I loved this chilling, and, alternatively, encouraging depiction of our alternative futures. Then I started thinking about the future not only projected but touted as an ideal by a few public mouthpieces of the tech oligarchs: the bros live on private islands or other remote enclaves of luxurious living, while the rest of us suffer the deadly consequences of their mega polluting AI 'revolution.' They have stated that most of us will become irrelevant via the AI and robotics ascendancy. One of the 'nicer' bro futurists has speculated that a 'humane' thing to do would be to hook us disposibles up to virtual reality headsets and consign us to warehousing facilities where we can be slowly starved to death and our bodies turned into biofuel. All we have to do is to read up on the atrocities (workhouses, for one) and callous disregard for human life itself that manifested in Dickens' England and most everywhere else. Even now prosperous social democracies like Denmark. Look up the reign of King Frederick, about which an interesting film is available. It's no joke and your vision is right on the money, sad to say. Passivity is our worst possible response to all this, and the window of being able to do more than passively accept our demise is closing.
Capitalism has failed completely. As a result of capitalism we are on the verge of destructive global warming. There are now at least 8.8 billion people on the planet. The Earth’s human population quadrupled in 79 yrs. Ten nations have nuclear weapons. This puts all life on Earth and human civilization at major risk of elimination.
Greed is considered a positive characteristic by many wealthy citizens who want even more (see the movie Wall Street). There are more multibillionaires than ever before. The U.S. has the most ultra-wealthy people of any country. World billionaires are richer and more numerous than ever. According to NPR and Forbes Global Media there were 140 billionaires in the World in 1987. Today there are 3028 of them.
These super-rich are sick with greed. They should be in institutions to deal with their psychological sickness. They shouldn’t be running countries and businesses. They may kill us all if they aren’t stopped. They have already done serious damage to the infrastructure of the United States.
The ultra-rich finance both sides in any war. War is very profitable for them. Corporations including General Motors, Ford and Standard Oil supplied resources to Nazi Germany during WWII. These facts are contained in the book “Trading With The Enemy” by John Higham. Another source is the documentary “JFK to 911 Everything is a Rich Man’s Trick” at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNYh7OVqXUN_GZ8K8IF5VWdYCkvy7fGYt.
Meanwhile, many people in the U.S. are homeless and cannot afford medical care or higher education. According to the National Literacy Institute, 21 percent of adults in the U.S. were illiterate in 2024. Fifty four percent of adults have literacy below a 6th-grade level. Twenty percent are literate below the 5th-grade level. Readers can learn even more at https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-facts/. A 2020 Gallup study found that the U.S. economy could be losing up to $2.2 trillion annually due to low adult literacy rates.
The U.S Government has not supported education nearly enough. A very important subject not taught in my high school was logic. That should be a required subject to graduate from high school. Logic teaches students to analyze and evaluate speeches, videos or writing by anyone with a commercial, political, religious or another agenda.
These skills are rare in the United States. That is why Trump and his MAGA supporters were able to use his lies and get him elected by many poorly educated citizens.
Another problem is that the “mainstream, ” corporate media does not give citizens any important news that may criticize corporations and their major shareholders. Possibly democratic socialism is the way to go.
From the article: " Democracy becomes nothing more than theater, like in most of the other oligarchies and tyrannies across the planet. Elections are held, but oligarchs fund all of the viable candidates and use their media and “free speech” to destroy any politicians who dare try challenge the system. The illusion of choice masks total corporate and billionaire control of our society and our governments, while the Constitution is twisted by a corrupt Supreme Court into a vestigial document that only protects their patrons and allies."
We are already there. Consider that the oppo research ia coming from within the party, knocking out primary candidates that threaten the elite, and of course they know which hot buttons to push, among liberals.
Ignorance kills democracy. Oligarchs are literally “counting” on it. Counting their trillions. Democracy kills fascist tyranny. Not choosing is the choice to lose. You decided your children’s future.
It's ironic that Thom, Heather Cox Richardson, and Paul Krugman addressed this dilemma from different angles today. All three begged the underlying question: do we want to be governed or ruled?
