A quotation from Twain

And now here I was, in a country where a right to say how the country should be governed was restricted to six persons in each thousand of its population. For the nine hundred and ninety-four to express dissatisfaction with the regnant system and propose to change it, would have made the whole six shudder as one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonorable, such putrid black treason. So to speak, I was become a stockholder in a corporation where nine hundred and ninety-four of the members furnished all the money and did all the work, and the other six elected themselves a permanent board of direction and took all the dividends. It seemed to me that what the nine hundred and ninety-four dupes needed was a new deal.

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Novel (1889), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Part 3 “The Tale of the Lost Land,” ch. 13 “Freemen!”

More about this quote: wist.info/twain-mark/86001/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #twain #marktwain #connecticutyankee #aristocracy #classwarfare #exploitation #management #monarchy #oligarchy #workers

"...trans national fascism..."

- @GhostOnTheHalfShell #Quotes #Quote #Fascism #Plutocracy #Oligarchy

Post: https://mastodon.social/@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai/117322089520064562

@Tutanota Tuta, we are on the ledge...

Do we need Tuta-ledge in Root Cause Analysis, or should we barely survive, #BackIntoCaves, while the #TechBros and #FossilFuels #Oligarchy render us extinct?

@EUCommission Further evidence the "too much" of Western Capitalism, is collapsing.

Remove #TechBros and #FossilFuels #Oligarchy from power

@Tutanota Remove #TechBros and #FossilFuels #Oligarchy from power

A quotation from Victor Hugo

I am one who has come up out of the depths. My lords, you are rich and powerful. Therein lies your danger. You profit by the night; but beware! The Dawn is all-powerful. You cannot prevail over that. It is coming. Nay! it is already come. Within it is the day-spring of irresistible light. And who shall hinder that sling from hurling the sun into the sky? The sun I speak of is Right. You are Privilege. Tremble!
 
[Je suis celui qui vient des profondeurs. Mylords, vous êtes les grands et les riches. C’est périlleux. Vous profitez de la nuit. Mais prenez garde, il y a une grande puissance, l’aurore. L’aube ne peut être vaincue. Elle arrivera. Elle arrive. Elle a en elle le jet du jour irrésistible. Et qui empêchera cette fronde de jeter le soleil dans le ciel? Le soleil, c’est le droit. Vous, vous êtes le privilège. Ayez peur.]

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French writer, journalist, human rights activist, politician
The Man Who Laughs [L’Homme qui rit; The Laughing Man; By Order of the King], Part 2, Book 8, ch. 7 (2.8.7) (1869) [tr. Unknown (1869)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/hugo-victor/85816/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #victorhugo #themanwholaughs #aristocracy #change #darkness #dawn #light #oligarchy #power #powerful #revolution #rich #rightandwrong #warning

A quotation from Molly Ivins

Wake me up when impending egalitarianism is a problem. In the meantime, oligarchy is eating our ass, our dreams, our country, our heritage, our democracy, our justice, and our tax code.

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (2001-04), “Wake Me When We’re Equal,” The Progressive, Vol. 65, No. 4

More about this quote: wist.info/ivins-molly/85517/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #mollyivins #bigbusiness #egalitarianism #equality #oligarchy #socialill #wealth

This is why I read @pluralistic He's so good at succinctly summing up important high-level concepts and then connecting them with the current problems we face.
#capitalism #wealth #oligarchy

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Piketty shows that this holds true across markets and nations and eras: all other things being equal, the market system produces a class of hereditary aristocrats who command the world's capital and direct its deployment, despite never having done anything. The market's most lavish rewards do not go to its most productive participants, but rather, to those participants who have the good fortune to emerge from the luckiest of orifices.

#usempiredecline #Rome #fallofrome #christianity #SeperateChurchAndState #oligarchy

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Stxtus learning about the fall of rome, it sounds pretty sucky. a plague resulting in labor shortage, bad military leadership, christianity mattered more than the government, multiple civil wars, infighting, decisions created to benefit the rich more than the poor- hey wait a minute UGM

RE: https://mastodon.social/@DrALJONES/116823309001369282

#JeffreyEpstein’s “genius” was to use the rape of children (there were boys too) to organize and radicalize who he saw as the new USA #oligarchy emerging in Silicon Valley and ―up to the now significant year of 2005―, mostly went to work for Wall Street or the military-industrial complex.

yes, there were people from other countries, but when you see his emails, it’s clear he was organizing the #techbros #gringolarchy.

so, if #tech is the #broligarchy’s #war machine, they’re military targets.

But even Christians have their idols (dogmas, creedos, liturgies, customs, rituals) that blind them to the one and only one truth.

"My people perish for lack of knowledge ..."

Instead many Christians believe they have chosen the right narrow path, which is just one lane in the broad road superhighway to hell.

Real democracy for electing rulers is done by lottery, not by party ballot. Every citizen puts a name in the ballot box and then a random name is selected, and the candidate is examined. If the candidate passes muster, then he is the one put in the office. No campaigns, no campaign finance, no speeches, none of that garbage has any place in actual democracy.

The Bible has multiple instances in the law of God for casting lots (lottery) to choose a leader or successor for an office. That is real democracy. The Greeks called ballots for party or public candidate by a Greek word: Oligarchy.

Everyone who calls elections by the name of democracy doesn't know what democracy is. Democracy is not the 'choice of the people' but rather the 'random choice of God' from among the people. This is how the Greeks and Israelites originally practiced democratic elections. The idea of 'running for office' was anciently seen as a form of insurrection or oligarchy, not democracy.

#Democracy #Elections #Oligarchy #Vote #Government