The World In Protest, Revolution or Civil War? Part 3

This was first published in late 2011.

Two things I should have included in the last segment: first, as I noted, the wealthy help drive up prices, and Republicans want to give them more tax cuts, which will help them to do more of the same. They don't need the money for living expenses, so they use the money to make more money. All of this Republican, "give the 'job creators' tax cuts" (they're afraid to use the term 'rich' or 'the wealthy'), and they'll create more jobs, is something we've heard for over thirty years.* What do we have? High unemployment and stagnant or falling incomes for many Americans, while the incomes for the wealthiest among us have seen marked gains. The money these folks have been pouring into "investments" (like I noted in "Part 2") create few, if any, jobs, unless you live in maybe, China. If it worked, we'd all be living in heaven come to earth; well, that is, if the wages and benefits paid were decent. Talk about a massive fraud perpetrated upon the American people! Second, many Democrats too, including the President, must look into the nearest mirror and ask themselves what they really believe, and what they are willing to fight for. The fanatics in the Republican Party (not everyone) espouse a bunch of nonsense, and they have done so for decades (bomb or go to war just about anyone who doesn't like us, give tax cuts to wealthy people who can't spend the money they have now, cut government to make it less and less viable, cut government programs that actually help average and low income people, destroy unions to help the wealthy make more money, etc), but like them or not, they stick by their nonsense, and they bully most wavering Republicans in Congress into going along with them. All of this anti-government talk from Republicans over the years makes me wonder if they are really trying to undo the results of the Civil War; after all, the Republican Party is now a southern-based political party, and that's where much of this anti-government nonsense really comes from.** It also dates from pre-Civil War times, if you get my drift. I keep telling you, they want to take us back to ______ (pick a century).

The votes to win elections do not reside in the relatively small percentage of wealthy Americans. The votes needed to win elections are largely in the broad middle income segment of the country. So how did the country get turned so topsy turvy, with immense reactionary elements having taken over? It's really very simple. The small upper income segment has gotten the large middle segment (and even some of the lower segment) to vote for their agenda; that is, to vote for candidates who will support what the wealthy want, like less regulation, tax cuts on investments and dividends, etc. This isn't rocket science folks. They and their GOP supporters have done everything to keep the country divided into selfish interest groups, or to encourage such. I see it all of the time. This stuff isn't about saving the country, it is about divide and conquer. My love of languages makes me a translator of ENGLISH, when it is contorted: "We don't want you to die, but we don't want any national health insurance, that's socialism. But we don't want you to die. Did we already say that?" TRANSLATION: "If you're sick or in pain, the hell with you! But we don't want you to die." Saying you don't want people to die is NOT the same as doing something to save lives. Talk is cheap. If Randy were the only doctor in a small town way out in a rural area, and you came in one night and said, "Doc, I'm really sick. I need help." So Doc Randy says, "Ya got insurance?" You answer, "No." Randy asks, "Ya got any money?" You answer, "Not really." So Doc Randy says, "I don't want you to die, but there's a hospital over that mountain and over the next mountain. Takes about 3 hours to get there, but I don't want you to die; after all, I'm doctor, and a Christian." Now that ought to save your life!

* The argument also goes, "Don't punish people for being successful with higher taxes." I think most Americans would welcome the opportunity to be "punished" for such success. Tax rates were much higher under Ronald Reagan, something curiously left out of most arguments made by today's rightwingers.

** In terms of the political parties, things have changed tremendously since the days of the Civil War. Back then, the Republican Party was new, and it had grown as an anti-slavery party, and as such, it was largely a northern-based party. The Democratic Party, even though national, had a solid core based in the south, and it was a pro-states' rights party, which meant many supported slavery. Interestingly too, the most conservative elements of the country remained in the Democratic Party until the last few decades, when they shifted to the Republicans, where they still remain (Phil Gramm and Rick Perry, for instance, are both former Democrats, and of course, Ronald Reagan was a former Democrat, but he supported much of the New Deal back then). On the other hand, some of the most progressive elements of the country were in the Republican Party, but that began to change most visibly after Teddy Roosevelt, a progressive Republican, left office, although it took decades to complete. In fact, when I was a kid, the battles within the Republican Party were between the moderate and progressive "Rockefeller wing," as it was often termed, and the conservative wing, which eventually was able to nominate Barry Goldwater in 1964, bringing the Republicans closer to today's very conservative party.

WORD HISTORY:
Stock-While this word has quite a number of specific meanings (too many to cover here), they trace back to the same Old Germanic root, but the origins beyond Germanic are uncertain. Old Germanic had "stukkaz," which meant "tree trunk." This gave Anglo-Saxon (Old English) "stocc," which meant "tree trunk," but also "log, stump, stake." It also developed the meaning "abode," perhaps from the wood (tree trunk) used to construct such. Further development became "the floor (story) of a house or building," a meaning seemingly passed from English to German, since one of the meanings of German "Stock" is, "a floor above ground level." This "could" come from the idea of branches (floors/stories) from the tree trunk. This also came to be used in ancestry and family meanings, "They come from Irish stock," and "family tree" is a term still used in genealogy today. "Meat stock" seems to also come from the notion of a "base" (back to the tree trunk) from which soup, stews, or gravies are made; thus too, "stock" in the sense of "supplies," retains that notion, "We're going to stock up on canned goods" (goods that can form the basis of a meal), as does the business sense, "Let me see if we have that item in stock." "Stock" in a corporation also carries that same general notion, "Money provided as a basis to grow a company." Old English "stocc" then became "stok," before the modern spelling. The verb form seems to have developed in the 1500s/1600s. "Stocky" developed from the idea of a person "built as solidly as a tree trunk." Most of the other Germanic languages have forms of the word, although meanings vary, and some are used more in modern compounds, rather than as stand alone words. I could not find forms of the word in Frisian and Icelandic, although both once had forms, but I cannot say with certainty they don't have them in the modern languages, as they could be little used. German and Low German have "Stock," Dutch has "stok," Norwegian has "stokk," Danish has "stok," and Swedish has "stock."