"The State of the Union is Crap"

"20% of the country is doing OK. 1% is doing fantastically.

[Some of the] 0.001% is doing so well it’s criminal, literally.

They don’t own everything yet but [many of those with enough money and/or power] own [many] politicians, judges, regulators, academics, and reporters.

...[Many of ] the other 80%, the rubes, the muppets, the serfs, are mired in an undeclared, ongoing depression.

...Many sense that something is wrong, even drastically wrong, but few realize they have been totally and thoroughly betrayed by those they trusted with the governance of the country and themselves.

...They continue to look to those who did this to them to fix things and make them better.

...They may grumble but there is no hint of real opposition or organized rebellion.

So we have two states of the Union because we have two Unions, one of the many and one of the few...

We have one Union based on reality and hard work and another which feeds off it.

For most Americans, their wages minus inflation have stayed flat every day of their working lives, that is for the last 35 years.

College is no longer a passport to a better life but [for many, can be] a trap of lifelong debt.

...The meltdown of 5 years ago destroyed much of the wealth of the middle class and virtually all the wealth of the lower classes.

...[Many of] those who drove the economy over the cliff in 2008...have come roaring back. They have made back the money they lost and more as the government and Fed have thrown trillions at them and encouraged them to blow new and bigger speculative bubbles.

...Statistics have been bent and twisted until they scream. As a consequence, GDP is up. Unemployment is down. Life is good. The numbers prove it. So suck it up, ignore reality, and stop complaining.

After 3 years in preparation, Obamacare entered with a pratfall launch which embodied everything about what the program was, corporatism, and what it wasn’t, healthcare.

Class war demands distraction and nothing focuses the mind in the wrong place than war.

There is the War on Drugs which has put millions of Americans behind bars and turned Mexico into a narco-state, even as the banks which knowingly laundered hundreds of billions in drug cartel profits escape with no one doing jail time and nothing more than some “cost of doing business” fines.

...After nearly 8 years in Iraq and every effort made to stay longer, that country remains on the same verge of civil war as when we left.

...An important theatre in this war is the war against the rule of law and the Constitution. In our two Unions, the two Americas, there are two rules of law. The rule of law for the [few] is that the rule of law does not apply to them.

Barack Obama and Eric Holder have investigated no one, prosecuted no one, and sent to prison no one for nearly destroying the economy 6 years ago or for any of their economic crimes since. Jamie Dimon not only isn’t in prison, he’s still head of JPMorgan, and just got a multi-million dollar raise. Financial terrorism is infinitely more destructive than al Qaeda, infinitely better paying, and can be practiced with impunity.

As for ordinary Americans, they face a militarized police and a Dickensian legal system.

At the same time, we are seeing our Constitutional rights bulldozed in the construction of a surveillance state, a euphemism for a police state. ...Its justification is that it is only after the bad guys, but this state with all its vast spying programs and resources has ...caught [very few] “bad guys”, certainly none to justify its enormous budgets and unchecked powers.

...We are being hollowed out both as a country and a people.

Our state is this: We have a cancer. It is feeding on us.

...Our cancer tells us that without it, we cannot survive.

The truth is we have no hope of survival, indeed no hope of anything, unless we cut it out.

Liberal, conservative, or indifferent, Tea Party, progressive, or independent, this is the choice we are all faced with, not just for ourselves but each other.

If we are to act and if we are to be successful, then we must act together.

That is where we are.

The choice is yours."

Hugh

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/01/real-state-union.html