Yes Tom, all 3 of these brilliant, caring writers, who so love our democracy and are fighting for it to continue, did "address this dilemma from different angles today". They are so trying to get through to all of Americans to wake up to how crucial this next election is and to vote for progressive dems who want to give individual rights and power over their lives back to all citizens and away from corporations and fascist leaders. Nov. 3rd is our last chance to wrest power away from the billionaires and this oligarchy. The steadfast commitment to urging us to fight for our freedom, from Thom, HCR and Paul Krugman, all have my utmost heartfelt respect, admiration and love. I read all 3 everyday and they are helping me keep my sanity, fighting spirit and hope alive that we can return to a nation founded on the rule of law and democratic moral principles. But this can only happen if millions and millions of us turn out to vote for the democrats who want to help create a new humane system of governance and save ourselves from the destructive, evil path that those currently in power are creating and rapidly enforcing. This is our last chance to create a new moral, humane vision for America. I pray we wake up NOW and act by voting. Thank you Tomonthebeach for your comment.
As well as inform, we need to be painting a picture of how life could be a triumph for the people instead of a future of battlegrounds, sickness, and criminal activity where the few crush our population and reduce us to drones.
People need to picture how life could be instead of 24/7 continuously hearing about our present horror.
If we don’t wake up to what we’re spiraling toward, life will become a picture of haves and have-nots with no in-between. The US will be filled with permanent-poverty neighborhoods (if you could call them that) where whole families of barely subsisting corporate worker bees are lorded over by an invisible, sterile oligarch ruling class.
How can we self-control our over-populated world and maintain a stable environment of healthy, well-educated and emotionally stable and even happy people? People who are willing to actively participate in their government and whose life in crime-free neighborhoods is a picture of promise for the next generation?
We need to picture a work environment of flourishing locally-run small businesses, all through our country who locally grow healthy, chemical free clean food for the public. And sprinkled throughout are well run employee-owned manufacturing organizations that are able to also distribute goods with non-polluting transportation also made in non-polluting plants where a 30 hour work-week is the norm.
State-of-the-art, routinely regulated and monitored public utility grids support our population with low-cost energy, and water. Public utility grids net the country that guarantee clean and healthy water is received by all and a system that totally eliminates the need for the use of plastic bottles.
Also, operations that both import and export goods and manufacturing, transported in fast, non-polluting shipping from all around the world who manage to work cooperatively with their counterparts.
Education, art, music and creative endeavors are all respected and revered and our presently expanding pockets of urban poverty and homelessness is largely eliminated through inclusiveness and empathy allowing the population to truly live a life of personal expression through clean manufacturing as well as craft, art, and music of all kinds. And, both old and young live in environments that encourage both creativity and fun. A lives change from one of fear and dread to one of personal enrichment with community cooperation and pride.
Innovation in manufacturing is rewarded and enables us all to work in environments that do not crush the soul with inhuman working conditions run for the single purpose of profit for the few elite.
We become a conscious population of people who take responsibility for healthy conditions for both ourselves and the animals on our planet. Where we pride ourselves on a non-polluting environment for all, conservation of natural area, and leave a footprint of pristine water and air for the next generation of both human and animal.
We need to broaden our horizons and to accept and think about the possibility of creating a society with a mindset to actually improve life quality for all instead of merely dreaming about making our first million and clawing our way to the top of…what exactly? And, for the purpose of what…exactly?
Our country suffers so terribly today because on 12/12/00, 5 unelected, highly partisan, anti-democracy GOP SCOTUS judges killed American democracy by shredding the U.S. constitution in order to stop the legal Florida vote count and thwart the will of the people in order to install their personally preferred White House candidate. The GOP controlled SCOTUS did this despite the fact that the U.S. constitution does not give them the authority to do what they did. It was a judicial coup d'état. No one should ever forget this. This can never happen again. The remedy for this is to establish a non-partisan election commission with the authority to settle election disputes and the authority to draw legislative districts.
