Why Romney backers never saw it coming

  

Adios Mittens. It truly is shocking to me that the Romney campaign with its seemingly inexhaustible supply of money that bought the top political consultants, the top pollsters, the top political organizers and the best of everything that any political campaign could possibly want was so utterly clueless at all levels that they never even considered defeat a possibility. Whether one chooses to chalk it up to stupidity or arrogance is the hot topic of post election speculation.  This extraordinary piece by Kevin Carson, a senior fellow of the Center for a Stateless Society, nails it in all its gory glory. Carson doesn't focus on the election but rather on attitudes of the elites embedded in the corporatist culture.

Why Romney backers never saw it coming

In an interview with Ezra Klein (“Romney is Wall Street’s worst bet since the bet on subprime,” Washington Post, Nov. 28), Chrystia Freeland — author of The Plutocrats — commented on the sheer level of shock and disbelief among the moneyed classes after Romney’s defeat.

That prompted Klein to ask: “These folks … are purportedly very data focused, very good at assimilating new information. So I find it genuinely scary that neither Romney nor his super-rich backers had any idea he was going to lose. All the polls, all the models, all the betting markets said he was likely to lose. How did a group of people who, in their jobs, have to be willing to read and respond to disappointing data convince themselves to ignore every piece of data we had?”

Freeland described it as “astonishing” and “mystifying,” adding that these same people had made the same miscalculation in their roles as managers and investors: “… it was also the case that all the smartest guys in the room managed to lose a lot of money in 2008 and managed to convince themselves of a set of very mistaken beliefs about where the markets where going to go. It was a lot of the same people on the wrong side of both bets."

But there’s really nothing astonishing about either case. That these people with MBA degrees and long careers climbing management ladders could be so abysmally wrong in their predictions is a textbook example of how power, by its very nature, creates stupidity and irrationality.

As Freeland observes, Romney and his backers have internalized a legitimizing ideology in which all the things that are best for the American economy are — entirely coincidentally — also in their own self-interest.

The very act of getting rich (“my success,” as Romney put it) is “an act of civic virtue.” They’re the “job creators,” after all. Billionaires see themselves as a class of the best and brightest — tough thinkers who make the hard, thankless decisions, “having an extremely unique set of skills that sets them apart from everybody else, and it’s partly brainpower, but they all see it as crucially including an ability to judge and take risks and work very hard.”

This social and political ideology is a powerful form of groupthink that filters what its adherents perceive about the world. It’s just as powerful inside institutional hierarchies like the giant corporation as in the political arena.

One central function of a hierarchy is to filter the upward flow of information — to tell naked emperors how great their new clothes look.

Power distorts information flow because, as R. A. Wilson observed, nobody tells the truth to someone with a gun. Authority relations result in one-way information flows, preventing decisionmakers from receiving accurate feedback on the real effects of their decisions. As Kenneth Boulding put it, those at the tops of hierarchies tend to live in almost completely imaginary worlds.

As a result those at the tops of pyramids generally communicate much more effectively with their peers at the tops of other pyramids than with their subordinates in the pyramid below.

CEOs tend to make policies based on the “best practices” of other hierarchical institutions in the same industry. They evaluate their effectiveness based on the enthusiastic propaganda from other CEOs about how well it’s working in their own organizations — despite the fact that those other CEOs are equally clueless about the real effects of their policies.

I’ve lost count of the number of columnists and talking heads who observed that Romney visibly bristled when debate moderators like Candy Crowley talked back to him. He was used to being surrounded by subordinates who were afraid to tell him anything he didn’t want to hear. Seriously, how would you like to be the person on Romney’s staff who tells him his proposal is a stupid idea, or why it didn’t work?

How are businesses run by managers like this gang of idiots able to stay in business? The same way Soviet factories and industrial ministries were able to stay “in business”: By playing in a rigged game.

The U.S. economy isn’t a free market. It’s a corporate capitalist market, heavily cartelized and subsidized by the state, so that each industry is dominated by a handful of giant firms sharing the same pathological culture. The system is designed to socialize risk and cost, and privatize profit, so that natural born idjuts (excuse me, “successful job creators”) like Mittens can spend their entire lives living in bubbles, being told exactly what they want to hear, without suffering any ill effects.

