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Another small business owner as PILOT in the novel SULFUR SPRINGS was JOCKO-----another VET having served as helicopter/plane now having a small plane doing local flights for hire. JOCKO was BORDER ANGEL helping PETER protect immigrant refugees being killed in large numbers by brutal drug cartels, coyotes, and the law enforcement trying to capture those groups. JOCKO was worried his business would disappear if he was caught being BORDER ANGEL.......SIERRA the owner/operator of ROSITA'S CANTINA was worried her business would fail if the 'BAD GUYS' were brought to justice.
We have discussed in detail the connection of global hedge fund corporation HARVARD with all that is ROBBER BARON global banking 1% NEO-LIBERAL activities like that in JAYNE the Wall Street banking financial player and as with MAYOR MARION the rich real estate developer---but also, HARVARD is big with FOREIGN SOVEREIGNTY OF MALTA HOMELAND SECURITY training the executives becoming our US city/county police chiefs US BORDER PATROL. We spoke of a POLICE CHIEF BATTS trained at HARVARD to install DEEP, DEEP, REALLY DEEP STATE while being found connected to CORRUPT COPS inside Baltimore Police Department.
'Prior to joining Border Patrol, Chavez worked as a police officer in Texas. She is a senior executive fellow of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University'.
Above we see CHAVEZ having taken that same education route----having ties to the very institutions behind ARIZONA MAFIA----CLINTON/BUSH corruption at our US border. JOCKO the pilot was more concerned by the corrupt SULFUR SPRINGS police and BORDER PATROL telling PETER---TRUST NO ONE.
Now, is CHAVEZ definitely bound to sustain the corruption in US BORDER PATROL? The question is this---why would we go to what we know is a CRIMINAL GLOBAL BANKING 1% institution for our law enforcement. If I were a US or immigrant 99% of citizens black, white, and brown citizens I would not see this as a PLUS.
HARVARD/YALE are the source of OPIUM WARS on US----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA grad from Harvard/Yale had no intentions of winning WAR ON DRUGS----they created the corruptions inside law enforcement to assure those global banking 1% drug cartels operated freely--you know, all that far-right wing LAISSEZ FAIRE.
El Centro Border Patrol gets new chief
Kate MorrisseyContact Reporter April 9, 2018
El Centro's new Border Patrol Chief has experience working on both the border with Mexico and the border with Canada.
She's also the only woman currently serving as a sector chief for Border Patrol, according to personnel listed on the agency's website.
Gloria Chavez, who began as the new chief at the beginning of April, started her career in the agency in 1995 at the Imperial Beach station, part of the San Diego Sector. She made her way up the ranks, first in San Diego and then in Washington, D.C..
While a spokeswoman for the San Diego sector, she defended the agency against criticism for its Temecula-based Mobile Patrol Group, a 12-agent unit that arrested hundreds of immigrants through sweeps, mostly in North County.
At headquarters, she managed border security training missions and was part of negotiations with Mexico on policy and training agreements.
She returned to San Diego to run the communications and community engagement department and was then put in charge of the Chula Vista station. Her arrival "reinvigorated the relationship" between Border Patrol and the community because of her attention to public outreach, according to a press release announcing her assignment as El Centro chief.
She became chief of the Spokane sector in Washington state in 2010.
The Spokane sector has seven stations along the Canadian border. In fiscal 2014, the last full year that Chavez was in charge, Spokane had 244 agents assigned, and those agents apprehended 269 people crossing the border illegally, according to the agency.
In 2015, Chavez returned to the nation's capital to serve as deputy chief for the Law Enforcement Operations Division, overseeing operations and intelligence programs for 20 sectors.
"I am ecstatic about assuming command of the El Centro Sector and becoming part of this great, tightknit community", Chavez said.
The El Centro sector had 870 agents in fiscal 2017, and its agents apprehended 18,633 people along its 70 miles of border.
A news release announcing Chavez's appointment praised her community relations work.
"Chief Chavez' dynamic and diverse leadership coupled with her love for community engagement will ensure the continued success of the El Centro Sector for years to come," the release said.
Prior to joining Border Patrol, Chavez worked as a police officer in Texas. She is a senior executive fellow of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
JOCKO the pilot helping CORK AND RAINY to find their son PETER ---JOCKO/PETER both BORDER ANGELS----JOCKO was aware of the dangers of BORDER PATROL DRONES knowing with the corruption in law enforcement while not knowing the BAD GUYS no one was able to trust whether these DRONES were doing good work or bad. The intel collected by DRONES is often shared broadly inside a PATROL operation and indeed that intel is sold to drug cartels by corrupt law enforcement. JOCKO with his landing strip for his small business had to fight to keep drug cartels and their planes off----fight the surveillance of DRONES of all his business operations ----making doing business in SULFUR SPRINGS for honest business people impossible.
We speak often of the coming abuse from what is one aspect of DEEP, DEEP, REALLY DEEP STATE-----having our US airways filled with HOMELAND SECURITY DRONES. When the agencies are CORRUPT tied to all that LYING, CHEATING, STEALING----ALL THAT SACKING AND LOOTING AND BRINGING AMERICA TO COLONIAL STATUS----one does not TRUST these public policies which as well are killing JOCKO'S small business piloting jobs.
JOCKO as former military pilot knew the dangers of corruption and knew these policies were killing the local 99% of WE THE PEOPLE more than helping.
It's obvious to all our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and our new to US immigrant citizens black, white, and brown
"Once you have drones for this one purpose, you could start to use them more often domestically, and then they become part of an ever more militarized police force," he told NBC News. "That is a trend to be concerned about."
Eyes in the Sky: Are Pricey Border Patrol Drones Worth the Money?
Jul.13.2014 / 12:16 PM EDT / Updated Jul.13.2014 / 4:02 PM EDT
High above the U.S.-Mexican border, Predator drones fly in relative quiet. They are the Border Patrol's sentinels in the sky as thousands of immigrants flood over the invisible line dividing the two countries and a political firestorm over what to do about the crisis rages in Washington.
The bird's eye view afforded by drones doesn't come cheap. The White House wants an additional $3.7 billion to deal with the current crisis, with $39.4 million committed to air surveilla
"Border Patrol wants the money and it wants the drones," Gregory McNeal, a law professor and drone expert at Pepperdine University, told NBC News. "This is the kind of crisis where, if you are Border Patrol, you seize the opportunity to get more funding from Congress."
With a wingspan of 27 feet and combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator is the most recognizable technological tool at the Border Patrol's disposal. But the agency has other gadgets it uses to look for immigrants and drug traffickers crossing the border.
Like the Predator, the Raven is widely used by the military. It's a much smaller drone — only 4.5 feet across — meant to be thrown into the air, providing a bird's-eye view of the surrounding area for over an hour. If a Border Patrol agent gets intel on action on the border, he or she can simply drive to the general area, pull a Raven from the back of the truck, and fling it into the air to see what is happening nearby
Suspicious vehicles stopped at the border sometimes get a visit from a Z Backscatter Van — essentially an X-ray machine on wheels. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spent $5 million on them last year to scan vehicles for contraband. (They could one day be replaced by handheld "X-ray guns," which just hit the market last month).
This year, Border Patrol agents began using wireless, camera-equipped robots to explore cross-border tunnels meant to sneak people, drugs and weapons into the country. Also new is radar surveillance equipment that can detect people as far as seven miles away while mounted on trucks and tripods.
