We, The People, call Henry Giroux to offer testimony on the Far Right threat of fascism. Testimony is excerpts from Giroux’s ”American Nightmare Facing the Challenge of Fascism,” ”Staring Into The Authoritarian Abyss”:

Giroux: ”..America has descended..into a drama styled after theater of the absurd. Unbridled anti-intellectualism, Deception, and “vindictive chaos” have created conditions for repeating elements of a morally reprehensible past in the guise of “Making America Great Again.” Advancing an alarmist agenda bolstered by “alternative facts,” the Trump presidency has unleashed a type of anti-politics that unburdens people of any responsibility to challenge – let alone change – the fundamental precepts of a society torn asunder by open bigotry, blatant misogyny, massive inequality, an violence…………….. America now mimics a failing state as the credibility of its democratic institutions and the trustworthiness of its leadership openly depreciate on the global stage.”……

Giroux: ”Trump’s ascendency has revealed the degree to which acute political illiteracy, corruption, and contempt for reason have become defining features of present-day U.S. culture. His rise has involved using threats of violence and intimidation to shock and incite everyday people, and is preceded by a serious decline of American public life. Taken with relentless lying and targeted attacks on dissent, the result is a political climate that recalls those of past pre-fascit societies…..
 ”Trumpism is symptomatic of the decline of the United States into a new, commercially integrated, American-style fascism.
 ”The danger signs are not just in the United states…Unemployment, wage stagnation, vision-less futures, a growing sense of precarity and insecurity for working and lower middle classes, and an increasing sense of atomization and alienation – all of it fueled by austerity measures, a growing worldwide culture of fear, and a permanent war culture – are undermining not only the foundations of democracy, b ut a belief in the value of democracy itself.”…
 ”Not only have many millennials lost their faith in democracy, but many are less willing to oppose military coups and no longer view civil rights as absolutely essential; more than a quarter dismiss the importance of free elections to democracy.”

Giroux: “The world is now witnessing how the conditions that have been undermining U.S. democracy over the last forty years have brought us to a place where resurgent forms of nativism, racism, and misogyny, have consolidated and aligned as a social base for an authoritarian, corporate, political-economic order.”…
 ”Trump is ,ore than an opportunistic clown who leveraged his reality-show celebrity for political gain; he has been a vehicle for right-wing populism by rousing uneducated white fear and committing it to a pro-corporate economic agenda.”…
 ”As is evident in the rise of numerous modes of fascism since the 1920s, authoritarianism takes many forms, and aligns itself with the worst dimensions of the historical contexts in which it gains political and ideological currency. Trump is the endpoint of a social order that values self-interest over compassion, profit over basic human needs, and corruption over justice.”

Giroux: ”I think the artist Sable Elyse Smith is right in arguing that ignorance is more than the absence of knowledge or the refusal to know, it is also a form of violence that is woven into the fabric of everyday life by powerful disimagination machines, and its ultimate goal is to enable us to not only consume pain and to propagate it, but also to relish in it as a form of entertainment and emotional uplift. This is a culture of social abandonment and terminal exclusion. Justice in this discourse is disposable, along with the institutions that make it possible.”

Giroux: ”Trump…is the overt and unapologetic symbol of a feral capitalism that has been decades in the making. He is the theatrical postmodern self-absorbed Frankenstein monster that embodies and makes clear a history of savagery, greed, and predatory cruelty that has reached its endpoint – a poisonous form of American authoritarianism.”…
 ”Authoritarians live in fear of criticism, dissent, community, solidarity, and the social imagination. Brad Evans captures it well in his comment on the importance of language and books: ’If you don’t provide people with the intellectual tools to empower critically minded subjects, you end up with incarcerated minds. A world without books is a world foreclosed. Every great tyranny begins by declaring a war upon the imagination and the appropriation or imprisonment of those deemed to be its most creative.”
 ”And it is precisely in the recognition and struggle against the imagination, the war on truth, and the attack on democratic public spheres that the power and horror of authoritarian rule becomes visible and therefore vulnerable.”

Giroux: ”Many Americans seem to display a growing fondness for misinformation, an attitude that reinforces the disintegration of the civic culture and even the communicative function of language…falsehood and deception no longer appear marginal to political debate; they now seem to shape much of what is spoken in the public sphere..”

Giroux: ”Trumpism, as a form of nascent fascism, is being built around aggression, hatred, and violence, while coddling white supremacy as an acceptable form of historical national heritage.”

Giroux: ”Leaders of..mass totalitarian movements do not need to believe in the truth of their lies and ideological cliches. The point of their fabrications is not to establish facts, but to create a coherent fictional reality. What a movement demands of its leaders is the articulation of a consistent narrative combined with the ability to abolish the capacity for distinguishing between truth and falsehood, between realty and fiction.”

Giroux: ”Every day that Donald Trump remains employed as a public servant5 is a day he takes us closer to fascism.”

Giroux: ”Trump’s reign will continue to usher in an extreme version of pro-corporate capitalism in which all human activities, practices, and institutions will be subject to market principles and commercialization.”…

Giroux: ”American are witnessing the emergence of new forms of authoritarianism and fascism that are challenging the very ability for society to function as a civilian democracy.”

