Chris Hedges: "The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults." "We need to recover the language of class warfare and grasp what is happening to us, and we need to shatter this self-delusion that somehow if we work hard enough and study hard enough, we can be one of them. The fact is, the people who created the economic mess that we're in were the best-educated people in the country..." "The issue is not education. The issue is greed."

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Find original here.

The Pathology of the Rich - Chris Hedges on Reality Asserts Itself pt1

On RAI with Paul Jay, Chris Hedges discusses the psychology of the super rich; their sense of entitlement, the dehumanization of workers, and mistaken belief that their wealth will insulate them from the coming storms - December 5, 13

Bio                                                                                                         .

Chris Hedges, whose column is published Mondays on Truthdig , spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. He has written nine books, including "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle" (2009), "I Don't Believe in Atheists" (2008) and the best-selling "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America" (2008). His book "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.

Go here for Part 2

Paul Craig Roberts is the greatest American truth teller of our times. He sees through today's America like a doctor studying an x-ray. And the cancer he sees is the exact opposite of what most Americans imagine to be "the greatest country in the world." Instead of "liberty and justice for all" today's American government is now a totally corrupt kleptocracy in possession of the power (and the stupidity) to destroy the human race. Obama's determination to attack Syria come hell or high water is just the latest step in that direction. Wake up America!

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Obama Has Decided That It Is Safer To Buy Congress Than To Go It Alone — Paul Craig Roberts

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September 1, 2013 | Original Here                                               Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Obama Has Decided That It Is Safer To Buy Congress Than To Go It Alone

Paul Craig Roberts

While still claiming dictatorial powers to start a war on his own authority, Obama put his unilateral attack on Syria on hold when he received a letter from more than 160 members of the House of Representatives reminding him that to take the country to war without congressional approval is an impeachable offense and when he saw that no country that could serve as cover for a war crime, not even the puppet British government and the NATO puppet states, would support America’s announced military aggression against Syria.

Obama got away with attacking Libya without an OK from Congress, because he used Washington’s NATO puppets and not US military forces. That ploy let Obama claim that the US was not directly involved.

Now that the lack of cover and the challenge from Congress has caused the would-be tyrant Obama to put on hold his attack on Syria, what can we expect?

If Obama were intelligent, and clearly anyone who would appoint Susan Rice as his national security adviser is not intelligent, he would simply let the attack on Syria fade into the background and die as Congress returns on September 9 to face the insoluble problems of the budget deficit and debt ceiling.

A competent administration would realize that a government that is unable to pay its bills without heavy use of the printing press is in far too much trouble to be worrying about what is going on in Syria. No competent administration would risk a military strike that could result in a Middle East conflagration and a rise in oil prices, thus worsening the economic situation that Washington faces.

But Obama and his collection of incompetents have demonstrated that they have no competence. The regime is also corrupt, and the entire edifice rests on nothing but lies.

Now that the White House realizes that Obama cannot commit a war crime without cover, here is what we can likely expect. The argument will move away from whether or not Assad used chemical weapons and become an argument that Congress must not undermine US prestige and credibility by failing to support President Obama, the latest front man for American wars of aggression.

The White House will bribe, cajole, and intimidate the Congress. The regime’s argument will be that with America’s prestige and credibility on the line, Congress must support the President. The President and Secretary of State have made unequivocal statements of Assad’s guilt and their determination to punish Assad. Given Washington’s insanity, the way Washington punishes Assad for (allegedly) killing Syrians with chemical weapons is for Washington to kill more Syrians with cruise missiles.

If this doesn’t make sense to you, you don’t belong in Obama’s government or in the American media, and you could never be a neoconservative.

The White House will argue that Obama has compromised with Congress by letting Congress vote on the decision, and that Congress’ part of the compromise is to give its support. Meet us half-way, the White House will say.

The Israel Lobby, Susan Rice, the neocons, and warmongers such as Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham will argue that lack of support for Obama’s attack on Syria hurts America’s credibility, aids the “terrorists” and “leaves America defenseless.” It is bad enough, they will argue, that Obama has shown indecision by waiting for Congress’ approval and irresolution by substituting a limited strike for the original plan of regime change.

Faced with threats of a cutoff of campaign donation munificence from the Israel Lobby and the military/security complex, the House and Senate can be brought into line to “support the country” as it commits another war crime. The combination of bribes, intimidation, and patriotic appeals to support America’s prestige can swing the Congress. No one really knows if the 160 or so members of the House are sincere about putting Obama on notice, or whether they simply want something. Perhaps they only want Obama to cough up for their approval.

