Politicians March to the Tune of the Controlling Elite

Blackmail: How the Controlling Elite Own Politicians

By Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
April 26, 2010

Homosexual rumors surrounding Senator Lindsey Graham underscore the core reason why the vast majority of Congress members habitually support legislation that is anathema to the interests of the people they are supposed to represent, because politicians rarely achieve positions of influence without being beholden to one form of blackmail or another.

ALIPAC’s William Gheen provoked national headlines last week during a speech in front of thousands of Tea Party supporters when he publicly requested that Graham come out of the closet and admit that he is gay.

“William Gheen called on Senator Lindsey Graham to be honest with American voters about his homosexual lifestyle to assure that Graham’s desire to keep it a secret could no longer be potentially used by political insiders to manipulate Graham’s behavior,” reports Before It’s News. “There are many precedents in American politics where affairs, corruption, addictions, and other situations that politicians wanted concealed were used to manipulate them with unfair advantage.”

“When you have a U.S. Senator from such a conservative state like South Carolina working hand in hand with Obama and New York liberals like Senator Chuck Schumer to pass an Amnesty bill for illegal aliens, there is something very wrong,” said Gheen. “After today’s national broadcasts, the American public will know what the DC insiders know and that was my goal.”

Gheen’s speech has since gone viral on You Tube and prompted a national debate about Graham’s sexuality and if it is being used to blackmail him into pushing the big government agenda.

The open secret that Graham is an alleged homosexual explains why he constantly supports legislation and policies that are almost universally abhorred by his South Carolina constituency -- carbon taxes and the phony global warming agenda, pro-amnesty immigration reform, as well as his hostility towards the Tea Party movement.

Graham has been labeled a “Democrat in drag,” a “traitor” and a “disgrace” by conservatives for his policies and was confronted on his global warming advocacy during a town hall meeting in October last year.

This strikes at the very root of why government is broken -- politicians may pay lip service to the will of the people to get elected but once in office they click their heels and march to the tune of the controlling elite. That’s because almost every one of them has some dark secret that they can be blackmailed over if they fail to follow the Washington consensus.

This is precisely what we’ve witnessed with President Obama. Despite his promises of hope and a change from the direction of the Bush administration, Obama has followed the same agenda with aggressive uniformity -- beefing the war in Afghanistan while expanding it into Pakistan, renewing the Patriot Act, extending warrantless wiretaps, and growing the size of the federal government to unthinkable levels while preparing massive tax hikes.

Obama’s dubious origins, not only the “birther” controversy but the admitted fact that his real name is Barry Soetoro, have been manipulated to perfection by the controlling elite. While never blown wide open, the scandal is kept suitably bubbling under the surface as a threat that if Obama ever does try to be a real leader, his legacy will be completely destroyed.

A more sinister aspect of the same process of blackmail being exercised against Obama is the fact that he is constantly reminded that he is a target for assassination. This was in the news again today with the story of a man who was arrested carrying a gun at a North Carolina airport as President Obama was leaving on board Air Force One.

As we reported earlier this year, throughout the presidential campaign, the public was constantly told that Obama was an assassination target and that his safety was always in jeopardy, a claim that was given credibility after numerous odd secret service security lapses at public events where Obama really was put in danger, whether intentionally or otherwise.

The “gatecrashers” story also served to increase awareness about Obama being vulnerable to attack by people who can seamlessly slip through security and get face to face with the President relatively easily.

It is clear that the neo-cons are holding Obama hostage and issuing a thinly veiled threat by repeating the mantra that the only way to save his political career and his presidency is to attack Iran. There is undoubtedly a mountain of dirt being held back regarding Obama’s past that is being used to blackmail the President into following the new world order agenda -- the same as with any President before him.

Becoming President of the United States and, indeed, being elected top any prominent political office, isn’t an opportunity to change things for the better; it’s a deal that politicians make to follow the agenda or, if they don’t, to have every intricacy of their private lives exposed to the attack dog media.

Being outed as a homosexual, an adulterer, or having any other personal secret exposed for the endless titillation of the press is the lightest possible punishment a politician can face for stepping out of line. If they don’t have sufficient dirt on them that can be brought out to discredit their name, then all together more unpleasant methods are used.

Blackmail is the primary reason why those in Washington consistently ignore their electorate and push for policies that enjoy little or no support from the majority of Americans.

This is why Congress has an approval rating of a paltry 10 percent. Nine in ten Americans think Congress is doing a terrible job. This disconnect between politicians and the people isn’t merely due to inherent corruption, it’s primarily because Congress members are completely compromised before they even take office. In most cases, politicians are destroyed by the media before they can even get elected if they don’t have dirt on them that can later be used for blackmail.

Indeed, this is why the cult of personality behind Obama was allowed to be built up to sweep him into office. This is why Wall Street poured billions of dollars into Obama’s campaign fund -- because they knew he was compromised, could be easily blackmailed, and would therefore dutifully acquiesce to the orders of the banking elite that he obediently serves.

Coincidence? Graham Withdraws Support for Dem Legislation a Week After Blackmail Charge
Senator backs away from pro-amnesty bill, cap and trade legislation.

Politicians Share Personality Traits with Serial Killers: Study

By Andrew Malcolm, The Los Angeles Times
June 15, 2009

Using his law enforcement experience and data drawn from the FBI's behavioral analysis unit, Jim Kouri has collected a series of personality traits common to a couple of professions.

Kouri, who's a vice president of the National Assn. of Chiefs of Police, has assembled traits such as superficial charm, an exaggerated sense of self-worth, glibness, lying, lack of remorse and manipulation of others.

These traits, Kouri points out in his analysis, are common to psychopathic serial killers.

