While Entire Governments Don't Come Cheap, This One is Almost Within Grasp of the Rich

[kpete]

While Entire Governments Don't Come Cheap, This One is Almost Within Grasp of the Rich

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sun, 08/29/2010 - 10:14am.

* Guest Commentary

STEPHEN PIZZO FOR BUZZFLASH

........ America’s top 1%-2%. Now empowered in a way even they never imagined, they can buy anything and, for the most part they’ve done just that. But there’s one thing that they need, something that will keep the good times -- hell, the great times -- rolling for them and theirs. They already have acquired something close to controlling interest in it, but there’s still too much of it in public hands.

And, while entire governments don’t come cheap, this one is now within their grasp. They have the money, that’s not their problem. What they lack is are enough small shareholders to throw their vote their way, to relinquish their voting rights to The Board of Directors, let them run things from now on.

But how to do it?

Well, if you’re going to try to persuade people to do something totally alien to their own interests the most powerful tool is a group of their own peers already convinced it’s the right thing to do. Secretly fund them so their peers don’t start asking questions, buy a cable network to produce fake news about your small army of useful fools and set them loose to destabilize and delegitimize what remains of our representative democracy.
So there’s your answer.

That’s what you get those who already have everything -- the power to keep it. The power to crush anyone who tries to take it away.

the rest:
http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/3600

[bvar22]

1. The Top 1% already WON.

They won in 1992 with the emergence of the DLC as the controlling interest in the Democratic Party.
What we are seeing today is merely the victors squabbling over how to Divvy up the Loot.


Bill Moyers Commentary, May 2002

"The vast inequality of this new Gilded Age didn't just happen.

Nature didn't ordain it, the market didn't require it, and Adam Smith's invisible hand doesn't sustain it.

What happened is the rich declared class war and spent what it took to win.

Not exactly a new story, of course, but the extraordinary new concentration of wealth and power created a juggernaut that makes it harder and harder for democracy to work for all.

The rich buy the laws and loopholes they want from Congress, and from the White House, they buy executive protection of their privileges.

So government winds up promoting the extremes instead of moderating them.

Look at the bill the House of Representatives recently passed to reform accounting and financial disclosure in the wake of Enron.

Despite everything we learned about the gang from Houston, the bill does not close the revolving door between accountants and their clients, nor will it prohibit accounting firms from making millions by selling consulting services to the same companies they audit.

Critics now call it the "Ken Lay Protection Act." And what happened the other day when the Senate voted on regulating energy derivatives, those mischievous devices Enron used to manipulate prices and gouge customers?

Why, Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, that old and faithful friend of Enron, managed to scuttle it.

Then there's the new farm bill that will give more than $50 billion in new subsidies to the richest and largest farms in America.

And the new energy bill that takes your tax dollars and transfers them to the richest energy companies in the country.

Remember our recent story about how Enron used stock options to avoid paying taxes in four out of the last five years?

Well, even as we talk, the White House and business lobbies, with Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman as their point man, are working to block reform of stock options.

Yes, the rich declared class war and won.

All that's left is for politics to divide up the spoils."

http://www.pbs.org/now/commentary/moyers7.html

--bvar22
formerly a mainstream FDR Democrat,
but now a member of the "fucking retard" wing of the "New Democrat" Party.
I didn't change.