If Congress gives its backing to another American war crime, British Prime Minister David Cameron can go back to Parliament and tell them that Obama “has now brought Congress on board, thus providing cover, and if Parliament doesn’t go along we will be cut out of the money.”

Few British politicians, other than George Galloway, are comfortable with being cut out of the money.

If Cameron brings Parliament around, the other NATO countries might decide to get on the payments bandwagon. The overriding rule of Western civilization is that more money is better than no money.

Washington and its NATO European puppets will criticize Russia and China for using their Security Council vetoes to block the UN from bringing justice, freedom, and democracy to Syria. These faux arguments will be used by the presstitute Western media to undermine the importance of the UN Security Council’s opposition to Washington’s attack on Syria. Why should Washington be deterred by Security Council members who support Assad’s use of chemical weapons, the US media whores will ask. The prostitutes that comprise the US media will do all in their power to ensure that Washington kills yet more Syrians. Killing is America’s hallmark.

As the history of humankind proves, people will do anything for money. Noteworthy exceptions are Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, and Julian Assange. Were any of these truth-tellers to have gone to Washington and say, “buy me,” in exchange for their silence Washington would have provided large fortunes with which they could live a life of comfort.

Considering how corrupted the US government is and how determined Washington is to have its way, the UN chemical weapons inspectors are at risk. It is unlikely that they will have an accident like SEAL Team Six. But unless they are sequestered like a jury, they are targets for bribery. If the UN report doesn’t support the White House position, the Secretary General will be pressured to make the report inconclusive. After all, Washington writes the checks that keep the UN in business.

No one should expect the US Congress to vote on the basis of the evidence. Moreover, Congress has so far shown no understanding that regardless of whether Assad used chemical weapons, it is a war crime for the US to commit naked aggression against Syria, a country that has not attacked the US. It is not Washington’s business how the Syrian government puts down the effort by al-Nusra extremists to overthrow it.

Obama’s argument that it is OK to kill people with white phosphorus and depleted uranium, as the US and Israel does, but not with sarin gas, has no logic. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/08/the-u-s-and-israel-have-used-chemical-weapons-within-the-last-8-years.html

Washington itself has contingency plans to use nuclear bunker busters against Iran’s underground nuclear energy facilities. If Washington believes that weapons of mass destruction are impermissible, why does Washington have so many of them and contingency plans to use them? Is Washington regretful that Washington dropped two nuclear bombs on civilian Japanese cities at the very time that the Japanese government was doing everything in its power to surrender?

Ever since the dangerous Cold War ended, hot war has been the mainstay of US foreign policy. George H.W. Bush attacked Iraq after Bush’s ambassador gave Saddam Hussein the green light to attack Kuwait. Clinton attacked Serbia on false pretenses and without any constitutional or legal authority. George W. Bush attacked Afghanistan and Iraq on the basis of lies. Obama renewed the attack on Afghanistan and has attacked also Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Obama sent his NATO puppets to attack Libya, sent mercenaries into Syria, and now intends to prevent his mercenaries’ defeat by attacking Syria.

Washington is building a string of military bases around both Russia and China. These bases are extremely provocative and foretell nuclear war.

The US, a country with a vast nuclear weapons arsenal, whose political leaders are both corrupt and insane, is a great danger to life on earth. That Washington is the number one danger to the world is now universally recognized, except by Americans who wear their patriotism on their sleeve. These gullible dupes are the enablers of the demise of humanity by war.

Until the US economy collapses, Washington still has printed money, and it can buy acquiescence to its crimes. Washington can rely on the presstitute media to tell its lies as if they were facts. The world will not be safe until the American house of cards collapses.

I feel sorry for those uninformed Americans who think that they live in the best country in the world. Too few Americans care that their government has destroyed countless lives from Central America and Vietnam to the Middle East and Africa. The US military routinely murders civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and is responsible for as many as 1,000,000 Iraqi deaths and 4,000,000 displaced Iraqis. The American definition of “the best country in the world” is the country that can murder the most innocent people, people who have never attacked America, people who once looked upon America as the hope of the world and now see a deadly threat.

Too many Americans have no idea that one-fifth of their fellow citizens are dependent on government support, or if they do know, they blame the unfortunate for being leeches on the taxpayers’ purse. In the US wages and employment opportunities are declining. There are no impediments to the looting of citizens by financial institutions. There are no constraints on the lawlessness and brutality of the police, and no limit to the lies that keep the American population entrapped in the Matrix unaware of reality.

How such a people can retain liberty or restrain a government committed to war strains the imagination.