No new piece of technology, however, has the had the impact that the large Predator drones have. But does the United States need to spend millions more to keep them in the sky?
"This is a better way to patrol the border than helicopters," McNeal said. "It's not a comprehensive immigration solution or border security solution, but more surveillance time in the air will help plug gaps in the border."
A typical Predator drone can fly for 12 hours before landing, compared to three for a standard helicopter. Not that they are always in the air.
The CBP's drone program was criticized in 2012 when a report from the Office of the Inspector General found that they were only in the air about 40 percent of the time that they were projected to fly, leading defense analysis firm Market Info Group to speculate that the Border Patrol was flying drones "because their politicians forced them to rather than because they want the robotic aircraft."
Predator drones are not cheap. They take a crew of between five to eight people — plus maintenance staff — to operate, coming out to about $3,000 an hour to fly. That is after the initial $18 million price tag.
Opinion is split as to whether they are worth it. William Hartung, of the Center for International Policy, told NBC News in an email that they are a "waste of money."
"They are basically the equivalent of very good flying cameras, but they can't be everywhere all the time," he wrote.
Others, like McNeal, argue that "they don't cost more than manned helicopter flights for the same duration of surveillance," noting that helicopters seem cheaper because they fly for less time and therefore cost less overall.
Ryan Calo, a drone expert and assistant professor of law the University of Washington, thinks the drones can be effective, but worries about how they might be used in the future after reports of them being rented out to agencies like the FBI and local sheriff's departments
We like to remind our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and new immigrant citizens that what were strong IVY LEAGUE academies have been dismantled and made simply global banking 1% myth-making and propaganda---FAKE NEWS meets FAKE DATA----graduating most of those global banking 5% freemason/Greek players who DO NOT CARE.
When we see WALL STREET JOURNAL ---or US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT give what are now simply global HEDGE FUND CORPORATE R AND D ----patent machines a top rating---it is because they are FINANCIALIZED----that is the opposite of being a strong education academy.
For 300 years we have thought of our US IVY LEAGUE universities as a source of good policy----a source of sound reasoning----these few decades of ROBBER BARON sacking and looting bringing US to colonial status---killed our US IVY LEAGUE schools. MOVING FORWARD those grads becoming 5% freemason/Greek players will be great big LOSERS.
TODAY, IT IS THE PIPELINE OF EMPLOYMENT FROM THESE FORMER IVY LEAGUES FILLING OUR US GOVERNMENT AGENCIES WITH THE CRIMINALITY, CORRUPTION, DISREGARD FOR HUMAN/ENVIRONMENTAL LIFE---YOU KNOW, THE ARIZONA, TEXAS, NEW MEXICO MAFIA.
Harvard Stays on Top of WSJ/THE College Rankings
The big names distinguish themselves, but so do some hidden gemsLocal schools earn spots on WSJ ranking of top U.S. colleges
By Angela Mueller – Reporter, St. Louis Business Journal
Sep 28, 2017, 8:07am
Washington University was Missouri's top-ranking school in a newly released list of the nation's top colleges from the Wall Street Journal.
Washington University came in at No. 11 on the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings, with an overall score of 87.5 out of 100. The ranking uses a scorecard that looks at 15 performance indicators, ranging from the school's academic reputation to its level of available resources to students' satisfaction and engagement with their studies.
Saint Louis University ranked at No. 105 on the list, and Maryville University came in at No. 468.
Harvard University came in at the top spot, with an overall score of 91.9, followed by Columbia University with a score of 90.6
Washington University ranked first in academic spending per student, adjusted for regional price differences, spending $159,100 per student. Provost Holden Thorp told the Wall Street Journal that the university attributed the higher spending rate to smaller class sizes and an 8-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio.
View the full list here.
What Clinton/Bush did these few decades of killing our strong Federal Small Business Association that promoted REAL LOCAL, DOMESTIC FREE MARKET ECONOMIES opportunity and access installing these SBAIC-----INTERNATIONAL SMALL BUSINESS ASSOCIATION geared to installing global corporate subsidiaries and making them appear 'local, domestic, small business'.
We always define global banking 5% players installed as CORPORATE CEOS-----defined as exceptional geniuses behind patents and businesses they had NOTHING to do with creating-----those BILL GATES, ZUCKERBERG, BLACKWATER.ZE/INTERNET AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY----as figureheads. What was public domain business development was sold to global banking 1% families. To capture so many of US 99% citizens to being those global banking 5% freemason/Greeks killing our US sovereignty----they simply expanded those PATENT giveaways ----that are PATRONAGE ECONOMIES. PATRONAGE ECONOMIES kill real domestic, local economies as here in BALTIMORE MD.
A friend comments:
'Seems like thise scooters and those bikes are a great way of paying back money to people who contribute to campaigns. Just like all the extra lights up and down route 40 helps BGE bill for.more money'
We like this product----it is a fun source of transportation that is not PUBLIC----and we stated right away---our Baltimore bicycle chop shops will be throwing them in their trunks ---but that is OK because tens of millions of dollars was sent to the corporation tied to this patent---that corporation often being a FREEMASON/GREEK organization.
Absolutely no value to 99% of Baltimore citizens as a local economy because we already know these products will not remain on streets.
'Bird has a similar model to Uber and Lyft when it comes to employing local residents to become "chargers." '
What You Need to Know About Bird Electric Scooters
After troubleshooting in other cities, the scooter-sharing company launches in Baltimore.
By Michelle Harris | July 3, 2018, 11:55 am
We've all been there—our destination is too far to walk, but not far enough to drive. In times like those, using a ride sharing service like Lyft and Uber may come in handy, but you're still dealing with Lombard Street traffic.
Bird, a California-based company, is hoping that Baltimore residents will see its electric scooters as the next best option.
"It's clear there's an urgent need for additional transit options in Baltimore, and Birds are a great solution for short 'last mile' trips," said company spokesperson Rebecca Hahn. "As summer heats up, Bird offers a convenient alternative to sitting in traffic or sweating through a walk or bike ride."
What is Bird?
The pilot launched in Baltimore last week with more than 60 electronic scooters placed throughout the Inner Harbor, Harbor East, and Fells Point. Unlike the city's current Bike Share services, these scooters are completely dockless. Riders can just leave them anywhere when they're done, and someone will collect it. They can be rented for just $1 to start, plus an additional 15-cent per minute using the mobile app.
Each scooter is calibrated to go a maximum of 15 mph and can travel up to 15 miles on a single charge. After facing regulatory issues in San Francisco with scooters popping up everywhere and littering the streets, Bird decided to remedy this problem in other cities moving forward by only allowing rides during the day. The cut-off every night is sunset, when scooters are collected and charged overnight and are redelivered the next morning at 7 a.m. to various "nests" around the city.
Who collects them?
Bird has a similar model to Uber and Lyft when it comes to employing local residents to become "chargers." A charger is a person who collects the scooters each day and charges them overnight. A charger can make anywhere between $3 to $20 per scooter, and it typically will only cost them 8 to 15 cents to charge. If hired, Bird will mail all equipment needed to charge the scooters.
"Becoming a charger is a great way for someone to make extra money while they sleep," Hahn said. "People can pick up as many Birds they want on any given day—or none at all."
How do the scooters work?