Kevin Carson is a senior fellow of the Center for a Stateless Society and holds the Center’s Karl Hess chair in Social Theory.

The British Empire aka the American Empire Needs to Finally Die

It's been said many times that the US is really nothing more than the resurrected British Empire that lost its power and prestige post WW II when the US fanatically embraced British style militarism and empire that catapulted America to the status of the world's sole superpower because of its superior military might. Never before in human history had a sole superpower dominated for so long and without challenge. The US-British alliance has frequently been dubbed the Anglo-sphere. The British Empire at its peak:

Most of those British colonies and possessions are now gone and even Canada and Australia are sovereign nations with little attachment to the British crown.

Throughout human history, the fight for human liberty has been a revolt against government, the state, empires and their formidable military machines. The British Empire grew because its formidable navy ruled the seas for hundreds of years.

America and Britain have a lot in common, starting with the fact that America was largely settled and populated by English speaking peoples who adopted English law and culture. The English bequeathed to us some extraordinary gifts such as its system of secure property rights and a civil and criminal legal justice system (English common law). The Magna Carta is deemed one of the great treasures of western civilization because the 1215 document directly challenged absolute rule by a monarch.

However, America also adopted some of the worst features of the British, namely its perennial addiction to empire, resource exploitation and the perceived right to plunder and murder people to secure resources. Furthermore, the British were never capitalists in the true sense of the word. They were merchantilists.

Mercantilism in England

Celebrating America's Capitalist Revolution

The British system of mercantilism is not capitalism and in fact is more closely aligned with fascism, oligarchy, plutocracy, cronyism, corporatism etc., or in more simple terms the rule of the elites for their exclusive benefit, benefits that typically include monopoly powers and buying legislative bodies to guarantee protectionism from competition.

In many ways, the American Revolution was also a revolt against the British system of mercantilism but only to a degree because America during the Revolutionary period was also swimming with British loyalists and while many of these loyalists joined the Revolution, they remained addicted to the British system of mercantilism, empire, its central bank and even its system of monarchy.  Notable among American mercantilists was Alexander Hamilton.  Hamilton forever denied that he was a monarchist, although he was constantly defending himself against the charge.

A Hamilton biographer, Richard Brookheiser, wrote in a biography titled Alexander Hamilton, American:

He put up with Republican government because he had to, while laboring to transform it, or even subvert it. At heart he was an aristocrat and a plutocrat, who favored rule by an elite of the rich.

The differences between Jefferson and Hamilton couldn't be more clear. As excerpted from The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin:

JEFFERSON: “A private central bank issuing public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army.” “We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”

HAMILTON: “No society could succeed which did not unite the interest and credit of rich individuals with those of the state.” “A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.”

Hamilton only cared about advancing the interests of the rich and the state at the expense of the individual and those further down the ladder of power and money, especially the poor and middle class whose interests were deemed expendable and irrelevant. Conversely, Jefferson vehemently opposed any bank or class of people holding power over anybody.  Hamilton's view of power was that it must be concentrated while Jefferson's view of power was that it must be diffused as far and wide as possible and to the point where political power just lacks the power to oppress.

At the end of the day it was Hamilton who won, and of course, the liberty of the American people was destined for eventual destruction.

The worst and most destructive features of Britain that America embraced were its systems of central banking and economic mercantilism because both ruthlessly combined to advance empire through debt and fascist corporatism through trade. It's a deadly combination that has wrecked havoc upon humanity and its peoples.

It took Hamilton a long time to achieve his dream, a dream that only his ghost can now gloat over. Efforts to fight off the central bank were waged ferociously, especially by Andrew Jackson, but tragically in 1913 the bankster purveyors of paper fiat money finally won, and not surprisingly, with the support of  liberal progressive Democratic President Woodrow Wilson who also gave us the income tax or 16th amendment . America has been at war practically non-stop since we got the Federal Reserve and the purchasing power of the dollars has dropped by at least 95% because, above all, a central bank is nothing more than a vehicle to transfer wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich.

The rich never suffer a loss of wealth from central banking operations, largely because mechanisms are in place to protect powerful insider financial interests from the loss of wealth by directly subsidizing any losses.  But the most ugly legacy of the Federal Reserve and the central banksters in general is that they successfully spread their poisonous central banks and mercantilism throughout the world.