Those Republicans who worry about our children’s and grandchildren’s debt burdens are worried about a future that might never come about. Washington’s hubris is pushing the world toward nuclear war.

“The best country in the world” is the evil force that is destroying the lives and prospects of many different peoples and might yet destroy all life on earth.

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The rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer -- and all the while the corporate-owned U.S. government finds new ways to assure that this inhumane trend will continue indefinitely.

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BillMoyers.com / By Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers: We Are Living in the United States of Inequality

"A petty, narcissistic, pridefully ignorant politics has come to dominate and paralyze our government."

April 12, 2013 | From BIll Moyers.com:

The unprecedented level of economic inequality in America is undeniable. In an extended essay, Bill Moyers shares examples of the striking extremes of wealth and poverty across the country, including a video report on California’s Silicon Valley. There, Facebook, Google, and Apple are minting millionaires, while the area’s homeless — who’ve grown 20 percent in the last two years — are living in tent cities at their virtual doorsteps.

“A petty, narcissistic, pridefully ignorant politics has come to dominate and paralyze our government,” says Moyers, “while millions of people keep falling through the gaping hole that has turned us into the United States of Inequality.”

[Full Transcript Available at Original]

Ever wonder just how big the wealth disparity in the U.S. really is?

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http://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM

Wealth Inequality in America

politizane 

Published on Nov 20, 2012 
Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is. 

References: 
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2...
http://danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealt...
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011...
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/19/news/...

This Is What Resistance Looks Like

Posted on Apr 3, 2011

By Chris Hedges

The phrase consent of the governed has been turned into a cruel joke. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. Civil disobedience is the only tool we have left.

We will not halt the laying off of teachers and other public employees, the slashing of unemployment benefits, the closing of public libraries, the reduction of student loans, the foreclosures, the gutting of public education and early childhood programs or the dismantling of basic social services such as heating assistance for the elderly until we start to carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience against the financial institutions responsible for our debacle. The banks and Wall Street, which have erected the corporate state to serve their interests at our expense, caused the financial crisis. The bankers and their lobbyists crafted tax havens that account for up to $1 trillion in tax revenue lost every decade. They rewrote tax laws so the nation’s most profitable corporations, including Bank of America, could avoid paying any federal taxes. They engaged in massive fraud and deception that wiped out an estimated $40 trillion in global wealth. The banks are the ones that should be made to pay for the financial collapse. Not us. And for this reason at 11 a.m. April 15 I will join protesters in Union Square in New York City in front of the Bank of America.

“The political process no longer works,” Kevin Zeese, the director of Prosperity Agenda and one of the organizers of the April 15 event, told me. “The economy is controlled by a handful of economic elites. The necessities of most Americans are no longer being met. The only way to change this is to shift the power to a culture of resistance. This will be the first in a series of events we will organize to help give people control of their economic and political life.”

If you are among the one in six workers in this country who does not have a job, if you are among the some 6 million people who have lost their homes to repossessions, if you are among the many hundreds of thousands of people who went bankrupt last year because they could not pay their medical bills or if you have simply had enough of the current kleptocracy, join us in Union Square Park for the “Sounds of Resistance Concert,” which will feature political hip-hop/rock powerhouse Junkyard Empire with Broadcast Live and Sketch the Cataclysm. The organizers have set up a website, and there’s more information on their Facebook page.

We will picket the Union Square branch of Bank of America, one of the major financial institutions responsible for the theft of roughly $17 trillion in wages, savings and retirement benefits taken from ordinary citizens. We will build a miniature cardboard community that will include what we should have—good public libraries, free health clinics, banks that have been converted into credit unions, free and well-funded public schools and public universities, and shuttered recruiting centers (young men and women should not have to go to Iraq and Afghanistan as soldiers or Marines to find a job with health care). We will call for an end to all foreclosures and bank repossessions, a breaking up of the huge banking monopolies, a fair system of taxation and a government that is accountable to the people.

The 10 major banks, which control 60 percent of the economy, determine how our legislative bills are written, how our courts rule, how we frame our public debates on the airwaves, who is elected to office and how we are governed. The phrase consent of the governed has been turned by our two major political parties into a cruel joke. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. And the faster these banks and huge corporations are broken up and regulated, the sooner we will become free.