But -- and here's the part that may spark some controversy and defensive discussion -- these traits are also common to American politicians. (Maybe you already suspected.)

Yup. Violent homicide aside, our elected officials often show many of the exact same character traits as criminal nut-jobs, who run from police but not for office.

Kouri notes that these criminals are psychologically capable of committing their dirty deeds free of any concern for social, moral or legal consequences and with absolutely no remorse.

"This allows them to do what they want, whenever they want," he wrote. "Ironically, these same traits exist in men and women who are drawn to high-profile and powerful positions in society including political officeholders."

Good grief! And we not only voted for these people, we're paying their salaries and entrusting them to spend our national treasure in wise ways.

We don't know Kouri that well. He may be trying to manipulate all of us with his glib provocative pronouncements. On the other hand ...

He adds:

"While many political leaders will deny the assessment regarding their similarities with serial killers and other career criminals, it is part of a psychopathic profile that may be used in assessing the behaviors of many officials and lawmakers at all levels of government."

Welcome to Pottersville

You Americans Are So Gullible!

By Adam Murdock, M.D., Infowars.com
December 13, 2009

There are two opposing forces locked in eternal combat. When one force gains the upper hand, the other force is subjugated. Throughout history the pendulum has swung from one end to the other.

Most recently the forces of individual freedom scored a victory with the founding of the United States and creation of the U.S. Constitution. However, over the past two hundred years the forces of domination have been slowly eroding the belief in and support for liberty.

This epic battle is documented in a speech delivered by the Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower, Ezra T. Benson. He said:

“I have personally witnessed the heart-rending results of the loss of freedom. I have talked face-to-face with the godless Communist leaders.

“It may surprise you to learn that I was host to Mr. Khrushchev for a half-day when he visited the United States. Not that I’m proud of it. I opposed his coming then, and I still feel it was a mistake to welcome this atheistic murderer as a state visitor.

“As we talked face-to-face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under Communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his, and all other grandchildren, will live under freedom, he [Khrushchev] arrogantly declared, in substance:

‘You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright. But we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you; we’ll so weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.’”

So it is that Khrushchev has been proven right. We may not have had a socialist military coup that changed things overnight, but we have had a purposefully gradual attack on our belief in the essential nature of freedom. These “small doses of socialism” have changed America and have been the cause for the loss of much of our freedom.

In the latest saga, the forces of dominion are attempting to solidify their control. This is evident in three epic battles of the last couple years.

1. First, it was our economic freedoms that came under attack when the Federal Reserve-propelled illusory housing and stock market boom crumbled.
   
   Instead of letting the mal-invested assets liquidate, our government and the governments of the world have subjugated the people of the earth to an unbearable debt burden.

   Those that have prospered from our economic demise have been the politburo-like corporate stockholders of our government officials. In addition, as Main Street plunges into despair, more and more federal bureaucrats are making six figures. In fact, it was recently revealed that the average federal employee now makes $30,000 more than private sector employees. Only in a communist system does the government class prosper while the rest of us wait in bread lines. Now these same bureaucrats are contemplating further bailouts for their corporate banking buddies.

   Since the initial Bush bailouts, and their expansion under President Obama, have come some even more dire threats to our freedom. If we fail to rise to defeat these threats, I am afraid that we will see the pendulum become affixed permanently in the direction of dominion and slavery.
2. The second imminent threat to our freedom is the healthcare bill currently being deliberated in Washington.
   
   The Healthcare act that will come out of these deliberations will claim to both make healthcare more affordable and increase healthcare choice. However, it will do the exact opposite.

   Since the state of Massachusetts adopted a similar model of mandated health insurance, they have seen the fastest rise in the medical costs of any state in the union. The only way to control these costs in Massachusetts and at the Federal level will be through forced rationing. Your physician will become a slave of the system and will place you in a healthcare bread line.

   In addition, anyone that is intimately connected with the current government programs Medicare and Medicaid, as I am, knows that these systems do not increase choice but rather restrict choice. It is often very difficult if not impossible for recipients of Medicaid to see specialists or to get advanced care. Such will be the case for the majority of Americans as we are forced into these programs.

3. The third imminent threat to our freedom seeks to subjugate the people of the earth to a global government under the guise of pseudoscience.
   
   As the ‘climategate’ emails and statements by presidents of the UN and the EU reveal, a global super state is in its final stages of completion. Climate change falsehoods will provide the impetus or stepping stone for the creation of this super state.

   As recently revealed by Lord Monckton, this proposed system will create hundreds of new international bureaucracies and impose a 2% tax on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of first-world nations. The proposals will also limit the development of third-world nations by setting a limit on the per-capita carbon production of these nations to roughly half of the per-capita carbon limit for first-world nations. This will serve to permanently confine these nations to poverty with no hope of escape.

   It is not a mystery that the prosperity of a nation is directly tied to its carbon production. Without the ability to utilize carbon resources, these nations will never be able to compete with the first-world nations. In addition, the resultant poverty will condemn these populations to starvation, disease, and death.

In the end, each of us will have to answer to our conscience. Who among us will have the courage to make a phone call or write a letter? These seemingly simple acts are often all that is required to turn the tide. If we fail to act, our grandchildren will never forgive us for being the “gullible” Americans that let freedom bow down to slavery.

For help contacting your elected representatives, click here.

Adam Murdock, M.D., is founder of The Freemen Institute, http://www.freemeninstitute.com/.