While the Federal Reserve has now replaced the Bank of England as the world's most powerful central bank, its also true that Britain, its mercantilism, its empire and its fiat banking system have all survived across the the pond where these anti-liberty institutions have grown even more powerful, dangerous and deadly.

Bankster power has been absolute for quite a long time and includes the draconian powers of government to squash human liberty at every turn while waging perpetual warfare for resources to plunder. But the banksters have an Achilles' heel that was exposed in all its naked glory in the 2008 financial meltdown. While central banks scrambled to to keep the world's central banks from totally imploding, it's also quite likely that the banksters are finally on angels wings. Printing insane amounts of fiat money to bailout the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class has left the global economy tettering on the brink of collapse and $16 trillion is a most threatening pile of debt fueled fiat money.

Have You Heard About The 16 Trillion Dollar Bailout The Federal Reserve Handed To The Too Big To Fail Banks

While the dollar only survives because of its lofty and prestigious status as the world's reserve currency, it's not necessarily a guarantee or even a foregone conclusion that the dollar will remain the reserve currency of the world. The dollar isn't the world's reserve currency because it's such a great currency but because all other currencies are either much worse and/or even more unstable for purposes of international trade.

There are signs that the dollar will ultimately be challenged and such challenges will come from nations that are stockpiling gold for future use in creating gold backed currencies.

Putin is Stockpiling Gold

According to the World Gold Council, Russia has more than doubled its gold reserves in the past five years. Putin has taken advantage of the financial crisis to build the world’s fifth-biggest gold pile in a handful of years, and is buying about half a billion dollars’ worth every month.

The Hoarding Continues: China Purchases A Record 100 Tons Of Gold In April From Hong Kong

Gold imports by mainland China from Hong Kong climbed 65 percent to a record in April, advancing for a third straight month as investors sought a hedge against financial-market turmoil and an economic slowdown....

"We can’t rule out the possibility that the central bank is buying gold,” said Wang at Agricultural Bank of China, referring to the People’s Bank of China.

Rule out? You can bet on it.

The probability that gold backed currencies will rise to challenge the supremacy of the paper tiger US dollar keeps growing and now appears to be a certainty even if the timing of such events is unclear.

The bad news is that the American people will suffer greatly as the once mighty United States of America joins the heap of being nothing more than just another failed and bankrupt banana boat republic. Few Americans even understand that our $16 trillion debt mountain that sustains our fictitious standard of living is the leverage that America uses to force other nations to buy Treasuries. Effectively, America went to nations like China and said in so many words "buy our debt and we'll buy your goods. We don't even care if American domestic manufacturing ceases and desists because we only care about the continuity of the Empire, whatever the price".  This is so Hamiltonian and so anti-Jefferson.   The price was more than the cost of interest, America sacrificed its legendary domestic manufacturing, the lifeblood of any prosperous society, for the glory of an Empire of Debt that was identical the British model of empire.

The silver lining is that while there will be profound hardships for the American people as they struggle to survive amid the bankster induced carnage, hope lies in the fact that we can once again have the opportunity to rebuilt the free and prosperous nation that we once had but willingly voted to sacrifice on the alter of empire and debt.

When the British Empire finally dies, along with its model of central banking, mercantilism and empire, the world will finally have a chance at real hope, real change and a future of peace, liberty and prosperity.

In the high risk, high stakes game of geo-politics, nothing is ever static although it moves very slowly. Still, there is ample evidence surfacing that the major shift in power is underway, from the Anglo-sphere to the rise of new economic paradigms in other nations who are embracing sound money and economic liberty.

Meanwhile, I can only opine that Americans abandoned their prosperous Republic, unlike the the Swiss who kept their republic, steered clear of wars and foreign intrigues, and still remain one of the most peaceful and prosperous folks on the planet and in human history.

Americans? We had it all and blew it.

Why is the American Election Process a BIG FAIL and How to Fix It.

The American election process is corrupted, rigged and exists for one purpose only: the massive concentration of wealth and power into the hands of banksters, defense contractors, fascists and bureaucrats.

We the People? We aren't part of the equation and our contribution to approving our own enslavement is to participate in the rigged system to validate and provide electoral legitimacy to the Republican and Democrat crime syndicate that lords over us with an iron fist.

