A report on the ‘Patriot’ Movement and Bill Moyers on Engineered Inequality

The “American Dream” is dead.

Right now the “American dream” that everyone has an equal chance in life, that your children can look forward to a better life then you did is dead; well maybe not dead but in a money takes all government induced coma.

The collapse of the economy that most people know was precipitated by a Ponzi con perpetrated by wealthy investment bankers has brought what was once a nebulous feeling that the American dream is dead front and center in the consciousness of the 99%.

FROM “BILL MOYERS AND COMPANY”:

“Bill’s guests – Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, authors of Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, argue that America’s vast inequality is no accident, but in fact has been politically engineered.  

How, in a nation as wealthy as America, can the economy simply stop working for people at large, while super-serving those at the very top? Through exhaustive research and analysis, the political scientists Hacker and Pierson — whom Bill regards as the “Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson” of economics — detail important truths behind a 30-year economic assault against the middle class.”

Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Engineered Inequality

March 1, 2012

The other ½ of this post concerns the latest issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report, Spring 2012.

“The radical right grew explosively in 2011, the third such dramatic expansion in as many years. The growth was fueled by superheated fears generated by economic dislocation, a proliferation of demonizing conspiracy theories, the changing racial makeup of America, and the prospect of four more years under a black president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country. 

The number of hate groups counted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) last year reached a total of 1,018, up slightly from the year before but continuing a trend of significant growth that is now more than a decade old. The truly stunning growth came in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement — conspiracy-minded groups that see the federal government as their primary enemy.”

I'm rooting for President Obama and nearly all Democrats. I believe that the extreme right base is pushing the Republicans into the unelectable category. I think President Obama will win in a landslide that could push the Republican Party off of the political map. We would essentially have a one party country. It then may be possible to re-introduce an updated form of the Glass–Steagall Act, create jobs with massive infrastructure updates and tackle global warming. It took 30 years of removing the steps from the upward mobility ladder to end the American Dream. Hopefully it won’t take that long to put the steps back on the ladder.

But as November nears and the inevitably of an Obama landslide is apparent there could be a violent backlash.

The Year in Hate and Extremism 2011

Issue Number: 

 145

 |

Spring

2012

As the election approaches, radical antigovernment groups skyrocket.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report, Spring 2012:

“But what may end up affecting the American radical right more than any other single factor in the coming year is President Obama and the presidential election campaign. If the primaries generate more attacks on the nation’s first black president based on complete falsehoods — that he is a secret Muslim, a Kenyan, a radical leftist bent on destroying America — it’s likely that the poison will spread. And if he wins reelection next fall, the reaction of the extreme right, already angry and on the defensive as the white population diminishes, could be truly frightening.”