the next guy

I have to chuckle at Frieder’s sober and deeply pragmatic reflections on the recent installation of the new regime:

Dear friends over there in God’s own country:

Today the Messiah is arriving. Conquering the temple. Who will he chase away? The bankers?

Will they, after some miracles that he will try to perform, call for his crucifixion?

It will be great to observe how he deals with Israel. It will be great to observe how he, as the others, will spend the taxpayers money in order to help big finance capital that is behaving as if they had not gone through shameless times of making outrageous profits. Where do they hide all that?

Marx’s analysis of the defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871 starts with the observation that the communards had forgotten to seize capital and prevent its disappearance to Versailles.

I wish you, and us in old Europe good luck. A bit will change. But nothing essential. That’s what I expect. But I would be excited if I was a US citizen.

So let us not deny that hope is a good feeling.

which clearly segues to reflections from a former President of the Republic:

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. — Thomas Jefferson