There are 2 primary components of the American election process: 1. money and 2. the rigged 2 party  system itself. It's the big money that facilitates Republican and Democrat monopolies over all elections.

Money

Very few Americans even understand that the lions share of political money is dirty special interest money and it's anything but transparent.  The small contributions raised by We the People are no match for the BIG corporatist money interests of plunderers, banksters, oligarchs, plutocrats and fascists. Every time a campaign finance bill is passed by Congress and there have been many over the decades, the end result is always more secrecy and less transparency.  It's why we have these dangerous PAC's super-PAC's.  Special interests can funnel money into the RNC and DNC machines through PAC's.

The RNC/DNC lock on political money doesn’t bode well for Americans seeking to raise new candidates and get rid of the “same old, same old” congressional institutionalists who thrive on power, greed and fraud. If you find a candidate that you like and would like to support, you are legally banned from contributing more than $2,500 to that candidate; contributing more than the legal limit makes you a criminal who can be prosecuted for violating campaign finance laws. But you can give millions to the DNC and RNC machines through its PAC's who don’t have that limitation and this vastly contributes to the absolute power of special interests.

Special interests own and control American elections because they control the money.

Independent thinking candidates are routinely squashed. Big money only flows to those who can deliver the taxpayer largess to special interest campaign contributors and it’s nearly impossible for any honest politician to ever raise sufficient money to compete with the RNC/DNC money laundering machines. Corporate contributors don’t fund candidates who campaign on “I promise to reduce government power and end the fascist marriage of big business and big government”.

Progressives and liberals went ballistic over the Supreme Court Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that essentially ruled that corporations and labor unions have a constitutional right to contribute money to political campaigns. The Supreme Court decision was right because corporations are legal entities that pay taxes while being subjected to a myriad of government regulations. Accordingly, they have an absolute legal right to have their interests represented in the election game.

So how do we get around the legal right of corporations outright buy elections and thus control legislative outcomes for its exclusive monopolistic advantage? Personally, I favor banning all political contributions except for individual contributions which should have no limits whatsoever. The limits on individual contributions drives the corrupt system underground and into a legal quagmire of undisclosed political contributions while giving both the Republicans and the Democrats extraordinary financial powers to squash We the People at all levels in the process.

The solution to the problem lies in lifting ALL restrictions on personal political contributions and mandating that all political money goes straight to the candidate by bypassing the parties and their legendary fund raising machines.

Do I care if George Soros directly gives billions to Obama?  No because it's his absolute right to fund the candidate of his choice.

Do I care if the Koch Brothers gives billions to Romney? No, because it's their absolute right to fund the candidate of their choice.

However, what the American voter really needs is real time disclosure of all political money. Every website of every candidate for public office should be required by law to have a link on their websites that lists in real time all political contributions, not by the date received but by the amount of the contribution.  If they can get the money to the bank, they can disclose it in real time.  Right now the system is rigged against disclosure because of quarterly filing requirements and the fact that a whole lot of  political money is exempt from disclosure.

If anything, Americans are nosy about money and you better believe that they'd be checking out who is bankrolling candidates.

Furthermore, America needs to ban all RNC and DNC fundraising activities. Because so much of the BIG special interest money is raised by the RNC and DNC machines through a complex legal maize that facilitates non-disclosure and secrecy, there will never be financial transparency in the election process for voter review until political monetary transparency and disclosure are achieved.

The top 10 corporate PAC contributions for the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, were as follows:

Obama: Goldman Sachs $739,521, UBS AG $419,550, Lehman Brothers $391,774, Citigroup Inc $492,548, Morgan Stanley $341,380, Latham & Watkins $328,879, Google Inc $487,355 JPMorgan Chase & Co $475,112, Sidley Austin LLP $370,916, Skadden, Arps et al $360,409

McCain: Merrill Lynch $349,170, Citigroup Inc $287,801, Morgan Stanley $249,377 Wachovia Corp $147,456, Goldman Sachs $220,045, Lehman Brothers $115,707, Bear Stearns $108,000, JPMorgan Chase & Co $206,392, Bank of America $133,975, Credit Suisse Group $175,503.

Those figure are far from definitive and the same players funneled a whole lot more money into the campaign finance cesspool through mechanisms not requiring disclosure.  There is also the issue lobbying and its monetary influence far exceeds campaign contribution influence.