In addition, I have no use for Ralph Nader's organization Public Citizen. It was Nader with his big lie that there were no differences between Bush and Al Gore, who made it possible for Bush to get close enough in Florida to have Bush's little brother, Florida campaign co-chair and father's cronies on the SCOTUS steal the 2000 election for him in Florida. Nader's big lie could not have been further from the truth. Because of Nader we now have an even more radical GOP SCOTUS thanks to Bush's appointments of Roberts and Alito along with the terrible economy caused by Bush's bad economic policies that Trump has b and for helping to create Trump.
Thank you Thom for describing so incredibly well the only 2 alternative futures we will be voting between which couldn't be more different and the ensuing consequences with which we will be living with will determine whether we live a lives of peace and freedom or a lives of servitude and immense suffering in which we'd probably wish we were no longer alive. The differences could not be more stark. Thank you for your decades of consistent commitment to educating the public of the Truth of how different governing systems in our country have produced widely different results in the lives of ordinary Americans. Thank you.
The misinterpretation of the 1886 Supreme Court ruling must be brought to the mainstream for all to see. It needs to be made as public as possible. Everyday Americans needs to see it clearly, so they know how they've been betrayed the Supreme Court of that time and by their government.
Nah. The oligarchs and the people will continue to fight each other ad-infinitum. Like a bad marriage. Neither side defeating the other. The oligarchs need the people as consumers and wage slaves, and the people need being lead because if they have to think for themselves it will mean more than admitting that the last 250 years have been a mistake. It will mean you've been emptying your pockets and compromising your soul for a con. "America cries freedom while whipping its slaves."
You do not live in the country you have been told you live in.
WE the People Revolution: Reshaping The Institutional Democratic Party
A wonderful discussion with the podcast Clock with Black pollster Terrance Woodbury who tells it like it is in his focus groups(bit.ly/4xfR5Ox). Woodbury lays out a number of great insights that he has had with his focus groups that are very telling about where the senior and gen Z Black voters are and how to approach them.
But perhaps the most salient observation he shares is what his experience has been with the interactions with the DNC. During his time with the Harris campaign he shared with the DNC leadership the issues he was finding with his focus groups(BTW his data was spot on). He got polite nods but his data didn’t change consultant opinions. The party went in the same direction and should never have lost the election.
In this same vein of thought is the Levercast reporting of Democratic influencing dark money operation funded by billionaire Stephen Mandel(bit.ly/3UujDFl) who is obviously looking for a political return on investment.
The Democratic party is woefully out of touch with not only the electorate but managed by out of touch or biased consultants, for example Simon Rosenberg, a self declared Zionist, is a consultant for the DNC and so what can one expect with a Zionist with a voice at managing the DNC. Clearly anti Palestinian opinion and pro genocide because “they deserve it” is out of sync with the electorate. While this Israeli problem is not a major electorate issue, the problem shows up in many of the top 5 issues that are concerns of the electorate.
So institutional Democrats are out and WE the People are in.
The democratic scenario requires the ability to vote. So that fight has to happen now and be won.
That is the most critical issue at this particular moment.
Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote.
Don’t let the Trump Administration interfere with Mail In Voting.
Otherwise, voters may be too intimidated to vote in person. It’s a virtual certainty that ICE or some other military group will be present to try to intimidate people.
I LESN TOWRD PESSIMISM, PERHAPS BECAUSE, WHEN I LOOK AT THE REAGAN YEARS AND THE PRESEENT TRUMP YEARS, I DO NOT SEE MUCH HOPE FOR THE DREAM OF DEMOCRACY AND EQUALITY. BUT THE, PERHAPS THE MIDTERMS WILL BE A TURNING POINT, UNLESS, OF COURSE, THE TRUMP FACTION MANAGES TO SO SKEW THE ELECRORAL MAP THAT A GENUINE MAJORITY VOTE BECOMES IRRELEVANT.