Bank of America is one of the worst. It did not pay any federal taxes last year or the year before. It is currently one of the most aggressive banks in seizing homes, at times using private security teams that carry out brutal home invasions to toss families into the street. The bank refuses to lend small business people and consumers the billions in government money it was handed. It has returned with a vengeance to the flagrant criminal activity and speculation that created the meltdown, behavior made possible because the government refuses to institute effective sanctions or control from regulators, legislators or the courts. Bank of America, like most of the banks that peddled garbage to small shareholders, routinely hid its massive losses through a creative accounting device it called “repurchase agreements.” It used these “repos” during the financial collapse to temporarily erase losses from the books by transferring toxic debt to dummy firms before public filings had to be made. It is called fraud. And Bank of America is very good at it.

US Uncut, which will be involved in the April 15 demonstration in New York, carried out 50 protests outside Bank of America branches and offices on Feb. 26. UK Uncut, a British version of the group, produced this video guide to launching a “bail-in” in your neighborhood.



Civil disobedience, such as that described in the bail-in video or the upcoming protest in Union Square, is the only tool we have left. A fourth of the country’s largest corporations—including General Electric, ExxonMobil and Bank of America—paid no federal income taxes in 2010. But at the same time these corporations operate as if they have a divine right to hundreds of billions in taxpayer subsidies. Bank of America was handed $45 billion—that is billion with a B—in federal bailout funds. Bank of America takes this money—money you and I paid in taxes—and hides it along with its profits in some 115 offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes. One assumes the bank’s legions of accountants are busy making sure the corporation will not pay federal taxes again this year. Imagine if you or I tried that.

“If Bank of America paid their fair share of taxes, planned cuts of $1.7 billion in early childhood education, including Head Start & Title 1, would not be needed,” Zeese pointed out. “Bank of America avoids paying taxes by using subsidiaries in offshore tax havens. To eliminate their taxes, they reinvest proceeds overseas, instead of bringing the dollars home, thereby undermining the U.S. economy and avoiding federal taxes. Big Finance, like Bank of America, contributes to record deficits that are resulting in massive cuts to basic services in federal and state governments.”

The big banks and corporations are parasites. They greedily devour the entrails of the nation in a quest for profit, thrusting us all into serfdom and polluting and poisoning the ecosystem that sustains the human species. They have gobbled up more than a trillion dollars from the Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve and created tiny enclaves of wealth and privilege where corporate managers replicate the decadence of the Forbidden City and Versailles. Those outside the gates, however, struggle to find work and watch helplessly as food and commodity prices rocket upward. The owners of one out of seven houses are now behind on their mortgage payments. In 2010 there were 3.8 million foreclosure filings and bank repossessions topped 2.8 million, a 2 percent increase over 2009 and a 23 percent increase over 2008. This record looks set to be broken in 2011. And no one in the Congress, the Obama White House, the courts or the press, all beholden to corporate money, will step in to stop or denounce the assault on families. Our ruling elite, including Barack Obama, are courtiers, shameless hedonists of power, who kneel before Wall Street and daily sell us out. The top corporate plutocrats are pulling down $900,000 an hour while one in four children depends on food stamps to eat.

We don’t need leaders. We don’t need directives from above. We don’t need formal organizations. We don’t need to waste our time appealing to the Democratic Party or writing letters to the editor. We don’t need more diatribes on the Internet. We need to physically get into the public square and create a mass movement. We need you and a few of your neighbors to begin it. We need you to walk down to your Bank of America branch and protest. We need you to come to Union Square. And once you do that you begin to create a force these elites always desperately try to snuff out—resistance.

Chris Hedges’ column appears every Monday at Truthdig. Hedges, a fellow at The Nation Institute and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is the author of “Death of the Liberal Class.”

The newly elected Republican governor of Wisconsin plans to slash the pay and benefits of most public workers, eliminate their collective barganing rights, and call up the National Guard to put down protests. DEJA VU! The root causes of the Egyptian uprising were intolerably low pay, unions made illegal, and the use of riot police to quell (smaller scale than recent) demonstrations!

Blogger's advice to fellow Americans: Remember Martin Niemoller's famous quote:

First they came for the Communists, but I did not speak out because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, but I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
...
...
Finally, they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

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February 15, 2011


Obama’s $3.7 Trillion Budget Calls for Military Spending Increases and Deep Cuts to Social Service Programs

President Obama has unveiled a budget plan seeking to trim the federal deficit by cutting or eliminating some 200 federal programs, many dedicated to social services and education, while increasing military spending and funding for the construction of nuclear power plants. Announcing his $3.7 trillion proposal, Obama touted his previously stated pledge to freeze funding for domestic programs outside of the military for five years. Obama’s plan includes two modest tax hikes for banks and oil companies. It also calls for ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in 2013 and returning the estate tax to its higher 2009 levels. For analysis of Obama’s proposed budget, we are joined by John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine.

