A short essay, written in 2001 on how our democracy will morph and change, and you won't notice it until it's too late.....
This was written 10 years ago, and we are waaaay along the path he describes to a full blown plutocracy.....
Change in the weather
It won't come with jackboots and book burnings, with mass rallies and fevered harangues. It won't come with "black helicopters" or tanks on the street. It won't come like a storm – but like a break in the weather, that sudden change of season you might feel when the wind shifts on an October evening: everything is the same, but everything has changed. Something has gone, departed from the world, and a new reality has taken its place.
As in Rome, all the old forms will still be there; legislatures, elections, campaigns – plenty of bread and circuses for the folks. But the "consent of the governed" will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small group of nobles who rule largely for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons.
To be sure, there will be factional conflicts among this elite, and a degree of free debate will be permitted, within limits; but no one outside the privileged circle will be allowed to govern or influence state policy. Dissidents will be marginalized – usually by "the people" themselves. Deprived of historical knowledge by an impoverished educational system designed to produce complacent consumers, not thoughtful citizens, and left ignorant of current events by a media devoted solely to profit, many will internalize the force-fed values of the ruling elite, and act accordingly. There will be little need for overt methods of control.
The rulers will often act in secret; for reasons of "national security," the people will not be permitted to know what goes on in their name. Actions once unthinkable will be accepted as routine: government by executive fiat, the murder of "enemies" selected by the leader, undeclared war, torture, mass detentions without charge, the looting of the national treasury, the creation of huge new "security structures" targeted at the populace. In time, all this will come to seem "normal," as the chill of autumn feels normal when summer is gone.
From Chris Floyd, writing in Nov., 2001
What makes this interesting is that Morgan and Morgan are one of the most prolific advertisers on the Orlando market TV stations, so even with the many salacious details in this suit none of the local TV news outlets will touch it. When you read a few pages of how the nasty Morgan brothers and their senior attorneys are alleged to have behaved, even "former Sheriff's detective" Dan Newlin [bighead] looks good by comparison.
Crank this money and power up and you can see how major corporations can buy silence from TV networks, where most Americans get their "news". An example are the blatant and disgusting ads running for the "Oil and Gas Council" promoting "fracking" which is polluting huge swathes of the north east states' water supply.....
This is how the oligarchs do it folks.....non-DDD readers [ha] have no time to think about this stuff, so the ad creeps into your subconscious.......
The Koch brothers, the third richest people in the world, are out to change your life....for the worse. Here a film crew sets out to expose theirs, comparing their wonderful homes around the country with how some average Americans are just making do....
Makes you think..........6 minute video....
The liberal guerrilla video group Brave New Foundation on Wednesday began what it says will be a prolonged political attack against the industrialist Koch family, which has become synonymous with the anti-Obama conservative movement.
The campaign marks yet another step toward conspicuousness for a family whose political activity was largely in the shadows until last year, when a New Yorker article outlined the support David H. Koch and his brother Charles ave given to various conservative research institutes and groups, including some associated with the Tea Party movement.
The campaign is going right to where the Kochs live, literally. A Brave New Foundation crew filmed outside five of the Kochs’ multimillion-dollar homes: in Manhattan; Southampton, N.Y.; Aspen, Colo; Palm Beach, Fla.; and Wichita, Kan.
In the first video, being released Wednesday night, the crews knock on the doors of all five properties, seeking to question David Koch directly about his policy positions and the environmental record of his company, Koch Industries. At one point, a group of elderly people picnics on the beach in front of David Koch’s Palm Beach mansion to marvel at its size while saying the policies he supports punish the working class.
Wonderful column from Carl Hiaasen on how Governor Wingnut is the best friend the idiots in the Florida Legislature have.....the Rickster makes Haridopolos and Cannon seem sane by comparison.....
Having a radical wingnut for governor has proven to be a blessing for other top Florida Republicans. No matter what kind of reckless mischief they devise, they still appear almost sane and levelheaded compared to Rick Scott.
The new $68 billion state budget is a good example of them pretending to be responsible while inflicting damage on the average Florida taxpayer.