I loved this chilling, and, alternatively, encouraging depiction of our alternative futures. Then I started thinking about the future not only projected but touted as an ideal by a few public mouthpieces of the tech oligarchs: the bros live on private islands or other remote enclaves of luxurious living, while the rest of us suffer the deadly consequences of their mega polluting AI 'revolution.' They have stated that most of us will become irrelevant via the AI and robotics ascendancy. One of the 'nicer' bro futurists has speculated that a 'humane' thing to do would be to hook us disposibles up to virtual reality headsets and consign us to warehousing facilities where we can be slowly starved to death and our bodies turned into biofuel. All we have to do is to read up on the atrocities (workhouses, for one) and callous disregard for human life itself that manifested in Dickens' England and most everywhere else. Even now prosperous social democracies like Denmark. Look up the reign of King Frederick, about which an interesting film is available. It's no joke and your vision is right on the money, sad to say. Passivity is our worst possible response to all this, and the window of being able to do more than passively accept our demise is closing.
I vote humans over AI; rights over oligarchy.
Thanks- this is so well written!!!💕
Capitalism has failed completely. As a result of capitalism we are on the verge of destructive global warming. There are now at least 8.8 billion people on the planet. The Earth’s human population quadrupled in 79 yrs. Ten nations have nuclear weapons. This puts all life on Earth and human civilization at major risk of elimination.
Greed is considered a positive characteristic by many wealthy citizens who want even more (see the movie Wall Street). There are more multibillionaires than ever before. The U.S. has the most ultra-wealthy people of any country. World billionaires are richer and more numerous than ever. According to NPR and Forbes Global Media there were 140 billionaires in the World in 1987. Today there are 3028 of them.
These super-rich are sick with greed. They should be in institutions to deal with their psychological sickness. They shouldn’t be running countries and businesses. They may kill us all if they aren’t stopped. They have already done serious damage to the infrastructure of the United States.
The ultra-rich finance both sides in any war. War is very profitable for them. Corporations including General Motors, Ford and Standard Oil supplied resources to Nazi Germany during WWII. These facts are contained in the book “Trading With The Enemy” by John Higham. Another source is the documentary “JFK to 911 Everything is a Rich Man’s Trick” at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNYh7OVqXUN_GZ8K8IF5VWdYCkvy7fGYt.
Meanwhile, many people in the U.S. are homeless and cannot afford medical care or higher education. According to the National Literacy Institute, 21 percent of adults in the U.S. were illiterate in 2024. Fifty four percent of adults have literacy below a 6th-grade level. Twenty percent are literate below the 5th-grade level. Readers can learn even more at https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-facts/. A 2020 Gallup study found that the U.S. economy could be losing up to $2.2 trillion annually due to low adult literacy rates.
The U.S Government has not supported education nearly enough. A very important subject not taught in my high school was logic. That should be a required subject to graduate from high school. Logic teaches students to analyze and evaluate speeches, videos or writing by anyone with a commercial, political, religious or another agenda.
These skills are rare in the United States. That is why Trump and his MAGA supporters were able to use his lies and get him elected by many poorly educated citizens.
Another problem is that the “mainstream, ” corporate media does not give citizens any important news that may criticize corporations and their major shareholders. Possibly democratic socialism is the way to go.
From the article: " Democracy becomes nothing more than theater, like in most of the other oligarchies and tyrannies across the planet. Elections are held, but oligarchs fund all of the viable candidates and use their media and “free speech” to destroy any politicians who dare try challenge the system. The illusion of choice masks total corporate and billionaire control of our society and our governments, while the Constitution is twisted by a corrupt Supreme Court into a vestigial document that only protects their patrons and allies."
We are already there. Consider that the oppo research ia coming from within the party, knocking out primary candidates that threaten the elite, and of course they know which hot buttons to push, among liberals.
Liberal buttons are painted fluorescent.
Ignorance kills democracy. Oligarchs are literally “counting” on it. Counting their trillions. Democracy kills fascist tyranny. Not choosing is the choice to lose. You decided your children’s future.
It's ironic that Thom, Heather Cox Richardson, and Paul Krugman addressed this dilemma from different angles today. All three begged the underlying question: do we want to be governed or ruled?
