What's that old phrase, those that don't remember history are doomed to repeat it? I would say that those that have forgotten their “common sense”, have forgotten their history as well.
For it was in that seminal work, “Common Sense” by America's original Democratic Socialist (applying today's concept to his political philosophy) , Thomas Paine, who articulated that through a limited republican government of the people, by the people and for the people, could we accept and tame, capitalism, private property and heredity wealth, who he accurately identified in simple, common terms, that wealth concentration in the hands of the few through monarchy, aristocracy, religion and feudal heredity was the direct cause of the colonist suffering, and the entire world, as history has proven.
No where in nature do we see monkeys hoarding food and charging land rents or extracting pounds of flesh and treasure, inflicting poverty and hunger of their fellow apes in exchange for the “privilege” to over priced, unhealthy food to barely survive.
What was “common sense” in the early days of the republic, is just as common and relevant today, as it ever was. Of course in those times the term republic was reacted to, much like the term democratic socialism generates today, with ignorance and disdain. But the reality is, as a Thomas Paine's works clearly show, Democratic Socialism is an American Invention!
Only the names of monarchy has changed into corporations. Wall Street and their kind are the new Aristocracy that supports the monarchy of corporations, whose rule is in all perpetuity, as feudal kings of old by their claimed “divine right”, though in our case by dumb mistake (Santa Clara vs Southern Pacific Rail Road), that corporations have the same rights as humans, money is speech, war is peace, but nothing in nature tells us that this is so.
The heredity of wealth hasn't changed, the Koch's and Walton's are prime examples of those who concentrate wealth, so that their enterprises directly and indirectly are the root cause of mass human suffering on a global scale, for their own private interests, which only further display's their contempt for society, justice, human suffering, mass poverty and most cruel, indifference to their fellow citizens, because they don't view the commoner as a fellow citizen, we are beneath such people in their twisted minds.
They are afraid, just as the federalists were afraid of the people back then, because they know that what they concentrate and hoard is extracted from the rest, unequally and without just compensation for it's loss nor it's true value.
The despotism that ravaged of Old England, and to a greater extent the world, is nothing by comparison of what Capitalist / Selfish Individualism America is inflicting on the world today.
Does not common sense dictate that what we see today in the same mercenary armies (private security contractors) that work for the multinational global corporations, just like they did back in Thomas Paine's time in the form of The East Indian Trading Company which acted largely as an indirect extension of the British empire, much like corporations do today with American Empire?
If you do not believe we are an “empire”, just ask yourself one question, how many military bases does our country have scattered around the world, mostly to “protect” American's, that work for American corporations? Empire's needs they military to protect their “geopolitical influence and world hegemony”.
What could possibly be in America's “national interests” in supporting dictatorial monarchies that suppress human rights and especially women's or people of color's rights? The people in those countries suffer unimaginable horrors at the hands of their own governments and the only thing that keeps those governments in place, ruling their populations with an iron fist, is the “military might” of American empire.
Those who control most of the wealth have created a system based on the exploitation and utilization of certain natural resources, and purposefully blocked innovation into more cleaner possibilities through out our country' history and development.
How long ago did Exxon know about the effects of burning fossil fuels, but buried the evidence? Or about how using lead in gasoline was actually bad for us, but they tried to stop the knowledge about it's hugely damaging effects on humans or the tobacco industry and the list could go on.
Common sense should ask of ourselves, why would we create an economic system based on natural resources that are controlled by dictatorial monarchies (corporations), diametrically opposed to our own “American values” as a society? “Supposedly” we as Americans believe in equal rights but these countries and corporations don't give a shit about anyone not in the “royal” (big budgets) sphere of influence.
They justify their “divinity of rights” by radical interpretations of fairy tales and myths, without any sense of real justice, and the same can be said our of own “religions”, which are based on similar myths, faerie tales and superstitions. Non of which exist in nature.
Poverty, hunger, and mass human suffering are all constructs of man (human kind), to which America's original Democratic Socialist laid out the principals with which human kind could effectively, responsibly and respecting the rights of private ownership and capitalism as commerce, address the poverty, hunger, and mass human suffering at the root of the concentrations of wealth and power through monarchy, aristocracy, religion and heredity.
When I see my fellow citizens killed for selling loose cigarettes on the street corner because we as a society have given up on addressing the reasons of why a citizen has to even resort to selling loose cigarettes on the street corner, common sense tells me we as a society do not believe in equal rights.
We have some fundamental problems that are not being address and instead of claiming something is not politically possible or not, advocate to bring more attention to it, your fellow citizens are suffering and need your help.
When I see my fellow citizens being poisoned by lead in their water because “business experience” tells us that cutting costs by using poisonous water is cheaper than the health of our citizens, common sense tells me, we do not live in a society that believes in equal rights nor that cares about it's fellow citizens as much as they pray to their one and only god, greed.
When I see my fellow citizens commit felony crimes, harm millions, loot billions and destroy trillions in wealth of average Americans, and go unpunished for their crimes, common sense tells, me we as a society do not believe in equal justice under the law, and I need to make more money so if I ever do anything wrong, I can just buy my own justice. (snark)
Thomas Paine laid out the principles that every American should become intimately familiar with, so as not be fooled by those that say otherwise, and claim like ignorant children, socialism is communism, when democratic socialism, administered through limited republican government, is the very idea that galvanized the America colonies to revolution in the first place.