It's A Wonderful Life: The Lost Ending


According to the FDIC, there were 8,384 banking institutions with $13.6 trillion of assets as of September 30, 2008. Hank Paulson has dished out $180 billion to the largest 30 banks in the country in an effort to keep them solvent. It has now become quite clear that the largest banks in the country, with the “smartest” MBAs, took excessive risk, created and then bought their own toxic derivatives, and lied to the public and their shareholders about their true financial position. So, we had about 8,000 banks that loaned money to people they knew in their local communities, kept the loans on their books, and generally acted like George Bailey. A handful of large banks did all of the damage to our global financial system, and these are the banks who are receiving all of the TARP billions. Maybe just maybe we should be giving the TARP money to the 8,000 conservative banks run by George Bailey-type bankers rather than the horrible, too-big-to-fail banks run by Mr. Potter-type bankers. Badly run banks need to be replaced by well run banks. Every time a bell rings, another bad banker gets a billion dollars. I see many Potterville’s in our future. - By James Quinn, Has America Jumped the Shark?, Financial Sense, December 9, 2008

Poor nations push for ‘New World Order’ in Copenhagen
The Real Reason Behind The Copenhagen Walk-Out

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The Invisible Government of the Ruling Elite Exercises Its Total Control from Behind the Scenes

“2009 is also the first year of global governance with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet.” - Herman Von Rompuy, President of the European Union effective January 1, 2010

Wake Up, America!

By Stephen Byers, Sr., Pravda
December 4, 2009

To My Fellow Americans,

“I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.” – General Douglas MacArthur

What exactly did General MacArthur mean? Let me try to explain.

The United States was founded as a Constitutional Republic based on liberty and the unalienable rights of the individual, and where the government exercised its limited power and authority with the consent of “we the people.”

But slowly, over the course of the past 100 years, “invisible” forces have turned us into a socialist “Democracy” where government is the Ultimate power and authority, where every action of our lives is legislated and restricted, and where Rights are becoming nonexistent.

If that sounds like an absurd statement, then think about this: the United States, a supposed Free society, has a population of 300 Million; yet this Free society has a total of 2.3 million adults held in prison, or one in every 99.1 adults. That puts the U.S. far head of ANY other country, including Communist China, a supposed repressive society; China has a population of 1.3 Billion people, yet they have only 1.5 million people behind bars.

To those who believe that we continue to be a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” and that the government is limited in its power and authority as enumerated in the Constitution, I say take the blinders off your eyes and wake up! If you do, and honestly seek the truth, this is what you will see: that today the true seat of Power in Washington is the “Invisible Government,” which exercises its total control from behind the scenes.

Who is this Invisible Government? It is a small elite group of individuals who own and control the Giant International Banks and Corporations, and who exercise their control through the Military-Industrial Complex. Through their foundations and organizations, like the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission, they train and groom those who would be the “movers and shakers” of both U.S. political parties. In other words, they own and control the Republican and Democratic parties.



In his book, “With No Apologies,” former Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater wrote:

“The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power – political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved. As managers and creators of the system, they will rule the future.”

In 1961, John F. Kennedy warned in a speech:

“For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence – on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.”

Sadly, Kennedy ignored his own advice, took these people on, and was “silenced”!

The Invisible Government also owns and controls the Media. In 1915 JP Morgan interests and their subsidiary organizations purchased the editorial policies of the 25 most important newspapers in the United States. By controlling the policy of the most important newspapers, they were able to control the general policy of the whole media. The Rockefellers eventually took over the Morgan empire. They gained control of the Associated Press. They also own the trend-setting magazines Time, Life, Fortune, and Newsweek. The “elite” own and control ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, etc.

In 1991, the founder of the CFR, David Rockefeller, praised the major media for their complicity in helping to facilitate the globalist agenda by saying:

“We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years . . . It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”

This criminal cabal of power elites, banks, corporations, government officials, and the mainstream media have effectively destroyed our economy and the foundation of constitutional government which we have taken for granted.

These evil people have stolen the wealth of the U.S. Treasury whilst exploiting the power and might of the U.S. Military to achieve their agenda. Meanwhile, corrupt government officials continue to pass unconstitutional laws to the benefit of themselves and the elite. They believe our Constitution and Laws don’t pertain to them.

It is imperative everyone know that both political parties are controlled by the “Invisible Government,” and that our presidential election is a fraud between their two preselected candidates. Their “man” always wins.

We have just transitioned from the lies, deceit and prevarication of one administration to the lies, deceit and prevarication of another. It is, in fact, a continuation of the same betrayal of constitutional guarantees, unlawful and unrestricted immigration, insecure borders, wild frivolous spending, and government encouragement of the continuing transition to a deeply immoral society.

The government will persist in eroding our constitutionally protected unalienable rights, and what little is left of the people’s sovereignty will most assuredly be legislated away. In days gone by our leaders were chosen from among the people: they were the servants and we were the Master. Now our leaders are chosen from (and by) the elite: they are the Master and “we the people” are their servants.

Realize this: If the Republicans or the Democrats could have fixed this nation, they would have done it long before now. The more you look, the more you see that both major U.S. political parties are dominated and controlled by this “Invisible Government.”

Both major U.S. political parties do NOT work for, nor do they represent "we the people," but instead represent the the global elitists: the super-rich foundations, the NGOs, the global bankers, the global corporations, and the lobbyists.

Bankrolled by the Rothschild money dynasty (principal owners of the Federal Reserve banks), they have emerged as our present day aristocracy, the “ruling elite families,” which include:

Generations of Rockefellers, Kennedys, and the Bush family; perennial “intellectuals” like Kissinger, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Albright, Christopher, and Rubin; members of the “Council on Foreign Relations” and the “Trilateral Commission;” and all of the one-time and/or yearly attendees at the annual “Bilderberg” conference.