Yes Tom, all 3 of these brilliant, caring writers, who so love our democracy and are fighting for it to continue, did "address this dilemma from different angles today". They are so trying to get through to all of Americans to wake up to how crucial this next election is and to vote for progressive dems who want to give individual rights and power over their lives back to all citizens and away from corporations and fascist leaders. Nov. 3rd is our last chance to wrest power away from the billionaires and this oligarchy. The steadfast commitment to urging us to fight for our freedom, from Thom, HCR and Paul Krugman, all have my utmost heartfelt respect, admiration and love. I read all 3 everyday and they are helping me keep my sanity, fighting spirit and hope alive that we can return to a nation founded on the rule of law and democratic moral principles. But this can only happen if millions and millions of us turn out to vote for the democrats who want to help create a new humane system of governance and save ourselves from the destructive, evil path that those currently in power are creating and rapidly enforcing. This is our last chance to create a new moral, humane vision for America. I pray we wake up NOW and act by voting. Thank you Tomonthebeach for your comment.
As well as inform, we need to be painting a picture of how life could be a triumph for the people instead of a future of battlegrounds, sickness, and criminal activity where the few crush our population and reduce us to drones.
People need to picture how life could be instead of 24/7 continuously hearing about our present horror.
If we don’t wake up to what we’re spiraling toward, life will become a picture of haves and have-nots with no in-between. The US will be filled with permanent-poverty neighborhoods (if you could call them that) where whole families of barely subsisting corporate worker bees are lorded over by an invisible, sterile oligarch ruling class.
How can we self-control our over-populated world and maintain a stable environment of healthy, well-educated and emotionally stable and even happy people? People who are willing to actively participate in their government and whose life in crime-free neighborhoods is a picture of promise for the next generation?
We need to picture a work environment of flourishing locally-run small businesses, all through our country who locally grow healthy, chemical free clean food for the public. And sprinkled throughout are well run employee-owned manufacturing organizations that are able to also distribute goods with non-polluting transportation also made in non-polluting plants where a 30 hour work-week is the norm.
State-of-the-art, routinely regulated and monitored public utility grids support our population with low-cost energy, and water. Public utility grids net the country that guarantee clean and healthy water is received by all and a system that totally eliminates the need for the use of plastic bottles.
Also, operations that both import and export goods and manufacturing, transported in fast, non-polluting shipping from all around the world who manage to work cooperatively with their counterparts.
Education, art, music and creative endeavors are all respected and revered and our presently expanding pockets of urban poverty and homelessness is largely eliminated through inclusiveness and empathy allowing the population to truly live a life of personal expression through clean manufacturing as well as craft, art, and music of all kinds. And, both old and young live in environments that encourage both creativity and fun. A lives change from one of fear and dread to one of personal enrichment with community cooperation and pride.
Innovation in manufacturing is rewarded and enables us all to work in environments that do not crush the soul with inhuman working conditions run for the single purpose of profit for the few elite.
We become a conscious population of people who take responsibility for healthy conditions for both ourselves and the animals on our planet. Where we pride ourselves on a non-polluting environment for all, conservation of natural area, and leave a footprint of pristine water and air for the next generation of both human and animal.
We need to broaden our horizons and to accept and think about the possibility of creating a society with a mindset to actually improve life quality for all instead of merely dreaming about making our first million and clawing our way to the top of…what exactly? And, for the purpose of what…exactly?
There has to be more to life than this.
Our country suffers so terribly today because on 12/12/00, 5 unelected, highly partisan, anti-democracy GOP SCOTUS judges killed American democracy by shredding the U.S. constitution in order to stop the legal Florida vote count and thwart the will of the people in order to install their personally preferred White House candidate. The GOP controlled SCOTUS did this despite the fact that the U.S. constitution does not give them the authority to do what they did. It was a judicial coup d'état. No one should ever forget this. This can never happen again. The remedy for this is to establish a non-partisan election commission with the authority to settle election disputes and the authority to draw legislative districts.