While the scooters are pretty simple to operate—just a few pushes and it's good to go—there are some rules and restrictions that come along with them. For example, the rider must by 18 years or older, have a valid driver's license, and wear a helmet while riding (Bird offers them for free on their website).
Residents in other cities have also been concerned with reckless driving of the Birds, but the company has added safety regulations. Riders must obey traffic signs and laws and restrict the use of the scooter to designated bike lanes—never the sidewalk. The same consequences (traffic tickets and fines) apply.
"Right now, more than a third of cars trips in the U.S. are less than two miles long," Hahn said. "Since launching here, we've been inspired by how people throughout the community have adopted our environmentally friendly transportation solution to get where they need to go, which is reducing traffic and cutting carbon emissions."
What does Bird mean for Baltimore?
Bird launched in September 2017 and is led by a former Uber and Lyft executive Travis VanderZanden. According to Bloomberg, the startup is raising $150 million in financing that will value the company at $1 billion. So far, fleets of scooters have popped up in several cities including San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Atlanta.
Although the Baltimore City Department of Transportation (DOT) was not involved in the rollout of the program, it is supportive of alternative means of transport in the city.
"[We] support multimodal alternatives and believe that this technology can expand transportation options to the residents, businesses, and visitors of Baltimore," said DOT communications officer German Vigil in an email. "We also see the potential of a new mobility pilot project and are in the process of investigating the effectiveness of a program such as this."
Remember a few years ago when Baltimore announced as yet another FAKE GREEN policy tied to pretending they wanting BICYCLES and promoted BIKE LANES and filled our curbs with specially assigned bike racks ---and we shouted this was FAKE public health public transportation policy. We even showed an article with photo from CHINA showing a massive mound of just those same BIKES----as trash. We went through one round of those BIKES being stolen then not long after replacing them those BIKES ARE NOW GONE replaced by these BIRD SCOOTERS. The amount of Baltimore revenue that goes into one patent product after another installed simply to move millions of dollars to those patents almost always tied to global hedge fund IVY LEAGUE schools----is MASSIVE and it kills our local, domestic Baltimore economy because these patents are tied to global technology corporations.
We already know these BIRDS will not be maintained---the technology will fail in only a few years. This is PATRONAGE ECONOMY-----which exists in third world nation and is 1000BC years old.
What is the goal of turning over policy after policy calling it responding to changing markets? DEREGULATION AND PRIVATIZATION of our public sidewalks and curbs being set aside for these global corporate patents
'and the Mayor and Director should be commended for responding to the changing market by welcoming dockless operations while providing fair and reasonable regulations."'
All of this is what has global banking 5% freemason/Greek fingers flashing all kinds of signs--creating all kinds of handshakes----filled with LYING, CHEATING, STEALING----CRIMINAL AND CORRUPTION in our local Baltimore economy----looking just like SULFUR SPRINGS.
Baltimore City Launches Dockless Technology Pilot Program
Wednesday Aug 15th, 2018
Baltimore Bike Share program to be replaced with multi-mode bike/scooter options
(BALTIMORE, MD) Mayor Catherine E. Pugh and Transportation Director Michelle Pourciau today announced a new dockless pilot program for the City of Baltimore in partnership with Lime, a bike and scooter start-up, and with Bird, the electric scooter start-up, which will provide citizens and visitors with expanded transportation sharing options across the city.
"Responding to the needs of those in our city who desire efficient, accessible and low-cost modes of transportation is the basis of these new partnerships," said Mayor Catherine E. Pugh. "We're confident that these new dockless options will actually expand transportation access for residents and visitors across our city. In the meantime, we'll continue to assess the demand for these and other innovative options as a 21st century city determined to serve the varied transportation needs of all who live, work, study and visit here."
For the past several months, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has received strong interest from private dockless bikeshare and scooter companies that wish to operate in Baltimore. As a result, DOT is initially partnering with Lime and Bird in a pilot program to provide access to both dockless bikes and scooters including electric assist bikes and scooters. During this pilot period, DOT will assess and evaluate the effectiveness of a dockless program which will serve to inform the development of appropriate regulations.
The Department of Transportation and Bewegen will be mutually ending the current Baltimore Bike Share program. DOT and Bewegen Technologies, Inc. fully understand the unique situation and challenges Baltimore Bike Share has encountered since its launch in 2016. Moreover, the current bike share program is not able to meet the growing demand for rental bikes. Consequently, the Department of Transportation has ended its contract with the program vendor, Bewegen and will cease operations today, August 15, 2018. Bewegen will remove the existing bike share inventory by Friday August 17, 2018. Citizens who have purchased Baltimore Bike Share memberships should contact the Department of Transportation at (410) 396-6802 by September 30, 2018 for refund information.
"We are confident that this new partnership with Lime and Bird will enhance transportation options to a great many more citizens across our city," said Michelle Pourciau, Director. "The Department of Transportation will be evaluating the effectiveness of dockless technology in order to provide the citizens of Baltimore with a dockless program that enables bike and scooter share systems to operate without physical stations. Our ultimate goal is to give the citizens of Baltimore the ability to access a robust dockless program that works for everyone."
"The city's approach to alternative transportation such as bikeshare continues to evolve," said Jon Laria, Chair of the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Commission. "Today's announcement is a positive step towards enhanced mobility for all Baltimoreans, and the Mayor and Director should be commended for responding to the changing market by welcoming dockless operations while providing fair and reasonable regulations."
One thing JOCKO of SULFUR SPRINGS knew-----if systemic criminality and corruption within government agencies partnered with global drug and gun cartels did not push his small business piloting into bankruptcy----those DRONES and pilot-less planes filling the skies at the US BORDER would. JOCKO spent most of his energy trying to avoid being surveilled because businesses hiring him do not want the details of their operations recorded---no one wants to be surveilled.
JOCKO being that baby boomer old-timer fought hard for justice not only for LATINO refugees but fighting hard the corruption he knew existed in LAW ENFORCEMENT ----SIERRA of ROSITA'S CANTINA struggled under the oppression of fear and TRUST NO ONE-----but was not the fighters CORK, RAINY, JOCKO were. When we allow the same global banking 1% ROBBER BARON corporations be installed in any number of ways trying to make them look local---domestic---small business as is MOVING FORWARD in all US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES------we cannot have REAL domestic free market economies ergo---we will never participate in the economies being built ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FOR ONLY THE GLOBAL 1%.
TRUST NO ONE says JOCKO-----TRUST NO ONE says SIERRA-----as small business owners in SULFUR SPRINGS.
Forget driverless cars, pilotless planes are coming
June 8, 2017 | 5:08pm
A Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner performs at the Paris Airshow in 2015. Getty Images
Boeing is looking ahead to a brave new world where jetliners fly without pilots and aims to test some of the technology next year, the world's biggest plane maker said in a briefing ahead of the Paris Airshow.
The idea may seem far-fetched but with self-flying drones available for less than $1,000, "the basic building blocks of the technology clearly are available," said Mike Sinnett, Boeing's vice president of product development.
Jetliners can already take off, cruise and land using their onboard flight computers and the number of pilots on a standard passenger plane has dropped to two from three over the years.
Sinnett, a pilot himself, plans to test the technology in a cockpit simulator this summer and "fly on an airplane next year some artificial intelligence that makes decisions that pilots would make," he said.