Governor Spaceman wanted $2.4 billion in property tax cuts and giveaways to big business, a sum no one took seriously because it would have financially crippled not just the state, but many cities and counties as well.
Lawmakers came back with a figure of $308 million. It’s still an outrage, because Florida can’t afford to lose $308 million right now, but it’s not a catastrophe on the scale of Scott’s goofball scheme.
The two Republicans benefiting most from the distraction of the governor’s glassy-eyed extremism are House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos. Both are ambitious and trying hard to look like grownups, though in fact they’re not all that different from Scott — just more polished.
Did you know Fox hosted a Republican Presidential debate last week? Of course you didn't because you don't watch Fox News, but here are some highlights[!] from the spectacle.....a pretty good Jon Stewart - 6 minutes.....
Boy do these Republicans in the Florida Legislature have some stones - using our money, yes yours, to challenge what we all voted for in court .....pond scum doesn't begin to describe these corrupt bastards......
Don’t worry. Despite the most brutal budget cuts in state history, the taxpayers of Florida still have millions set aside for their epic battle against the taxpayers of Florida.
Both houses of the Florida Legislature managed to find plenty of money — also known as your money — for the slush funds underwriting their costly lawsuit against the Fair Districts amendments.
The Orlando Sentinel reported last week that the legislative leadership has figured on spending $20 million, and plenty more if necessary, to preserve their sacred right to re-draw state Senate, state representative and congressional districts in whatever squished-out, crazy-map shapes best protect their political self-interest.
You’ll be paying the legal costs to subvert a pair of constitutional amendments approved by 62.6 percent of the voters last fall.
You’ll also be paying the legal costs to defend those same amendments. The state of Florida is the named defendant in the lawsuit. That would be you, with the governor (however unenthused) secretary of state and attorney general standing in for the citizens of Florida when the case opens before U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro in Miami on July 29. Just to give the matter cosmic balance, the Florida Senate and House of Representatives are listed as both plaintiffs and defendants.
Oh my, but we seem intent to spending gobs of money, in a very lean year, cannibalizing ourselves in court. Apparently, we’re prepared to spend about as much over the next year suing ourselves as on Everglades restoration.
Follow-up to an item from last week - the Lake County lands that one of the commissioners wanted to be sold will be opened up to the public instead, with minimal cost.
Yeay - common sense occasionally triumphs, and it just shows how we desperately need to hang on to our press, because they have the reach to shed some light into the dark areas of our government where the bad things happen....thanks Ms. Ritchie.....
Lake County commissioners last week considered whether to sell some of the preservation properties owned by the county to get cash to make "improvements" on the others.
After taking a gander at the sort of "improvements" that county staffers had in mind, they made a turnaround. The "improvements" included permanently constructed restrooms, parking lots, pavilions, canoe and kayak launches and the like.
Instead of selling, commissioners directed staffers to open four of the dozen or so properties in the next three months with minimal improvements. The four account for nearly two-thirds of the land the county bought after taxpayers voted in 2004 by a 71 percent margin to create the land-buying program to preserve property.
The properties were chosen and purchased in 2007 and 2008, but not a single acre has been opened to the public so far.
The notion that some could be sold lit up readers — everyone agreed that commissioners should follow the instructions of the voters and hang onto the properties.
Todays rude but funny golf joke
A golfer hits his ball into a yard next to the golf course.
As he goes to get it a man in the yard says, "don't you see the sign".
"It says private property ... stay out".
"It says private property ... stay out".
The golfer says "I'm sorry ... I didn't see it. That's my ball over ... there may I have it?"
The man says, "it's in my yard, so it's my ball now".
The golfer looks at the man and says, "I understand".
The man says, "it's in my yard, so it's my ball now".
The golfer looks at the man and says, "I understand".
He then walks back to the golf cart gets a golf ball and walks back and throws it in the yard.
The man says, "what's that for?"
The man says, "what's that for?"
The golfer says, "I'm a gentleman. Every prick like you should have two balls".
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