The much anticipated Obama “change” has been to simply change one CFR perennial appointee for another. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s look at Obama’s top cabinet picks. When considering their collective histories, a trend becomes clear, proving that the more things “change” under Obama, the more they stay the same:

Timothy Geithner – Treasury Secretary: Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, president and CEO of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, formerly of Kissinger Associates.

Paul Volcker – Economic Recovery Advisory Board: Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, North American chairman of Trilateral Commission, Federal Reserve chairman under Presidents Carter and Reagan, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, chairman Rothschild Wolfensohn Company.

Lawrence Summers – National Economic Council: Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Treasury Secretary during Clinton administration, chief economist at World Bank, chief economist at IMF.

Hillary Clinton – Secretary of State: Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, U.S. Senator.

Joseph Biden – Vice President: Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senator.

Robert Gates – Defense Secretary: Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary under President Bush, former CIA Director.

General James Jones – National Security Advisor: Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, European supreme allied commander, special envoy for Middle East Security during Bush administration, board of directors for Chevron and Boeing, member of Brent Scowcroft’s Institute for International Affairs (along with Bilderberg Icon Henry Kissinger, top Obama Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski), former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bobby Ray Inman, and former CIA Director John Deutch.

Barack Obama is himself a Council on Foreign Relations member.



Corporate members of the CFR include ABC News, General Electric (owner of NBC News), News Corporation (owner of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal), and Time Warner (owner of CNN and Time). (Remember, I told you they own and control ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, etc.)

In regard to key economic policy advisors, all of Obama’s selections maintain a close relationship with one or more of these long time CFR, Trilateral Commission, government insiders (Ben Bernanke, Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan) as well as ties to bailout engineer Henry Paulson.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner picked former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson as a top aide. Patterson will serve as Geithner’s chief of staff at Treasury, which just happens to oversee the Trillions being handed out through the financial bailout programs.

The list of former Goldman Sachs employees holding top positions in the Obama administration includes:

• Mark Patterson, a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, who is the chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Geithner.
• Reuben Jeffery III, former managing partner at Goldman Sachs, who holds the post of undersecretary of state for economic, business, and agricultural affairs.
• Neel Kashkari, former Goldman Sachs vice president, who is the assistant secretary of the treasury for financial stability, responsible for administering the TARP funds.
• Dianna Farrell, former financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, who serves as deputy director of the National Economic Council.
• Two former chairmen of Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin, also held the job of U.S. Treasury Secretary.

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The Elite Ruling Class Owns the Government and Funnels Taxpayer Money to Themselves

The Widening Gap in America’s Two Tiered Society

Emily Spence, Thomas Paine’s Corner
September 7, 2009

Americans, particularly ones from the middle class, need to realize that there are no core entitlements imparted by their government representatives, nor any other sources. They have none and should adjust their expectations accordingly.

There’s a rude awakening in store ahead if the U.S. populace somehow imagines its members are viewed any differently than any other populations across the world that are used to produce maximal profits for the top economic class. Further, most legislators simply do not care whether middle and lower class interests are or aren’t well served as long as they, themselves, can somehow make out well in the times ahead.

Besides, why should any Americans feel that they deserve to be treated more favorably by the transnational moneyed elites and their government backers than their counterparts across the rest of the world? As A. H. Bill reminds:

“The richest 225 people in the world today control more wealth than the poorest 2.5 billion people. And… the three richest people in the world control more wealth than the poorest 48 nations.”

Occasionally, someone making a staggering amount of money in a crooked sort of way might raise a few officials’ eyebrows or induce a mild reprimand. In addition, he might, occasionally, be singled out as the token fall guy so as to be made into a warning example as was Bernie Madoff. Most of the time, though, no action is usually undertaken to correct the situation when directors of major companies carry out activities that are, obviously, right on or over the edge of fraudulent practices.

As Barack Obama, perhaps hypocritically, chastened:

“Under Republican and Democratic administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productive and sound business practices. We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales.”

Yet, he, himself, showed no hesitation during his election campaign over collecting $40,925 from the bailout fund recipient and nearly bankrupt investment house Bear Stearns, $161,850 from the bailout fund recipient and mortgage underwriter Morgan Stanley, as well as benefits from countless other institutions that have received government favors at taxpayers’ expense. As such, it’s hard in actuality to deliver more than just a mild verbal rebuke about these organizations’ modus operandi if one picks up a personal windfall from not meddling. Thus, the financial corruption continues at all levels of government.

A case in point is the self-serving oil trader Andrew Hall. His relationship with Citigroup’s Phibro energy-trading unit brought him approximately $100 million in 2008 despite that his parent company registered a net deficit of $18.7 billion for the same year and received $45 billion in TARP funds.

However, it’s been pointed out that he could moderately adjust his current level of gain and continue to maintain the same procurement pattern if he manages to stay out of the limelight. If he follows this plan in the near future, his earnings and bonuses won’t likely duplicate the $250 million personal compensation that he’d received in the past five years. Yet, he could still make out quite well all the same!

In any event, one has to question such lavish rewards considering that Citigroup suffered a 95% loss of its share value since 2007 in relation to which Phibro “occasionally accounts for a disproportionate chunk of Citigroup income.” At the same time, the U.S. government will shortly be the owner of 34% of this company. Put more bluntly, is Andrew Hall’s personal prosperity and propensity to add to his private art collection the best use of taxpayers’ funds?

As long as he’s a lavish beneficiary, would he care if they weren’t? As the economist John Kenneth Galbraith once suggested:

“The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.”

Naturally, Andrew Hall aims to keep such a cozy arrangement intact.