Self-flying aircraft would need to meet the safety standards of air travel, which had its safest year in 2016, according to the Aviation Safety Network. They would also need to convince regulators who don't yet know how to certify such planes.
"I have no idea how we're going to do that," Sinnett said. "But we're studying it right now and we're developing those algorithms."
Airlines are among those backing the idea, in part to deal with a projected need for 1.5 million pilots over the next 20 years as global demand for air travel continues to grow.
But a self-flying plane would need to be able land safely as Captain Chesley Sullenberger did in the "Miracle on the Hudson," Sinnett said. "If it can't, then we can't go there."
A US Airways plane hit a flock of geese shortly after taking off from New York in 2009 knocking out its engines but Sullenberger managed to glide the Airbus A320 to a safe landing on the Hudson River, saving all 150 passengers on board.
Boeing is also inching closer to creating its next new aircraft to plug a gap in its product line between its best-selling narrow-bodied 737 and its larger 787 Dreamliner. It aims to bring the new jet to customers around 2025.
After in-depth talks with nearly 60 customers it concluded that current wide-body planes have too much range for most of the routes narrow-body planes fly, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Executive Kevin McAllister said in a separate briefing.
"This is a market that cannot be served by narrow-bodies – not by ours or our competitors'" he said, referring to rival Airbus. "It can be served by wide-bodies, the question is can it be more efficiently served by a targeted airplane?"
We have had to endure HARVARD telling us that TRUMP was a FASCIST sociopath------here we have YALE telling us TRUMP is HITLER-----and both global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS Harvard and Yale are the source of all last century's MADMEN as far-right wing authoritarian, militaristic extreme wealth extreme poverty GLOBAL CORPORATE FASCIST dictators---HITLER, STALIN, MAO. So, yes MR YALE HISTORIAN-----TRUMP acting like MAO who graduated from YALE returning to China to install GREAT LEAP FORWARD-----Hitler and Stalin being those global banking freemason STARS of civil unrest, civil war, authoritarian brutality advancing INDUSTRIALIZATION----working for graduates of OLD WORLD IVY LEAGUES.
We have discussed in detail how CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA mirror PRE-WEIMAR GERMANY ----this historian is 30 years behind times. US IVY LEAGUES dismantled as a source of LYING, CHEATING, STEALING----FAKE NEWS FAKE DATA.
Think SULFUR SPRINGS the novel does not look like pre-Weimar Germany? You have been reading too much myth-making pretending to be academic research.
Donald Trump is behaving like 1930s fascist dictator, explains Yale historian
'We think of Hitler and Stalin as super villains. But they're not, they could only come to power with some form of consent,' says Professor Timothy Snyder
@petejohn_walker
Monday 27 March 2017 12:06
Donald Trump has been compared to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin by a professor at America's distinguished Yale University.
"In my world, where I come from, it's the 1930s," Timothy Snyder, told talkshow host Bill Maher, on his Real Time with Bill Maher show. "Picking out a group of your neighbours and citizens and associating them with the worldwide threat, that's the 1930s.
"And what we have to remember with the 1930s, we think of Hitler and Stalin as super villains. But they're not, they could only come to power with some form of consent."
Adolf Hitler was elected as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, while Stalin was able to consolidate his power and lead the Communist Party following the death of Vladimir Lenin, eliminating anyone who stood in his way.
Professor Synder also warned that tyrants use terrorist attack, such as the Reichstag fire of 1933, to "suspend your rights."
The author, whose latest book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century draws such parallels between modern day America and previous dictatorships, added: "It was the fascists who said, 'everyday life doesn't matter'. 'Every detail doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. All that matters is the message, the leader, the myth, the totality'. We should be thinking about the 1920s."
Host Bill Maher then reeled off a list of reasons why Mr Trump was behaving like a tyrant.
The comedian said Mr Trump put his name on buildings, appointed family to positions of power, held "scary rallies" and hated the press.
We spent a good deal of time discussing INDIA'S global banking 1% HINDI BRAHMIN last century creating these FAKE PRO-WORKER MARXIST civil unrest civil war structures mirrored in LATIN AMERICA during the 1960-70s just to grab land for building FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES ---all that land once owned by India's 99% of sovereign citizens grabbed during civil unrest---- now, India calling China's MARXISM out as being FAKE is ridiculous. It is the same MAO GREAT LEAP FORWARD MARXISM. REAL left socialism has no hierarchy---it empowers individual citizens ---it fights against concentrated power and wealth. FIGHTS----does not mean MILITARY since MILITARY is the most hierarchical----the most dis-empowering---the most heavily tied to extreme wealth and power----these are NOT 99% POPULIST MOVEMENTS.
INDIA'S MAOIST MARXIST movement during continuous wars in southeast Asia ended with SRI LANKA and the creation of separate state for MUSLIMS.
TODAY'S MOVING FORWARD IN INDIA SAME AS HERE IN US----INDIAN FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE BUILDING IS EXPANDING SO THESE FAKE ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT CIVIL UNREST GROUPS WILL PUSH MORE 99% OF INDIAN SOVEREIGN CITIZENS OFF THEIR LAND.
That's funny---Chinese politburo are raging naked laissez capitalists----how can they be SOCIAL IMPERIALISTS?
As here in US YALE AND HARVARD are calling TRUMP the madman----setting the stage for a return of HITLER---somehow trying to make our US citizens think TRUMP is socialist when he is raging 33rd degree freemason for global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS.
Indian Maoists ram China as 'social imperialists'
SUBIR BHAUMIK
KOLKATA , September 16, 2018 8:12 pm
A 72-page document by the central committee of the CPI (Maoist) has attacked China for "integrating itself in the global capitalist-imperialist order" and denounced it as the "enemy of working class movements across the world."
The document "China's Social Imperialism" was first written in Telegu last year , the year that marked the 50th anniversary of the historic Naxalbari uprising . It has now been done up in English and Hindi for wider circulation.
The document lambasts China's "imperialist tendencies" for arms sales, resource extraction , political interference in other countries and deploying capital on unfavourable and exploitative terms in Third World countries — all of which has been voiced by detractors of China 's Belt and Roads Initiative in recent years.
The document sees China's 'social imperialism ' as a global competitor of American capitalism driven imperialism and describes it as an "enemy of working class movements" all over the world.
The Communist Party of India (Maoist), which came into existence on September 21, 2004, through the merger of the Maoist Communist Centre of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist–People's War), has earlier accused China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of having betrayed Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM) and the world's proletarian movement by allowing itself to be integrated into the world capitalist movement. It has looked upon Deng Xiao-Ping and his successors in China as revisionists.
The CPI (Maoist) upholds the legacy of the 1967 Naxalbari uprising whose leaders defies Mao and raised the slogan "China's chairman in our chairman, China's road is our road."
In an interview given after the formation of the CPI (Maoist), the party general secretary Ganapathy, had said in an interview: "The reversals in the Soviet Union (1956) and then in China (1976) and the conversion of the Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU) and the CPC (Communist Party of China) into revisionist parties fuelled rightist and revisionist parties throughout the world.
"The restoration of capitalism in these former socialist societies and the disintegration of the socialist camp had a very negative impact on the advance of the world revolution. Utilising the situation of this setback, the imperialists went on an ideological and political offensive against communism trying to show it as being outdated and floating various new forms of dissent theories.