Giroux: ”..the more serious issue ignored by mainstream media should be a focus on what kind of political and economic system produces demagogues like Trump, the people who support him, and a gangster capitalism with its organized culture of violence.”

Giroux: ”..what I argue..is that resisting the whitewashing of history is a core issue. History unexpurgated provides us with a vital resource that helps inform the ethical ground for resistance, an antidote to Trump’s politics of disinformation, diversion, division, and fragmentation..history reminds us that in the face of emerging forms of authoritarianism, solidarity is essential. People need to network and organize..”

Giroux: ”Trumpism offers fascist purification rituals motivated by social intolerance and the attempt to re-create a system of white privilege that extends from and perpetuates founding narratives of Anglo settler-colonialism.”

Giroux: ”Trumpism openly legitimizes armed white supremacy and social intolerance. Those considered flawed and disposable due to race, residency status, political affiliation, gender, sexual preference, and religious practice are subjected to increased suspicion, surveillance, exclusion, and increased vulnerability to hate crimes.”

Giroux: ”As Hannah Arendt once predicted, totalitarianism’s curse is upon us once again, and it has emerged in forms unique to the tyranny of the times in which we live. Trump has brought the terrors of the past into full view..In response, we must create a new language for politics, resistance, and hope. This must be a language that exposes and counters the drift toward fascism that Trumpism clearly accelerates.”

The plot of the upper 1% and major corporations to overthrow American government existed between July and November, 1933.  The McCormack-Dickstein Committee began Congressional hearings in New York City on November 20, 1934.  A final report was issued February l5, 1935.

  But – chances are near 100%. YOU. haven’t heard of this plot.  Because. - it has been covered up. It is highly unlikely. YOU. have heard of this plot in ANY. American classroom – high school or college.

  If you are a dedicated American, then this FAR Right plot is discussed in Jules Archer’s. “The Plot to Seize the White House.” As Time Magazine said: ”Fascinating and alarmingly true!”
  The hero was double Medal of Honor winner General Smedley Butler. The plotters, a who’s who of the top 1% and top corporations, needed “boots on the ground.” They made the mistake of contacting General Butler. The plan was for Butler to lead a march of World War I veterans against the Roosevelt administration. Butler contacted Congress.
 Among the guilty parties were executives of Standard Oil of New Jersey, the Chase Bank, the Texas Company, ITT, Ford, Sterling Products. Helping them were government officials: a Secretary of Commerce, an assistant Secretary of State, and ambassadors to France and Great Britain.

  Related material on this era can be found in Charles Higham’s. “Trading With The Enemy. An Expose of Nazi-American Money Plot of 1933-1949.” Included here is a 1944 Swiss bank discussion of $378 million in looted Nazi gold for use of Nazi leaders AFTER. the war.
   Edwin Black’s. “IBM and The Holocaust. The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation”. documents how IBM’s technology made the operation of Nazi Germany possible. Black traces the money flow, during the war, from Nazi Germany to the U.S. IBM headquarters. IBM was “too important” to the US in the ‘Cold War” so they escaped punishment

 More related information is contained by Bradley W. Hart’s. “Hitler’s American Friends. The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States. Hart eerily relates many events and actions that sound all too familiar: the goal of Nazi propaganda was to create confusion by sowing discord and turning Americans against each other; there was a Nazi plot to meddle in the 1940 presidential election; and “The darkest underbellies of American society were at the heart of this: anti-Semitism, religious bigotry, and greed..fundamental forces drew these groups together.”

 The current Far Right began to reemerge in the late 1940s – early 1950s “Red Scare’: ”McCarthyism”; then the “John Birch Society”: then Nixon’s 1968 “law and order” campaign with it’s ‘Southern Strategy.”

 It is not a coincidence recent authoritarian parties have all opposed women’s rights, civil rights, labor rights and unions, press freedoms, accountability; and favor mass rallies where demagogues entertained adoring crowds of “true believers,” and approved violence in the streets against their opponents [who are often ‘untermenschen’]

Serious students of recent American events should also read John W. Dean and Bob Altemeyer’s “Authoritarian Nightmare.” Based on Altemeyer’s decades of research nad study of recent events, this 2020 book came to the conclusion about 14% of American adults were Far Right enough to be considered supporters of authoritarian leaders, many just waiting for the next Far Right authoritarian to lead them. 

  SO – where does this leave us???  Start with Franklin’s famous September, 1787, response to a question about what the 1787 Constitutional Convention had created. Franklin: ”A republic, if you can keep it.”  
  THE question in 2024 and beyond: how many Americans WANT. to preserve what remains of our “democracy”???

  Another important point to consider: just from the evidence above – “It Can Happen Here” - democracy is fragile, and there are many on the Far Right who have DEMONSTRATED their desire to change America to an oligarchic theocracy.   Currently, these people hold power, have huge fortunes to spend, are often in the news spouting their anti-democratic propaganda – always dressed u in some plausible rationale -like that for the 2017 tax cuts, or for “supreme court’ rulings of “Shelby County,” ”Citizens United,” and “Dobbs.” 

 In 1933 – the American people elected Franklin Roosevelt. The Germans elected Adolf Hitler. Democracy is fragile. o

Consider some excerpts from Victor Klemperer’s “The Language Of the Third Reich. Klemperer survived 1933-1945 because of his marriage to an Aryan. He kept detailed diaries, which have also been published.

