A reader left a recent comment which struck a cord with me. While all the comments to the last post were good this particular one ended with a comment concerning political power in our country. The comment was left on the post, Right ON - MoveOn.org: Barack Obama Needs to Respond. Just click this link to read the post and all the comments.
I also began to leave a reply to this particular comment but as I was doing so, it became more evident to me that I should elaborate in an entire post. So here is my comment as posted.
Larry Rubinoff said...
"Conversely, those at the bottom of the economic system with no political power are experiencing something as bad as the Great Depression, with no end in sight."
This thread and all the comments left by all the "Anonymous" readers have all been very relevant and good.
However, I must disagree with the last statement in the last comment which I have quoted above.
While those at the bottom and the middle are hardest hit and going through a Depression, they ARE NOT powerless. That belief is what allows those at the top - "the elite" to continue to rape, pillage and plunder. Our voting power is stronger then their money and political influence.
If all those that are affected and sick and tired of the devastation to our freedom and our economic freedom STAND TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
More on this in today's Post.
Now, my continuation:
Yes, we seem to forget - or worse yet - are distracted into believing that we are powerless. The steamroller decisions and legislation that has been going on since the beginning of this crisis in March of 2007 - yes I did say 2007 - and the quick approvals by our elected officials have lulled the people of this country to believe there is nothing they can do. The Depression being experienced by the poor and the Recession - as the reader said - of the middle class causes a distraction so great - it is called survival - that our politicians can do what ever they want. Before we can raise our heads from our hands covering our pain and tears, another action is approved by our "leaders" that further enriches the elite class and lowers the abilities of all the rest.
These distractions -higher food costs, higher gas costs, higher unemployment, higher foreclosures, are a planned - yes, I did say planned - event. How else can one take control of a population unless they keep that population distracted by survival? This might seem like a very bold statement to make but just stop and look at where we are.
The elite upper class - as the comment indicated - is affected very little or not at all. In fact, they seem to be flourishing. With a nation of over 300 million people does it not seem strange that la relative few can succeed while the masses fail?
The bottom line is that we are allowing them to destroy us. Our lack of involvement daily is the indicator of this. Sure, there are blogs - like this one - that call for change. There are those blogs and organizations that mobilize groups of people to take action and there are groups that are organized that don't seem to accomplish much. Why? Because we are splintered and divided while our enemies are united.
When the comment said we are powerless the author of that statement truly believes it therefore there must exist a feeling of despair and inability to accomplish change therefore "there is nothing we can do". How wrong this feeling is and how this belief plays right into the hands of those "elite". But as long as the Stars and Stripes still flies over our Capitol and we sing our National Anthem we must believe that our Constitution is valid still and the rights we are afforeded under our Constitution still exist.
We have the power of vote. We can elect - by free and open vote - those we want and once we do we can demand of them to do what is necessary to protect and serve "the people" not the corporations. Corporate "elite" control is only possible if we allow it. No matter how much they spend on politicians, campaigns and lobbyists, we must rise above all of this, seek our own information and vote for not who ran the most advertisements but for those we have researched, talked to and believe will work for us.
We still have the power, we are just not using it. If we unify and stand tall together we can make a difference. Don't like what Congress is doing? Call your Congressmen/women and your Senators. Write them or email them everyday if need be and let them know who you are and who they work for. I know if I were a politician and got millions of emails, phone calls and letters, I would have to pay attention knowing that my "elite" contributors and high paid lobbyists can no longer influence my decisions and more important, my future. You see political office is a profession and no longer a patriotic duty. There are no longer any true Statesmen/women just Professional Politicians who will do anything - key word anything - to keep their high paying jobs with the best benefits (retirement and medical) in the free world.
Seems easier said then done, doesn't it? Fear seems to be a very relevant element that keeps many of us from standing up and being counted. That is why you see so many "Annonymous" commenters on this and many other sites. People are afraid and afraid of retribution by our government. A very real feeling and prpobably a very valid one. All the more reason to unify, speak up and out and stand tall together.
TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
and take our country back. Become pro active.
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Thanks Barrage...right? your new name? for the "barrage of lies" we must listen to from the WH everyday...
ReplyDeletestimulus, HAMP, transparency..?keep smiling
Bloomberg's story reports a 1.6% decline in same-store sales, but fails to mention the 2% decline in US Stores. Oops.
"Out in the real world, Americans are just as broke as they were a year ago, and perhaps more so. Job prospects stink and the economic picture is not bright - unless you're a bankster or their cronies in the mainstream media, of course."
http://tinyurl.com/yapf24c
The 400 wealthiest Americans have seen their annual incomes skyrocket over the last two decades while their tax rates have decreased dramatically, according to newly released data from the Internal Revenue Service. In fact, between 1992 to 2007, the annual incomes of this tiny club of über-rich increased seven-fold to a whopping $345 million on average, while their effective tax rate dropped by more than one-third from a 1995 peak of nearly 30%, the data shows.
