Josh Davis @GuerillaOntologist@social.coop

Adding: all quotes taken from the book "American Aurora" by Richard N. Rosenfeld (1997), which tells the early history of the United States through primary source documents - mainly newspaper articles, letters to the editor, and personal correspondence.

All of this is just a reminder that we live in a country whose system of government was expressly based on England's monarchical system, and created by people whose only problem with the English aristocracy was that they weren't a part of it.

Happy Independence Day!

6/6

"I do not "consider hereditary Monarchy or Aristocracy as Rebellion against Nature." On the contrary, I esteem them both as Institutions of admirable wisdom and exemplary Virtue...and I am clear that America must resort to them as an asylum during discord, Seditions and Civil War...Our country is not ripe for it in many respects...but our ship must ultimately land on that shore or be cast away." ~John Adams, 2nd President of the US.

5/x

"As the Federal Constitution is a copy, though not quite so base as the original, of the form of the British Government, an imitation of its vices was naturally to be expected...Had that Convention, or the law members thereof, known the origin of the negativing power used by kings of England, from whence they copied it, they must have seen the inconsistency of introducing it into an American Constitution" ~Tom Paine in an open letter, 1805.

4/x

"You appear to me, in all your writings to consider hereditary descent as essential to monarchy and aristocracy...But is this correct...? It may be hereditary, or it may be for life, or it may be for years or only for one year...Monarchy, in this view of it, resembles property. A landed estate may be for years, a year...or any number of years..." ~John Adams explaining to John Taylor that the US can have a monarchy w/out hereditary succession.

3/x

"The Prince of Orange, William V., in a conversation with which he honored me...was pleased to say..."Sir, you have given yourselves a king under the title of president."...[O]ur president's office has "some resemblance of monarchy," and God forbid that it should ever be diminished." ~John Adams writing to John Taylor, April 15th, 1814

2/x

It's the 4th, so here's a little forgotten US history for y'all:

"Now, sir, let me ask you, whether you can discover no "resemblance of aristocracy in our form of government"? Are not great, and very great, important and essential powers entrusted to a few, a very few?" ~John Adams in a letter to John Taylor, gleefully describing the anti-democratic nature of the Senate.

1/x

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment is down. Meanwhile, the US Dept. of Labor reports more people on unemployment insurance than ever before. 🤔

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/07/02/never-before-have-i-seen-so-much-fake-unemployment-jobs-data-by-the-bureau-of-labor-statistics-while-labor-department-nails-it/

Here's how a group of disgruntled non-profit employees effectively fired their employer and started a #WorkerCooperative

https://geo.coop/articles/how-turn-your-non-profit-worker-co-op

Just finished reading "James Boggs, the 'Outsiders,' and the Challenge of Postindustrial Society by Cedric Johnson. You can get it on sci-hub.tw by putting this in the search bar:
https://doi.org/10.1080/10999949.2011.601705

"Bogg's response to the coming of automation and the postindustrial society is neither Luddite nor welfare statist. Neither of these strategies harnesses the revolutionary egalitarian potential of the new forces of production."

Michael Hudson, everybody's favorite Marxian economist and biblical historian, on what's coming down the pike for the US. This ain't gonna be pretty.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/06/michael-hudson-on-coronavirus-and-debt-winners-and-losers.html

"Former St. Louis Police Officer Redditt Hudson and National Coalition of Law Enforcement Officers for Justice Reform and Accountability Reddit Hudson explains why he supports police defunding. During this Justice System episode, Hudson talks about his experience as a police officer and why he became an advocate for change."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qeHjjwYNR0