Find full transcript here.

February 15, 2011


Wisconsin Governor Launches Attack on Public Sector Employees and Unions; Threatens to Deploy National Guard to Quell Labor Protests

Recently elected Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker has proposed a bill that would eliminate almost all collective bargaining rights for most public workers and slash their pay and benefits. Walker has also notified the state’s National Guard to be on alert for actions taken by unsatisfied state, county and municipal employees. On Monday, hundreds of protesters marched on the State Capitol in Madison, with more protests being planned. Joining us from Madison is John Nichols of The Nation magazine and Brad Lutes, a Wisconsin public school teacher. Nichols warns the governor’s actions could have national ramifications: “If Governor Walker pulls this off, if he succeeds in taking away collective bargaining rights from the union, AFSCME, which was founded in Wisconsin back in the 1930s, if he takes down one of the strongest and most effective teachers’ unions, WEAC, in the country, then we really are going to see this sweep across the United States.”

Find full transcript here.

Blooger's Comments: Did you notice the supercilious smirk on Governor Walker's face? And did you note the fact that Wisconsin is not broke but will actually end the year with $123 million surplus?
Finally, bear in mind that 95% of the ballots cast in the U.S. are tabulated on hackable central computers and that in Arizona real Republicans (as opposed to kleptocrats) have joined Democrats to combat proven election fraud by insiders ...the investigation of which was deliberately sabotaged by former Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard (be sure to play the video!). So Governor Walker and other like minded state governors may well be in office by means of election theft orchestrated by our kleptocrat masters, rather than the cover story of clueless Tea Partiers having been tricked into voting against their own best interests.

Finally, Here's a Picture that IS Worth a Thousand Words!

Posted originally 25 December 2010
— http://bit.ly/idBtTF —

Why We Know the U.S. Has Become a Bananna Republic

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Op-Ed Columnist

Our Banana Republic

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: November 6, 2010

In my reporting, I regularly travel to banana republics notorious for their inequality. In some of these plutocracies, the richest 1 percent of the population gobbles up 20 percent of the national pie.

But guess what? You no longer need to travel to distant and dangerous countries to observe such rapacious inequality. We now have it right here at home — and in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, it may get worse.

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.

That’s the backdrop for one of the first big postelection fights in Washington — how far to extend the Bush tax cuts to the most affluent 2 percent of Americans. Both parties agree on extending tax cuts on the first $250,000 of incomes, even for billionaires. Republicans would also cut taxes above that.

The richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers would get a tax cut of $61,000 from President Obama. They would get $370,000 from Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. And that provides only a modest economic stimulus, because the rich are less likely to spend their tax savings.

At a time of 9.6 percent unemployment, wouldn’t it make more sense to finance a jobs program? For example, the money could be used to avoid laying off teachers and undermining American schools.

Likewise, an obvious priority in the worst economic downturn in 70 years should be to extend unemployment insurance benefits, some of which will be curtailed soon unless Congress renews them. Or there’s the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which helps train and support workers who have lost their jobs because of foreign trade. It will no longer apply to service workers after Jan. 1, unless Congress intervenes.

So we face a choice. Is our economic priority the jobless, or is it zillionaires?

And if Republicans are worried about long-term budget deficits, a reasonable concern, why are they insistent on two steps that nonpartisan economists say would worsen the deficits by more than $800 billion over a decade — cutting taxes for the most opulent, and repealing health care reform? What other programs would they cut to make up the lost $800 billion in revenue?

In weighing these issues, let’s remember that backdrop of America’s rising inequality.

In the past, many of us acquiesced in discomfiting levels of inequality because we perceived a tradeoff between equity and economic growth. But there’s evidence that the levels of inequality we’ve now reached may actually suppress growth. A drop of inequality lubricates economic growth, but too much may gum it up.

Robert H. Frank of Cornell University, Adam Seth Levine of Vanderbilt University, and Oege Dijk of the European University Institute recently wrote a fascinating paper suggesting that inequality leads to more financial distress. They looked at census data for the 50 states and the 100 most populous counties in America, and found that places where inequality increased the most also endured the greatest surges in bankruptcies.

Here’s their explanation: When inequality rises, the richest rake in their winnings and buy even bigger mansions and fancier cars. Those a notch below then try to catch up, and end up depleting their savings or taking on more debt, making a financial crisis more likely.

Another consequence the scholars found: Rising inequality also led to more divorces, presumably a byproduct of the strains of financial distress. Maybe I’m overly sentimental or romantic, but that pierces me. It’s a reminder that inequality isn’t just an economic issue but also a question of human dignity and happiness.

