Nobles Need Not Pay Taxes - Thom Hartmann - MUST READ

[housewolf]

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0201-23.htm



A new aristocracy is taking over not just the United States of America but also the world.


Nobles Need Not Pay Taxes - Thom Hartmann



This is more than just a tax cut story. It's about a fundamental shift in power and wealth from average people and the governments they had formed to represent them, to the capture of those governments and economic enslavement of their people by corporate aristocracies.

<snip>

This isn't the first time this has happened. Marc Bloch is one of the great 20th Century scholars of the feudal history of Europe. In his book "Feudal Society" he points out that feudalism is a fracturing of one authoritarian hierarchical structure into another: the state disintegrates, as local power brokers take over.

<snip>

Whether the power and wealth agent that takes the place of government is a local baron, lord, king, or corporation, if it has greater power in the lives of individuals than does a representative government, the culture has dissolved into feudalism.

<snip>

The transition from a governmental society to a feudal one is marked by the rapid accumulation of power and wealth in a few hands, with a corresponding reduction in the power and responsibilities of governments that represent the people. Once the rich and powerful gain control of the government, they turn it upon itself, usually first eliminating its taxation process as it applies to themselves. Says Bloch: "Nobles need not pay taille ."

<snip>

In fact, corporations are heavier users of taxpayer-provided services and institutions than are average citizens.

[Blower]

1. How's about--

Corporate use of the US military to "open new markets"?

[necso]

2. I have been struck with the similarities to feudalism.

However, the international component of feudalism was very small compared to the current corporate/elite feudalism. And in the feudal system typically a feudal lord owed some allegiance to someone. -- If this lord did not fulfill this obligation, then that someone might just come and knock the lord's castles down. Today, if a country knocks down the castles of some overlord, then this lord just scuttles off to other of his holdings -- and plots to get back in.

Obligation-less, international feudalism -- I suppose that we can always hope that they have a falling out.

[tom_paine]

4. Kurt Vonnegut predicted this. Read "Hocus Pocus"

Many relevant observations and prophecies besides that one.

[housewolf]

3. kick

[Karenina]

5. This is a "must read." n/t