Thursday, November 18, 2010

We're only ants, but there is one hell of a lot of us.




Legal Pros Say No to Citizens United

Experts call for Constitutional amendment to take back democracy from corporations

by Jeffrey D. Clements and Ben T. Clements

"In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC, corporate money has poured into the 2010 elections in unprecedented amounts. Now, a bipartisan group of leading law professors, former state attorneys general, former prosecutors, and prominent attorneys from across the country has signed a letter calling on Congress to consider a Constitutional amendment to overrule Citizens United and return elections and government to the people. We joined that call because the notion of "corporate rights" expressed in Citizens United is antithetical to Constitutional principles of free speech, democracy, and self-government..."

"...according to multiple polls, more than two-thirds of the American people, regardless of political party, reject the Citizens United decision and do not accept that we the people cannot decide for ourselves the appropriate level of regulation of the use of corporate money to determine our election results..."

Yes! POWERFUL IDEAS

Monday, November 15, 2010

The road ahead.

photo by Klarens


Although this particular bit of speculation is somewhat old, 2009, it does still have relevance.

Hyperinflation is that period of time in which money becomes so undervalued it is nearly worthless. A Governmental financial collapse--that point where Washington DC fat cats admit that the nation is beyond broke and damn near insolvent. Or more specifically, that point at which Senators and Congresspersons realize that their own paychecks won't be coming. That is when real panic will hit.

Wow.

How did that happen?

How did we go from a superpower nation, a place of incredible riches and incredible opportunity, to another Great Depression? How did our beloved Lady Liberty become a street whore? 

How about the same goddamn way the last fucking depression happened.

Robber Barons, flimflamming the system, playing fast and loose with money and the very lives of others less powerful to gain more riches for the wealthy. Robber Barons crashed the system because of their greed.

They're back.  Maybe not the original old assholes, but their descendants and sycophants.

The result of the old Depression was much tighter regulator controls on banks, bankers, and anyone with their hands in a bank vault. Control of the treasure was taken back used to help American Citizens. FDR came along, a wealthy man who understood that leadership was about leading people to a better place, not strip-searching and raping them. FDR created some of the greatest social program ever known. FDR was in large part responsible for the explosive growth of the middle class and the American dream. FDR gave rise to Kennedy and LBJ who installed the Great Society Programs--again programs that made the lives of millions and millions of American better.

But, the Robber Barons, bitterly watched as all of their criminal enterprises unraveled and vowed revenge. Like Capon seeing a picture of Elliot Ness, the heads of U.S. investment banks, petroleum corporations, and assorted mega-corp. boardrooms across the land swore they'd kill anyone who stood in their way.

They have.

Us.  

The Robber Barons, starting with the Reagan Revolution have systematically and with malice aforethought bankrupt this entire nation. They have their revenge. They have looted the U.S. treasury by funneling this money directly into their own bank accounts and driving the country into generational debt. The wealth of a nation has been stolen. One of the most massive shift of wealth in human history has occurred in the United States of America.

Oligarchs. The hyper-wealthy in the boardrooms of Agri-business and Petrochemicals; Investment Banks and Pharmaceuticals; Car manufactures and Insurance corporations...a  list of movers and shakers, people with massive amounts of money and power, working through the Business Roundtable to rob the US treasury of every nickle, thereby enacting their revenge on the beast that dared to limit their power. It took decades for the plutocrats to strike back. Years of planning and implementation: slowly consolidating power over the media; careful placement of their chosen stooges; a tweak there, a twist here, but always consolidating power and re-writing laws.

Oligarchs created and repeatedly funded a slur campaign to get Americans terrified of their own government. A really nasty trick in a Democracy. You know, Democracy, one of those styles of government in which the people are allegedly in charge? We vote for the person who will represent us in government so that everybody's interests are heard and therefore the government is "by and for the people." The Robber Barons, the Oligarchs, made voting not only sham, but a mockery as well. Now we have an us v. them situation with our own government; exactly what the Robber Barons want. As long as the government is evil, corrupt, and foolish, it cannot impose legislation and legal action that would stop the Robber Barons. The plutocrats convinced Americans not to pay taxes, which then crippled all government, reducing its influence and ability to make life better for the citizens. This then was used to convince voters that government was bad and to blame for all their miseries.

So here we are. I think hyperinflation is a real threat and I think it is because the Robber Barons of our time, plutocrats, assholes, what ever you want to call them, have deliberately stolen the future of the majority of American citizens. WE are fucked because they couldn't control their own greed.

Curiously, the Robber Barons probably didn't mean to crash the U.S. economy entirely. "Ooops," They sniggered to each other in their clubs and boardrooms. "We fucked it up again!" Then they toast each other with 40 year old 1939 Maccalan single malt scotch in platinum and crystal goblets while resting on their yachts--these days the wealthy prefer converted aircraft carriers as their primary vessels--as they watch the dreams and lives of millions of Americans flushed down the toilet. "Stupid American people," the rich tell each other. "Don't they know that God likes us best."