Besides, his personal take is relatively inconsequential. It’s a mere pittance contrasted to the almost two and a quarter billion dollars grand total — roughly $2,217,800,000 — that the top ten U.S. business moguls collectively grossed as their own recompense in 2008. [1]

At the same time, it cannot not be expected, in a market based economy, that political influence is not also a purchased commodity. Clearly, opinions are bought and sold just as easily as are any other products and services with payment being campaign funds, such as Obama’s, from big industry; offers of high paying future jobs and other lavish advantages dangled as bait.

On account of this kind of shady deal, tax subsidies connected to executive pay amounted to $20 billion in 2008 according to United for a Fair Economy (UFE) and Institute for Policy Studies. (Imagine if this money, instead, were allocated towards improvements in public education, provision of a universal heath-care plan or any number of other programs that could uplift the American public as a whole.)

During the same period, average CEO pay, at $10.54 million, was 344 times higher than typical worker pay. This disparity, also, is generally indicative of a trend that increasingly funnels wealth upward rather than having it more equitably distributed across class lines.

Another sign of this ascendant drift can be found in the change between the first Forbes 400 report (1982) and its 2008 version. In 1982, an entrepreneur only needed slightly more than $100 million dollars to get on the list. By 2008, he wouldn’t be in the top 400 unless he’d garnered at least $1.3 billion. In other words, so much more wealth shot upward in the last twenty years that $100 million now is almost viewed as chump change in comparison to the new top gains.

In addition, Congressional reports have indicated that widespread tax avoidance tricks, like use of overseas banks that do not report amounts to the IRS, have cost taxpayers more than $2 billion annually. Certainly, these lost moneys could well be used to help people less fortunate. For example, the hidden $2 billion could be used to create job training programs for any of the one in nine Americans currently forced to rely on food stamps as an alternative to starvation.

To be eligible for such aid, a family of four, for example, has to have no more than $2,389 as its gross monthly income or 130% of the official poverty level and no more than $1,838 net monthly income or 100% of the poverty level. (There are few deductions and exceptions to the requirements allowed, along with limits for owned property value imposed, that further determine whether one meets qualifications.)

In other words, a typical household of four cannot receive this help if the gross income for the foursome exceeds $28,668 annually and, for an individual, the gross not to be surpassed is $14,088. Additionally, recipients cannot have a great deal of assets with a clearly defined, too high level of worth.

As such, they have to be nearly broke across the board. Meanwhile, it’s clearly disgraceful that more than 27,651,388 Americans are so extremely poor they require food assistance to try to make ends meet.

Even that help, though, is often not enough to prevent further poverty, and many folks are unable to avoid outright destitution across the so-called wealthy U.S.A. So next, they lose their homes… and they lose them in droves. The huge portion of Americans who do so are staggering:

While the number of U.S. foreclosure filings climbed by more than 81% in 2008, the total is still sharply rising in 2009. In relation, 300,000 homes foreclosed per month from March to May in 2009 and 1.8 million homes represented the anticipated total for the first half of the year. With such a backdrop, one out of every 398 homes received a filing in April and a whopping 6.4 million homes are anticipated to be in foreclosure by mid-2011. Simultaneously, a record number of individuals, also, applied for bankruptcy.

In a similar vein, the jobless rate, despite some minor dips downward, is still seemingly on the rise. Therefore, the current number of out of work adults could well exceed 20% if all of the hopeless ones, who are no longer collecting unemployment benefits and who gave up looking for opportunities, are added into the mix.

Moreover, they will not be able to jumpstart the economy so long as they cannot find work, and especially work at a living wage. After all, how can anyone make lots of purchases or take out bank loans if he has no reasonable income? So it follows that even more retail and wholesale stores, along with banks, will go belly up. At the same time, the supply side of the market, itself, has created labor troubles. This is because goods have been overproduced. Consequently, there is overstock piled high in warehouses and shipping containers across the world ready to resume its path to the market once the spending reinitializes. However, spending cannot resume as long as the money has largely flowed to the top economic tier and away from average former and low wage workers, who can not expect to have decent paying jobs to create more goods until the current product glut diminishes.

In other words, consumers can’t buy much when money’s tight and work won’t be provided because there’s an oversupply of merchandise, which was largely produced in second world sweatshops whose workers are paid so little that they hardly can put food on their own tables, let alone make many more extravagant purchases (ones like toothpaste, soap and shampoo). Besides, they, too, face employment opportunities diminishing because worldwide sales are down for many of the products that, previously, their companies too copiously produced.

Concurrently, the bailouts, oriented towards fixing the credit side of the equation, are not addressing these sorts of supply side problems. Therefore, they will not keep the financial collapse from worsening.

Alternately put, TARP and other payoffs to the self-serving, unconscionable banksters and Wall Street high rollers largely responsible for the downturn will not produce an abundance of jobs. So the reasonable salaries, ultimately needed to buy the wares to cause industrial output to resume, won’t materialize any time soon.

It’s rather simple to understand, really. So why don’t Ben Bernanke and his colleagues seem to notice that massive job loss, itself, needs to be addressed posthaste? Why hasn’t a public works program been initiated? Why don’t they grasp that the act of offshoring all kinds of American jobs to maximize profits at the top tier does not ensure that products will be avidly snapped up by a greatly unemployed and underemployed public?

Since they, apparently, don’t understand, the downturn, with a few small upward twists, will remain in its plunging slide, which in turn will create further layoffs. All the while, the über-wealthy and their corporate supporters, such as most members of Congress, will continue to pamper themselves with capital largely derived from struggling taxpayers and massive loans that raise the federal deficit.

More to the point, how could the slump not last when the affluent elites gamble away huge fortunes comprising of their own and others’ money while manufacturing bubbles and Ponzi schemes in the process? How could anything change when they keep amassing more and more assets for themselves while indifferent to their impact on society as a whole?

