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Thursday, September 15, 2016

Les Deplorables


Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?

-          Les Misérables

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said on Friday that half the supporters of her Republican rival Donald Trump belonged in a “basket of deplorables…”

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan voiced concern that the U.S. economic and political system could be undermined by what he called “crazies.”

The deplorables…the crazies….

While I will not vouch for the character of every single Trump supporter (or whoever it is to whom Greenspan refers), the derogatory remarks by these two stalwarts of the current system are pointed in the wrong direction.

Central banking, unending wars, revolving door between Washington and New York, crony trade deals, big-business-favoring regulation, ever increasing price inflation and taxes, stagnating wages, unemployment, ever-increasing indebtedness – personal, corporate and government, lack of ability to save for retirement.

It is against these which the deplorable crazies are revolting.  Many may not articulate it this way – not even Trump – but there it is.

And the source of these?  I suggest the two of these characters look in a mirror as a starting point; from there, they can trace to the roots of their belief system.

Greenspan blames the rise of populism for the rise of the so-called “crazies.”  It would be more accurate to blame progressivism.  The funniest line from Greenspan?

…Greenspan traced the rise of populism in the U.S. all the way back to 1896, when William Jennings Bryan gave his “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democratic Party national convention opposing the gold standard.

While a slightly different slant, one can certainly point to the elite opposition to a gold standard as the prime facilitator of many of the issues causing such angst in the masses.

More from Greenspan:

“I hope we can all find a way out because this is too great a country to be undermined, by how should I say it, crazies.”

The country was undermined, and one can point to many events from 100 years ago as the beginning of the end: central banking, progressive taxation, going abroad in search of demons to destroy.  All enabled by and enabling of the system that Greenspan now laments might be “undermined.”

The system will be undermined – either by choice or by (economic) force.  On this, Greenspan makes his one true statement:

“Politically, I haven’t a clue how this comes out.”

Nor do I.  But one thing is certain: it will “come out.”

8 comments:

  1. Deplorables and crazies are certainly undermining America and have been for many years now. Those deplorables and crazies are Hillary and Greenspan and their like. They are now brazenly projecting their destructive behavior onto ordinary Americans struggling to survive in the nasty world created by the real deplorables and crazies.

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  2. So when these people failed to get the disgruntled populace to submit to their policies to distribute wealth to the Power Elites and distribute poverty, war, mayhem, backlash and misery to the populace, they get beyond their joke candidates and ex-politicians to now Powell and Greenspan? How desperate can they get when the policies of the "Donald" are only different from Hillay's in the relationship with Russia and China?

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  3. The Political Terrorists like the Clintons are some of the most deplorable parasites on Earth....These filthy animals call others deplorable?

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  4. These political psychopaths speak as if they own me.
    Why is that?

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  5. When Hitlery Clitler wins they are going to round-up and chemically sterilize/lobotomize what they deem deplorables and crazies...Those who refuse to submit to their terror.

    Muslim Terrorist: Submit to Allah, or die.
    Political Terrorist: Submit to the state, or die.

    What's the difference?

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    1. There is no difference. We not only have to defend ourselves against the state but against those entities with state-like ambitions (which are unfortunate realities in places)

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  6. I remember hearing an NPR segment on WJB's Cross of Gold speech which, to nobody's surprise, was fawningly celebratory. Here's an excerpt:

    “Bryan’s platform of really believing that you need to make the masses more prosperous and that prosperity will work its way up to the rich rather than trickle down, his support for more government intervention in the economy to help the have-nots – that really became the core of modern liberalism and that changed his party,” NPR’s Joe Richman explained. “You can say in many ways Bryan was one of the most important losers in American political history.”

    I take two things away from all of this:

    1) Yesterday's populism is today's statism.
    2) In politics, any "compassion" for the poor, whether real (Sanders) or fake (Clinton), will just make everyone poorer in the end.

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    Replies
    1. Why should the government influence “wealth trickle”. Seems better to let it stay where it was created with further trickle going to subsequent wealth creators.

      The government clearly wouldn’t fit into this arrangement.
      TomO

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