it is being now by big Corps, banks and the financial elites it only ever ends in dissent and revolution. History shows us that time and time again.

 

[Sprocket.]

The 1% will just invest in pitchforks, any opportunity to make a buck

They would sell us the guns and ammo to revolt against them> They have such good principles.

 

[jusali]

They would sell us the guns and ammo to revolt against them> They have such good principles.

And that would be their downfall Mwa ha h ha ha!

 

[likesfish]

No the police are getting kit off the military because.
The military send out a catalouge full of shiny stuff you can basically have for free if your a police department its cheaper for the US military to give stuff away than store or scrap it.
Most MEN would want a tank if it was free
The fact it cloggs up the garage and is completly fucking useless is niether here nor there military are happy they have palmed junk off on somebody else police chief is happy he got a shiny new toy to pose with till he discover it drinks fuel spares are expensive and its utterly useless

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

They would sell us the guns and ammo to revolt against them> They have such good principles.

They're selling much bigger shit to the military. It's only the NRA types who are silly enough to think they have a real chance.

 

[NoXion]

If overwhelming firepower is all it takes to win, then I wonder how any insurgency or guerrilla group has managed to last more than five minutes?

I'm also pretty disturbed by the amount of glee with which anti-gun US liberals will rub themselves raw over the prospect of NRA types being blown away en masse by the Feds. Quite apart from the ugly classism inherent in the notion that "redneck gun nuts" are universally stupid enough to engage the world's most powerful army in a stand-up fight, it's quite revealing of the liberals' actual rather than professed stance on state power.

Not that I think you're like that YW, but your statement did remind me of something that has niggled me from time to time.

 

[equationgirl]

No the police are getting kit off the military because.
The military send out a catalouge full of shiny stuff you can basically have for free if your a police department its cheaper for the US military to give stuff away than store or scrap it.
Most MEN would want a tank if it was free
The fact it cloggs up the garage and is completly fucking useless is niether here nor there military are happy they have palmed junk off on somebody else police chief is happy he got a shiny new toy to pose with till he discover it drinks fuel spares are expensive and its utterly useless

Most men want a tank? A smidge sexist there, there are times I wouldn't mind a tank myself.

 

[Jeremiah18.17]

Imagine the range of mental states and attitudes in the highest security prisons and secure mental hospitals. Imagine how these people might treat you or your family given the opportunity or motivation....
Then consider for a moment that not only are these attitudes and morals demonstrated by corporations,but that a significant element of the richest and most successful share them - the difference with the incarcerated sociopaths being luck and a certain application of self preservatory intelligence and guile. This should give an idea of the general response of the 0.1 percenters to the repentant billionaire.
A general problem with oppositional movements in History has been incomprehension of the depths to which the human animal can sink given the right environment and opportunity.

 

[Dr Jon]

I wouldn't mind a tank myself.

There was one of these in AutoMart (?) in the early 90's. A group of workmates were thinking of buying it.

 

[likesfish]

Plus there was the killdozer episode when some madman spent a year converting a jcb into an armoured tank and went on a rampage destroying the centre of a town .
Strangely the police had nothing that could stop it.

 

[Idris2002]

Plus there was the killdozer episode when some madman spent a year converting a jcb into an armoured tank and went on a rampage destroying the centre of a town .
Strangely the police had nothing that could stop it.

Are you sure that wasn't an episode of the A-Team?

 

[Sprocket.]

They're selling much bigger shit to the military. It's only the NRA types who are silly enough to think they have a real chance.

I was making the point they are so twisted by greed they would gladly try to profit from their own demise.

 

[likesfish]

Are you sure that wasn't an episode of the A-Team?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer

Read and marvel at The peoples armed nutter Nobody but himself killed $7 million worth of damage
Swat team completely unable to do anything.
Before the bulldozer got stuck they were trying to call in an air strike

 

[Dr Jon]

Plus there was the killdozer episode when some madman spent a year converting a jcb into an armoured tank and went on a rampage destroying the centre of a town .
Strangely the police had nothing that could stop it.

Modelled on the IDF Caterpillar D9?
Perfect for squishing peace activists.

 

[likesfish]

No the idf version isnt armed and surrounded with video cameras and more importantly has a way out the killdozer was a one way trip

Truly the peoples nutter

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I was making the point they are so twisted by greed they would gladly try to profit from their own demise.

Yes, I know. I think they figure there's more money to be made arming both camps. In fact, I'm pretty sure they'd happily get us into a war so they could meet their sales quotas. I'm not certain they haven't done so a couple times already.