Such practices as theirs obviously cannot sustain the American middle and under classes, and it cannot buoy up the utmost bottom rung either. On account, scores of individuals of all ages continue to wind up in tent cities or ensconced on public park benches. (Supposedly, families with children represent the fastest growing subset of the homeless population in the U.S.A. at present and the average age of a homeless person is nine years old.)

When the upper-crust keeps getting richer by taking an ever greater portion of the overall wealth, and government schemes assure that the process continues, nearly everyone else becomes increasingly cash poor. When every now and then big investors suffer hefty losses, the government steps in to shore them up again and again. However, this practice, clearly, does not help the populace in general. The evidence that it does not can be seen everywhere across the American landscape and the entire world.

It follows, then, that:

“In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2004, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.3% of all privately-held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.3%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.2%…,” according to G. William Domhoff, a sociology professor at University of California at Santa Cruz. [2]

Another way to measure the shift in wealth is by noting some of the corporate trends, themselves. As Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh, at the Institute for Policy Studies, point out:

Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; only 49 are countries (based on a comparison of corporate sales and country GDPs).

The Top 200 corporations’ sales are growing at a faster rate than overall global economic activity. Between 1983 and 1999, their combined sales grew from the equivalent of 25.0 percent to 27.5 percent of World GDP.

The Top 200 corporations’ combined sales are bigger than the combined economies of all countries minus the biggest 10.

The Top 200s’ combined sales are 18 times the size of the combined annual income of the 1.2 billion people (24 percent of the total world population) living in ‘’severe” poverty.

While the sales of the Top 200 are the equivalent of 27.5 percent of world economic activity, they employ only 0.78 percent of the world’s workforce. [3]

Especially exemplifying this type of corporate immensity is the Walmart company.

For example, the Walton heirs have a collective worth of around $65 billion and over 1.7 billion shares, or 43%, of Walmart stock in addition to earning $29 billion off the stock price rise alone from November 2007 to June 2008.

Meanwhile, the Waltons pay their jean laborers in Nicaragua approximately $1.50/ day. Simultaneously, their average U.S. workers are given wages of about $12,000/ annum, causing a full one half of Walmart’s 720,000 employees to qualify for food stamps.

At the same time, the clearly exploitive Walmart business model is considered an unqualified success — one that should be more often duplicated across the board. After all, it shows the capitalistic free market with its best possible outcome — profits beyond imagination and the American Dream come true (for the few who manage to take unfair advantage of the actual wealth producers)!

Perhaps, though, the best way to look at the new arrangement between citizens, State, and the rising corporate structures is through this superlative summation by Benito Mussolini:

The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production.

State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management. [4]

Even if Benito Mussolini’s position has an alarmingly familiar ring to it, no one still should expect U.S. legislators to create laws any time soon that would enact tax code changes in order to remove subsidies that encourage overpayment to executives and that cost taxpayers $20 billion a year. Indeed, nobody should expect any major changes at all that would level the financial playing field, remove a sense of economic injustice, or bring back jobs and reasonable wages to the American people.

As Joel H. Rassman, Toll Bros. CFO in 2006, explained about CEO Robert I. Toll’s $20 million compensation while shareholders were suffering a 22% loss:

“I have yet to meet the person who has enough money.”

Like Toll, a majority of Congressional representatives, of whom many are multi-millionaires, apparently imagine that they never have quite enough for themselves and justify their dodgy choices accordingly. They, also, know who butters their bread, and it surely is not the increasingly impoverished average U.S. citizens, who continue to be the indirect victims of corporate rapacity and pathetic corporate oversight by executives and Congressmen alike.

In relation, one wonders when a significant number of Americans will, finally, recognize that they’ve been had. Put another way by Andrew Greeley:

“It should be no surprise that when rich men take control of the government, they pass laws that are favorable to themselves. The surprise is that those who are not rich vote for such people, even though they should know from bitter experience that the rich will continue to rip off the rest of us. Perhaps the reason is that rich men are very clever at covering up what they do.”

This explanation in mind, we need not worry as much about the terrorists from abroad as the terrorists from above and the duped voters who repeatedly fall for political candidates pandering to this broadly malignant upper class. The latter bunch and their sycophantic legislative admirers, more than any foreign guerrillas, are leading the world’s wealthiest nation into ever deeper ruin.

REFERENCES:

[1] Top CEO collected $702 mln in 2008: U.S. survey – Yahoo! News

[2] Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power

[3] CorpWatch : Top 200: The Rise of Corporate Global Power

[4] Benito Mussolini, 1935, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, Rome, ‘Ardita’ Publishers. pp. 133-135.

Banks Have Taken Over The Government And Made Taxpayers Slaves To Bank-Run Gambling Casinos

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Freedom Is Under Assault in America

The Spark That Has Triggered Rebellion

By Ellen Sauerbrey, American Thinker
September 12, 2009

'I'm as Mad as Hell, and I'm Not Gonna Take This Anymore!'

This sentiment is being voiced by protesters turning out for Tea Parties and Health Care Town Hall Meetings around the country.

People are angry and frightened by the prospect of government running their health care system, but their anger goes far beyond a 1000-page health bill.

Health care reform is merely the spark that has touched off a prairie fire of grassroots rebellion among a people who believe their representatives do not represent them, do not listen to them, and do not care what they think.

Many Americans feel that they are losing control of their financial well being, their values and their culture. Shell shock set in as they tried to absorb the rapidity of drastic change.

