"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it."
Frederic Bastiat, The Law**
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Democrats and Republicans... one party... two names...
.... (good article, be sure and read the full Robert's piece)
Today both parties are dependent for campaign finance on Wall Street, the military/security complex, AIPAC (America's pro-Israel lobby), the oil industry, agri-business, pharmaceuticals, and the insurance industry.
But it is the powerful private oligarchs that will continue to write the legislation Congress passes and the President signs. New members of Congress quickly discover achieving re-election requires bending to the oligarchs’ will.
Americans out of work, out of income, out of homes and prospects, and out of hope for their children’s careers are angry. But the political system offers them no way of bringing about change. They can change the elected servants of the oligarchs, but they cannot change the policies or the oligarchs.
Turning this around would require more realization than exists among policymakers and a deeper crisis.
And so the destructive policies continue... there is no re-regulation of the financial industry, because the financial industry will not allow it. The unaffordable wars continue, because they serve the profits of the military/security complex and promote military officers into higher ranks with more retirement pay. Elements within the government want to send U.S. troops into Pakistan and into Yemen. War with Iran is still on the table.
Control of the oligarchs extends to the media. The Clinton administration permitted a small number of mega-corporations to concentrate the U.S. media in a few hands. Now there are only five major corporations in control of the majority of all main stream media... it was not that long ago there were over 50!
Corporate advertising executives, not journalists, control the new American media, and the value of the mega-companies depends on government broadcast licenses. The media’s interest is now united with that of the government and the oligarchs.
On top of all the other factors making American elections meaningless, voters cannot even get correct information from the media about the problems that they and the country face.
As the economic situation is likely to continue deteriorating, the anger will grow. And you can be sure the oligarchs will try their utmost to direct the anger away from themselves and toward the vulnerable elements of the domestic population and 'foreign enemies'... as the rewards are far too great, and no other action will meet their purpose.
In the aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in 1819, where the British government sent cavalry to scatter a massive demonstration of 60,000 to 80,000 individuals demanding parliamentary reform, an enraged Percy Bysshe Shelly penned 'The Mask of Anarchy,' ...
... which ended in words today’s powerful would do well to consider:
... which ended in words today’s powerful would do well to consider:
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number...
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many... they are few.
In unvanquishable number...
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many... they are few.
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When a reviewer wishes to give special recognition to a book, he predicts that it will still be read "a hundred years from now." The Law, first published as a pamphlet in June, 1850, is already more than a hundred years old. And because its truths are eternal, it will still be read when another century has passed. Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman, and author. He did most of his writing during the years just before — and immediately following — the Revolution of February 1848. This was the period when France was rapidly turning to complete socialism. As a Deputy to the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Bastiat was studying and explaining each socialist fallacy as it appeared. And he explained how socialism must inevitably degenerate into communism. But most of his countrymen chose to ignore his logic. The explanations and arguments then advanced against socialism by Mr. Bastiat are — word for word — equally valid today. It is said 'history repeats itself'... maybe we would be wise to take heed.
Oligarchs Rule « The Burning Platform
