Titanic Post

Why our political system remains corrupt

It is said that our government is subject to a revolution every two years with a new congress, but this is an illusion.  The reality is that the House and Senate are a high stakes poker game with an enormous entrance fee.

“Pay to play” is the death of our democracy and is endemic in our political system. Few politicians can resist the temptation to accept money or favors in exchange for a vote. No politician within this system is likely to risk trying to change the system.

Thomas Jefferson said that every government needs a revolution every once in a while. Our last revolution was the return to a laissez faire or a free market economy in the early 80s. Its failure, the second in 80 years, was predictable.

The New Deal worked for everybody but the robber barons and it is time we gave it another chance.  It is time for citizens to hold their elected official’s collective feet to the fire.

by Paul B. Farrell

Global Research, November 7, 2008

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, we’re dummies. You. Me. All 300 million of us. Clueless. We should be ashamed. We’re obsessed about the slogans and rituals of “democracy,” distracted by the campaign, polls, debates, rhetoric, half-truths and outright lies. McCain? Obama? Sorry to pop your bubble folks, but it no longer matters who’s president.

Why? The real “game changer” already happened. Democracy has been replaced by Wall Street’s new “disaster capitalism.” That’s the big game-changer historians will remember about 2008, masterminded by Wall Street’s ultimate “Trojan Horse,” Hank Paulson. Imagine: Greed, arrogance and incompetence create a massive bubble, cost trillions, and still Wall Street comes out smelling like roses, richer and more powerful!

Yes, we’re idiots: While distracted by the “illusion of democracy” in the endless campaign, Congress surrendered the powers we entrusted to it with very little fight. Congress simply handed over voting power and the keys to trillions in the Treasury to Wall Street’s new “Disaster Capitalists” who now control “democracy.”Why did this happen? We’re in denial, clueless wimps, that’s why. We let it happen. In one generation America has been transformed from a democracy into a strange new form of government, “Disaster Capitalism.” Here’s how it happened: (more…)

by James Parks, Aug 12, 2008
AFL-CIO NOW

Most corporations, including a large majority of foreign companies doing business in the United States, pay no income taxes, according to a report released today.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that two-thirds of both American and foreign companies doing business here end up avoiding all income tax obligations to the federal government, despite corporate sales totaling $2.5 trillion. (more…)

It’s not just that world events are ignored in favour of celebrity gossip. News anchors skew the facts to provoke debate.

Kieren McCarthy
guardian.co.uk
Thursday August 07 2008

For years it has been a joke that news in the United States is terrible: obsessed with trivia and celebrity; fronted by Botox bimbos; forever interviewing citizens about some artefact of small-town life when a major news story is breaking elsewhere.

Well, the truth is that it’s far, far worse than that. There are a multitude of news channels – CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox. But after an hour of flipping between them during lunchtime last week, this was the sum total of information gleaned: there are two US presidential candidates; they have produced campaign ads; people have made video parodies and posted them on the internet; a US TV news host appeared on a US TV chatshow last night; and someone said something controversial (read ignorant) on a different TV show the day before.

In the meantime, one of the most sought-after war criminals (more…)