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The Golden Bootstraps
Author: Raine    Date: 10/05/2009 13:11:39

I watched "Capitalism: A Love Story" yesterday morning. Although I knew what I was going to see, and knew many of the items of interest in the move before going in, I came away shaken and as the day went on I became distressed. The corporate powers are so great in this country I wonder if We the people... is going to disappear forever.

What I want for all Americans - is a fair shake at living a comfortable and secure life. I want them to be honest with themselves and to have the truth told to them. I'm tired of seeing people voting against their own self-interests; tired of Libertarians who somehow believe that privatizing everything and implementing the so-called "Fair Tax" is going to lead to personal wealth; tired of middle class Conservatives who really believe the so-called "Death Tax" will somehow affect their lives. I'm weary of people who just hate government because they have some delusional belief that they are upper middle class -- when everything they own has been bought on credit. Not all Libertarian and Conservative ideas are wrong, just as not all Liberal ideas are always right. It's not black & white, left or right. It's about right and wrong. It's about morality. It's about being informed about WHY one believes in these policies and having common sense when they are debated. Debate is about information and communication.

A new term of the Supreme Court starts today. It will review Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on Sept. 9. If Ted Olson gets his way, corporate personhood will become a reality.
This year showed us that a republic periodically has to save capitalism from itself. Corporations are creations of the republic, not its equals or superiors. We citizens charter them, protect them legally, subsidize them, and even bail them out - and punish them when, as with Pfizer Chemical, their profit-maximizing violates drug-safety rules.

We couldn’t do that if a level playing field of “robust speech’’ were overwhelmed by corporate speech, which isn’t free because corporations, unlike individuals, are not full-fledged members of the community. As inanimate entities, they are incapable of what the political philosopher Michael Sandel calls “a willingness to sacrifice individual interests for the sake of the common good, and the ability to deliberate well about common purposes and ends.’’
In a smashing dose of irony, this is the same Citizens United that campaigned to block distribution of Fahrenheit 9/11. They filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission saying it violated federal election law.

What I find most distressing is that teabaggers are expressing their right to protest in all the wrong places, because they are being mislead by these very corporate entities that are actually seeking to drown out free speech of Americans by buying it. Don't believe me? Check out what Tycoon David Koch has been up to:
"Days like today bring to reality the vision of our board of directors, when we founded this orga­nization five years ago," said Koch. "We envisioned a mass movement, a state-based one, but national in scope, of hundreds of thousands of American citizens from all walks of life standing up and fighting for the economic freedoms that made our nation the most prosperous society in history."

The 2,000-odd activists of Americans for Prosperity–around 300 had signed up for the event in the last week, according to organizers–sat patiently through this. Koch lumbered through his short speech, walking right over applause lines. He had been introduced by Tim Phillips, the cheerful president and public face of Americans for Prosperity as a man who “provides jobs for folks across the country” and whose vision “launched our organization, this organization, that you’re seeing today, that so many of you are actively part of.” Financing from Koch, among other donors, allowed the activists to pay $99 ($79 if they registered early enough) for a two-day conference with three meals, at least two tickets for free beverages at noisy receptions, and a chance to hear from conservative stars like DeMint, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, radio host Hugh Hewitt, and CNBC host Larry Kudlow. It provided signs that they’d brought to a rally on Capitol Hill with slogans such as “Socialism Isn’t Cool” and “Cut Spending.”
Good old fashioned bought and sold grassroots organizing. People are lapping it up like free beer and Chicken at a pre-game party. Wait until they find out the tickets to the game are fake. There is so much more to our great country than simple economic freedoms, and they are slowly being stolen from us.

Even CitiBank™ knows that when people lose everything they have nothing to lose.

When the right, and the left for that matter, fight for their rights, protest injustice and ask to be heard by government -- I just want them to know what they are fighting for. It seems to me that many in this Tea party on the right are just being used to further the plutocracy of our country. When their usefulness is over --they'll be tossed aside (like the Christian right was) in favor of a new outrage du jour. The rich will profit off of them and the people will get poorer. This is what Capitalism has become. It is no longer something that benefits the middle class-- it serves the rich, and it isn't offering a hand up at all. In order for this modern day form of capitalism to work -- you have to pay to play. Those bootstraps Conservatives like to talk about are not affordable to 95% of Americans. They don't even know it because they have been misled and told to vote against their own best interests. That isn't an accident, it is quite deliberate.

I hope and pray that we can stop this before AIG runs for Senate. Exxon could become the Speaker of the House. It could happen at the rate we are going. Capitalism has become a cancer to this country. I hope it can be a story of recovery and not death. At this point, I will take remission.

&
Raine




 

19 comments (Latest Comment: 10/05/2009 20:48:23 by livingonli)
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