"On the other hand, most of the genuine communist revolutionary forces were in disarray and ideological and political confusion was rife with no international centre. It is these factors that have resulted in the relative weakening of the Maoist forces today. In addition, the massive, genocidal repression unleashed on all revolutionary forces (as witnessed in Indo-China, Latin America, and now Asia) further created impediments in growth. "
Ganapathy credited Mao for "correctly interpreting Marxism-Leninism in the Chinese context," but denounced the Deng clique for undermining socialism in China under the pretext of practising socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The CPI (Maoist) document carries that forward and its ideological formulation could be seen as a damming indictment of Xi Jinping's latest formulation of "Socialism with Chinese characteristics ".
It stresses the need for a "correct interpretation of Marxism Leninism and Mao (MLM) thought.
"If Maoist parties emerge in various countries and take concrete tactics, under a correct strategy, they are bound to advance. To do so, there is a need to correctly grasp MLM; know the nature of the imperialist era and grasp the historical task of the world working class and its vanguard parties; politically mobilise and lead the masses in the class struggles and advance the revolutionary wars to success."
The Chinese believe that in highlighting the role of the rural masses, Mao merely interpreted Marxism-Leninism in the light of the conditions prevailing in China and made it work there. They call his ideas Mao's Thoughts and have not elevated them to the level of a new ideology to supplement Marxism-Leninism.
On the other hand, the Maoists outside China, including those in India, have elevated Mao's Thoughts to a new ideology applicable to rural societies and called it Maoism, a characterisation with which the Chinese do not agree. The Maoists outside China project themselves as genuine Maoists and describe the leaders of China as pseudo-Maoists because of their alleged betrayal of MLM.
The CPI (Maoist) document blamed the "social-imperialist and comprador bourgeoisie of China" for doing away with the ideological struggle in China to focus on economic stability and capitalist restoration.
"The bourgeoisie in the Chinese Communist Party only too gladly abandoned People's War and internationalist obligations, as we see in China since 1976.Today there is no socialist China to fulfill its internationalist obligations."
This characterisation of China by the Indian Maoists is not only a direct ideological challenge to Xi Jinping's formulations and his efforts to hang on to the coattails of the Chinese revolutionary legacy.
It also means the Indian Maoist movement which is violent and underground cannot expect any support from China, ideological or tactical.
Though weakened in the last three years, the Indian Maoists have strong presence in 12 states where they have regularly attacked security forces and pulled off stunning ambushes.
They have been belatedly accused of infiltrating urban protest movements as well and the Indian government says the arrest of several top left wing intellectuals is linked to a Maoist plan to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
That claim has, however, been rubbished by human rights groups in India and abroad.
Remember, in pre-Weimar Germany it was those dastardly global banking 5% freemason/Greek labor players pretending HITLER was socialist pro-worker.
We discussed in detail how UNITED NATIONS/WORLD BANK uses INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION to create just these kinds of global banking 1% civil unrest civil wars by installing a MADMAN needing to be fought by ILO MARXIST REBELS. The INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION arm of WORLD BANK----has its headquarters in GERMANY because GERMANY is a raging global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS----KNIGHTS OF MALTA---TRIBE OF JUDAH.
We have shown how what is called THE NETHERLANDS ---including Germany are filling FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES with global foreign corporations especially Chinese bringing those global labor pool 99% working as they do in China. This is what is behind Germany's 99% of sovereign citizens protest---they are angry at Germany's version of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA and its criminality, corruption, and goals of ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE.
Here we see global banking 5% freemason/Greek labor players at the high end working as hard as they can to install ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES----in Europe and US/Canada. AFL-CIO these few decades pushing Clinton neo-liberals pretending they were LEFT-----pushing all of WORLD BANK/IMF policies of FAILED STATES remade --FLIPPING THE EARTH'S ECONOMIC AXIS----
BERNIE SANDERS MEETS TRUMKA-----GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS----KNIGHTS OF MALTA TRIBE OF JUDAH.
A discussion of FUTURE OF WORK------when MOVING FORWARD intends to kill all industries and employment? Why does AFL-CIO keep pretending there is A FUTURE OF WORK?
So, while HARVARD AND YALE are calling TRUMP a MADMAN and facsist sociopath----our international labor organization has far-right wing, authoritarian, militaristic, LIBERTARIAN MARXIST rebels growing in India, China. What does WW3 promise? This time it will not only hit Western and Eastern Europe---it will encompass all of Asia and Arabia as well.
The People For Bernie Sanders was live.
22 hrs · The AFL-CIO, in partnership with the German Embassy Washington, will host a discussion between AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and his German counterpart DGB Bundesvorstand President Reiner Hoffmann to discuss the role of unions in shaping the work of the future. In both countries, ongoing changes in the workplace and the economy present challenges as well as opportunities for the labor movement and society.
So, TRUMPKA and FEINGOLD with AFL-CIO are doing the same thing India and Russia are doing -----morphing from global banking neo-liberalism to far-right wing extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM.
'Cathy Feingold
Director of the International Department
policy focus
Global Worker Rights
Take Action'
One thing we notice in watching the video of our international labor union leaders tied to WORLD BANK/IMF International Labor Organization is not only TRUMPKA as leader but below we see FEINGOLD as an AFL-CIO labor leader. It seems likely this labor FEINGOLD is team RUSS FEINGOLD----a raging far-right wing global banking 1% Clinton neo-liberal who keeps pretending to be LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE as we see below his political arm PROGRESSIVES UNITED.
When Feingold created this PROGRESSIVE group we contacted them to ask why they supported only far-right Clinton neo-liberals? We were told they would support anyone they wanted---that's fine but they sell themselves as LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVES helping 99% of labor and justice while pushing global banking 1% Clinton neo-liberals killing labor and justice.
Our AFL-CIO labor leader FEINGOLD looks to come from a wealthy family attending a private $60,000 a year school going on to US global hedge fund IVY LEAGUE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY and somehow manages to be installed as TOP LEADER in international AFL-CIO which is MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD using our labor unions as 5% CIVIL UNREST CIVIL WAR under the pretense of being LEFT MARXISTS.
PROGRESSIVES UNITED---FEINGOLD
Profile picture for user Cathy Feingold Download Photo
Cathy Feingold
Email: pressclips[at]aflcio.org
Cathy Feingold is a leading advocate on global workers' rights issues. As director of the AFL-CIO's International Department, Feingold is a committed and passionate advocate, strategic campaigner and policy expert. Feingold brings more than 20 years of experience in global worker and human rights issues, with a focus on trade union rights, women's rights and global economic justice. Her work in both global and grassroots fora reflect her commitment to strengthening the voice of working people in global policy debates.
Feingold previously directed the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center's work in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, where she worked with local trade union partners to develop innovative campaigns to improve the working conditions of domestic, migrant and informal economy workers. The work led to a growing movement of domestic workers who affiliated to the Dominican labor movement. In Haiti, she developed labor law training programs and helped publish the first Creole language excerpt of the Haitian labor law, accessible to workers. She led the organization's humanitarian response to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Feingold's professional experience includes work for the labor movement, large international organizations, small grassroots NGOs and a foundation. She has written about the impact of economic policies on market women in Nigeria and, as a Fulbright scholar in Nicaragua, she researched the impact of structural adjustment policies on women workers. She continues to be a strong advocate for gender equity and working women issues.
