Will Americans passively accept the slow death of debt slavery?

As the IMF, EU and global bankers begin implementing harsh austerity measures designed to exploit the middle class, people throughout Europe are striking and taking to the streets en masse.

As Economic Death Squad leader Tim Geithner assured the world while he was in Berlin, Germany: “We all agree on a need for a common framework… common standards.”

Do you hear that America?

It doesn’t take much to read between the lines. The Economic Elite are carrying out an aggressive global plan to eliminate the very existence of an economic middle class.

For those of us who have been paying attention to economic imperialism operations that have been carried out against developing countries throughout the world, this all looks all too familiar. The IMF and global bankers have conquered the second and third world, and now they have moved on to countries in the first world. European and American working classes are in the cross-hairs now.

The Europeans recognize this and are starting to fight back.

The question is: When will American citizens realize that the same thing is happening over here and also take actions to defend themselves?

In an essay titled “The Rising Tide of Global Protest Against Casino Capitalism,” Henry Giroux compares the Greek protest movement to the American movement (or lack there of), and basically concludes that it boils down to the fact that most Americans are politically illiterate and are largely unaware of what is happening to them due to mainstream media propaganda. Here’s an excerpt from Giroux’s essay:

“In my view, the reaction of protesters in the United States juxtaposed with the resistance movement in Greece suggests a difference between the two cultures that is not merely incidental, and speaks to an ever widening chasm of political culture and literacy that separates these two societies. Greece reflects a social order in which a vibrant political culture and respect for critical education enable its citizens to think carefully and thoughtfully about both the history of the crisis and the socio-political forces that are causing it.

The protests are not simply directed against harsh austerity measures, but also ‘against a ruling system as the economic and financial crisis has finally brought to the surface all the perversions and deformities of a political culture that thrives on graft and corruption … and the plundering of the public wealth for the benefit of the domestic economic elite.’

By contrast, in the United States a good part of the mainstream media and its anti-public intellectuals largely examine the financial crisis through very limited modes of analyses, suggesting not merely a devolution of political insight and critical understanding, but also the refusal to acknowledge the stultifying effects of the decades-long influence of a market-driven cultural apparatus that depoliticizes citizens and robs individuals of opportunities to think critically and to act on their capacities for thoughtful engagement and collective action. In the US, the mainstream media is controlled largely by a few major corporations and lacks the political sophistication one finds in the media in Europe and other parts of the world. In the US, politics spawns a culture of entertainment which trivializes the news and substitutes the spectacle over substance…”

This thesis is something that I wholeheartedly agree with. As a population, we have been intensely propagandized daily since birth. Generally speaking, our critical thinking skills and attention to deeper political and economic issues are almost non-existent. It seems that as long as the US mainstream media keeps pumping out propaganda saying that the economy is getting better, and rarely reports on the austerity measures that are being rolled out in states across the country, the millions of Americans already suffering in isolation will just keep suffering in passive silence, believing in the propagated delusion and false hope that things will be improving soon.

Outside of this psychological operation to make people believe that things are getting better, another major reason social unrest has been avoided thus far is because close to 100 million Americans have been saved by social safety net programs like unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Many desperate Americans have also survived the past two years by running up and maxing out their credit cards. Over the next year, as this prolonged crisis heads towards its third year, millions of Americans will lose the benefits that they have been surviving off of. At the same time, state budgets have now been depleted and are just beginning to roll out harsh austerity programs that people are yet to feel the effects of.

On a federal level, Obama and his deficit commission are now marching lockstep with EU and IMF measures by enacting draconian austerity measures and cutting the very programs that have staved off social unrest thus far. The technocratic social planners in the Obama Administration are trying to come up with a plan to pull out vital social programs without causing mass riots. They are sending off the first trial balloon now by cutting off 323,400 long-term unemployed people from benefits this week. Considering that we have well over six million people unemployed for more than six months, and 20 million people who qualified for unemployment benefits this past year, this is a small percentage of the many who are about to face losing the income they have been surviving off of. Looking at this from a purely techno-sociological viewpoint, avoiding mass riots and violence while this many desperate people lose these programs appears to be an impossible task. As the Army War College stated, the response to this coming phase of the economic crisis “might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD [the Department of Defense] would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance.”

This is my fear as well. We essentially have a political and economic system that has been overrun by corruption and theft. Along with a mass media system that does not inform the populace and has effectively marginalized and isolated the majority of the population. Meanwhile, bubbling up just under the surface, we are a very heavily armed population with a militia movement that has doubled in size over the past year, as their memberships continue to rapidly grow. So without the necessary general political intelligence or infrastructure to organize an effective mass nonviolent movement, we appear to be steamrolling toward riots and armed insurrections.

In other words, what is now a passive and confused population may soon develop into an explosion of violence.

In my opinion, nonviolent activism in the United States has about one more year, if that, to stake a claim in the national psyche and provide a viable alternative to violence. Not only must a non-violent movement provide an outlet for severe and legitimate grievances, they must prove that they can urgently affect necessary political change. Our political system is now bought and paid for by the global financial oligarchs. Unless they quickly recognize the growing threat posed by the dispossessed masses, politicians themselves will be in harms way. Already, 80% of the population believes that the government has failed them. Whether it is by arrogance or ignorance, perhaps both, it appears that our ruling class has suicidal tendencies.

The health care bill and financial reform process has proven that our politicians are much more concerned about the short-sighted necessity to please the Economic Elite and raise campaign funds, then they are to understand the consequences of millions of Americans being forced into situations where their very survival is threatened. In a system where most elected officials were millionaires before taking office, this lack of perspective and understanding is ultimately what will lead to violence.

So this is my message to politicians and citizens of the United States: Either start taking serious non-violent action to reign in the Financial Oligarchy now, or get ready for things get very ugly.

What is unfolding now reminds me of the Rage Against the Machine song New Millennium Homes.

Sing it with me:

“Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long
They get hope from fire and smoke as the weak grow strong
Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long
They get hope from fire and smoke as they reach for the dawn…

Check the high tech terror
Of the new order athletes
Privatizing through private eyes
An era risin’

Old south order
New northern horizon…”

“The spirit of Jackson
Now screams through the ruins…
Through [economic] chains
And the ghost of the union
Forgotten remains
Disappear to their new homes…

A fire in the master’s house is set…”

Related posts:

1. Full Report: The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report This report was originally released...
2. The Financial Oligarchy Reigns: Democracy’s Death Spiral From Greece to the United States This piece was originally published on May 10, 2010 by...
3. Is It Time for Law Abiding American Citizens to Stop Paying Their Taxes and Start a New Government? This piece was originally published on March 31, 2010 by...
4. The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society This piece was originally published on November 18, 2009 by...
5. Declare Yourself, It’s Time to Confront the Financial Coup This piece was originally published on November 2, 2009 by...