• 3 – “The fear of the thinking man and the hatred of the intellect..”
  l5 – “..Nazism permeated the flesh and blood of the people through single words, idioms and sentence structures..imposed on them in a million repetitions..”
    ”And what happens if the..language is made up of poisonous elements or has been made the bearer of poisons? Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic..”
  23 – “The sole purpose of [Nazi language] is to strip everyone of their individuality, to paralyze them as personalities, to make them into unthinking and docile cattle..”
  48 - ”untermensch”.  94 – “racial defilement”  149 – “liquidated”  150 – “the final solution”
       l54 – “force into line”  161 – “Nordified”  169 – “gone away”  186 – “collected”
           228 – “a defensive war on the move”
  108 – “But the Fuhrer announced only recently that we are definitely going to win. And he has never lied yet. I believe in Hitler. No, God wouldn’t leave him in the lurch.”
  111- ”..the Fuhrer again and again underlined his uniquely close relationship with the Godhead, his special status as the chosen one, his religious mission.”
  112 – “From 1933 to 1945..this elevation of the Fuhrer to the status of a god, this alignment of his person and his actions with the Savior and the Bible, took place day by day..”
  113 – “In the announcement for the election of 1938 to ratify the annexation of Austria, in the endorsement of Greater Germany, it is claimed..Hitler is an agent of Providence.”
  117 – “..Nazism was accepted by millions as gospel because it appropriated the language of the gospel.”
  163 - ”The definitive expression for the [Nazis], both lexically and conceptually, is ‘Fortress Europe’. [honorable continent, betrayed by England, Russian and American threats]
  175 – “[Hitler] knows..he can only expect loyalty from those who inhabit a similarly primitive world..the..most effective means of keeping them there is to nurture, legitimize and..glorify the instinctive hatred of the Jews.”
  176 – “The Jew is the most important person in Hitler’s state:..the popular scapegoat, the most plausible adversary. Had the Fuhrer..achieved his aim of exterminating all..Jews, he would have had to invent new ones, because without the Jewish devil..there never would have been the radiant figure of the Nordic Teuton.”
  176 - ”Hitler’s..instructions of the Party..The golden rule is always: don’t let your listeners engage in critical thought, deal with everything simplistically!…reduce everything to a common denominator..”
  177 - ”..whatever actions are taken, they are..defensive measures [against] murderous Jewish attacks on Hitler’s Germany..peace-loving Germans are only..defending ourselves.”
  215 – Nazi use of superlatives: ”biggest”  “best”  “greatest”  “total”  “historic”
  217 – “The extraordinary thing was the shameless transparency of the lies revealed by the figures; one of the fundamentals of Nazi doctrine is the conviction that the masses are unthinking and that their minds can be completely dulled.”
  221 – “There can’t be a single speech of the Fuhrer that doesn’t long-windedly list Germany’s successes and sarcastically insult the enemy.”
  237 – “The whole emotional mendacity of Nazism, the whole mortal sin of deliberately twisting things founded on reason into the realm of emotions, and deliberate distortion for the sake of sentimental mystification…”
  256 – “But the consummate and most characteristic feature of the Nazi art of language..the real achievement..lies in the unscrupulous mixture of heterogeneous stylistic elements..in the most abruptly antithetical leaps from a learned tone to a proletarian one, from sobriety to the tone of the preacher, from icy rationalism to the sentimentality of a manfully repressed tear..no time for critical reasoning…”
  
  NOW – go back over this 1933-45 eyewitness account. In recent years, have YOU seen a reenactment of this language strategy? A certain politician claims that he has never read anything about this era, knows nothing of the main practitioner of these words and strategies….. However, his first wife, in a major national publication, said this man Did have a copy of Hitler’s speeches by his bed……………. And, we all “know” that this second man “..has never lied yet.”

Benito Mussolini: ”Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

Consider the following characteristics of fascism:
1] powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism
2]. disdain for the importance of human rights
3] identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
4] the supremacy of the military/ avid militarism
5]. rampant sexism
6] a controlled mass media
7]. obsession with national security
8] religion and ruling elite tied together
9]. power of corporations protected
10] power of labor suppressed or eliminated
11]. disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts
12] obsession with crime and punishment
13]. rampant cronyism and corruption
14]. fraudulent elections