Mounting evidence suggests that losing a job or a home can rock our identity and savage our self-esteem. Forced moves wrench families from their schools and support networks.

In short, inequality leaves people on the lower rungs feeling like hamsters on a wheel spinning ever faster, without hope or escape.

Economic polarization also shatters our sense of national union and common purpose, fostering political polarization as well.

So in this post election landscape, let’s not aggravate income gaps that already would make a Latin American caudillo proud. To me, we’ve reached a banana republic point where our inequality has become both economically unhealthy and morally repugnant.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

Saman Mohammadi: "What transpires on American streets in the next couple of years will define the rest of this century, and dare I say, human destiny."

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October 22, 2010 at 21:16:10

Ready Or Not, Here Come The Kleptocratic Bloodsuckers

Op Ed News Diary Entry by Saman Mohammadi

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The democratic and security threat to America is not from right-wing militias, or Islamic radicalism, or socialism, but from kleptocrats who hijacked the federal government and looted the country through the misappropriation of public funds in the trillion dollar war on terror, the decades-long war on drugs, the trillion dollar war in Iraq, the multi-billion dollar construction of the domestic surveillance-police state, the nine hundred billion dollar health care bill that primarily benefited insurance companies and drug corporations, and the radically unpopular bailout programs that were passed in Congress at the threat of martial law following the financial crisis in the fall of 2008 that economic experts like James K. Galbraith say was driven by fraud at the highest levels in financial institutions on Wall Street.

The illegal relationship between public officials on both aisles and a few selected corporations and banks is not new in America, but never before have the interests of the two groups been so interconnected, and obvious to the public. This corrupt establishment's criminal hold on power is vulnerable to the point that it can be challenged by even the smallest form of democratic pressure by outraged citizens if they ever decide to outgrow their petty allegiances to their favorite political party, and hit the streets with the kind of righteous rage that is required for the occasion.

Indeed, if the collective awakening of the American people leads to collective action then America's free republic may well be saved from total economic and social destruction, and the dictatorial overhaul of the Western World by globalist conspirators may yet be prevented.

What transpires on American streets in the next couple of years will define the rest of this century, and dare I say, human destiny. The traitorous kleptocrats in Washington D.C. know this very well, and have prepared accordingly. They are ready for the coming popular revolution, and they view any democratic challenge to the rule by Wall Street and America's transnational corporations as a threat to the country itself. As Washington's Blog pointed out last month, "the interests of the government and big business are so closely aligned that some high-level government officials may consider any threat to the bottom line of the big banks and other corporate giants as an existential threat to the nation's security."

America's descent into third-world rule happened because both major political parties, in their selfish and short-minded quest for electoral supremacy, opened the revolving gates on Capitol Hill to Wall Street's Gollums to the detriment of the best interests of the country's 300 million citizens.

In the dictionary kleptocracy is defined as "government by those who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed." It is easy to recognize that America's current political class fits this description.

Despite being run by kleptocrats, the United States government frequently highlights and condemns foreign kleptocracies. In August 2006, the Bush administration issued a report called "National Strategy Against High-Level Corruption: Coordinating International Efforts to Combat Kleptocracy" saying that; "High-level, large-scale corruption by public officials, or kleptocracy, threatens America's global interests. These interests include ensuring security and stability; the rule of law and core democratic values; discouraging tyrannical regimes; advancing prosperity; and creating a level playing field for lawful business activities."

Among four examples of kleptocratic rule given in the report was Saddam Hussein's Iraq: "Hussein looted Iraq of billions of dollars by skimming workers' profits, taking kickbacks, smuggling, and stealing state funds. He used these ill-gotten gains to maintain despotic power, develop and purchase weapons, and enrich his family, cronies, and himself." Of course, every charge made against Saddam was true, but the same charges, and some even more horrendous, equally apply to America's top politicians and plutocrats. The American government remains the preeminent global killer and terrorist. Saddam was nothing more than America's murderous protégé who outgrew his indignant master and left the reservation.

On the same day of the release of the report, President Bush gave a statement on the global threat of kleptocracy to the world's democracies, the global rule of law, and the worldwide effort to combat international terrorism. Whether he knew it or not, his remarks were an indictment against his own administration:

"For too long, the culture of corruption has undercut development and good governance and bred criminality and mistrust around the world. High-level corruption by senior government officials, or kleptocracy, is a grave and corrosive abuse of power and represents the most invidious type of public corruption. It threatens our national interest and violates our values. It impedes our efforts to promote freedom and democracy, end poverty, and combat international crime and terrorism. Kleptocracy is an obstacle to democratic progress, undermines faith in government institutions, and steals prosperity from the people. Promoting transparent, accountable governance is a critical component of our freedom agenda."

