Log in

View Full Version : Stripping holders of extreme wealth of power resources protecting those fortunes



cyu
13th March 2012, 10:04
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/12698/oligarchy_in_the_u.s.a

APSA has no explanation for why the majority of the upper class – which has no shortage of government-influencing capital – should fall so far behind the very top earners. (Of course, relative to middle- and lower-class earners, they’ve done just fine.)

oligarchs hire skilled professionals, middle- and upper-class worker bees, to labor year-round as salaried, full-time political advocates and defenders of the oligarchy. Unlike those backing ordinary politicians, the oligarchs’ professional forces require no ideological invigoration. they function as a very well-paid mercenary army.

more than a dozen KPMG clients sued the firm for the taxes and penalties incurred after being discovered – the suits claim that KPMG bungled its job of creating shelters for tax evasion. It’s tantamount to suing your hit man for a sloppy murder.

Of the roughly 1.4 million individual contributions of $200 or more during the 2008 elections, three-fourths of the money came from a mere one-fifth of the donors, who in turn comprised one-tenth of 1 percent of American adults.

Oligarchs’ three decades of investments in activist, conservative think tanks has blazed an ideological path that drones follow. Activists at institutions like the Heritage Foundation supply ideological ammunition to the lobbyists and interest groups

l'Enfermé
13th March 2012, 10:36
It’s tantamount to suing your hit man for a sloppy murder.


Hahahah. Great article.

cyu
18th March 2012, 11:34
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/2012311123627435712.html

In any historical period, the ideas people think are the best and most important are usually the ideas of the people in charge. If you have a lot of money and own a lot of property, then you have the power to propagandise your worldview and you have incentive to avoid appearing as if you're propagandising your worldview.

Jobs' prophecies came at the expense of poor sweatshop workers who make iPads and other Apple products for middle-class Americans to buy at affordable prices. The Great Man theory of history is more like intellectual cover for the exploitation of labour.

As Gore Vidal said, America is a very good place to live if you have money and property. Not so much if you don't.

we have 364 so-called super PACs. they have raised more than $130m in 2012 and spent almost $75m on attack advertisements. Of that total amount, 25 per cent comes from just five people.

Romney is unable to ignite the party's base, yet he continues winning primaries because a super PAC called Restore Our Future has spent $37m in two and a half months, more than any sum spent on any candidate in any election ever.

EJ Dionne of the Washington Post wrote:

it works nicely for the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country, especially if they want to shroud their efforts to influence politics behind shell corporations. It just doesn't happen to work if you think we are a democracy and not a plutocracy.

http://poasterchild.deviantart.com/art/Louis-Brandeis-on-Fundamental-Choice-290102963

http://th09.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2012/073/6/0/louis_brandeis_on_fundamental_choice_by_poasterchi ld-d4spwvn.png