Opensecrets.org reports the top spenders on lobbying for 2008 were:

US Chamber of Commerce $91,725,000
Exxon Mobil $29,000,000
AARP $27,900,000 PG&E Corp $27,250,000
Northrop Grumman $20,743,252 American Medical Assn $20,555,000
Pharmaceutical Rsrch & Mfrs of America $20,220,000
Koch Industries $20,023,000
General Electric $19,379,000
American Hospital Assn $18,902,684
Verizon Communications $18,020,000
Boeing Co $17,540,000
National Assn of Realtors $17,340,000
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $16,220,165
Lockheed Martin $15,981,506 AT&T Inc $15,076,675
National Cable & Telecommunications Assn $14,500,000
Southern Co $14,080,000
Altria Group $13,840,000
General Motors $13,351,000

They don’t sprinkle that kind of dough around the District of Crime without getting big paybacks. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is so powerful that it outspends the #2 biggest spender on lobbying by a margin of over 3:1 with a whopping $92 million. What the Chamber of Commerce gets for its $92 million investment is the ability to load up America with cheap third world labor that drives American wages down while shifting the social costs of impoverished “slave” wage earners to the unemployed, broke and suffering American taxpayers.  Basically, it's the systematic wipe out of the American middle class.

The Banksters are always lavishly rewarded for their campaign contributions. Barry Ritholtz, a financial author and pundit, who runs the website Ritholtz.com, put out quite an enlightening article that calculated TARP money (Bankster Bailout Bucks) as a return on lobbyist dollars spent and campaign contributions. The Ritholtz list (prints to 7 pages) listed the banks that received TARP money and included political contributions and lobbying expenditures to arrive at a return on investment.

Campaign Contributions: $37.4 million
Lobbying Expenses: $76.6 million
TARP Payment: $305.2 billion
 Return on Investment: 267,208%

There are a gazillion other special interest groups that are also engaged in the “pay to play” game at the DC Wheel of Fortune.  With a $3.7 trillion pie, those seeking a slice or a crumb descend upon the pie like hoards of hungry cockroaches.

I wonder how many folks would have voted for Obama or McCain in 2008 if they had known upfront that they were heavily funded by Wall Street? Do you really think the American people would have voted for Bankster and corporate welfare?

The Best Government that Fascist Corporatist Bankster Defense Contractor Money Can Buy 

Wall Street and the banksters are far from the only larcenous and felonious gang of  plunderers at the taxpayers gate nor are they the only financiers of political campaigns and lobbying.. Defense contractors and rent seeking corporations demanding subsidies, loan guarantees, protectionism and monopoly rank quite high and are extremely powerful influences.  Entire industries like Big Agriculture and Big Pharm are major power brokers in the Pay to Play Game that reigns supreme in the District of Crime and within our own state legislators and city councils.

Most Congress Critters spend their taxpayer funded time hanging out with special interest lobbyists and favor seeking campaign contributors although most voters don't know it.  We the People have become We the Sheeple and we are laughed at and mocked by those in power, except on election day when politicans pledge their undying love to the people.

How can lobbying and influence peddling be minimized? Again, disclosure could play a key role in scaring politicians away from those who routinely bribe them for a vote.  Of course, in America there is no such thing as bribery as bribery is now nothing more than a legal campaign contribution that is codified into law.

What if Congress Critters and all other elected officials were required to make their schedules public on the Internet?  By making their schedules public I mean putting their calendars on the office holders' official website for the world to see.  Moreover, not publishing a meeting or contact should be a crime because it implies that a public official is engaging in something so underhanded that it reeks of bribery and secrecy.

Wouldn't the American voters just love to know how their elected leaders spend their time and who they spend it with? I suspect that the American people would be shocked and so angry that they'd want these bought and paid for elected representatives voted out of office.

Republican, Democrat, Liberal, conservative or independent, the American people have been denied openness and transparency by the big money games of the RNC and DNC.  Whatever our political and ideological stripes, no one will escape the fascist tyranny until this corrupt fundraising system is dismantled and outlawed.

While we will never be able to fully solve the problems of big money interests and their ability to buy entire legislative bodies, in the Age of the Internet we can certainly accomplish a whole lot more than We the People could ever have hoped to accomplish in the past and before the Internet.

