Attack of the Wal-Mart-istas

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August 31, 2007 at 08:35:50

Attack of the Wal-Mart-istas

by Stephen Pizzo Page 1 of 3 page(s)

http://www.opednews.com

Maybe I stayed in the news business for too long after my radiation badge turned red. Maybe I'm suffering from Post-traumatic, Restless News Syndrome, or something. But I have this notion stuck in my head lately. It's kind of like when I get an annoying tune stuck in my head, this notion pops up and up again, especially after I read the news.

Okay so, at the risk of exposing myself as the nut I have always secretly suspected I would someday be proven to be, here it is – my notion:

How long before before they get it? It can't be far off. So when will day arrive when America's once vibrant and hyper-patriotic working class wakes up and realizes they're at the receiving end of one of the greatest screwings in human history? And then, rather than reaching for their car keys to rush off to their second low-paying job of the day, they reach instead for one of their many guns.”

A number of things got me thinking about that. Like this story which ran earlier this week:

US Most Armed Country With 90 Guns Per 100 People 
Reuters--Tuesday 28 August 2007: The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said. U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States, it said. "There is roughly one firearm for every seven people worldwide. Without the United States, though, this drops to about one firearm per 10 people," it said.

Yikes. Al-Qaeda, eat your heart out. Americans have more firepower than you do. Which begs the question: when should the US movers and shakers stop worrying about al-Qaeda and start worring about al-Smith? When will all those WallMart shoppers morph into a mob of angry, well-armed Wallmartatistas?

Or is that just crazy – and me too for even considering such a thing happening in America? Maybe I am just crazy, or at least heading to Crazyland. But before you pass that judgement on me, let's run through a few of the news threads that led me down this dark and troubling path.

Item 1:
A Sobering Census Report: Americans' Meager Income Gains 
The New York Times--29 August 2007: The economic party is winding down and most working Americans never even got near the punch bowl. The Census Bureau reported yesterday that median household income rose 0.7 percent last year ... (Yet) the median household income last year was still about $1,000 less than in 2000, before the onset of the last recession...And what is perhaps most disturbing is that it appears this is as good as it's going to get. (Full)

Item 2:
Wealth gap widens

Chasm between wealthiest households and everyone else has grown more than 50% since the early 1960s.
CNNMoney.com--August 29 2006: Over the past 40 years, those at the top of the money food chain have seen their wealth grow at a rate far outpacing everyone else, according to a new analysis released by the Economic Policy Institute...In the early 1960s, the top 1 percent of households in terms of net worth held 125 times the median wealth in the United States. Today, that gap has grown to 190 times.The top 20 percent of wealth-holding households, meanwhile, held 15 times the overall median wealth in the early 1960s. By 2004, that gap had grown to 23 times. "In 21st century America, wealth begets wealth, and those without wealth find it farther out of reach," the report's authors write.

Item 3:
The U.S. today - an oligarchy with inequality growing worse
The top 10% of income earners in the United States now owns 70% of the wealth, and the wealthiest 1% owns more than the bottom 95%, according to the Federal Reserve. In 2005, the top 300,000 Americans enjoyed about the same share of the nation's income — 21.8% — as the bottom 150 million...New York is an especially bleak case study. The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now makes 52 times what the lowest fifth makes — $365,826 annually compared with $7,047 — roughly comparable to income disparity in Namibia.Meanwhile, the ratio of average CEO to worker pay in the U.S. shot up from 301-to-1 to 431-to-1 in 2004. The average CEO now earns substantially more in one day than the average worker earns all year. Adding insult to injury, taxpayers actually give tax breaks to corporations for those salaries, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. (Full)

Personally, I have nothing against the rich, per se. I just have this nagging belief that money in a financial system is like blood in a body. The stuff has to be fairly evenly distributed throughout the body otherwise bad things start to happen. Let the concentration get too far out of hand and the body convulses. After that all kinds of bad things can happen unless the stuff is redistributed more evenly.

One has to wonder whether the new super-rich understand that. I believe they do. Here's at least some evidence that they are getting worried the body is about to convulse.

