“There is felt today very widely the inconsistency in this condition of political democracy and industrial absolutism. The people are beginning to doubt whether in the long run democracy and absolutism can coexist in the same community; beginning to doubt whether there is a justification for the great inequalities in the distribution of wealth, for the rapid creation of fortunes, more mysterious than the deeds of Aladdin’s lamp.”
Louis D. Brandeis, The Opportunity in Law, Speech to Harvard Ethical Society, May 4, 1905
“Starting around 1980, American society began to undergo a series of deep shifts. Deregulation, weakened antitrust enforcement, and technological changes led to increasing concentration of industry and finance. Money began to play a larger and more corrupting role in politics. America fell behind other nations in education, in infrastructure, and in the performance of many of its major industries. Inequality increased.
As a result of these and other changes, America was turning into a rigged game— a society that denies opportunity to those who are not born into wealthy families, one that resembles a third-world dictatorship more than an advanced democracy.”
Charles H. Ferguson, Predator Nation
“When the system is rigged, when ordinary citizens are powerless, and when whistle-blowers are pariahs at best, three things happen. First, the worst people rise to the top. They behave appallingly, and they wreak havoc. Second, people who could make productive contributions to society are incented to become destructive, because corruption is far more lucrative than honest work. And third, everyone else pays, both economically and emotionally; people become cynical, selfish, and fatalistic. Often they go along with the system, but they hate themselves for it. They play the game to survive and feed their families, but both they and society suffer.”
Charles H. Ferguson, Inside Job
Democracy is a brand of absolutism vodka. All countries are rigged games – from inception.
Bring on the revolution comrade, don’t forget the vodka.
late 14c., originally of celestial bodies, from Old French revolucion.
Here’s a celestial, or maybe cosmic, Bodhi bartender, punching up the rpm’s o’ rationalization, justification, & nobilification. Sometimes it’s hard to tell testosterone & vodka apart. He serves it up, & the gang swallers it down. (If you didn’t see this one, everybody dies of the cause, for the cause, by the cause.) We all got to go, sometime, somehow.
“Patience my ass – I’m gonna kill something.” – remember that poster, two buzzards perched in a tree, tired of waiting for something to carrion over?