Paine advocated not only political revolution in breaking with the history of the old world and beginning a new, changing from a monarchy form of government into a limited democratic republic, but he also advocating for a social revolution as well.
Think about it for a moment.
These are the corner stones of American “liberal / socialist” thought. These are the principles of Democratic Socialism, a truly American idea, by America's original Democratic Socialist, Thomas Paine. What we in America today know and love about Social Security and medicaid systems, the rudimentary ideas were laid out in Agrarian justice. So were many other, what we call “social or safety net programs”.
Tax on the rich is not punishment or charity, it is just compensation for the loss of the commons from the people's natural rights, concentrated for the benefit of the few. When the world was created and humans came into existence, the was no title office nor government agency handing out mineral rights. The world and it's resources belonged to us all.
But as I survey the landscape of political intercourse, I realize, common sense has been subverted by “conventional wisdom” or “establishment thinking”, that doesn't have anything to do with common sense, nor achieving that “more perfect union” (social, political, economic justice). The Rights of Man, have been subverted by the false idea corporations have human rights and money equals free speech, Agrarian (Social) Justice has subverted because health care, old age or being poor are considered profit centers for corporate monarchies, the aristocrats that serve and profits from them, and the wealth of heredity that finance them. The rights of man have been subverted by a “global” war on a feeling (terror) (mass oppression and murder of innocent lives, fellow world citizens).
And The Age of Reason, well it has fallen by the way side in the black hole of religiosity, mysticism, myths and faerie tales, much like it has been through out history and Paine clearly articulated in his work. No where more evident is that in political candidates like Ted Cruz or Rick Terry. You’re rich because god blessed you, not because you work hard and play by the rules.
Senator Sanders is calling for a political revolution, and it's certainly going to take one to mount any type of offense against those forces that keep raising their ugly head from history and are trying to dominate the world again.
From Reading from the Left
“While Marx didn’t engage much with the works of Paine himself, the American revolutionary’s followers on both sides of the Atlantic played an enormous role in forging the nineteenth century’s workers movement that supplied Marx with the empirical politics that he provided a rich philosophical justification for.
It’s no coincidence that he would write, “Socialism and communism did not emanate from Germany but from England, France and North America” — the same places where Paine had done so much to foment democratic revolution.”
Unlike what your captured and controlled media tell you, Bernie Sander's brand of Democratic Socialism is just an updated version of America' original idea's on democracy of the people, by the people and for the people, that is Democratic Socialism.
Democratic Socialism is simply a limited form of republican (representative) Government of the people, administered by the people and for the people to tame the inherent inequalities created by the vices in human nature, the concentration of wealth under capitalism, that has since the beginnings of “civilized” society, been the root cause of mass and unimaginable human suffering, yet, respects the rights of private property, rights of individual liberty and freedom. Democratic Socialism was the original American Idea of a free, democratic and prosperous society.
"When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am the friend of its happiness: when these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and its government."
As the Senator displayed at Georgetown University and during one of the democratic debates, acknowledging the US crimes of regime change, especially of overthrowing democratically elected government, such as the US did to Iran in 1953, simply so the US could secure it's “economic” interests with a natural resource it has since tried to dominate it's flow by establishing the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, which oil transactions are typically made in US dollars.
There is clear evidence that Libya was planning on introducing it's own gold back currency before their regime was illegally overthrown and a certain high level government official, I think the US top diplomat showed great humanity at the country's leader's tragic death at the hands of a mod and sodomized with a knife, by laughing, and exclaiming like some Roman emperor, “We came, We saw, He Died”.
Saddam Hussein has similar designs for side stepping the crippling UN sanctions that was responsible for the death of up to half a million Iraqi children, to which another Sos said the cost (death!) in human lives, that is to say children's lives, was worth it, by making oil transaction in Euro's rather than US dollars.
When I think of Senator Sanders, I'm reminded of this quote by Thomas Paine,
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. “
Senator Sanders hasn't ever given up on the American people because he's never sold his integrity and his has pursued his principals his entire political life. No one to me exemplifies a true public servant as Senator Sanders. I'll take Senator Sander's brand of American Democratic Socialism any day of the week, because I know that ….
Senator Sanders understands that “government is the badge of lost innocence”. He also understand that the suffering in this world is of a human creation and will require a human solution and the “conventional thinking” that got us here, is not going to get us out of the current mess the world finds it's self in.
More alarming is the the impact that climate change is having and that there is still huge resistance to stop or repeal any, and what limited progress has been made.
In simple, common sense terms, let me spell it out for you.
If we don't invigorate and sheppard a peaceful political revolution now, when we have a viable candidate full of personal and professional integrity and rock solid principals based in universal truths, we will be facing the collapse of society and a violent revolution of total chaos in the years ahead as a result of climate change and the continuation of neo-liberal economics that is exacerbating world economic and social destabilization, if we continue down the path of incrementalism. Climate change isn't going wait for vote counts or political campaign corruptions to see the light.
Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.
PEACE.