Forget the Great Depression - Look at reign of King John

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Tuesday February 03, 2009 · 10:07 AM PST

2009/02/03 · 10:07

Doing some research on the Magna Carta and King John of England today.

Makes me think a better historical parallel for this moment than the Great Depression of the 1930s is the ruinous reign of King John (1199 - 1216), which was so bad for the barons - the people who claimed the benefits of the socio-political-economic system as "We the People" are supposed to in America - that they forced the monarch to sign the Magna Carta.

Demophilus

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Thursday January 29, 2009 · 7:34 PM PST

2009/01/29 · 19:34

Years ago, I used to think mostly about how to link up my skills and experiences and passions with social justice activists and social movements to prevent the calamity of the next Depression from coming.

But at a certain point (also years ago) I reluctantly shifted focus to how social movements and activists could position communities to survive an unstoppable catastrophe headed down the pike. (Since then, I've focused on local community organizing for survival, and mostly written off the larger state and national potential for positive change.)

And although I know it's petty and useless at this late date, I still have bubbles of rage at the obscuring of reality done for so long by mainstream cultural articulators (news media, politicians, etc.) and the celebrity worship they're now bringing, sporadically, belatedly, to the people who saw it coming and actually did manage to get a little notice for their predictions...

Demophilus

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Friday January 16, 2009 · 10:00 AM PST

2009/01/16 · 10:00

Sort of a response to new deal democrats economic analysis of the shit hitting the deflationary fan...we are going to have to relearn the survival skills our Depression-era grandparents knew, and in my view, our Depression is going to be deeper, longer and more painful than theirs.

Several years ago, while researching Generation X (proud member, born in '73) for a class I was teaching, I stumbled on Neil Howe and William Strauss's work on generational theory.

Thought it might be useful to post some of the info here (written in April 2007 as part of a speech):

In 1992, Neil Howe and William Strauss published a groundbreaking book called Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584-2069. In it, they argued that one helpful way to understand American history is to look at it through the lens of generations interacting with each other across time...

Generations by Howe and Strauss

Demophilus

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Monday January 12, 2009 · 8:31 AM PST

2009/01/12 · 08:31

I'm a paralegal for an environmental law firm and have been doing research on corporate First Amendment rights as used to bludgeon state and local efforts to regulate and control harmful corporate activities.

Corporate First Amendment rights were first bestowed by the Supreme Court in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti in 1978:

First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti

Demophilus

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Sunday January 11, 2009 · 9:59 AM PST

2009/01/11 · 09:59

In all the mainstream articles about the economy, the rescue plans, spurring "growth," creating jobs, infrastructure spending v. tax cuts, etc., I haven't seen any discussion of steady state economics, which seems odd, since so much of what's happening can be linked to inhabitants of "wealthy" countries living beyond our ecological means.

Demophilus

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Tuesday December 23, 2008 · 7:51 AM PST

2008/12/23 · 07:51

How the Federalists forced Pennsylvanians to ratify the 1787 US Constitution -

More from Terry Bouton's book - Taming Democracy: "The People," the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution, pp. 180-181

Link is here:

Taming Democracy

Demophilus

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Thursday December 18, 2008 · 7:45 AM PST

2008/12/18 · 07:45

Going back even farther...

1774 - Residents of several Massachusetts Towns forced appointed British officials to resign their posts...

Poll

14 votes Show Results

What's the single biggest barrier to participatory democracy in America?

14 votes Vote Now!

What's the single biggest barrier to participatory democracy in America?

US Constitution

2 votes

Congress

0 votes

State Legislatures

0 votes

State Constitutions

0 votes

Municipal Governments

0 votes

Federal Courts

0 votes

State Courts

1 vote

Corporations

6 votes

Limited Public Experience with Civic Participation

5 votes

Public Historic Amnesia

0 votes

1776 and the Ensuing Crackdown

Demophilus

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Wednesday December 17, 2008 · 10:20 AM PST

2008/12/17 · 10:20

[First of a series of diaries linking today's struggles with the struggles of our founders - not the gentry who worked behind closed doors to draft the US Constitution, but the working class who fought for the right to govern themselves, only to see that right slip through their fingers in a few short years as the wealthy and connected in America re-established the same systems of oppression used by the British Empire.]

Back in 1776...

Pennsylvania revolutionaries drafted a radical state constitution, asserting that

"all government ought to be instituted and supported for the security and protection of the community as such...government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people, nation or community; and not for the particular emolument or advantage of any single man, family, or set of men, who are only part of that community:

And...the community hath an indubitable, unalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish government in such manner as shall be by that community judged most conducive to the public weal."

1776 PA Constitution Text

Poll

25 votes Show Results

How big can a community get before democratic self-governance becomes impossible?

25 votes Vote Now!

How big can a community get before democratic self-governance becomes impossible?

self-government is impossible

5 votes

500 people

3 votes

1,000 people

1 vote

5,000 people

2 votes

10,000 people

4 votes

100,000 people

4 votes

1,000,000 people

0 votes

no limit

6 votes

RSS

Forget the Great Depression - Look at reign of King John

Nouriel Roubini

Generational Theory - Us and our Grandparents

Reframing the Economic Meltdown - Could it be a boycott?

Steady State Economics - Just Curious

The Messy Suppression of Democracy - Circa 1787

1774 - Roots of Participatory Democracy in America

1776 and the Ensuing Crackdown