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/ylm8746
What did Obama say at his big media event yesterday? See the jobless claims today?
ReplyDeleteRising tide of suburban homeless across U.S.
'Truly reaching a stage of being alarming,' one official says
“One of the things that we’ve noticed is a lot more unsheltered, mostly men who claim this is the first time they’ve been homeless, who indicate that it’s due to a loss of wages or loss of job, because of the economy,” Guarton said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35428411/ns/us_news-life/
Disinformation Tactics: The Methods Used To Keep You In The Dark
ReplyDeleteThere was a time, not too long ago (relatively speaking), that governments and the groups of elites that controlled them did not find it necessary to conscript themselves into wars of disinformation. Propaganda was relatively straightforward. The lies were much simpler. The control of information flow was easily directed. In fact, during the early Middle-Ages in most European countries commoners were not even allowed to own a Bible, nor was the Bible allowed to be interpreted from Latin to another language, let alone any other tome that might breed “dangerous ideas”. This was due in large part to the established feudal system and its hierarchy of royals and clergy. Rules were enforced with the threat of property confiscation and execution for anyone who strayed from the rigid socio-political structure. Those who had theological, metaphysical, or scientific information outside of the conventional and scripted collective world view were tortured and slaughtered. The elites kept the information to themselves, and removed its remnants from mainstream recognition, sometimes for centuries before it was rediscovered.
http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=251
Part 2
http://tinyurl.com/ygxrnjf
Wonder how many jobs you could have saved if you didn't piss it away like this?..I know you had to...because your whole team is captured..I don't think the public is as dumb as you/they hoped......
ReplyDeleteGoldman often "insured" some of this garbage with AIG, using a virtually unregulated form of pseudo-insurance called credit-default swaps. Thanks in large part to deregulation pushed by Bob Rubin, former chairman of Goldman, and Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, AIG wasn't required to actually have the capital to pay off the deals. As a result, banks like Goldman bought more than $440 billion worth of this bogus insurance from AIG, a huge blind bet that the taxpayer ended up having to eat.
Thus, when the housing bubble went crazy, Goldman made money coming and going. They made money selling the crap mortgages, and they made money by collecting on the bogus insurance from AIG when the crap mortgages flopped.
Still, the trick for Goldman was: how to collect the insurance money. As AIG headed into a tailspin that fateful summer of 2008, it looked like the beleaguered firm wasn't going to have the money to pay off the bogus insurance. So Goldman and other banks began demanding that AIG provide them with cash collateral. In the 15 months leading up to the collapse of AIG, Goldman received $5.9 billion in collateral. Société Générale, a bank holding lots of mortgage-backed crap originally underwritten by Goldman, received $5.5 billion. These collateral demands squeezing AIG from two sides were the "Swoop and Squat" that ultimately crashed the firm. "It put the company into a liquidity crisis," says Eric Dinallo, who was intimately involved in the AIG bailout as head of the New York State Insurance Department.
It was a brilliant move. When a company like AIG is about to die, it isn't supposed to hand over big hunks of assets to a single creditor like Goldman; it's supposed to equitably distribute whatever assets it has left among all its creditors. Had AIG gone bankrupt, Goldman would have likely lost much of the $5.9 billion that it pocketed as collateral. "Any bankruptcy court that saw those collateral payments would have declined that transaction as a fraudulent conveyance," says Barry Ritholtz, the author of Bailout Nation. Instead, Goldman and the other counterparties got their money out in advance — putting a torch to what was left of AIG. Fans of the movie Goodfellas will recall Henry Hill and Tommy DeVito taking the same approach to the Bamboo Lounge nightclub they'd been gouging. Roll the Ray Liotta narration: "Finally, when there's nothing left, when you can't borrow another buck . . . you bust the joint out. You light a match."
And why not? After all, according to the terms of the bailout deal struck when AIG was taken over by the state in September 2008, Goldman was paid 100 cents on the dollar on an additional $12.9 billion it was owed by AIG — again, money it almost certainly would not have seen a fraction of had AIG proceeded to a normal bankruptcy. Along with the collateral it pocketed, that's $19 billion in pure cash that Goldman would not have "earned" without massive state intervention. How's that $13.4 billion in 2009 profits looking now? And that doesn't even include the direct bailouts of Goldman Sachs and other big banks, which began in earnest after the collapse of AIG.
http://tinyurl.com/y9z43s6