The first stirring of protest came with the Tea Parties in the spring. These gatherings were completely misread by a media that ignored them and dismissed the attendees as right wing kooks. The Tea Parties were about taxes, yes, but far more they were about the rapid intrusion of the federal government into private affairs, about deficit spending and a growing understanding that America was heading down a very dangerous road.



People see a government in Washington that is in the process of destroying the constitutional principles of limited government and maximum personal freedom that made America the freest and most prosperous country the world has ever known.

James Madison, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson must be turning over in their graves at what is being done to the Republic they founded. At the close of Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin said we gave you "a republic if you can keep it." At the moment, keeping it does not look promising.

Our founding fathers had an incredible understanding of human nature, and of the natural tendency of governments to become oppressive. They gave us a unique Constitution that attempted to limit the power of government and ensure the rights of individuals. In 1798 Thomas Jefferson wrote:

"In questions of power, then let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

Yet today one must ask "where does the Constitution give President Obama the right to fire the CEOs of General Motors or to force the Chrysler Corporation to merge with Fiat, a foreign Corporation?" Where is it written in the Constitution that the government has the right to use my tax dollars and yours to prop up businesses that should either declare bankruptcy or simply dissolve and close their doors?

Tragically, our schools no longer teach our children why America is the freest, most prosperous country in history. If the uniqueness of the United States Constitution is no longer celebrated, how can we expect the next generation to understand the need to protect and defend it?

For 60 known centuries, people on this earth toiled from dawn to dusk, barely able to feed themselves. Famine was the rule, not the exception. Then suddenly, here in America, the course of history reversed and food became so abundant that much is wasted. Our country, unlike much of the world even today, has never experienced famine. Is this just some kind of fluke?

In one century, an economic miracle occurred that provided Americans more wealth, more comfort and leisure than had ever been dreamed of. America rose from a wilderness to become a leading world power. How did that happen?

The answer was the unique guarantee of individual freedom and the absence of government meddling and control. Americans were free to save and invest, to go into business, free to own property, free to compete, to work, to prosper... and free to fail and try again. Every ounce of freedom produced a pound of progress. This great experiment called America proved that freedom and initiative work.

But today, freedom and initiative are being replaced by ever higher taxation, regulation and centralization of power in Washington. Our economy is now stagnant and our standard of living is declining. Each year government takes a bigger share of our earnings, employs more and more of our people, enacts more rules that strangle our economy, and controls more and more of our lives.

In the enjoyment of plenty, have Americans lost the memory of freedom? When citizens are willing to sacrifice their liberty for security, they will have neither liberty nor security and will soon find themselves living under tyranny.

But sleeping giant of everyday America is stirring.

The September 12th National Tea Party will bring hundreds of thousands of people to Washington. They are coming by the busload, and they are coming because they fear the avalanche of policies coming out of Washington, D.C., that are destroying the foundations of our free society.

They are coming to protest the most fiscally reckless and irresponsible White House and Congress in our history. They understand that the U.S. is on the road to fiscal ruin with massive spending -- soaring deficits and mountains of debt that can never be paid off except by running the printing press, generating phony money, creating inflation that ruins lives, and allowing government bills to be paid with worthless dollars.

They are protesting Congress and the White House crafting new ways to bankrupt America -- through cap and trade, nationalized health insurance, pork barrel earmarks, and new across-the-board regulations on the financial industry.

They are protesting that people, who have never even run a candy store, are taking over the running of our auto industry, our banks, and other financial institutions. And they are protesting the massive shadow government of unaccountable czars layered on top of the existing government bureaucracy.

Most of all, they are protesting because they see the capitalist system being dismantled day by day and the nation heading pell-mell down the road to socialism.

Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural address in1801 described what he called the sum of good government as:

"A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." But Jefferson also warned, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

Generations of Americans worked to build, fought to protect, and died to preserve the liberty the Founders gave us. Despite their sacrifice, freedom is under assault today as never before in America. But there is increasing reason to believe that a growing army of patriots will refuse to stand by and allow this great country to be destroyed.

Ellen Sauerbrey, the former Minority Leader in the Maryland House of Delegates, served as Assistant Secretary of State in the George W. Bush Administration.

Rep. Joe Wilson: 'I Am Not Apologizing Again' for 'You Lie' Outburst

In a statement issued following his appearance on Fox News, Congressman Joe Wilson said the resolution of dissaproval (a censure by the House for shouting at the president) was an attempt to divert the American people's attention onto him and away from reforming health care.

ABC News
September 13, 2009

Risking the ire of his colleagues and censure by the House of Representatives, Rep. Joe Wilson said Sunday that he is through apologizing for shouting "You lie!" at President Obama during a health care speech before Congress last week.

Wilson told Fox News that he apologized to the president Wednesday and would not apologize again on the floor of the House, despite threats from Democrats to censure him.

"I've apologized one time, the apology was accepted by the president, by the vice president, who I know. I am not apologizing again," Rep. Wilson, R-S.C., told Fox News Sunday when asked if he would apologize on the floor of the House.

The Republican congressman's unprecedented outburst got as much attention as the president's speech, and Wilson at the behest of members of both parties quickly apologized to the White House soon after Obama concluded his speech.



Wilson's outburst Wednesday, which some from both sides of the aisle have called a breach in decorum, followed a line in Obama's speech in which he said illegal immigrants would not be covered by his proposed health care overhaul.

Wilson called his outburst a "town hall moment," and said he would "never do something like that again." The congressman, however, stuck to his guns, insisting that while shouting something at the president may have been wrong, he still believed in the sentiment.

"People know my civility, they know that this was a onetime event, and it was out of frustration. I believe in the truth. What I heard was not true," Wilson told Fox.