The liberty movement is strengthening and I'd say it's moved from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane.  The politicos and power brokers that controlled us for so many decades are finally running a tad scared and liberty will only be achieved when there's a Category 5 hurricane facing our oppressors.

The Internet is the new portal to liberty as evidenced by the stupendous growth of alternative media that is very successfully putting truth and facts into the hands of ordinary folks.  The once powerful propaganda machines of the government and its media partners in crime are rapidly collapsing.

To be continued with:  What's Wrong With the Primary and General Election System Besides the DIRTY MONEY? 

The Free Shit Army Rules

The website Government Gone Wild (governmentgonewild.org) has some incredibly enlightening videos including this short but highly instructive 3 minute video:

 Land of The Freebies, Home of the Enslaved

Americans need to acknowledge the bitter truth: America is no longer the land of the free and the economically prosperous. America is very much a fascist/socialist/entitlement hell that is so typical of every bankrupt western nation that is imploding under the weight of unsustainable entitlements.  Even more disturbing is that both Republican and Democrat voters literally voted for this nightmare that is wiping out the once strong and prosperous middle class.

No one describes the situation better than James Quinn, a brilliantly astute economic pundit whose website, theburningplatform.com, is loaded with extraordinary, insightful and well documented data on the true state of the union.  It's not a pretty sight.

Quinn frequently talks about what he dubs "The Free Shit Army", here.

I've come to the conclusion that the middle class of this country has been caught in a pincer movement by two armies. My definition of the Middle Class is households making between $50,000 and $150,000 per year. The Free Shit Army is attacking us on the left. The middle class has been the backbone of the country, doing the heavy lifting in this country. They get up every morning and trudge off to work to support their families. The Free Shit Army sleeps in. They have chosen to not educate themselves in order to advance in our society.

Politicians have enabled them to stay in poverty by providing welfare, disability, food stamps, and tax incentives that make their lives just comfortable enough to not work. If you provide money to people who are classified as disabled, you get more disabled. The Free Shit Army has 50% more disabled than the general population. If you pay people for not working, why should they work? The middle class works and pays their taxes. These taxes are then redistributed to the Free Shit Army.

The second pincer movement on the middle class has been conducted by a stealthier army. This army has experts in propaganda, misinformation, and obfuscation. I call them the Ruling Elite Army. The generals are the ultra-wealthy CEOs of Wall Street banks and mega-corporations. Their armor divisions are manned by the corporate mainstream media. They are excellent at laying down a great smoke screen before blasting away. The infantry is manned by 535 Congressional officers with thousands of corporate lobbyist foot soldiers. This army has been given the mission to capture the supplies of the middle class.

The middle class were not prepared for the assaults they have been fending off. They became soft and satisfied. They stopped training. They became distracted by their gadgets, delusions of home wealth, and fear of phantom terrorist enemies behind every bush. The propaganda machine of their true enemies has convinced the middle class that foreign enemies are massing. The enemy is within. The middle class will need to sacrifice and go to war against two enemies. Are they up to the task? I'm not sure.

Quinn then offers up real solutions for real problems that are outlined under the following categories: Political System, Economic Policy, Education Policy, Energy Policy, National Defense/Foreign Policy, Immigration and Social Issues.

The cures detailed by James Quinn are pretty much identical to the cures that have been advocated by the good doctor Ron Paul for decades.  Both Quinn and Ron Paul have correctly diagnosed the disease and the medicine required to cure the disease.

It's not likely that the America people will listen to what needs to be done or take the life saving medicine to restore their liberty and prosperity because, well, the people are just too far gone and too corrupted. Once the American people made the ballot box decision to hire the police powers of the government to steal from others at the point of a gun to give them what they demand and and think they deserve, the American people signed their own death warrant and voted themselves into totalitarian slavery. The American people now get to chew on a few crumbs and tossed bones that were picked clean by those who promised them the statist cornucopia of plenty.

For a while, The Free Shit Army and their powerful ally, The Ruling Elite Army, were euphoric.  Everything appeared to be working splendidly, until one day it just was no more.  Just ask the Greeks.  