American kleptocracy didn't begin when the Bush administration stole the people's votes in the 2000 election, and it didn't end when the Obama administration stole the people's hearts in the 2008 election. It was always there in the political background, waiting to be noticed. But, the mainstream's media's endless distractions and disinformation campaigns allowed the kleptocrats to live on the public's dough like social parasites, while the majority of the public staggered through life like blind bats being led into an exterminator's cave .

During the retardation of America's political process, if there was any inkling of real change voiced by a unified citizenry, then false political movements were started, or real ones subverted, by the kleptocrats to divide the people, and redirect their correct suspicions about wide-scale public theft and war crimes to inconsequential issues like gay marriage, and abortion.

Two years ago it was the false Obama change campaign that captivated the sleeping nation, and now in its place is the directionless and spiritless tea party phenomenon that was quickly captured by the Republican establishment. Two years from now the clever kleptocrats will set up a new pseudo-movement to satisfy the impulses of the blind and pathetic left, to be matched with another version of the tea party on the right, which perhaps will turn out to be even more foolish, xenophobic, and war-hungry than its current form.

Six months ago, William Astore wrote in an article called "American Kleptocracy: How Fears of Socialism and Fascism Hide Naked Theft" that America's tiny corrupt elite was able to screw the American public, while evading sustained and informed public scrutiny of their crimes because the country's real enemy, a kleptocracy, has not yet been correctly identified by the majority of the American people. Astore wrote:

"If we were to take and honest look at America's blasted landscape of "losers" and the far shinier, spiffier world of "winners," we'd have to admit that it wasn't signs of onrushing socialism or fascism that stood out, but of staggeringly self-aggrandizing greed and theft right in the here and now. We'd notice our public coffers being emptied to benefit major corporations and financial institutions working in close alliance with, and passing on remarkable sums of money to, the representatives of "the people." We'd see, in a word, kleptocracy on a scale to dazzle. We would suddenly see an almost magical disappearing act being performed, largely without comment, right before our eyes."

The only way for the people of any country to address a kleptocratic government is by firing the corrupt political cronies, indicting the criminal banksters who profited from fraudulent government deals, removing the kleptocratic bloodsuckers from office, and taking back the levers of power wholesale. Justice must be done in America, otherwise, there won't be freedom or security. Economic and national recovery can't be accomplished without aggressive resistance to the kleptocrats in Washington and Wall Street by a unified and determined country.

There are lessons in recent history that America can learn from as it battles its own demons in the dark halls of government. In 2001 Argentina experienced an economic collapse and kleptocratic looting similar to what is going now inside the land of the free. There was high unemployment, massive government debt, closed down factories, and banksters packing their bags with the help of their friends in political office. Journalists Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein made an excellent documentary called "The Take" about a group of Argentinian workers who got together on their own to reboot nearby factories, and start making goods again. While it may not appear radical for people to take control of abandoned factories and produce again, it made a big political impact. It was a brave and extraordinary act, and it gave impoverished families and communities the opportunity to restart their lives amidst an economic and social collapse.

America's solutions will differ from what Argentinian workers did, but the important point that should be taken from Argentina's example is that without resistance to the kleptocrats America will turn drastically poorer and despotic, if not totally destroyed, and replaced as the central body in a future dictatorial global government.

It would be best if America recovers its capitalist ethic and entrepreneurial spirit, removes the national security edifice, restores its envious Republic, limits Wall Street's disproportionate role in the economy, and strictly follows the rule of law in all avenues of public life.

But if nothing is done, if a legitimate, determined, peaceful, and nationwide movement doesn't emerge to take on the murderous kleptocrats in Washington, then Iran may be hit by America, which will surely lead to a new world war, followed by the final trappings of the aforementioned dictatorial global government, based in America. That must not happen. Mankind's destiny is peace and liberty, not war and slavery. It is time that we all manifest this destiny in the streets of our cities.

T.S. Eliot:

"For the question of questions, which no political philosophy can escape, and by the right answer to which all political thinking must in the end be judged, is simply this: What is Man? what are his limitations? what is his misery and what his greatness? and what, finally, his destiny?" (The Literature of Politics, a lecture by Eliot delivered in London on April 19th, 1955).