NOW – consider how many, how much, of these characteristics have, are occurring in America; how much, how many, do certain people and groups WANT. to achieve these characteristics
1]. nationalism exists in many forms, often as “us – vs- them”; or, ”my country, right or wrong” [usually said when a country is guilty of serious misconduct].
2]. this is now playing out in courts and streets; select groups are victims of prejudice and injury
3] rampant in some quarters; a post-1915 staple; serious escalation since 2016
4]. the Pentagon can’t pass an audit; see Eisenhower’s two warnings on “military-industrial complex”
5]. women don’t vote, 1789-1920; experience “glass ceiling” since; expected to tolerate unwanted male attention
[some rebuffed males kill]; significant numbers of women will be raped
6]. media in USA not controlled by government – but IS controlled by big money {stories will NOT be discussed: media learn to self-censor [to avoid unpleasant consequences}
8]. this. IS. the post-1980 Republican Party; strenuous efforts made, 1980-202x made to create a right-wing “Christian” theocracy - visible in numerous punitive laws restricting ‘un-Christian’ behaviors
9}. see “Citizens United” and numerous McConnell-Leo-Roberts “supreme court’ decisions in THE. most :business-friendly “supreme court” since 1945; see corrupt Congressional laws, 1865-202x
10]. numerous big “American” corporations are OPENLY hostile – some have moved a business if a union won certification; law firms specialize in union-busting; ”right-to-work” states; use of government force to break strikes
11]. in the internet age, everybody is an “expert” [even people who are OBVIOUSLY not]; open attacks in media on real experts [education and training means nothing – “You” have ‘common sense’!!!]; if true intellectuals are brought down to common levels – then why listen to them?
12]. the USA is #1 in prison population!!!; Nixon”s “War on drugs” a documented failure was a cynical ploy against two groups of “enemies: ”law and order” is a BIG political wedge issue for the Far Right.               

“This post is from an 9/92022 article by Steve Corbin, originally written for “Fulcrum,” a nonprofit, nonpartisan news platform:

“Thanks to tainted social media, prejudice-laden cable news, biased left- and right-wing think tanks and the disinformation and misinformation provided by politicians and their parties, one can only surmise Americans are greatly divided.
 ”The surprising reality is Democrats, Republicans. and independents agree on more issues – about 150 – than they disagree.
 ”Here are some examples:
- Abortion: 61% of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases [Pew Research Center, June 13}
- Gender issues: Gallup notes in a 2022 report..71% of Americans support marriage between people of the same sex.
- Gun control: Background checks are favored by 89% of the public. Banning assault weapons has 63% support, while
  64% want to ban high-capacity magazines and 60% want a nationwide database to track gun sales [ABC News, May
  27]- Immigration: 62% of Americans feel immigrants strengthen the country; a complete reversal of the position
 expressed in 1994 [Pew Research Center, Jan. 3l, 2019]
- Voting: Data for Progress reveals 66% of voters want to prevent state lawmakers from overturning elections, while
  60% support universal vote-by-mail and a majority want to make it easier to vote [Sept. 24, 2021] 
- Health care: Providing Medicare for all Americans to ensure everyone has health care coverage garners 69% support
  [[The Hill, April 24, 2020]
- Cannabis: NORML reveal from its April 8 research that 69% of Americans support legalizing cannabis, plus 60%
  favor expunging cannabis-related convictions.
- Racial justice: 86% of citizens agree that racism is a problem and 87% believe books that discuss race or slavery
  should never be banned. [CBS News, Feb. 22]
- Taxes: An Oct. 16, 2021, Vox article notes 71% of voters support raising taxes on the wealthiest 2% of Americans.

 ”The Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland released an Aug. 7, 2020. report identifying
  nearly 150 issues on which trhe majority of Republicans and Democrats agree, including:
- Social Security: Raising the cap on income subject to the payroll tax to $215,000 or more.
- Poverty programs: Increasing funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
- Energy and environment: Reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2% a year and providing tax incentives to
  promote clean energy.
- Government reform: Overturning the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision and regulating campaign
  financing.
- International trade: The U.S. should continue participating in the World Trade Organization and rejoin the
  Trans-Pacific Partnership that former President Trump abandoned in 2017.
-  Federal budget: Roll back the tax cuts from Trump’s 2017 tax bill, impose a 4% surtax on income over $5 million
  and add a 1% surtax on corporate income over $100 million.

Consider a 12/30/21 article by Dave Anderson: ”The truth is that our citizens are not polarized.”  “The picture that emerges is on where everyone feels conflicted about many policy issues, but only about 60% of the country fits nicely on the red side or the blue side. Our conflicts therefore do not add up to a polarized country; they add up to a conflicted country in which well more than a third of the people do not have representation in Washington, which is extremely polarized.”

 Conflict sells – gets people to click on, gets people to listen to fear mongering and demagoguery, gets people angry – which means they’re likely NOT thinking rationally gets people to think in terms of “us-versus them” - whoever “them” happens to be this time. 
    So – what”s. YOUR. “trusted source” ?????  Does it tell. YOU. what you want to hear ?  Does it try to get YOU to believe conspiracy theories and lies that have been disproved, things not believed in other democratic nations?  What’s the long pattern of the party YOU. intend to vote for ?  Have they done things to “promote the general Welfare” ??? [Constitution’s Preamble]  Is that party promoting tolerance or hate? Would Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower. vote for this party?  Are. YOU. being manipulated? Please think.  Please look at those lists provided above – most Americans agree on almost all the major issues. Where do YOU stand compared to them?op

This is another posting of the 250 such headlines of recent years, from print media. More are appearing weekly, if not daily !!!!!! Tax evasion, wage theft, forced unpaid hours, corporate conspiracies to rig markets, etc. This PATTERN has been a constant effort since at least 1865. An ENTIRE ERA , 1865-1901 has been named ‘The Gilded Age,” in honor of the  numerous “Robber Barons” that corrupted America.  Subsequent eras – 1920s, 1980s, 2000s. forward, have shown the Rich and Corporations have a NEVER ENDING capacity for GREED, CRUELTY, CRIMINALITY, CORRUPTION. Consider the following examples:

1] ”Suffocating in slow motion” ”A New York Times reporter shows how mining companies and their lawyers rigged a system to deny benefits to coal miners sickened with black lung”: ”Soul Full of Coal Dust”. [Chris Serres; Mpls Star Tribune; 8/16/20 ]

2]. ”McDonald’s settles class-action lawsuit”. “McDonald’s has agreed to a $26 million settlement of a long-running class-action lawsuit over wages and work conditions..covers about 38,000 individuals..” [ John Antczak; Associated Press; 11/26/2019 ]

3] ”Top cop SEC must pursue individuals”. “The government appears to be getting tough on corporate shenanigans, securing $83 million in fines..from Bank of America and General Electric for misleading investors.” [ Rachel Beck; Associated Press; 8/9/2009 ]

4]. “The Panama Papers Global Implications”. “A massive leak of 11.5 million documents from a Panama-based law firm offers glimpses into the shadowy world in which the rich and powerful stash their wealth and raises sharp questions about the use of shell companies..The ICIJ said the documents involve 214,488 companies and 14,153 clients..” [David McHugh, Frank Jordans; Associated Press; 4/6/2016 ]

5]. “Ponzi-scheme architect: Political clout was the key” ”..Rothstein described how he used his wallet to curry favor with politicians, lawyers, bank presidents and cops to create the aura of respectability..” [ Jane Musgrave; Palm Beach Post; 2/6/2014 ]

6] ”Medtronic to pay $23.5 M to resolve allegations it paid kickbacks” ”..paid kickbacks to doctors who implanted its pacemakers and defibfrillators.. The lawsuits were filed by whistleblowers..” [ Bloomberg News and Associated Press; 12/12/2011 }

7] ”Former Archer Daniels Midland CEO Dwayne Andreas has died” ”In October, 1996, ADM pleaded guilty to two criminal charges and agreed to pay $100 million..for fixing prices for the feed additive lysine and for citric acid..” [ David Mercer; Associated Press; 11/17/2016 ]

8] ”Purdue Pharma OxyContin settlement lets the Sackler family off the hook” ”There is only one bankruptcy judge in White Plains..if a company decides to file for bankruptcy in White Plains, Drain will preside..dozens of companies have done just that..let’s not mince words here – he did exactly what Purdue and the Sacklers hoped he would. He let the family get away with it.” [ Joe Nocera; Bloomberg Opinion; 9/5/2021 ]

9] ”Are You Paying For Corporate Fat Cats?” ”KBR- a former Halliburton subsidiary and largest Iraq war contractor – admitted to “reducing tax obligations” through two Cayman Islands divisions, reportedly avoiding hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicare and Social Security taxes. A 2004 study by the GAO found..24 of the largest federal contractors used Cayman Islands units to shave their taxes.” [Gary Weiss; Parade Magazine Intelligence Report; 4/13/2008}

10] ”Fox to pay $12 M to settle workplace suit”. “Fox News will pay one of its former producers $12 million to settle her claims..she faced a discriminatory workplace and that the network tried to coerce her into giving false testimony in Dominion Inc.’s defamation lawsuit..” [. 7/1/2023 ] o 

Social Security, and Later Medicare, have been under ceaseless attacks by the FAR RIGHT ever since they were established. Below are some of the lowlights from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare:
– 1982 – President Reagan attempted to reduce Social security benefits for people who had retired before they turned 65
-1989 – attempt to impose monthly Medicare premium & a surtax for people over 65 with incomes above $35,000
– 1995 – campaign to impose $270 billion in Medicare cuts
– 2003 – attempt to cut Social Security funds by Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment
– 2005 – President Bush’s infamous Social Security privatization plan
-2008 – attempted “Medicare Trigger” imposing arbitrary 45% cap on government funding of Medicare
– 2011 – House Budget Committee Chairman’s infamous plan to privatize traditional Medicare
– 2013 – attempted Social Security “COLA” cut, and increase in Medicare eligibility age
– 2015 – attempted Social Security & Medicare cuts [“massive Soc. Secrty..cuts..52% Medicare premium rate hike”]
– 2017- “Trumpcare” plan to weaken Medicare [“leave millions uninsured & drastically raised premiums..”]
-2018 – attempted Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment {“required deep cuts to earned benefits”]
-2021 – attempted “Trust Act,” “which would establish so-called “Rescue Committees” for Social Security & Medicare and
    set up these programs fro massive cuts in the future to pat down budget deficits”]

