Keep wanting that revolution

Will the American poor ever go after the American rich’s riches? Uh, no, because the rich own a vast propaganda machine (the flagship of which is Fox “News”) that has convinced the poor that the redistribution of wealth is a bad thing for them.

Lefty editorial cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall concludes his current column:

…What happens next, I think, is that people will do what large numbers of people always do when they need money and food but can’t find a job: They will start to think about the rich, who still have all the wealth they accumulated while money was still circulating. And they will take it from them.

It might be the easy way, through liberal-style income redistribution. Or it might be the hard way. Either way, it goes against the laws of nature to expect starving people to allow a few individuals to sit on vast aggregations of wealth….

With the economic distress we’re likely to see in the coming year or two or three, revolution will become increasingly likely unless money starts coursing through the nation’s economic veins, and soon.

Will it be a soft revolution of government-mandated wealth distribution through radical changes in the tax structure and the construction of a European-style safety net, as master reformer FDR presided over when he saved capitalism from itself?

Or will the coming revolution be something harder and bloodier, like the socioeconomic collapse that destroyed Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union?

To a great extent, what happens next will depend on how Barack Obama proceeds in his first weeks as president.

Damn — do even I write that apocalyptically?

Don’t get me wrong; I do wish for another American revolution. But I don’t have my hopes up that fat-assed Americans will put down their Big Gulps and get out of their lard-hauling scooters long enough to, um, revolt. (Oh, they’re revolting, all right, but in a different sense of the term…)

I mean, a pattern emerges: A man named George Bush takes Oval Office and wrecks the economy; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Then a Democrat takes the helm and the economy recovers; there is (relative) prosperity, under which Americans grow fat and lazy. Then, because Americans are fat and lazy and can’t be bothered with something like preventing the utter destruction of their democracy, another man named George Bush steals office and wrecks the economy, just like his fucking father did. Then another Democrat takes the helm. Presumably the economy will recover and even eventually blossom under President Barack Obama and Americans will become even fatter and lazier.

But after President Obama will Americans be fucking stupid enough to put another Bush into the White House, as Grandpappy George Bush suggests they should, in his son Jeb? (Will Americans perhaps even allow Jeb Bush to steal the White House like his brother did?)

I mean, aren’t we being played? A Repugnican president (usually with the surname of Bush) brings the nation to the brink of utter ruin and then a Democrat fixes things, only to have the whole cycle repeat itself?

Revolution?

I’m not going to buy a pitchfork or a torch just yet.

Obama’s numbers in the public opinion polls are pretty fucking good. To a solid majority of Americans, Obama is fucking Superman. Or at least Batman (and, as Catwoman noted in the second Tim Burton “Batman” movie, Americans are always waiting around for some hero to save them from their own fucking messes).

A Gallup poll taken last month found that 32 percent of Americans listed Barack Obama as their most admired man living today anywhere in the world. George W. Bush came in a distant second place at only 5 percent. (John McCainosaurus? He came in third place, with only 3 percent. I’m surprised that he did as well as he did on Nov. 4…)

Polls taken last month found that at least 75 percent of Americans approve of the job that Obama is doing thus far in his transition to the White House.

Obama’s shit doesn’t stink — at least right now. He’s riding high.

Americans seem to fully expect Obama to save them.

As long as things don’t get much, much worse than they are now, I don’t see the forcible redistribution of wealth that the Repugnican plutocrats so fear.

The tagline of Rall’s current column reads: “There’s Plenty of Money Around. Let’s Take It.” That’s my dream (and apparently Rall’s, t0o) and a plutocrat’s nightmare, but the Repugnicans, with their incessant propaganda campaigns, have convinced enough stupid poor people that the redistribution of wealth somehow is a bad thing for them — “socialism” and “Communism,” you know — that the rich and the super-rich and the super-fucking-rich are pretty safe, I think, atop their mountains of cash that they stole from the rest of us.

And just enough Americans have bought Barack Obama’s promises of “hope” and “change” — last month 63 percent of Americans polled said that they feel “hopeful” for 2009, while only 35 percent said “fearful” — that I don’t see that revolution coming any day soon.

When things are this shitty, things have to improve only a little for people to think that things have turned around again, even though the bar keeps getting lower and lower and lower. 

Yeah — we’re being played…

Suddenly, every vote is sacred

George W. Bush “won” the White House in late 2000 when he officially “won” the pivotal state of Florida — with the help of Florida’s then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who also just coinky-dinkily had sat on the state committee to elect Gee Dubya — by only 527 votes. The next president had to be determined expeditiously, the Repugnicans argued, and the Repugnican-dominated U.S. Supreme Court — in one of the court’s worst. rulings.  ever. — ruled to stop the Florida recount, effectively crowning George as president.

Now, all of a sudden, counting every single vote accurately is vitally important to the Repugnicans. Reports The Associated Press today:

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Republican Norm Coleman said [today] he is suing to challenge Democrat Al Franken‘s apparent recount victory in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race, delaying a resolution of the contest for weeks or months.

At a Capitol news conference filled with cheering supporters, Coleman said he won’t accept a board’s determination a day earlier that Franken won 225 more votes in the November election. He had a seven-day window to file the lawsuit.

“We are filing this contest to make absolutely sure every valid vote was counted and no one’s was counted more than anyone else’s,” Coleman said.

Coleman shrugged off the idea that he might concede the election to avoid a protracted fight that could leave Minnesota with only a single senator in Washington for months.

“Something greater than expediency is at stake here,” Coleman said. He added: “Democracy is not a machine. Sometimes it’s messy and inconvenient, and reaching the best conclusion is never quick because speed is not the first objective, fairness is.”

State law prevents officials from issuing an election certificate until legal matters are resolved.

Franken’s campaign planned a news conference later [today] to comment. In an e-mail to supporters, his campaign requested donations to continue the fight.

“Unfortunately, we’re not done, because instead of conceding, Norm Coleman has decided to go to court, filing a lawsuit in an attempt to overturn the result of the election,” read the plea from campaign manager Stephanie Schriock.

Coleman issued his own appeal for donations a day earlier.

Coleman, whose term expired Saturday, led Franken by 215 votes in the Nov. 4 count but that advantage flipped during a prolonged recount. Coleman’s lawyers say recount inconsistencies and election irregularities should be reviewed by a special three-judge panel.

In going to court, Coleman has three big challenges: raising money to pay escalating legal bills, proving the election was flawed and managing the public’s desire to have the race over….

A race that was a couple of years in the making — Franken announced his campaign in February 2007 — is now two months past Election Day.

Franken declared victory [yesterday], but the former “Saturday Night Live” personality was not sworn in with new senators when Congress convened [today]….

Franken made up his Election Day deficit over the prolonged recount in part by prevailing on more challenges that both campaigns brought to thousands of ballots. He also did better than Coleman when election officials opened and counted more than 900 absentee ballots that had erroneously been disqualified….

I just made a little donation to Team Franken to help them bury Coleman the asshole for good. You can, too, through Franken’s website.