The Best Government that Fascist Corporatist Bankster Defense Contractor Money Can Buy

Americans are wildly deluded about their political system and succumb to the comical belief that We the Sheeple People actually choose our elected representatives and leaders. That's a false and scandalous paradigm that needs to be busted wide open and smashed to smithereens.

For starters, the RNC and DNC machines are nothing more than money laundering operations for corporate America as well as wholly owned subsidiaries of the banksters, military industrial complex, prison industrial complex, national security industrial complex, Big Pharm, Big Agriculture and corporatist special interests. It's a game that only exists for one purpose and one purpose only, namely, to concentrated wealth and power while consummating the marriage of Big Business and Big Government. With very few exceptions, nearly all Congress Critters and state legislators are very appropriately attired when they look like this:

Nearly every politician is bought and paid for. Nascar styled logos can easily wallpaper the inside and outside of the White House, Congress, government agencies and the Federal Reserve. For all practical purposes, America is an oligarchy - a nation of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. But the rich in America aren't rich because of free markets or capitalism, they are rich because they get special treatment and are frequently on the public dole.

Bernie Sanders Releases Explosive List of $4 Trillion in Bankster Bailouts

The Goldman Sachs Blessing "May the Lloyd be With You, AMEN"

Municipal Bonds: A license to steal and taxpayers don't even know they are being financially raped

Al Gore is a Welfare Queen

Yes My Fellow Americans, Congress Really Did Steal Your Social Security

How Sweet It Is - For Big Sugar Daddies & Other Corporate Welfare Queens


Washington, DC is full of dirty little secrets and a ton of tax dollars are spent on the propaganda machine that relentlessly stampedes truth, disclosure and accountability. What make this well oiled machine function so effectively is that print and broadcast mainstream media are an arm of the government and is actively complicit in protecting the system and all the corruption and cover-ups that go along with it.

Unquestionably, the U.S. Congress is the biggest and smelliest manure factory on the planet and Americans have become the most delusional folks on the planet for putting their trust in these dangerously worthless Congress Critters by constantly re-electing them over and over.

Democrats and Republicans are the poison roots that have destroyed America, albeit for different reasons. The Democrats cling to their fraudulent collectivist utopianism with promises of giving voters free food, free housing, free healthcare, free transportation, free education, free everything etc. The Democrats are quite upfront about campaigning on a theme of “I will fully utilize the police powers of the government to steal from others to give you what you want but you will only get what I think you should have and that ain’t much”. Voters drink the Fool-aid and grow frustrated, especially when the promised loot fails to arrive. Government never delivers on its promises. The only thing government ever accomplishes is conning folks into relinquishing their liberty, their prosperity and submitting to state tyranny and terrorism.

The Republicans campaign on their phony baloney commitments to vague talking points like freedom, spreading democracy around the world at the point of a gun or F-16, fiscal conservatism, small government, family values and even capitalism. But in fact, the Republicans grow government power, spend like drunker sailors, sacrifice capitalism on the altar of fascism/corporatism, increase spending and in recent years have become The War Party.

President Obama turned out to be just another “controlled” political hack committed to war, non-stop foreign interventionism, screwing the middle class and totally committed to the preservation of thieving Bankster power. It’s become clear that Obama’s shining star is fading rapidly. Instead of change, the American people got Bush on steroids, a bigger commitment to war and the continued slashing of civil liberties, as well as more bloated and unaccountable corrupt governance.

The RNC/DNC lock on political money doesn’t bode well for Americans seeking to raise new candidates and get rid of the “same old, same old” congressional institutionalists who thrive on power, greed and fraud. If you find a candidate that you like and would like to support, you are legally banned from contributing more than $2,500 to that candidate; contributing more than the legal limit makes you a criminal who can be prosecuted for violating campaign finance laws. But you can give millions to the DNC and RNC machines and their PAC's who don’t have that dollar limitation and this vastly contributes to the absolute power of the RNC and DNC. Independent thinking candidates are routinely squashed. Big money only flows to those who can deliver the taxpayer largess to special interest campaign contributors and it’s nearly impossible for any honest politician to ever raise sufficient money to compete with the RNC/DNC money machines. Corporate contributors don’t fund candidates who campaign on “I promise to reduce government power and end the fascist marriage of big business and big government”.