Saman "Truth Excavator" Mohammadi is a blogger and a full-time university student, currently living in Toronto, Canada. His blog is http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com.

Michael Collins: Lawless Nation, Part II of III

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Lawless Nation - Congress

Submitted by Michael Collins on Thu, 2010-10-07 18:53 Congress

By Michael Collins
Part II of III (Part I)

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WASHINGTON - Placed in office through legalized  bribery, supported by public funding for their every need, protected against the laws that we're expected to obey, Congress represents the epitome of lawlessness; lawmakers who have no regard for the law.  (Image)

Members of Congress are different.  They get to retire at age 62 with lifetime pensions and health benefits.  To qualify, they need just five years of service.   They get free phone, mail, and other communications plus paid domestic and foreign travel.

Supposedly, they're not allowed to take gifts but the list of exceptions offers plenty of room for luxurious appreciation.

The biggest gift of all - a six to seven figure job with a major corporation or lobbying firm right after retirement - is still fair game for any member.  The revolving door never stops.

But supposedly Congress passes laws for the public benefit.  They come to power based on contributions from their patrons, usually large donors.  Then members resolutely deny that these contributions translate into legislation favorable to the donors.  If pressed, members state that the contributions merely buy access not votes.

In fact, members routinely vote the interests of their largest patrons.  Thus, the contributions are a form of legalized bribery ("a favor or promise given to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust.").

The financial industry contributed hundreds of millions to current members.  When Wall Street was about to fail in late 2008, they called in their markers and got an immediate bailout of $700 billion and "total potential Federal Government support (that) could reach up to $23.7 trillion"  from the Federal Reserve and other government sources.  This was in the midst of the 2008 federal election cycle when members solicited funds from the very people they bailed out.

Would this have happened without years of contributions by the financial industry?

What other incentives were involved that were not revealed?

The people face a health care crisis of epic proportions, losing insurance, under coverage for life threatening conditions.  They have to delay or cease medication due to ever rising costs.  Health care is unaffordable to many.

Congress addressed the problem much like they did the financial crisis.  A bill was passed that left health insurance companies at the center of health care taking a handsome profit for doing little to nothing.  Prior to passage of the health bill, the insurers raised rates shamelessly and did so again after the legislation was enacted, using the very health reform passed for the people to gouge the people for more money.

In the midst of total unemployment at about 20%, with the poverty on the rise, what has Congress done?  The vast majority of citizens get little or no attention while those who cause the financial meltdown are handsomely rewarded.  Members of Congress fret that they simply can't get the votes to help the people.   But we know different.

It's planned failure that  serves their wealthy donors.  That's not a system of laws.  It's an oligarchy with a strong dose of kleptocracy.

Congress routinely ignores the Constitution.  Article I outlines "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress."  Section 8 of the article lists this power:  "To declare War." When presidents make war without congressional authorization, Congress passes legislation that negates its war making powers in order to legitimize the illegal act by the executive branch.

These wars are funded by Congress even when a war was found to be based on lies, as was the case in Iraq.  Congress continues to fund the efforts claiming it is necessary to protect the troops.  They fail to acknowledge that the absence of illegal wars harmful to the nation is the best troop protection available.

With the illegal wars underway, Congress passes legislation to address the problems created by the illegal wars in the name of national security.  As they do this, the real issues of national security, the legal rights of citizens and the economic well being of the nation, are violated or ignored.

A key function of Congress is oversight and investigation.  When the nation was attacked on 9/11, the hapless response by the executive branch was on full display.  A 2002 House - Senate Joint Committee detailed the extensive government knowledge of the emerging plot over years without effective executive action to stop it.
Nothing came of the report.  It is as though it never occurred.

When the 9/11 Commission was finally established, Congress allowed a former Bush administration insider to serve as the executive director and appointed co-chairmen who thought that the executive director was just fine.  It came as no surprise when a thoroughly inadequate report was produced with key sections blacked out.

Illegal wars, the stripping of fundamental rights like habeas corpus, the declaration that presidents have the right to assassinate U.S. citizens by executive order, the rendering of charges without having to specify those charges were all ratified by Congress.  It must be legal.  Didn't Congress pass a law?

But they couldn't do this without the full cooperation of the judicial branch of government.   Surely, our Supreme Court and federal judiciary are the last bastion of the law that is to protect us all.

Even if that were the case, the sheer weight of executive and legislative lawlessness presents an overwhelming tide that is irresistible to those in power.   The seamless system of self-supporting lawlessness is an efficient structure denying citizen rights by mocking the laws of the nation.

END

See A Contract by Congress with Citizens of the United States

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