Feingold holds a bachelor's degree from Pitzer College and an M.P.A. from Columbia University. She lives in Maryland with her family and, when not advocating for workers' rights or traveling, she enjoys taking long hikes with her family.
Both India and China are MOVING FORWARD---GREAT LEAP FORWARD dozens of Foreign Economic Zones and need to move great numbers of population to take the land needed to build those FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES so as back in 1970s----SRI LANKA meets BOMBAY ---they are marching out global banking 5% freemason/Greek civil unrest civil war players both as far-right government FASCISTS and as far-right corporate MARXISTS.
Clinton neo-liberals are working hard to PRETEND they do not support far-right authoritarian fascism after having partnered these few decades with global Bush neo-cons being those authoritarian FASCISTS-----you know, look at SULFUR SPRINGS and our US border.
All of this is setting the stage for a global WW3 -----killing hundreds of millions and billions of people clearing land for MOVING FORWARD expansion of FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES operating under ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE global corporate tribunal rule.
Does TRUMP'S building of a WALL ----keep people out----our keep people in-----HITLER/STALIN/MAO all created global banking 1% corporate fascism needing walls to keep people in.
Indian team in China to discuss investments in Special Economic Zones, industrial parks
PTI|
Updated: Oct 12, 2014, 05.01 PM IST
BEIJING: A Commerce Ministry delegation arrived here today to explore China's investments in India's Special Economic Zones and to discuss follow up action on agreements signed during last month's visit by President Xi Jinping to boost bilateral trade between the two countries.
The delegation, headed by Additional Secretary Madhusudan Prasad, would hold talks with Chinese officials, attend a business round table and visit a number of successful Chinese Special Economic Zone (SEZ) ventures
to get feed back, Indian officials here told PTI.
Besides Beijing, the delegation would visit Tianjin, Shanghai and Suzhou to scout for more Chinese investments in a host of SEZs in different parts of India.
While the focus of the delegation would be to scout for more Chinese investments in SEZs, the delegation would also interact with Chinese Commerce Ministry officials on the follow up measures being initiated on the agreements signed during Xi's visit to set up two Chinese ..
When discussing in detail how pre-Weimar Germany looked like today's CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA we looked at how media and societal FADS created myth-making and propaganda driving tensions between population groups. We work hard to educate how LEFT POLITICS cannot be AUTHORITARIAN. The left work to EMPOWER the 99% of citizens and workers----MILITARIZED AND AUTHORITARIAN structures do the OPPOSITE especially when they work for GLOBAL CORPORATIONS. Hitler was just that----he was installed by global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS to be that KNIGHTS OF MALTA continuous war MADMAN----and he was NEVER left socialist. As STALIN and MAO---he was FAR-RIGHT WING AUTHORITARIAN LIBERTARIAN MARXIST.
Below we see the exact media content that would have filled PRE-WEIMAR GERMANY------what are today called CENTRISTS' are CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA all being global banking 1% and FAR-RIGHT WING.
Yet, this article is still trying to sell the idea that CENTRISTS are not AUTHORITARIAN. Who are the CENTRISTS? CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA----Who created a massive global military complex and is trying to build in all US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES a DEEP, DEEP, REALLY DEEP STATE?
CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA. So, are we to believe that centrists only support LEFT AUTHORITARIANISM when we know there is no such thing? No we don't MR ADLER writing in NY TIMES.
'Centrists Are Most Supportive
of Authoritarianism
(Except for the Far Right)'
'On the other hand, there was a time, not so long ago, when journalists like Chait would have proudly owned the term neoliberal as an apt description of their beliefs. It was the New Republic, after all, the magazine where Chait made his name, that, along with the Washington Monthly, first provided neoliberalism with a home and a face'.
SULFUR SPRINGS captured in an economy of fear, intimidation, trusting no one-----speaking nothing----refusing to hear anything ---not tied to global banking 1% myth-making and propaganda----how far-right wing, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXIST corporate fascist is that all brought by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.
Centrists Are the Most Hostile
to Democracy, Not Extremists
By DAVID ADLER MAY 23, 2018
The warning signs are flashing red: Democracy is under threat. Across Europe and North America, candidates are more authoritarian, party systems are more volatile, and citizens are more hostile to the norms and institutions of liberal democracy.
These trends have prompted a major debate between those who view political discontent as economic, cultural or generational in origin. But all of these explanations share one basic assumption: The threat is coming from the political extremes.
On the right, ethno-nationalists and libertarians are accused of supporting fascist politics; on the left, campus radicals and the so-called antifa movement are accused of betraying liberal principles. Across the board, the assumption is that radical views go hand in hand with support for authoritarianism, while moderation suggests a more committed approach to the democratic process.
Maybe not. My research suggests that across Europe and North America, centrists are the least supportive of democracy, the least committed to its institutions and the most supportive of authoritarianism.
I examined the data from the most recent World Values Survey (2010 to 2014) and European Values Survey (2008), two of the most comprehensive studies of public opinion carried out in over 100 countries. The survey asks respondents to place themselves on a spectrum from far left to center to far right. I then plotted the proportion of each group's support for key democratic institutions. (A copy of my working paper, with a more detailed analysis of the survey data, can be found here.)
Respondents who put themselves at the center of the political spectrum are the least supportive of democracy, according to several survey measures. These include views of democracy as the "best political system," and a more general rating of democratic politics. In both, those in the center have the most critical views of democracy.
Some of the most striking data reflect respondents' views of elections. Support for "free and fair" elections drops at the center for every single country in the sample. The size of the centrist gap is striking. In the case of the United States, fewer than half of people in the political center view elections as essential.
Of course, the concept of "support for democracy" is somewhat abstract, and respondents may interpret the question in different ways. What about support for civil rights, so central to the maintenance of the liberal democratic order? In almost every case, support for civil rights wanes in the center. In the United States, only 25 percent of centrists agree that civil rights are an essential feature of democracy.
One of the strongest warning signs for democracy has been the rise of populist leaders with authoritarian tendencies. But while these leaders have become more popular, it is unclear whether citizens explicitly support more authoritarian styles of government. I find, however, evidence of substantial support for a "strong leader" who ignores his country's legislature, particularly among centrists. In the United States, centrists' support for a strongman-type leader far surpasses that of the right and the left.
What Does It Mean?Across Europe and North America, support for democracy is in decline. To explain this trend, conventional wisdom points to the political extremes. Both the far left and the far right are, according to this view, willing to ride roughshod over democratic institutions to achieve radical change. Moderates, by contrast, are assumed to defend liberal democracy, its principles and institutions.
The numbers indicate that this isn't the case. As Western democracies descend into dysfunction, no group is immune to the allure of authoritarianism — least of all centrists, who seem to prefer strong and efficient government over messy democratic politics.
Strongmen in the developing world have historically found support in the center: From Brazil and Argentina to Singapore and Indonesia, middle-class moderates have encouraged authoritarian transitions to bring stability and deliver growth. Could the same thing happen in mature democracies like Britain, France and the United States?
One last comment bringing current political stances into a discussion on labor using global banking 1% freemason STAR novel SULFUR SPRINGS as that example. Global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS ---EUROPEAN DARK AGES FAMILIES filled with all that 1000BC DNA-----are indeed behind all that is bad in US these few decades----EISENHOWER AVIATION ACT MEETS NIXON FIAT MONEY MEETS REAGAN/CLINTON ATTACK ON ALL US SOVEREIGN ASSETS AND CORPORATIONS.
