Decent article about the realities of class rule in the USA

[Os Cangaceiros]

Especially with regards to the financial collapse (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216?page=1)

Excerpt:


The rest of them, all of them, got off. Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom — an industrywide scam that involved the mass sale of mismarked, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities — has ever been convicted. Their names by now are familiar to even the most casual Middle American news consumer: companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling. What's more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even "one dollar" just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick "The Gorilla" Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars.

I'd like to mention that individuals from JP Morgan, AIG and Goldman Sachs (which helped bankroll Barack Obama's presidential campaign) are well-respresented on Obama's economic recovery team, a nice selection of the same bankers and hedgefunders that helped initiate the crisis in the first place. And this is the guy people are calling a socialist. ;)

[Savage]

I'd like to mention that individuals from JP Morgan, AIG and Goldman Sachs (which helped bankroll Barack Obama's presidential campaign) are well-respresented on Obama's economic recovery team, a nice selection of the same bankers and hedgefunders that helped initiate the crisis in the first place. And this is the guy people are calling a socialist. ;)

Dude, if you don't support 100% privatization then you're no better than Karl Marx.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Here he is with his homies at a conference of other socialists:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/photos/uncategorized/2009/04/02/nm_g20_uk_090402_main.jpg

[Red Commissar]

There's so much that any one with even a basic understanding of politics that Obama or anyone else in the Democrats could fit into this hellish category of "radical socialists". I mean it's funny when they use buzzwords to try and make it seem Obama's running a program of nationalization and "centrally-planned" economy ("Obamanomics") when really he's just continuing the cooperation with corporate and banking interests.

I mean that selection there really makes a good point- where's all the persecution and trials of these numbskulls, and yet the state is eager to go and chase after unions and the poor (and people buy that shit!).

[Savage]

lol, has there been any nationalization under obama?

[Red Commissar]

lol, has there been any nationalization under obama?

The US government bought stocks into certain firms like AIG and GM when they were floundering, while propping up the federal-backed mortgage originators like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but this was receivership, not nationalization. Some of the debate around the health care reform joke had some thinking this was the first step in the Government nationalizing the healthcare field.

At any rate though, the fact that people get so locked up on that while its obvious that the US doesn't do any of that, and try to associate the negative aspects with an ideology already held in low regard (socialism), shows how much influence the ruling class has in debate and shaping public opinion. Even when people claim they are "independent".