Wilson's outburst has made headlines for days since Obama's speech and became a rallying cry at Saturday's anti-Obama protest in Washington Saturday. It was still be discussed today on the Sunday morning talk shows.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has called on Wilson to offer an apology to the members of Congress or risk a resolution of disapproval.

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Can the State Take Over Your Life?

Elderly Couple Forced Into State Custody

MyFox Dallas Forth Worth
August 25, 2009

They’re not criminals. They’ve broken no laws. But they’re being held against their will by the State of Texas. Why? It’s a tragic story about what can happen when you are alone in the world and lose control of your rights, your money, and your ability to complain.

Jean and Michael Kidd never imagined their retirement would play out like this.

“I feel like I am not in America,” said Michael Kidd. “I can’t believe I have been hi-jacked off the street, virtually from the hospital, and imprisoned,” Kidd told FOX 4.

Michael Kidd and his wife Jean have been living out of a tiny room for months. They have lost control of their money, their home, even their car. They say they’ve been robbed of their dignity and their voice. And who do they say is responsible? The State of Texas.

“It is a shock to our system,” says Kidd. “We are still kind of in a state of shock,” Kidd told Reporter Becky Oliver.

Michael Kidd worked as an engineer at KDFW for 23 years. He retired in 2001 with a pension, retirement account, and social security. Last month, he called the station for help. The Kidds have no children or relatives nearby.

In November Michael fell and broke his hip. He was taken to a Plano hospital and into surgery. After a few days, the hospital called the state Adult Protective Services to report Jean had been in the waiting room for days and wasn’t eating. What happened next is a complicated, legal tale told in hundreds of pages of documents filed with the Collin County Probate Court.

Caseworkers paint a picture of two incompetent old people, age 67 and 70, suffering from dementia. Reports say the Kidds have mismanaged their finances and used poor judgment, that Michael is verbally abusive and even attempted to assault Jean. Michael says Jean has memory trouble but denies everything else. A judge determined the Kidds were incapacitated and unable to care for themselves. The state took over the Kidds lives, sent them to the Countryside Nursing Home in Pilot Point, and is now burning through their money to pay for their care.

“You have no idea how much money you have?” Oliver asked Michael Kidd. “None at all,” Kidd responded. “I know what my income was and I know it was more than enough to take care of my bills. Now, I am deteriorating instead of getting better,” Kidd continued.

The monthly tab for a couple at Countryside is about seven thousand dollars. Court records show, for five months’ care, the guardian paid eleven thousand dollars out of the Kidds’ accounts. The state’s Medicaid program kicks in the rest. “I could be at the Hilton for this kind of money,” Kidd told Oliver.

The state appointed a financial guardian in Greenville to manage the Kidds money and pay their bills. When they asked for an accounting, the state refused. Representatives for the state stated the Kidds did not have the mental capacity to even ask for their own financial or medical records. Yet, much of their personal information is public record.

The state tried to get a temporary restraining order to stop FOX 4 from reporting the Kidds’ story, saying the couple does not have the authority to consent to an interview and that our report will cause them irreparable harm. Judge Weldon Copeland ruled against the state. He said he would welcome a neighbor or family member to serve as a guardian but no one has come forward. The state is the last resort.

“We have to buy this out of our own money,” says Michael.

The state gives each of the Kidds a measly sixty dollars a month of their own money. They use it to keep a small refrigerator stocked with healthy food. Jean has lost twenty pounds and two teeth and says no one has seemed to notice. They have no personal belongings in their room other than the television. All of their remaining possessions sit in their house in Richardson.

Bob Graham lived across the street from the Kidds for 21 years. He is furious about what the state is allowing to happen to their home. The yard has been neglected. The power was shut-off last spring. and food left spoiling in the kitchen. Graham says the state even left the doors unlocked.

“What irritates me is the gross negligence in handling their financial affairs,” Graham told Oliver. There has got to be a better way of handling this than just coming in, in a totalitarian fashion, and taking over people’s lives against their will with no advocate to speak for them,” Graham continued.

Bob Graham’s wife Aline was one of Jean Kidd’s closest friends. She says Jean was having some memory problems but she too questions the state’s heavy handedness.

“They needed some kind of help but it is frightening to realize how totally helpless and without resources they are going to be,” Aline Graham told Oliver.

The Kidds did have court-appointed representation from attorney, Bert Starr. Starr would not comment but court records show he billed their account for ten hours of legal work. The work Starr performed on their case was cut from the record. The Kidds say they met with him briefly one time before their hearing and he represented them at the hearing.

Nick Shiek is Jean Kidd’s former boss. He went to court with the Kidds and says it was clear no one was advocating for their position and for them to be allowed to go home.

“There was no defending, per se.” Shiek told Oliver. “The procedure went through really quickly.”

The Kidds say the state has tried to paint them as troublemakers who are incapable of making their own decisions about their own lives. And they’re frightened that it appears to be working.

“Having help is one thing,” says Jean Kidd. “Having someone come in and take over the whole ball of wax and say you will do what I say, and you have no control over your own life…” she says, is another.

“How could this happen in a country that talks about and brags about freedom,” says Michael Kidd. “And yet this is how we treat our old people. This can happen to any of you.”

The state has the responsibility to make sure the Kidds are safe. But is a nursing home the best answer? There are other possible options such as assisted living or home health care that may be less expensive and confining. But the Kidds say those options were never discussed with them.

Aug. 31 Update: Michael and Jean Kidd just want to get out of the nursing home and back into their house, but Fox 4 has learned the home may not be around if the state follows through with its plan.

Sept. 1 Update: There was a victory for a Richardson couple at war with the state over their mental condition and their money. Michael and Jean Kidd’s home was not sold on the courthouse steps and now the judge is clarifying his orders.

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