All of this was done WITHOUT CAPITALISM-----we keep educating how LAISSEZ FAIRE doing anything to accumulate wealth has nothing to do with CAPITALIST ECONOMIES. This LAISSEZ FAIRE is always used as a pretext for sacking and looting sovereign nations and it is always followed by deliberately created civil unrest civil wars and civil devastation of infrastructure as today's US CITIES AS FAILED STATES.
Because all this is brought to America courtesy OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS we think of EUROPEANS as winners and our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE as losers. Remember, these few decades our EUROPEAN AND UK 99% have been sacked and looted and already thrown into global labor pool EX-PAT status----these 99% of Europeans are NOT WINNING. They make up lots of our US global banking 5% freemason/Greek players black, white, and brown who will be LOSERS AGAIN if they do not STOP MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD US AND EUROPEAN FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
vampire.
Sep 16How Capitalism Made Americans Poor, and Socialism Made Europeans RichCapitalism Doesn't Make Us Rich, and Socialism Doesn't Make Us Poor — Socialism Makes Us Rich, and Capitalism Makes Us Poor.
Of all the funny, strange, and backwards myths that need undoing in America, none is more deeply ingrained — and hence more fiercely held — than this one. Capitalism makes us rich, and socialism us poor!! Hence, if I say "socialism", many Americans — maybe even you — probably see an image of a bedraggled person in rags, wearing sandals, walking down an unpaved street, in a dust, decrepit, ruined town. And yet one of the simplest and truest fact in the world today is this.
Capitalism doesn't make us rich, and socialism doesn't make us poor — socialism makes us rich, and capitalism makes us poor. (Or at least the "social" part of "social democracy" does, if you want to indulge in hair-splitting.) Yet while many Americans these days have grown skeptical of capitalism these days, I think many American still associate socialism with poverty. And that's funny — because nothing could be further from the truth.
Capitalism is what made Americans poor, and socialism is what made Europeans rich. Do you see how ironic that is? How funny — reality is precisely the opposite of the myth Americans are told to believe. In economic terms, we'd say that capitalism immiserated the average American — and he doesn't even quite know it, but I'll get to all that. Perhaps you yourself don't
believe me, though. That's OK. Let me prove it.America has the world's first two trillion dollar companies — Apple and Amazon. Go capitalism! The problem is that while corporate profits have never been higher, the average American's life has fallen apart. In every single way that you can think of. The majority of Americans now live perched right at the edge of ruin, atop a razor blade of disaster. 80% percent live paycheck to paycheck, 70% can't raise $1000 for an emergency, and so on. The average American faces a new kind of poverty — precarity. Hence, depression and suicide are skyrocketing, while extremism is rising, as people have lost faith in their society to ever really improve their lives again — the vast majority of Americans now expect their kids' lives to decline, too.
Are these two things related? Capitalism booming — and life declining? Of course they are. It's hardly a coincidence. Capitalism grew so rich precisely by exploiting the average American, leaving them in a state that Marx would have called "immiseration" — being paid just enough to subsist, and having all the cream of your labour, which is to say, your energy, creativity, ideas, passion, or just plain hard work, skimmed off the top. You can think of "immiseration" as something like "being offered the lowest price possible for your labour, and having no choice but to take it — while also having to pay the
highest price possible for the very things you create." What a beautiful trap — if you're a capitalist, that is. But what if you're not?Hence, Amazon has made Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world. And maybe his top lieutenants are millionaires, too. But the average joe working the warehouse is never going to be rich. He will be working, most likely, until the day he dies. He's immiserated — he lives a life that's not very good, but one which he can't escape from, either. Capitalism has him right where it wants him — both as a consumer and a producer. What do I mean? Let's start with the immiseration of Americans as consumers.
So how did Americans get so poor? The reason is that their incomes have been flat since the 1970s — but the costs of life have exploded. Everything that is essential to life has gone by up by hundreds, if not thousands of percent. Healthcare — 2000%. Education — 1000%. Rent — 500%. Food — 400%. The result is that Americans are deep in debt. Debt that is charged at exorbitant interest rates, because it mostly put on credit cards. Their net worth has declined, as a result. Who can afford thousand percent increases for the essentials of life — while incomes stay stagnant?
And yet this is something like capitalism's ultimate and most joyous dream
come true. You can't do without these things, really. You have to buy them. Healthcare, education, food, shelter. You must pay for them. But they have mostly been monopolized, which is to say, the market has been cornered by capitalists. That was smart of them — because now they charge Americans through the nose, on the one side, as consumers, for the things they cannot do without, but also on the other side, as employees, capitalists don't ever really pay them any more. Bang! Life implodes while capitalism gets rich. That is how the American middle class imploded — now, for the first time in history, it's a majority. Marx would have laughed — because to him, that would have been a sure sign of immiseration growing as capitalism began to fail (or succeed, wildly, depending on your viewpoint).So capitalism is not a magic formula for riches. It is for capitalists, sure — but the dirty secret which American economists and thinkers never discuss is that
most Americans aren't capitalists, and they never will be, and hence, it doesn't just not benefit them — it has hurt them badly over the last few decades. And that is because it has left Americans in the pincers' grip of immiseration — they are charged exorbitant, absurd prices by the very capitalists who barely pay them enough to subsist on any more, and who never raise their wages a dime. LOL — do you see how sad and funny all this is?
How could the average American end up a capitalist, instead of an immiserated prole? Why would capitalists ever give him or her a share of those jealously guarded profits? They'd only they'd do that if society forced them to — with a little dose of socialism.
And that brings me to Europe. Europe doesn't have any Amazons or Apples. It doesn't have any trillion dollar companies. Capitalism operates at a smaller scale. And yet, Europeans have grown richer than Americans. Yes, really, click that link. While American incomes flatlined in the 70s, and never rose, and American net worth went into freefall, no such thing happened in Europe. In most of Europe (by which I mean Western Europe, of course, not post-USSR Eastern Europe), the middle class grew over the same time period. In France, middle incomes rose, and the middle expanded. The same was true in most of Europe. (Only in Germany did incomes stagnate, and that was because unions
struck a deal in 2000 to put more (good, with benefits) jobs above raises — and even that is better than what Americans got.)
(Hence, Europeans don't live like Americans. They live like richer people. Wait, what do I mean when I say "richer"? That Europeans all live like Bernie Madoff? Croesus, perhaps? Of course not. I simply mean the most minimal and bare-bones definition of rich you might imagine. That you can put food on the table, educate your kids, afford healthcare, pay your mortgage, and one day retire — all in relative safety and security. Without a sense of crushing anxiety, every day, that you probably can't afford those things. To be "rich", in the most basic way, is a kind of freedom — not just freedom to buy yachts and mansions so forth, but simply freedom from anxiety and dread of poverty, as genuine ruin, of ending up on the streets because you didn't pay that bill, and once you're homeless, well God knows what might happen.)
