They owe us

In all the history of truly vile ideas, the idea that the banksters—who have destroyed much of the real economy, corrupted our governments, turned serious subjects like economics into a sick joke, reduced our communication systems below well-written soap operas, attacked honest science, and all those other corruptions of the human potential in the name of naked greed—are not only NOT going to jail or facing execution, they are to be rewarded in perpetuity every scrap of wealth a society can generate.  Presumably for their good work in managing an economy that can no longer even maintain its systems.

Takes some serious gullibility for that reality to sound like a good idea.

When I was a kid, I was shown many examples of extreme human credulity.  Got to believe a lot of bullshit to be religious—especially if you are a fundamentalist who thinks the Bible is true down to "the last jot and tittle."  My absolute favorite example came at a Bible camp.  One featured speaker was an old China hand.  With their successful revolution in 1949, the Chinese made it a priority to get rid of western missionaries.  The missionaries, who thought themselves the good guys, were NOT happy to be expelled.  Post 1949, China policy in USA would be largely created by pissed-off missionaries and their representatives who were give a permanent platform at Time Magazine by Henry Luce (who was born in China to Presbyterian missionaries.)  Our Bible camp speaker was a long way from being Luce, but he had carved out a minor traveling salvation show that warned folks of the nature of the evil we faced in Chinese Communism.  Not content to explain how the Communists had turned their good Chinese friends against them, Bible-camp guy had to make some extra claims about the evil forces he encountered in China.  It seems that he had a sideline in casting out demons which he recounted in Exorcist-like detail.  The whole idea of his message was that if the power of God could cast out the devil himself, why golly-gee we should be able to cast out those godless communists in China.

How many people actually believed his rap, I have no idea, but there were enough of them to keep his "ministry" afloat.  The last time I heard him, he had diversified and was peddling the Hoover / FBI smears against Martin Luther King.  As this was a pet project of the John Birch Society, Bible-camp guy probably had open ties to them.  After all, John Birch himself was a Protestant missionary in China who was shot by the Communists in 1945.  They accused him of being a USA intelligence agent.  (He was.  Just remember, missionaries may have had some whacky views of China, but they were the only folks who knew anything at all about the middle kingdom.  Most missionaries were debriefed about their knowledge of China by USA intelligence coming and going.  Most of them cooperated enthusiastically.)

I am reminded of this because the bug-eyed craziness of a man who believes we should resort as a nation to whatever means (including a nuclear standoff and the Vietnam War) it required so he could go back to performing exorcisms on poor Chinese peasants, is really quite similar to whatever bullshit it requires to make us believe that after all they have cost us, we still owe the banksters more of our wealth.

So here's to the They Owe Us movement.  Make this idea stick and you will have accomplished much.

G8 summit: campaigners plan 'creative civil disobedience' in Canary Wharf

Anti-cuts campaigners and environmentalists to stage demos in heart of London's business district during summit

Matthew Taylor  guardian.co.uk, 4 June 2013

Anti-cuts campaigners are planning to team up with environmentalists to stage a high-profile series of protests in the heart of London's business district during this month's G8 summit.

The groups are coming together under the banner "They Owe Us" and have promised to stage "creative civil disobedience" in Canary Wharf.

The summit is taking place in Northern Ireland and will see the world's most powerful political leaders come together at Lough Erne resort near Enniskillen.

Protesters say several different groups have come together for the first time for a day of protests and civil disobedience to draw attention to the link between the economic crisis and climate change.

Frida Grey, from They Owe Us, said people in the UK had faced years of recession and a "desecrated welfare system, rising fuel poverty and inequality".

She added: "The G8 owe us: for the public money that has been used to bail out the banks; for the jobs we have lost, the homes we are losing and the pensions they have taken from us. They owe us our healthy planet, the one they destroy through financing fossil fuels. And they owe us the power they have taken, distorting and destroying democracy. They like to think we're in debt to them, but we know better – they owe us."

The event, on 14 June, will be one of a range of anti-G8 activities taking place all over the UK and Ireland from between 9 and 18 June.

Activists claim the protest will be "unparalleled in the history of Canary Wharf – a purpose-built, highly secure environment for financial institutions that rarely sees large-scale protests".

Rachel Williams of UK Uncut, one of the groups involved in the protest, said: "Canary Wharf itself is proof that we're not all in it together. Located in Tower Hamlets, where four in 10 children grow up in poverty, the local council are forcing through the government's brutal spending cuts that will drive more families deeper into poverty. But it wasn't the people of Tower Hamlets that caused this crisis, it was the greed and recklessness of the financial sector of Canary Wharf."

Milena Olwan, a social worker based in London who plans to attend the protest, said: "The G8 are anti-democratic, unaccountable, and they represent an extinct world order. They embody the old ways of protectionism, imperialism and greed. On 14 June, we will show them that ordinary people coming together taking action can forge alternatives that do not destroy lives but create a life beyond capitalism." more