Top campaign contributors always include defense contractors, the Banksters, trial lawyers, big agricultural interests, big pharm and big energy contractors. Except for the trial lawyers who own the DNC, big corporate contributors are not political ideologues. They check their radar screens and simply fund the candidate they believe can win and, therefore, can be bought. If the Republican Party is on a roll because folks are angry with the Dems, money flows to the RNC machine. If the Dems are hot because folks are angry with the Republicans, money flows to the DNC machine. Because Americans were downright furious after 8 long miserable years of Bush/Cheney, it was clear that the Democratic Party was destined to be the clear winner in the 2008 election cycle. With the media hyping Obama as the latest messiah, his victory was easily predicted and guaranteed.

The top 10 corporate PAC contributions for the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, are as follows:

Obama:

Goldman Sachs $739,521
UBS AG $419,550
Lehman Brothers $391,774
Citigroup Inc $492,548
Morgan Stanley $341,380
 Latham & Watkins $328,879
Google Inc $487,355 JPMorgan Chase & Co $475,112
Sidley Austin LLP $370,916
Skadden, Arps et al $360,409

McCain:

Merrill Lynch $349,170
Citigroup Inc $287,801
Morgan Stanley $249,377
Wachovia Corp $147,456
Goldman Sachs $220,045
Lehman Brothers $115,707
Bear Stearns $108,000
JPMorgan Chase & Co $206,392
Bank of America $133,975
Credit Suisse Group $175,503 

Opensecrets.org reports the top spenders on lobbying for 2008 were:

US Chamber of Commerce $91,725,000
Exxon Mobil $29,000,000
AARP $27,900,000
PG&E Corp $27,250,000
Northrop Grumman $20,743,252
American Medical Assn $20,555,000
Pharmaceutical Rsrch & Mfrs of America $20,220,000
Koch Industries $20,023,000
General Electric $19,379,000
American Hospital Assn $18,902,684
Verizon Communications $18,020,000
Boeing Co $17,540,000
National Assn of Realtors $17,340,000
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $16,220,165
Lockheed Martin $15,981,506
AT&T Inc $15,076,675
National Cable & Telecommunications Assn $14,500,000
Southern Co $14,080,000
Altria Group $13,840,000
General Motors $13,351,000

At the District of Crime Wheel of Fortune 'Pay to Play Game', they don’t sprinkle that kind of dough around DC without getting big paybacks.

In a Huffington Post piece titled The 15 Biggest Congressional Recipients Of Wall Street Campaign Cash , it’s amply clear that the Wall Street dough boys buy a lot of Congressional power. The Huffington Post obtained its information from the most reliable tracker of campaign cash – Opensecrets.org.

Charles Schumer (D) $2,167,300
Kristen Gillibrand (D) 1,173,400
Harry Reid (D) 1,038,210
Chris Dodd (D) 752,698
Michael Bennet (D) 612,808
Mark Kirk (R) 557,375
Arlen Specter (D) 557,175
Eric Cantor (R) 516,197
Blanche Lincoln (D) 515,000
Richard Shelby (R) 502,150
Jim Himes (D) 430,123
John Thune (R) 407,750
Ron Wyden (D) 404,750
Carolyn Maloney (D) 396,750
Barney Frank (D) 387,749

Yes, there are folks who truly feel the “LOVE” when it comes to deep affection for Congress, Bush/Obama/Romney, Republicans and Democrats but they don’t include ordinary working stiff smucks – just rich elites, powerful insiders and Banksters.

Corrupt as Congress is, the Banksters are far from the only larcenous gang perpetually drinking from the Congressional Holy Water Font – the cornucopia of crony capitalism. Everybody is lined up because there’s so much dirty money sloshing around in the District of Crime that it is always explicitly clear that Congress genuflects before its masters and those masters are far removed from “We the People”.

How much is spent on U.S. elections at the federal level? A staggering $5.3 billion was spent in 2008 according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

2012 elections? The big money just got a whole lot bigger and the corruption more intensely obvious.  The world and its peoples quietly march toward a global industrial feudalism consisting of the serfs and the masters who lord over them with a tyrannical iron fist..

America is ruled by the biggest crime syndicate in human history. Americans don't complain or even vote them out of office. These days, corruption is just the American way.  Astoundingly, corruption, greed and graft are welcomed as the new normal.