Europeans don't face the strange, crazy, terrible, immoral dilemmas Americans do — do I pay for chemotherapy, or my kids' education? Maybe I should just let myself die. Should I pay the mortgage this month — or go without healthcare? And so on. Do you see what I mean by the difference between "rich" and "poor? It's not about material things, so much as the experience that one is genuinely living a life free of control, domination,
punishment, for the merest, slightest misstep — a life of anxiety, fear, stress, trauma, and despair, which is what the experience of "poverty" really is. Immiseration, remember?
Now. Why don't Europeans live lives at the edge of ruin like Americans do? Why didn't they get immiserated, too? Remember how capitalism, funnily, charges Americans the highest price possible for the essentials of life, things you can't go without, and pays them the lowest amount possible, at the very same time — my definition of immiseration? In Europe's that exactly backwards — and it's because Europe invested in public goods, otherwise known as "socialism" (the "social" part of "social democracy", if you want to be precise.) Europe built great public systems of healthcare, education, housing, finance, media, retirement, and so on. Those systems do the precise opposite of what capitalism does in the States — they provide the essentials of life at the lowest cost possible, and usually, at the highest reasonable wage too.
Take healthcare as an example. Because it's publicly provided, the costs are far, far smaller than in America. Sure, they come out of your taxes — but that's just accounting: at the end of the day, whether you pay for a thing through "taxes" or "consumption" is just a different bucket. Where Americans pay $300 for a vial of insulin, because capitalism has jacked the price into the land of the absurd, public healthcare means that the same thing ends up costing a European maybe $20, probably closer to $10. Hence, overall European healthcare spending per person is about $5k, but in America, it's $10K.
Yet Americans barely get any real healthcare at all for that money (hence, declining life expectancy and rising mortality and illness), while Europeans live longer, healthier lives. Now extend that example across all the basics of life — education, retirement, finance, housing, transport, and so on. Pretty soon, over time, because they weren't paying capitalism through the nose for the essentials of life, Europeans grew richer. Their incomes rose, their savings accumulated, their net worth rose. And most of all, they didn't live with the crushing fear and anxiety that they'd end up abandoned, on the streets, homeless, ruined. Immiserated.
Do you see how capitalism can make people poor, and socialism make people rich? But we're not done yet. We have only talked about people as consumers so far — what they pay. What about people as producers — what they get?
Because Europe built great systems of social goods for the essentials of life, it also employs vast numbers of people to provide those very essentials. Hence, one of the biggest employers in the UK is the NHS, and in France, the pension system, and so on. But these jobs are good jobs. They are not dead-end- go-nowhere, "I'm making Jeff Bezos the world's richest man but I can't even go to the bathroom" jobs. They come with abundant benefits. What benefits? Why, the very same social goods we've just been discussing. They pay steady and reasonable incomes, for decent and sane hours. They offer security and stability of a kind that is barely left at all in America.
What's the result? Well, the private sector has to compete with all that. It can't just offer dead-end, go-nowhere jobs with no benefits to the same degree that it can in America — because in Europe, there is a vast pool of decent jobs to be had. So people do not have to make what Marx might have called "wage slaves" of themselves. They can say, instead, "Thanks but no thanks, capitalism — I don't need to sell my labour to the lowest bidder. There is a bidder in this labour market who genuinely values me, and there always will be." Hence, European incomes have a kind of hard floor — not just quantitatively, but also qualitatively — and the private sector, if it wishes to have the best people, cannot simply treat people like it does in America, overworking and underpaying them, constantly.
And that brings me to the third and final effect. Because Europeans didn't fetishize capitalism as the only road to riches, they weren't afraid to regulate the quality of jobs, either. They didn't destroy their unions — in fact, in France, whole sectors bargain to set wages and benefits, like waiters and chefs with restaurants and bistros. They didn't let capitalists alone define the rules of the game, laws and codes, knowing full well that if they did, capitalists would do what they were going to do — turn "jobs" right back into something resembling grim, unrelenting, Victorian era "work", paid by the piece, with no protection, safety, guarantees, or rights for workers at all, all of which are what European countries provided generously — which means that Europeans enjoy higher incomes, because, as a result, European companies have to invest more in workers, which means that they cannot merely see them as short-term things, to be tossed aside and discarded, the moment their "marginal productivity" drops below their "cost".
(And all that is again because Europe wanted people to live lives of dignity — it was very careful and deliberate that people not be left immiserated, its intellectuals debated it and its thinkers reflected upon how to do it. Americans, instead, never having thought about or really considered all this, ended up precisely there. What else do we call the prole who dreams futile dreams of one day being a capitalist, but never will be, and one day will choose between healthcare and food for his kids but immiserated? That's a life of pretty crushing misery — dread, pressure, stress, fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, all of it. Capitalism has him right where it wants him.)
So. America has the world's first trillion dollar companies. Europe doesn't. America is the greatest capitalist nation ever, bar none — that much is true. But that has come not at the benefit of the average American — but at a great cost to them. Their lives have gone into reverse gear. They aren't just seeing no benefits from capitalism — the costs and risks are being passed right back to them. Without social investment in public goods, Americans pay skyrocketing prices for the essentials of life — which capitalism charges them: the very same capitalism which won't ever pay them higher wages, with which to afford those skyrocketing prices. Bang! The capitalists grow ultra rich. The average America's life falls apart. He's been immiserated, thanks to capitalism — not left richer.
In Europe, though, the story was very, very different. Socialism, not capitalism, organized the provision of the essentials of life — and both paid people fairly and protected them carefully, in the very jobs of providing things like healthcare, education, finance, retirement, media, transport, and childcare to one another. The result is that people grew richer over time. Their incomes grew into accumulated savings, and their net worth rose. They began to live with a genuine feeling of safety and security and happiness. Europeans were liberated — not immiserated.
Hence, today, most Europeans look at Americans, and can't bring themselves to imagine — really, can't quite understand — how someone in a nominally rich country would have to choose between their own chemotherapy or insulin, or their childrens' healthcare, food, or shelter.
The answer is as sad as it is simple. They may live in a rich country, but Americans are not rich people anymore. They are poor people. It is American capitalists who are rich — but they are a tiny handful, Bezos and Gates and Brin. The average American is impoverished now, living at the edge of ruin, spending most days in a haze of anxiety, dread, and slow despair. In immiseration.
(What was the real difference between Europe and America, at a macroeconomic level? Europeans were reinvesting their own surplus in each other — that is all that "socialism" really is. Americans were handing their surplus over to capitalists — and hoping capitalists would reinvest it in them. After all, that is what their economists and intellectuals said would, could, should, must happen. But why would capitalists ever invest in people — instead of skimming off the cream? They are not in it to be nice to people, after all — their motives are not benevolence, social development, justice, or even a sense of decency. Capitalism's goal is simply maximizing profit — and so those surpluses weren't reinvested in people, they were handed over to owners and heads of companies, mostly, in the form of spectacular payouts and IPOs and parachutes. For what work, precisely? Figuring out ways to maximize profit, relentlessly, every single month — at any cost to anyone else, not to anyone's benefit. Hence, capitalists got mega-rich, while the average American's life began to decline into misery.)
Yet what is saddest — and funniest — of all is that that very same American still believes in the old, foolish myth. Capitalism makes us rich! Socialism makes us poor! No, my friend. Capitalism only makes capitalists rich — and you will never be a capitalist. Socialism makes us rich. Capitalism makes us poor. Just as Marx said, it immiserates us. If, at least, the us we are talking about is the opposite of capitalists, which is to say, the rest of us.