Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
After the news over the past few months about the global uprisings against tyrannical and non-responsive governments, I have pondered why the United States has not had more people in the street protesting the economic inequality that we are facing here at home?
We have seen uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Spain, Greece and many more places, but at best we have seen large numbers in Wisconsin and Ohio protesting about State governments trying to remove collective bargaining rights away from state employees. One group of dedicated and non-violent protesters is especially interesting to me since they have taken to the streets and they have stayed there to press their fight. It is a group in Spain called the Indignados. They are camped out in various areas of Spain in an attempt to draw the country’s and the world’s attention to what they see as the Spanish government’s attempts to cater to the bankers and not to Main Street.
“Thursday night Madrid’s city centre offered a glimpse of what Western democracies have become, as thousands of unarmed nonviolent civilians with their hands up in the air shouting “these are our weapons” and “this is a dictatorship” were beaten by police commandos in full riot gear. This event was the culmination of a month of intense mobilizations across the country by the popular movement known as the ‘Indignados’. People, whom despite being ignored by the government have made their voices heard, as banking cartels, European bureaucrats, rating agencies and the country’s elites continue in their frantic push to sell-off Spain’s remaining public wealth, and persist in the implementation of drastic cuts to the welfare state. The ‘Indignados’ are fully aware of the fact that their government does not represent them, whenever they congregate they shout that loud and clear. They know that only popular unity will salvage them from the train wreck, which complicit speculators and politicians have created, and as they read the financial news, they know things can only get worse. When the EU announced today that the economic crisis is no longer restricted to the Euro-zone periphery countries, people in the movement understood that this could only mean bad news for them.” Truthout
Now, we have had some Tea Party protests, but their numbers were paltry in comparison to the Spanish protests. The numbers in Wisconsin and Ohio were the closest to the Spain numbers, but those protesters were not met with wide-spread beatings at the hands of the government and police and they are still not camping out in Madison and Columbus as they are in Madrid.
Would protestors in the United States ever commit to a continuing protest for months in Washington, D.C.? These Indignados in Spain, are continuing to protest what they see as government attempts to balance their budgets on the backs of the poor and the middle class. Why haven’t we seen tent cities springing up in Washington, D.C. and in state capitals across the country? Many progressives and liberals have claimed that Washington is working only for the bankers and Wall Street barons, so why aren’t our streets filled with dedicated people who are willing to nonviolently protest against the Rich getting richer, while the middle class and poor seem to get poorer? Is the claim of rising inequality between the rich and poor true?
Where is the evidence that the income disparity is growing in the United States? … “in dollar terms, the rich are still getting richer, and the poor are falling further behind them. The income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its largest margin ever, a stark divide as Democrats and Republicans spar over whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. The top-earning 20 percent of Americans – those making more than $100,000 each year – received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent made by the bottom 20 percent of earners, those who fell below the poverty line, according to the new figures. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, who earn more than $180,000, added slightly to their annual incomes last year, the data show. Families at the $50,000 median level slipped lower.” Huffington Post
With those depressing numbers, why haven’t American “Indignados” taken over Washington, D.C. like their Spanish counterparts did in Madrid? Are Americans just too lazy or indifferent to their plight? Have they given up being able to make a real difference in Washington? Why aren’t you and I there in Washington pressing our claims for economic equality? Finally, what will it take for the American poor and jobless to stand up and say, enough is enough? Maybe you have the answer for these American Indignados!
Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
@rafflaw, did you read the Swartz study?
@GeneH
“That’s the argument of a child and completely ignorant of the democratic form.”
That would be another of your famous unsupported conclusions.
And actually, it wasn’t the full argument, just a taste of the conclusion so you could revise your wacky statement at least out of some sense of shame or embarrassment. I should have known better,
Roco,
Corporations are people, a big group of people who are losing their life savings because of the policies of share the wealth. Obama has been a very effective president.
Say what? It is because of Bush’s policy’s of not regulating them….It fell on Obama to do something you are correct…Man you guys are real good at reinterpreting history….Next it’ll be that man evolved from a Wolf….and that is why Corporations are leader of the PAC….
Roco, I don’t think the wealth is being shared.
I am sorry…but since when has a LR been treated as Primary Authority…It would seem that a case in the appeals court Trumps as a higher Authority…But hey that is just me….