Item 4:
Most Expensive Gated Communities 2005
NEW YORK -Exclusive gated communities that shield mansions with walls, hedges and uniformed security guards may seem like a modern phenomenon. But the notion of rich people living in protected areas is not a recent idea. "It was the line between civilization and chaos, between order and disorder," says Evan McKenzie, associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government...Today, the wealthy and well-known are still drawn to private, protected neighborhoods, and are willing to pay millions of dollars--plus expensive association fees--to live in them. "The affluent always start their shopping in gated communities," says John McMonigle, a broker for Coldwell Banker International Previews in Newport Beach, Calif. "Security is more and more of a concern, especially for people moving from L.A. to Orange County. They almost always insist on gated communities. I don't think they realize what a safe little bubble it is." (Full)

Item 5:
Fortress America : Gated Communities in the United States
Brookings Institution: Americans are electing to live behind walls with active security mechanisms to prevent intrusion into their private domains. Americans of all classes are forting up, attempting to secure the value of their houses, reduce or escape from the impact of crime, and find neighbors who share their sense of the good life. The new fortress developments are predominantly suburban, with a growing number of urban inner-city counterparts. They are, however, more than walled-off areas and refuges from urban violence and a rapidly changing society....We estimate that more than 3 million American households have already sought out this new refuge from the problems of urbanization. (Full)

So, the rich do seem to understand that at some point in process of serf-afying the American working class, that some of those newly minted serfs are likely to get a tad cranky about their diminished circumstances.

"But, the saddest part of moving to a (gated) neighborhood segregated by wealth is that your children won't have the sense of security you enjoyed growing up in a less affluent community. They won't be required to interact with young and old, rich and poor, with town drunks and with little old ladies in tennis shoes. So, they'll never feel comfortable with those who are different." (Bill Wineke Wisconsin State Journal)

Which brings me back to that first story.. the one about how many guns are out there. Who do you figure holds most of those privately owned firearms? I'd wager that 99.9% of them are owned by working stiffs. Ironic, isn't it? For decades conservative politicians have stroked working class voters into a trance with Second Amendment chants. After all, they insinuated, when the commies came, who will fight them off? Well all those patriotic, semi-automatic toting Joe and Jane Sixpacks out there, of course.

I wonder if those right wingers might be having second thoughts about that strategy? After all, millions of those now-well armed Joe and Jane Sixpack are suddenly struggling with entirely non-commie-generated problems.

Millions face foreclosure.

1 | 2 | 3

http://www.newsforreal.com

Stephen Pizzo has been published everywhere from The New York Times to Mother Jones magazine. His book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, was nominated for a Pulitzer.

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7 comments

Bio not available at this time
BernardBio not available at this time

Rest Easy

Unless you have a basement full of ammo for the kids to play with, those guns are as useful as clubs. Gun owners right to bear arms doesn't include the ammo. 99.9% of the guns sold are expensive paperweights. In a time of "need" don't expect to run down the corner store and buy a box of shells because they won't be there.

by Bernard (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 50 comments) on Friday, August 31, 2007 at 3:10:06 PM

I am David 'Shadow' VelasquezI'm an american expat living in Belgium.I have three kids and a dog. I sculpt in copper, bronze, paper maché. I have a serious fire fetish as I enjoy spinning fire poi and staff. I play guitar, bass, keyboards(although not so great on the ivories) -and singI've been writing songs and poetry for as long as I can remember.I've played in a number of bands since 1977. As the former lead singer of 80's band Necropolis Of Love I've rec...

to see more of bio, click on member name
chariotdrvr14I am David 'Shadow' VelasquezI'm an american expat living in Belgium.I have three kids and a dog. I sculpt in copper, bronze, paper maché. I have a serious fire fetish as I enjoy spinning fire poi and staff. I play guitar, bass, keyboards(although not so great on the ivories) -and singI've been writing songs and poetry for as long as I can remember.I've played in a number of bands since 1977. As the former lead singer of 80's band Necropolis Of Love I've rec...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Some images and thoughts came to mind while reading this

Some day,... the gated communities may not be using regular uniformed security guards but some fully armed mercenaries like BlackwaterUSA.

You know it's funny. There are people who believe firmly that the neo cons are out to round up ordinary citizenry and lock them up in Halliburton built FEMA run concentration camps. But, if an unarmed pliable populace is what the powers that be wanted.... then why would Bush refuse to extend the ban on the sales of assault rifles?

Aside from the obvious importance of an NRA endorsement... maybe its just a symbolic bone tossed. After all they don't need alot to pacify us or control us as they declaw the unions and de regulate industry. Working class and the middle class still vote for the people that shift all the monetary advantages to the super rich... they continue to vote against their own self interest based on facile pundit hype.

you don't need facts if you've got a punchline.