Then there is organized political campaigns by the Far Right to sabotage or eliminate Social Security and Medicare:
– “Advisers to Swift vets hired to shoot down the AARP”….”The lobbying group, USA Next, which has poured millions of
 dollars into Republican policy battles, now says it plans to spend as much as $10 million..assailing AARP. ..[for]..
 opposing the private investment accounts at the center of Bush’s plan.” [Glen Justice;2/21/05; n.Y. Times]
– “Theft from 401[k]s a growing problem” ”There is no..safety net for defined-contribution plans” {W.S.Jrnl; 3/6/05}
– “Economist Sees Private Accounts As Losing Bet” ’..Robert J. Schiller of Yale University found that private accounts
 would be in the red at retirement 32% of the time…analysis..based on stock, bond & money market data from 1871
  through 2004..” [Robert Schlesinger; May, 2005, AARP Bulletin]
- ”Comptroller pans private accounts”. ‘..[private accounts]..wouldn’t shore up the system, he said, if they were financed
  or “carved out” from current Social Security taxes, as Bush proposes..” [ Steven Thomma; WashingtonBureau; 3/10/05}
– “The Business Roundtable..one of two main groups leading the charge for deep cuts in Social Security..is made up of
  CEOS who have average retirement nest eggs of $14.5 million each, according to a report by the Institute for Policy
  Studies and the Center for Effective Government.”…”The powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also “rededicated
  itself to an effort to slash Social Security” according to the Washington Post.” [National Committee to Preserve
  Social Security and Medicare; circa 2018]
- ”Debunking the Latest Attack on Social Security” ”For decades, the right wing has been warning..Social security is on
  the verge of going broke..The grand old man of this fable was Peter G. Peterson, an investment billionaire..who spent
  more than a half a billion dollars of his fortune to create the Peter G. Peterson foundation to propagate the myth.”
  [ Robert Kuttner; The Progressive Populist; 12/1/23]

Steve Pressman: ”Fears concerning retirement are..perfectly understandable. for decades, the pillars supporting Americans in retirement have crumbled. Comfortable retirement was possible in the postwar era due to income from three sources – individual savings, employer pensions, and Social Security. Today, people lack adequate savings. They also lack pension plans that provide a steady income during retirement. Meanwhile, Social Security faces its own financial problems.
 ”Instead of trying to fix these problems, Republicans have attacked Social Security as another failed government program that requires large benefit cuts. And they have blamed individuals for not saving enough, even though the problem is the Republican policies that made it harder for people to save.”…
 ”Starting in the 1980s, businesses stopped offering their workers defined benefit retirement plans and began providing only defined contribution plans….In this brazen new world of retirement plans, if workers can’t contribute money, gthey are out of luck.”….
 ”This brings us to Social Security, whose benefits have been cut surreptitiously since the 1980s and are in jeopardy of further cuts in the future.”……..”Starting around 1980, almost all the income gains in the U.S. economy have gone to the wealthy. As a result of the earnings cap. a smaller fraction of total national income gets taxed by Social Security.”
  [Washington Spectator; December, 2019]

The democratic, fair, SOLUTION, which will “promote the general Welfare” [Preamble, U.S. Constitution}, has been known for years: 

        Eliminate the earnings cap, with no change in benefits.

Why have an “earnings cap”????  Because, the excuse. was: millionaires & billionaires would be unfairly taxed!!!
   they would see “no benefits” from being taxed 100% – like. YOU are taxed. !!!!!!!!! 
 No benefits from protection of their fortunes and property by police and fire; no protection from courts and laws; no protection from the U.S. military. Nope – nothing!!!!! 
   If YOUR relatives had been in the U.S. military, were traumatized, wounded, killed – none of this counts as a “benefit” for millionaires and billionaires;  if one of YOUR relatives had been a “first responder”, and was traumatized, injured, killed – none of this counts as a “benefit” for millionaires and billionaires;  if on of YOUR relatives was a construction worker building America’s infrastructure, and was injured or killed on the job - none of this is a “benefit’ to millionaires and billionaires;  if members of YOUR. family. have been loyal, patriotic people just doing their jobs – none of that matters as a “benefit” go millionaires and billionaires.
    The Rich have. “earned all their wealth by themselves.”  They owe NOTHING. to the “undeserving” people in the lower 98 – 95%. - absolutely. NOTHING.  So, THAT is why  they get taxed at a Social Security tax rate less than YOU!!!!!   That and the simple fact, like much else, the Rich have BOUGHT. this tax break. - this is “Campaign Contributions” at work !!!!!!  And for that corruption, YOU. can thank. a corrupt U.S. ”supreme court. The “conservative” ”justices”. were placed on the “court” so they could make rulings like “Citizens United.”
     
    And , thus, the Far Right continues to STEAL THE. AMERICAN. DREAM,  in addition to being a Threat to Democracy.

Consider the following evidence of the vast scope of abuse, callousness, corruption and criminality by he rich and the corporations they control:

1] $220 million: money spent by banking-securities-insurance industries in 2009 to PREVENT REAL REFORM legislation; 2,500 lobbyists; their army; 350 times: number of times their lobbyists met with banking agencies before a rule was published.
  [ source: ”Freedom to Harm”]

2] In 1948, the top 10% held about 30-35% of American wealth. By 19999, the top 10% held 70% of the wealth…the top 1% not quite 50%.   [source: ”The Big Myth”}

3] 2005 UNICEF’s ”Child Poverty in Rich Countries” report: the U.S. is 2nd from worst; 22% of Americans under 18 are living in households with per capita income below 50% of the national average. [source: $ervants of Wealth”}

4] Between 1980 – 2010, “median family income essentially stagnated” in America. Families had an annual growth rate of .36%. [ source: ”The Price of Inequality” ]
 

5] U.S. health care costs put both employers and labor at a disadvantage. In 1989, a Ford vehicle made in Canada cost Ford Motor Company $49.80 in employee health care. In Michigan, the cost was $311. [source: “The War on Labor and the Left” ]