Why don’t you answer raff’s statements and then get back to me….I consider the Swarts/Rutger LR to be Junk….The case stands on its own….decision…maybe I am wrong…If so, I would like some other Trial/Appellate Counsel to prove I am wrong….Thus far no one has stated otherwise…so I guess I am right…btw the case was not debunked…it is the same as having ALEC write the law and then name changing in different states.. …Talk about socialism at it height…But it only makes Corporations socialist….Hmmmmmm
Roco,
Sorry, but it does, because I am. We are a constitutional democratic representative republic. Absolute and unanimous agreement are not required for this type of system to work. Absolute and unanimous agreement would require a form of democracy not yet tried in the entirety of human history, the impossible democracy.
Swarthmore Mom:
how many corporations do you own stock in? How many teachers own stock in corporations through their retirement accounts?
Corporations are people, a big group of people who are losing their life savings because of the policies of share the wealth. Obama has been a very effective president.
Gene H:
So you say and have said. Doesnt make you right though.
By the way, if any of you don’t consent to the social contract that is the Constitution? You are free to leave at any time you are ready to renounce your citizenship. Absolutely no one is going to force you to stay if you feel you’ve been entered into an agreement without your consent.
No, Roco, the only confusion here is yours and your buddy’s about what democracy means. I’d like to see you try to claim your (misunderstood) Constitutional rights some more after just disavowing the very democracy the Constitution founded though. That kind of stunning hypocrisy is always a hoot.
kderosa,
Respectfully, I don’t think the term debunked is appropriate or accurate. The Feds(NHTSA) required a recall and Ford had the same problem with their Capri model in Europe. And don’t forget the multiple juries who seemed to be satisfied that the design and the decision by Ford was negligent.
kderosa:
he gets confused by that We the People thingy.
kderosa,
Wow.
“The conditions needed to make this claim valid did not exist at the time the Constitution was adopted or ever could exist. Though “the People” can surely be bound by their consent, this consent must be real, not fictional—unanimous, not majoritarian. Anything less than unanimous consent simply cannot bind nonconsenting persons.”
That’s the argument of a child and completely ignorant of the democratic form.
You’ll have to do better than that, but thanks for the laugh.
kderosa,
I understand and more running away on your part was about what I expected.
@GeneH — your understanding of “We the People” is unfortunately completely off base. We the people has to do with consent of the people, which is only tangentially related to democracy and certainly is not legitimated by mere majority consent.
“We the People” was offered to claim legitimacy for the Constitution. The founders’ claim of legitimacy was based not on the divine right of kings, but on the right of “We the People” to govern themselves. They declared that “We the People” had exercised their rights and manifested their consent to be ruled by the institutions “constituted” by the Constitution document. They made this declaration because they believed that the consent of “We the People” was necessary to establish a legitimate government and that, upon ratification, they would have gained this consent. This is what is known as “popular sovereignty.”
The notion is that Constitution is legitimate because it as established by “We the People” or the “consent of the governed.” The conditions needed to make this claim valid did not exist at the time the Constitution was adopted or ever could exist. Though “the People” can surely be bound by their consent, this consent must be real, not fictional—unanimous, not majoritarian. Anything less than unanimous consent simply cannot bind nonconsenting persons. Moreover, if taken seriously, the fiction of “We the People” can prove dangerous in practice and can lead to unwarranted criticisms of the Constitution’s legitimacy.
You can mull over this for awhile and revise your opening statement. I have to take the kids to Borders to celebrate once again the triumph of the market over weak competitors by relieving Borders, at a steep discount, of their soon to be liquidated stock.
Ekerya,
“Isn’t that essentially the same situation?”
Only in the same way that having your buddy shoot at a deer, miss, with the bullet ricochet off of a rock and into your leg. Then him getting a stick for you to lean on, you using it, it breaking, and you falling and hitting your head on a tree branch is the same as him sneaking up behind you and whacking you in the head with a stick. That is to say, only if you ignore all the other circumstances that are required for someone to get killed by the police as a result of their building not being up to code.
You shouldn’t assume things about my beliefs, I never said states willingly submitted to limits on their power with no outside pressure, just that the over all trend has been limits placed on states power. None of which has any bearing on the my thesis that the only people who would benefit from the complete removal of legal framework is those willing to hurt others for personal gain, and that everyone else would suffer as a result.
Also, you’re conflating scope with power. Our laws encompass more areas of our lives because our lives have more areas to oversee. It’s like saying that the increase in traffic laws since 1885 is evidence of tyranny.
@Gene H, I’ll get to you, you and your twisted tales are a low priority.
@AY, I told you that you should have read the study.
@rafflaw, much of what is in those articles is discussed at length in the Swartz Study I cited above and much of the allegations are debunked.