What's Behind this Mess in the US...and Beyond? (or Feel Like You're Talking to a Wall?)

I really think what's behind all of this mess in the US and the rest of the world is a corporate cartel that includes the Koch brothers, ALEC, Big Oil and Gas, and many other corporate cronies who are using shock, fear and prejudice to sell their propaganda. It's the "it's all THEIR fault (the poor, the African-Americans, the teachers, the ____)" we work hard for our money, they just want entitlements" approach that they're using. They dangle their wealth and the (false) possibility of acceptance into their fold to their followers like a carrot on a stick. It's like what Hitler did to rise to, and increase his power, except this bloodless coup is by the extreme right.

They're playing their well-planned chess game perfectly, making certain they gut labor unions, worker's rights, repeal minimum wage and child labor laws, and cut the social safety net and other funding, while making certain they've stacked the courts in their favor by pushing tort reform, etc. This reduces people's access to the courts, and economically and politically represses the majority of the population. They've also blind-sided education with unfunded mandates that push ineffective reforms that require teachers to teach to the test, which research has shown reduces critical-thinking skills. Of course they want an uneducated populace that can't question what they're doing. All this is only part of what's been happening.

I knew there was something really weird going down when I spoke with lots of Republican state legislators this past Spring Break up in my state capital, and they all answered my budget question with the same, exact, rehearsed, canned reply...down to the dead expressions on their faces. I could have videotaped one, and the rest would have been as identical as the verbatum bills attacking education and labor that they and their colleagues submitted across multiple states at once. Yes, the bills were exactly the same. That did not happen by chance, nor were their Stepford Republican replies. It was really freaky and unnatural. There have been multiple bills submitted across multiple states in this same way, all in some way reducing our rights, including our right to vote.

Another hint is their unwillingness to compromise. They keep pushing and pushing until the Dems give in, then they take more steps back and force the Dems to compromise more. There has been no Rep. compromise. They are close to getting what they want, and that really scares me. They've also timed this well. In an era of abject, unaware voter apathy, we've let them take away our rights and our power (Citizens United).
 
The most telling clue about the existence of a corporate cartel is the revolving door through which those in the upper echelons of corporations move between their jobs and jobs in government. First, they have in-house corporate meetings, during which they determine the policies, laws, and regulations or deregulations that will most benefit their company. Then, they slide on through that door to whatever particular job they need to acquire in or to make those policies, laws, and regulations or deregulations happens. Of course, they don't recuse themselves, either. After that, they just slip right on back around into the corporate world, in which they are often rewarded with a more lucrative and powerful position or higher compensation and benefits. This is what happened with Dick Cheney's son-in-law Philip Perry.

The American public wonders why the financial market is deregulated or the environmental and consumer protections have evaporated. How could the financial meltdown have possibly "just" happened? It's all happened as planned! All because "we the people" have been apathetic and bought into the lies, propaganda and product defense of the corporate cartel. We're too "busy" to read between the 'lyings' to save our own Democratic Republic, and ourselves.

Welfare for the Rich and Powerful

Well, we're really in a fine mess. Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs is the fellow-architect, along with Bush, Cheney, Gramm, and various and sundry Representatives, Senators, and other government officials, of this crumbling financial trojan elephant. They now want us to rush out willy-nilly, panic-driven and unthinking, and write them a $700 billion check signed by the American people.

The very people who paved the way for this financial collapse through deregulation and removal of consumer/citizen protections want us to hand them this check without the hindrance of oversight, transparency, or public hearings, simply to bail out their buddies, the leaders in corporate and financial America who were their partners in this collapse. It was even leaked by someone in Congress that Paulson was planning on using part of this money to buy his buddy's shares above cost! Like the constant terror alerts that brought us to panic and enabled them to convince us that we should sign away our Constitution and Bill of Rights, they have purposefully, intentionally and with malice aforethought brought us to a new and different level of financial and personal security panic, thinking we'll be stupid enough to sign our future financial freedom over to them, as well. This would be like handing over the hen to the fox already in the hen-house, enabling them and, as such, our government to have unprecedented financial control over the market and the future income of United States citizens. They are even now also changing laws to pave the way for investment firms to become banks, allowing their buddies to have control over large amounts of this money.

I, for one, don't trust a single one of them; they have lied and cheated their way through the past eight years of this administration. In most other countries, Heads of State and top officials in government who have so publicly and spectacularly failed their people, actually resign (wishful thinking in relation to our leaders, on my part). But, not here. So much for ethics, but then we already knew that. What makes anyone think their current plan is good for us, the average, lower-income Americans in this country? We're the people who have gotten nothing out of this administration but the loss of: our Constitutional freedoms, habeas corpus, the ability to more easily file for bankruptcy, the value of our dollar abroad, our standing in the international community, our jobs, the value of our homes (if we still have one), the ability to pay our bills, and now our financial security. For all this, we pay a higher proportion of taxes to income than do the upper income citizens.

