Monday, March 22, 2010
Ohhh Boy! ObamaCare!
Meanwhile, Big Pharma continues off-label drug sales, despite fines and judgments against them, and Big Chem/Big Ag continue to put poisons on our crops and into our ground water on a global scale.
Now that the Supremes have given big corporations the “right” to spend as much as they want to “convince” legislators to do their bidding, I fear it will be a cold day in Hell before We the People get any actual legislation in our interest. Apparently every bill that is proposed is gone over with a fine tooth comb by lobbyists and special interests to make sure nothing interferes with profits or control. After those vital corrections have been made, then the Oligarchy allows a vote and, through the magic of money, makes sure the vote is “correct.”
“It can’t happen here,” you say? Too late, it happened years ago, but they kept it under the table in those days. Now, they can lay it on the table in full view and it is just a corporation, masquerading as a “person,” exercising his “civil rights.”
As was said in Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Those with the big bankrolls are the ones that are “more equal.” The rest of us are just "equal."
"Cheer up," he said, "things could be worse!" So I cheered up and sure enough, things got worse.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Oligarchy is coming out of the Shadows
Now, they feel enough in control to start coming out of the shadows, climbing out from under their rocks.
Why do they feel safe now? Just as in Nazi Germany, they have gained control of the legislative branch, the executive branch and now the judiciary. Hitler said that control of the judicial system was necessary, as then anything you did was legal, anything the opposition did was illegal. It really simplified things.
The Oligarchs now holds about 98% of the wealth and power, world wide. They have left 2% for 98% of us to fight over, to feed, house, clothe and find health care for our families. That way, they don't have to worry about us forming a coalition that could sweep away their puppets. We're too busy trying to eat.
Remember, like their parents, the "Robber Barons" of the 19th Century, the Oligarchy feels that the natural order of things is a handful of powerful people controlling everything, and a huge number of sick, ragged, starving serfs with their hands held out, watching the limos drive by, willing to work for pennies to survive.
They are getting very close, my friends, very close indeed.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Arms Race and Arms Reduction are Not Identical
Guy buys a thousand pound bomb and, BOOM!, he buys another. That, my friends is real profit. Especially when your Corporation can sell thousand pound bombs to both sides of any conflict.
Phasing out nuclear power and coal/gas for solar/wind/wave/geothermal power cuts into huge profits by the associated corporations, heavily invested in by other corporations.
Nuclear weapon development has always been a protected multi-billion dollar cash cow. The SALT talks, the Outer Space Treaty, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and others; all of these were anathema to those who control us, and the government, through their purse strings.
Bush unilaterally (and illegally) tore up those treaties, restarted the cold war and a nuclear arms race. Obama, instead of pushing for a reinstatement of those treaties, is aiding and abetting the increase of military power at the expense of We the People and the world at large, but at greatly increased profits to the MIC. The bought and paid for Legislative branch goes along with it, and the bought Supreme Court will proceed to make it all legal.
Those few who still read and study history will recognize the parallels with 1930's Germany.
The German people failed to turn theirs around. Thousands were executed for making attempts to do so as Hitler consolidated his power. Millions died because they no longer had any power to do anything but heil der Fuhrer and do what they were told.
Now that the Corporations, the Oligarchy if you will, have consolidated their power to the point where they can come out in the open, we are rapidly finding ourselves in the same position. Our Constitutional Right to air our grievances and demand redress is getting ever more brutally suppressed by police. Heavily armed pre-emptive raids are made on people who are only planning or discussing a protest. Our alleged representatives either ignore our communications, or send us form letters which are puff pieces bragging about inconsequential legislative victories while ignoring our call for a return to the Constitutional form of government we once had.
I am no seer, but I see that the concentration camps built during the Bushwhacking years are still there, maintained and ready. NorthCom is training combat brigades in "suppressing civil unrest," the number of foreclosed, homeless, jobless, hungry and ill people is increasing exponentially. Sooner or later, the kettle is going to start to boil over. They are ready for it.
In ancient days, when Ug and Og went from throwing sticks and rocks to inventing the spear, they did not resist using it. When others developed the same thing, Ug stockpiled spears until his cave could outgun the other. Then someone invented the bow and arrow and so it went.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed what could be done. East and West began yet another arms race, which finally stalemated. Now, many of our caves have nuclear weapons, but we have the most and have proven ourselves unstable enough to use them.
Sooner or later, someone is going to try a sneak attack on someone else. That will escalate, through fear (Am I next?) or retaliation. Probably, most of civilization (as we consider it) will be destroyed. Science Fiction is becoming fact far too rapidly these days.
Einstein once said, "I don't know what weapons world war three will be fought with, but world war four will be fought with sticks and stones."
* * *
He looked out of the mouth of the cave at the devastation before him, then, cautiously, clutching his spear, he went out to forage for food for his hungry family...