And they don't need tanks when they've got TV.

by chariotdrvr14 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 125 comments) on Friday, August 31, 2007 at 4:46:10 PM

Author of "The Politics of Extraterrestrials...Connecting the Dots" ISBN 0-9765223-0-6
PatrickAuthor of "The Politics of Extraterrestrials...Connecting the Dots" ISBN 0-9765223-0-6

That is why "They" built the Nukes

"They" know exactly what is coming at "Them."

That's why "They" decided to turn us all into nuclear waste over 60 years ago.

We are the "Living Dead."

A Venusian by the name of Valiant Thor met with several employees of the Pentagon early on in the nuclear era. Mr Thor informed our newly created Nuclear war fighting elite that humanity had now reached the level of technical prowess, that to survive, would require a transition in behavior.

Mr Thor explained that to avoid an all out nuclear holocaust that the Elite would need to "Subordinate private profit," to the needs of "Social Justice."

The newly minted nuclear war fighting elite decided that "They" would rather "Fight than switch."

What we have been witnessing for over 60 years now, is how a high level cultural and technical power, can 'Vanquish' a low grueling brutal primitive gang of murderous imbeciles and simpletons, without hardly laying a hand on "Them. "

Our nuclear war fighting imbeciles have 'Smoked' us folks. We exist due only to the timely intervention into our world by a group that we have very little information about.

Our nuclear war fighting murdering rich are very frightened of you Wal-Martistas,' but there is little that "They" can do about it. "They" built the 'Trigger,' and 'They' pulled that same 'Trigger' on us.

"They" who have taken it upon themselves to immolate us all in an all out nuclear conflagration, appear to have a bit of 'Luck' on their side. The High level powers who have repeatedly blocked our extermination, appear to not want "Them" put to the ultimate punishment.

It seems that the High level powers want 'Their' fingers off of the nuclear 'Trigger' and the nuclear 'Trigger' itself, dismantled.

It is but a small group located within the City of London, the Bankers, who decided it was 'Their' right to exterminate humanity. 'Their' time has ended.

The Militarist Fraud; is ended.

by Patrick (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 366 comments) on Friday, August 31, 2007 at 5:11:46 PM

Author & Journalisthttp://www.stephen.pizzo.comhttp://www.newsforreal.com (blog)
Stephen Pizzo Author & Journalisthttp://www.stephen.pizzo.comhttp://www.newsforreal.com (blog)

Oh my

Some needs a new tin foil hat.

Steve

by Stephen Pizzo (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments) on Friday, August 31, 2007 at 5:16:57 PM

Recently retired activist with an MA in Public Policy from an Ivy League school. A born again believer who also believes in the separation of church and state and is outraged that the Word of the Lord has been highjacked to justify the actions of the current administration.
macdon1Recently retired activist with an MA in Public Policy from an Ivy League school. A born again believer who also believes in the separation of church and state and is outraged that the Word of the Lord has been highjacked to justify the actions of the current administration.

California has you in its sights

Here in California you get fingerprinted and recorded every time you buy ammunition. I'm sure if you tried to stock up, you would get a visit from big brother.

by macdon1 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 78 comments) on Friday, August 31, 2007 at 8:06:44 PM

teeem, a writer/researcher and activist recently transplanted to the Los Angeles area, is originally from Virginia and spent from 1989 to 2006 living in Upstate South Carolina (where she was able to observe the Religious Right mindset). She loves music, film, writing, art, books, ideas, and animals.
teeemteeem, a writer/researcher and activist recently transplanted to the Los Angeles area, is originally from Virginia and spent from 1989 to 2006 living in Upstate South Carolina (where she was able to observe the Religious Right mindset). She loves music, film, writing, art, books, ideas, and animals.

Blackwater and Katrina

I read that in the aftermath of Katrina, Blackwater guys were going around taking guns away from people who had them legally. So those fools who think the NRA is going to protect their "Second Amendment rights" are deluded. Obviously if the Fourth Reich wants your guns, they'll get them, NRA or no. Though I'm sure the rich will be able to keep theirs.

by teeem (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 41 comments) on Sunday, September 2, 2007 at 5:43:55 AM

Blackwater

There is a very informative (and scary) book out on Blackwater by the independat journalist Jeremy Scahill. You probably will have to buy it as I am sure it isn't on the approved list at your local library.

by macdon1 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 78 comments) on Sunday, September 2, 2007 at 7:36:37 PM

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