What’s Really Going On Behind All The Headlines, News Updates & Trump Tweet Storms

Now the oligarchy is striking back. Forget Trump. He is just their useful idiot du jour. 

By John Lemberger
The Commoner Call (5/10/20)

Trump is many ugly things. He is a serial liar, a sexual abuser of women, a swindler, a narcissist, grifter, and  psychological chameleon capable of converting from a sociopath to a psychopath right before our eyes. But he is also a Libertarian of the worst kind — the Charles Koch kind — which means he will lie, cheat and steal to destroy our majority-democracy and replace it with minority-rule Libertarianism. The important battle right now in America is not capitalism vs socialism, although that is a battle that should be fought eventually. The big battle right now is a stealth battle funded by Charles Koch between majority-rule democracy and minority-rule Libertarianism of the ultra-wealthy. Koch’s various think tanks talk about liberty, but their definition of liberty is of the brutal Ayn Rand kind — based upon individual greed and selfishness — not the Thomas Jefferson kind, based on democratic self-determination toward the common good.

The Koch/Trump targets are all publicly-funded organizations and institutions that were put in place by democratic self-determination to serve the common good: the Post Office, K-12 public schools and universities, Medicare, Social Security, public parks and roads, public health, police and fire departments, labor unions and even our Constitution, yes, our United States Constitution, with their falsely-labeled Liberty Amendments. Under the Koch/Trump agenda, all are slated for destruction by under funding, undermining them in one way or another until they become dysfunctional, and then by imposing — by hook or by crook – a privatized, undemocratic alternative.

The real target

The long goal is to replace our Constitution with a new, oligarch-friendly constitution that will severely limit voting rights to very wealthy property owners — the powerful oligarchy itself. Yes, Trump must be flushed down the toilet November 3rd, but that isn’t the end of our struggles. Charles Koch and the hard right Mount Pelerin Society aren’t going away. Their goal is wealthy, white minority rule that will reestablish the economic, political and social culture of the pre-Civil War deep south; a place where oligarchs were allowed to exploit human beings and natural resources for their own selfish enrichment without any interference from government or the will of the majority. The origins of this deeply undemocratic, authoritarian philosophy are detailed in professor Nancy MacLean’s excellent 2017 book, “Democracy In Chains: The Deep History Of The Radical Right’s Stealth Plan For America”.

The issue is far bigger than Trump’s latest tweet storm. The issue is a stealth revolution by Charles Koch and other secretive power brokers aimed at rolling back and limiting sovereignty to very wealthy, white, male landowners; the oligarchy. The long struggle to expand sovereignty to include, women, people of color and young people at 18 has been fraught with danger and even death, but it has resulted in expanded voting rights, opportunity and ultimately a fairer nation for all citizens. Now the oligarchy is striking back. Forget Trump. He is just their useful idiot du jour.

Keep your eye on the prize: sovereignty invested in all the people; what the Greeks called the demos — the common people. The oligarchs’ hatred of the demos has been gathering like a dark cloud on the horizon for decades. It has come. Ii can be recognized by the attack on public institutions and traditions, by packing the courts with oligarch-sponsored judges, by the condoning of racism and sexism and the systematic disenfranchisement of voters through gerrymandering. Most lately it has been seen in the structure of the coronavirus bailout money diverted off to corporations and the wealthy while sacrificing workers in warehouses , meat packing plants and hospitals for even more private profit.

Arm yourselves with knowledge and be ready for the Constitutional crisis ahead.

(Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )

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Ralph Nader Interviews ‘Democracy In Chains’ Author Nancy MacLean 

Ralph Nader Radio Hour (6/9/18)

Ralph welcomes Duke University historian, Nancy MacLean, to discuss her book “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America,” which delves into the destructive “libertarian” ideology the Koch brothers fund to keep the minority in power. Also, Ralph talks to English professor, Tymofey Wowk, about his strategies for teaching students in the age of social media.

Link To 1-Hour, 14-Minute Audio