In addition, I have no use for Ralph Nader's organization Public Citizen. It was Nader with his big lie that there were no differences between Bush and Al Gore, who made it possible for Bush to get close enough in Florida to have Bush's little brother, Florida campaign co-chair and father's cronies on the SCOTUS steal the 2000 election for him in Florida. Nader's big lie could not have been further from the truth. Because of Nader we now have an even more radical GOP SCOTUS thanks to Bush's appointments of Roberts and Alito along with the terrible economy caused by Bush's bad economic policies that Trump has b and for helping to create Trump.
Thank you Thom for describing so incredibly well the only 2 alternative futures we will be voting between which couldn't be more different and the ensuing consequences with which we will be living with will determine whether we live a lives of peace and freedom or a lives of servitude and immense suffering in which we'd probably wish we were no longer alive. The differences could not be more stark. Thank you for your decades of consistent commitment to educating the public of the Truth of how different governing systems in our country have produced widely different results in the lives of ordinary Americans. Thank you.
The misinterpretation of the 1886 Supreme Court ruling must be brought to the mainstream for all to see. It needs to be made as public as possible. Everyday Americans needs to see it clearly, so they know how they've been betrayed the Supreme Court of that time and by their government.
Nah. The oligarchs and the people will continue to fight each other ad-infinitum. Like a bad marriage. Neither side defeating the other. The oligarchs need the people as consumers and wage slaves, and the people need being lead because if they have to think for themselves it will mean more than admitting that the last 250 years have been a mistake. It will mean you've been emptying your pockets and compromising your soul for a con. "America cries freedom while whipping its slaves."
You do not live in the country you have been told you live in.
Courage be with you
Trump & his billionaire cohort must be stopped ,shackled , tried, jailed , for their crimes against the American dream.
Avery brilliant wake-up call. Thank you, Thom.
WE the People Revolution: Reshaping The Institutional Democratic Party
A wonderful discussion with the podcast Clock with Black pollster Terrance Woodbury who tells it like it is in his focus groups(bit.ly/4xfR5Ox). Woodbury lays out a number of great insights that he has had with his focus groups that are very telling about where the senior and gen Z Black voters are and how to approach them.
But perhaps the most salient observation he shares is what his experience has been with the interactions with the DNC. During his time with the Harris campaign he shared with the DNC leadership the issues he was finding with his focus groups(BTW his data was spot on). He got polite nods but his data didn’t change consultant opinions. The party went in the same direction and should never have lost the election.
In this same vein of thought is the Levercast reporting of Democratic influencing dark money operation funded by billionaire Stephen Mandel(bit.ly/3UujDFl) who is obviously looking for a political return on investment.
The Democratic party is woefully out of touch with not only the electorate but managed by out of touch or biased consultants, for example Simon Rosenberg, a self declared Zionist, is a consultant for the DNC and so what can one expect with a Zionist with a voice at managing the DNC. Clearly anti Palestinian opinion and pro genocide because “they deserve it” is out of sync with the electorate. While this Israeli problem is not a major electorate issue, the problem shows up in many of the top 5 issues that are concerns of the electorate.
So institutional Democrats are out and WE the People are in.
The democratic scenario requires the ability to vote. So that fight has to happen now and be won.
That is the most critical issue at this particular moment.
Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote.
Don’t let the Trump Administration interfere with Mail In Voting.
Otherwise, voters may be too intimidated to vote in person. It’s a virtual certainty that ICE or some other military group will be present to try to intimidate people.
I LESN TOWRD PESSIMISM, PERHAPS BECAUSE, WHEN I LOOK AT THE REAGAN YEARS AND THE PRESEENT TRUMP YEARS, I DO NOT SEE MUCH HOPE FOR THE DREAM OF DEMOCRACY AND EQUALITY. BUT THE, PERHAPS THE MIDTERMS WILL BE A TURNING POINT, UNLESS, OF COURSE, THE TRUMP FACTION MANAGES TO SO SKEW THE ELECRORAL MAP THAT A GENUINE MAJORITY VOTE BECOMES IRRELEVANT.