On the other hand, the rich and corporate elite have paid a non-progressive, inequitable, lower share of taxes. In fact, now-deceased multi-billionaire Leona Helmsley used to boast that she never paid taxes, stating that they were for the little people. Don't think she's alone in this. They also have the ability to easily file for bankruptcy, get multiple loans and have the option of negotiating their payments, enjoyed a thriving speculative market geared toward profits for high-end investors, and a have a safety net, their golden parachute, when their "imprudent" business practices fail. They still get to walk away from their failed companies with millions or billions of dollars, without any penalty for their "imprudence." If we go bankrupt, lose our life savings or small investments, or lose our job or house due to their "imprudence"...we walk away with little or nothing. What a contrast. The gap between rich and poor only gets wider.

Since when do we live in a totalitarian state? They knew beforehand what would happen when they erased the protective regulations put in place after the Stock Market Crash of 1929. It doesn't take a genius to predict what would happen! Seriously, this is not rocket science. We're now living with the predicted and planned outcome of this ultra-large-scale operation.



If the American people, Congressional leadership, Department of Justice, and the FBI don't stop them in their tracks, they will have effectively fullfilled their plan to take control of a large portion of our country's wealth. The aftermath will allow the architects involved to get away with a large share of these profits, leaving the American citizen to pay for their criminal excesses. How nice and convenient for them!

As far as I'm concerned, all those involved in the financial collapse of our country are home-grown terrorists who should be charged with treason. They have put their personal profits, excessive financial greed and hunger for power above the financial security of our nation, making us vulnerable to all forms of predatory attacks, financial and otherwise, from both internal and external sources. They have also shackled the hands of future Presidents and legislators, and stymied any expenditures in the areas of health care, infrastructure improvement, alternative energy development, and any number of other areas because "we the people" will instead be spending the next few decades paying down these criminals' accrued debt. If this isn't treason, I don't know what is!

To let the President and your Congressional leaders know your thoughts, you can write to them on http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
All you have to do is look on the top, right of your screen for Find Your Officials, enter your zip code in the box, click "GO." This will take you to the page where you can Write Your Elected Officials - click on Federal just under that title. If you're in a split District, you may need to go one further step and enter your +4 zip or your complete address. Then you write your letter, finish filling in all other requested information and click submit. It's that easy to contact them all in one, fell swoop!

Sent to AC 360 - The Economic Mess

This economic mess is NOT due to the mortgage meltdown! It is due to greedy individuals and corporate entities that have been aided and abetted in their quest for more and more dollars to line their already overflowing pockets by the poor economic leadership of this administration. When you combine their bottomless greed with Phil Gramm's actions and the poor economic leadership of Paulson and President Bush, you get a financial crisis. Here's a reminder of what Phil Gramm did. He's the person who put in the loopholes that allowed corporate giants like Enron to get away with their greed and abuse. He also removed the protective regulations that were put in place after the stock market crash of 1929 to prevent a recurrence by maintaining reasonable control and oversight over the financial market.

This was sent to the AC 360 Blog, but not selected for publication.

The Financial Crisis: Recession or Depression?

The current administration has done a great job of distraction. They have formed committees to study problems in order to purposefully and in all actuality get nothing done. They are giftedly performing wholesale obfuscation of the truth through the use of lies, distraction, and dissemination of disinformation. Just because the government doesn't want to tell us the truth doesn't change the facts, challenges and hard reality of the lives average Americans lead. Thanks to Phil Gramm, his Enron loophole and deregulating the banking industry, as well as all the other authors of this new financial reality, I guess we really are now a "nation of whiners" in their eyes.

Our reality is that we have moved from a recession and are rapidly entering a depression (the financial kind, not the mental, implying it's in our imagination kind, Mr. Gramm). I know the rich don't say this and that our government says the inflation rate is only 5.4%. I honestly don't see where they get this number because the average American is seeing much different numbers and could probably relate to the term depression much more readily.

Americans have seen 605,000 jobs disappear just since the beginning of this year. We have experienced a 35.6% increase in gas prices, a 17.3% increase in household energy costs, an increase of 7.5% in food prices, a decrease of approximately 20% in home prices and a record amount of foreclosures, and only a 3.3% increase in the average salary, all over the past year. Our two major mortgage lenders and leading insurance firm had to be taken over or bailed out by the federal government to prevent a further collapse of our economy. Former blue chip banks have gone bankrupt or are about to be bought for pennies on the dollar. The Dow has dropped nearly 1,000 points in two days, and this has lead to a domino effect to other world markets. The Russian market has collapsed and had to be shut down to prevent further damage.

If this financial crisis is not a depression, I don't know what is. And all through this economic crisis...our President, George W. Bush, has remained conspicuously absent and silent. Not one appearance before the American people. Not one word spoken to explain his take on the situation, what he plans to do to rectify it, or information about what American citizens should do to make it through this crisis. Nothing. Absolutely nothing!