6] ”The 401[k] is really one huge tax loophole..The annual tax avoidance because of 401[k] plans comes to about $110 billion..{which].. illustrates how America is not prospering because its economic policies violate well-established principles.” [excess costs, risks, inefficiencies]. [source: ”The Fine Print”]

7] U.S.A. is Number One!!!!! – in number of hours worked; most unequal rich nation [2016]; in obesity; tied for #1: “most dangerous roads of advanced industrial world”; for $10,000 U.S. birth cost – Netherlands [#2 spender, health care] birth cost: $2824 [2016]. [source: ”American Amnesia”]

8] $1 billion – total of Amazon subsidies and tax abatements from state and local governments, 2007-2017; Amazon had “a whole department tasked with securing subsidies” [“economic development”] [source: ”Fulfillment”]

9] 100 companies RENOUNCED THEIR U.S. CITIZENSHIP, 1983-2015, to avoid taxes; 30 to Bermuda, 17 to Ireland, 13 to Cayman Islands. [source: ”Flee-conomics,” ; Mother Jones; March-April, 2015]

10]. $50 billion: what the “pass-through” tax beak cost America America EACH year; $331 billion: what “accelerated depreciation” cost America between 2017-2021; $0: what Amazon paid in U.S. federal taxes in 2018 [see page 131]
    source: ”Tax The Rich”]

We, the People, call Morris Pearl for his testimony. Pearl’s net worth was estimated in 2023 to be about $50 million.
His testimony comes from “Tax The Rich How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make The Rich Even Richer.”

Pearl: “”I..[want]…to challenge my fellow millionaires to get their heads out of the sand. You are destroying the country…
I’ve got a message – a warning..for my fellow rich people…You cannot continue to sit by and enjoy your riches while the rest of the world falls further into poverty and chaos. We have seen the results of gross inequality over and over again. Reread your history books. Dysfunctional societies don’t end well for rich people either.”…..
 History is riddled with examples of what happens when too many have too little and too few have too much..I’m talking about a revolution. America’s millionaires should know..during the 2016 election, 81% of Trump supporters and 79% of Bernie Sanders supporters said the country needed a political revolution.”

Pearl: “I want to ask my fellow millionaires, Do you really think you can protect yourself from mobs of angry, hungry people? So did King Louis XVI and Czar Nicholas II. You may believe this time is different.”….
 ”I don’t feel being guilty about being rich..I would recommend it to anyone. And I don’t consider myself any more altruistic than the next person. I’m just as greedy as every other rich person I know. I’m just greedy for a different kind of country than a lot of other rich people are.
 ”I’m greedy for a country with a basic sense of fairness for me and my family to live in…I want to live in a country with lots of rich people and a huge middle class, and I happen to believe..lessening inequality by taxing rich people is the only way to create that kind of country.

Pearl: “Taxing our richest citizens is not the only thing we have to do..but it is not optional. Think of it as entirely necessary… So I plan to do everything I can to ensure we tax people like me as substantially and effectively as possible. 
I don’t want to be a rich man in a poor country… I don’t want to live in a country with a few extraordinarily wealthy people and millions of poor people…I don’t want to live behind barbed-wire fences. I don’t want to ride around in a bulletproof car with a trained security guard. I don’t want to worry that my children or grandchildren are going to get kidnapped, or worse.”…

Pearl: “..I’m not alone. Ten years ago, with a few dozen other millionaires, I signed a open letter to America’s leaders to protest the extension of the Bush tax cuts for people like us with incomes of over $l million a year and/or assets of at least $5 million. Since then, this group of “Patriotic Millionaires” has grown to over two hundred people from thirty-three states.”…
 ”At the time we released our initial letter, the disparity between..rich and..poor in America was highest it had been in a hundred years..reached a point..history proved was really problematic. It has only gotten worse..inequality continuing to rise even faster, destabilizing our society and eroding the foundation that..kept us strong for so long. We decided to focus our attention there, on the cancerous inequality at the center of our shared experience.”

Pearl: ”The tax system was our first target. but we expanded our fight beyond tax policy to include two other areas ..essential for our long-term stability and prosperity: first, a top-to-bottom reform of our political system to limit the power of millionaires in our lawmaking [starting with taking a hatchet to our corrupt campaign-finance system],..and second, a reset of our wage and labor laws to ensure..working people, including those in the new “gig” economy, are guaranteed a fair share of the proceeds of business and paid a wage they can actually survive on
 ”If we achieve all our goals – higher taxes on millionaires, equal political representation for all Americans, and a living wage for working people – we will become a more equal and more stable nation over time..a more prosperous nation overall as well..”

Pearl: ”..there are still quite a few things standing in our way, not the least among them several thousand millionaires who totally disagree with us. but we know the game – the lobbyists, the loopholes, and the lies…We know..if you look closely at the tax code, you will see nothing but layers upon layers of corruption and campaign contributions….because a lot of politicians actually want you to be confused. the less the average person knows about taxes, the easier it is for the rich and powerful to rig the system in their favor.”

Pearl: ‘ I’m proud to be called a “traitor to my class.”..I don’t want to live in a country where people can funnel their income through fake Irish corporations to cut their tax bill..a nation where investors like me have lower tax rates than people who need to work for a living have..a nation where children like mine..receive millions of dollars in inheritances tax free..I don’t want to continue to pay low taxes into a system that ensures rich investors like me will get richer and richer while the middle class gets smaller and the poor get even more desperate. And I don’t want to live in a system where my fellow millionaires are able to do all those things with impunity.”

Mayer has been often honored for her reporting and her books. ”Dark Money” is yet another investigation into the often hidden alternative world of the Far Right.

We, the People, call to the stand as our next witness, Jane Mayer:

Mayer: “During the 1970s, a handful of the nation’s wealthiest corporate captains felt overtaxed and overregulated and decided to fight back..they launched an ambitious, privately financed war of ideas to radically change the country. They didn’t want to merely win elections; they wanted to change how Americans thought..to “save” America..by turning the clock back to the Gilded Age…Charles Koch[‘s] ambitions were..even more radical: to pull the government out “at the root.”
 ”The weapon ..of these wealthy activists was philanthropy..the conservative rich created a new generation of hyper-political private foundations..to invest in ideology like venture capitalists, leveraging their fortunes for maximum strategic impact. Because of the anonymity ..charitable organizations provided, the full scope of these efforts was largely invisible to the public..”
 ”..their war spread from “beachheads” in academia and law to corporate front groups purporting to represent public opinion..they hired the smartest and slickest marketers money could buy..skilled at popularizing the agenda of wealthy backers by “framing” their issues in more broadly appealing terms.
 ”They exercised their power fro the shadows, meeting in secret, hiding their money trails, and paying others to front for them. The dark money groups masquerading as “social welfare” organizations during the Obama era were..the latest iteration of a privately funded, nonprofit ideological war that had begun forty years earlier.”

Mayer: “Mike Lofgren, a Republican who spent thirty years observing how wealthy interests gamed the policy-making apparatus in Washington..decried what he called the “secession” of the rich in which they “disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its wellbeing except as a lace to extract loot.”
    [ Mike Lofgren: “Revolt of the Rich”; American Conservative; August 27, 2012 ]

Mayer: “The Republican National Committee..assess[ed]..its failings. In an unusually candid and self-critical public exegesis, it found..out-of-control spending by outsiders was overwhelming the candidates, giving rich donors too much influence. ”The current campaign finance environment has led to a handful of friends and allied groups dominating our side’s efforts. this is not healthy. A lot of centralized authority in the hands of a few people at these outside organizations is dangerous for our Party..”

Mayer: Charles Koch’s “grand strategist” admitted “..free-market conservatives had lost the all-important “middle third.”
This segment..tended to believe..liberals cared more about ordinary people like themselves. In contrast..”big business they see as very suspicious…They’re greedy. they don’t care about the underprivileged…Fink readily conceded..these critics weren’t wrong..”….
 ”..the government-slashing agenda of the Koch network was a problem for these voters. Fink acknowledged,”We want to decrease regulations. Why? It’s because we can make more profit, okay? Yeah, and cut government spending so we don’t have to pay so much taxes.”

Mayer: “A breakthrough..was the creation of some two dozen privately funded academic centers, the flagship of which was the Mercatus Center at George Mason University..private academic centers within colleges and universities were ideal devices by which rich conservatives could replace the faculty’s views with their own. ”Money talks loudly on college campuses”..the report profiled the trailblazing record of John Allison..former Cato Institute chairman, who had overseen grants to sixty-three colleges..All of these programs were required to teach his favorite philosopher, the celebrator of self-interest Ayn Rand.”….
 ”Students complained..the Koch influence was nefarious and omnipresent..”We learned..Keynes was bad, the free-market was better..sweatshop labor wasn’t so bad..the hands-off regulations in China were better than those of the U.S.”
…The Kochs were also directing millions of dollars in online education, and into teaching high school students, through a nonprofit..the Young Entrepreneurs Academy…which taught students..Franklin Roosevelt didn’t alleviate the Depression, minimum wage laws and public assistance hurt the poor, lower pay for women wasn’t discriminatory, and the government, rather than business, caused the 2008 recession.””

Mayer: “The [2014] election was as big a victory for ultrarich conservative donors as it was for the winning Republican candidates..Four years into the “Citizens United” era, the numbers were more numbing than shocking The only suspense..was the factor by which spending had multiplied..”We have reached a tipping point where mega donors completely dominate the landscape.”..
 ”Let’s call the system that “Citizens United” and other rulings and laws have created what it is: an oligarchy..The system is controlled by a handful of ultra-wealthy people, most of whom got rich from the system and who will get richer from the system.”

Mayer: “By 2015, [the Koch’s] antigovernment lead was followed by much of Congress. Addressing global warming was out of the question. Although economic inequality had reached record levels, raising taxes on the runaway rich and closing special loopholes that. advantaged only them were also nonstarters. Funding basic public services like the repair of America’s crumbling infrastructure was als seemingly beyond reach. A majority of the public supported an expansion of the social safety net. but leaders in both parties nevertheless embraced austerity measures popular with the affluent. Even though Americans overwhelmingly opposed cuts in Social Security..the Beltway consensus was that to save the program, it needed to be shrunk.”   o