By liecatcher, October 21 at 8:34 pm #

“Health can only be attained by a lifestyle in which
one eats good food in moderation, get adequate rest, & does aerobic & weight bearing exercises. The proof
of the hoax is that without health insurance about
40,000 to 100,000 people die each year. With it
the number is in excess of 700,000. For the details

please Google: “The American Medical System
Is The Leading Cause Of Death And Injury In The
United States”

This is a great post, Liecatcher. 

Add the fact that it is a perverted but perpetual notion that the only acceptable way to access the American Medical System is through an insurance policy.  Another great hoax, in my opinion. 

The hoax is this:  If a certain percentage of people who access the medical system die as a result of bad medicine, why don’t we greatly increase the number of people who can access it, by making insurance cheap and accessible, thus increasing the number of people who will ____.  (Fill in the word: is it “live” or is it “die”. 

There are just too many loose ends on this whole issue.  That is why they need to slow down and let people evalluate the whole process, soup to nuts, before enacting 1500 pages of legislation that nobody has read.  There are way too man issues to just ram a bill through just to say you did it. 

I am not against EVERYONE being healthy, nor am I against health care reform, or even against paying more than my fair share for it. 

I am against anyone, (insurance company, hospital, doctor or even government) who is making a buck off of me, telling me how to get there when everything they seem to be telling me is against my gut feelings. 

Sorry for turning this thread into a health care reform town hall meeting.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”  Upton Sinclair

Since most of us make our living at the very corporations we would seek to overthrow, it would seem to be an uphill battle.

Despite all the talk about the importance of entreprenuership, there are many real disincentives to being self employed or starting a business.

You will lose your health insurance, disability coverage, company provided life insurance, workers compensation, unemployment insurance and any portion of your IRA that is not fully vested.  Plus you will have to pay 100% of your Social Security.

If you’re lucky enough to have a few employees you will be paying the employer portions of all of the above for them.

It is so much easier to control people when their livlyhood depends on those who would control them.

That’s why its so hard to find recruits for the revolution.

In the grand scheme of things, credit ratings will be meaningless, unless one needs something to hang on the wall!  My CC have been sending me information with increased interest rates, maybe I can use them to pay for my increased medical insurance rates?

FYI: TD, should post the following 15 points addressed by Michael Moore!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/michael-moores-action-pla_b_329664.html

RD:
You are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.  When you do that, the three credit bureaus ASSUME you did it because you can’t afford to keep that card—and they down-grade your credit rating!

Au Contraire, mon frere ITW. My credit report reflects each cancellation as ‘Customers choice’ or ‘canceled by customer’, and my credit rating remains superlative.

Since I do not watch cable alleged news, actually little Tv, the Hoax may have seemed only to be Orwellian proportions, to drooling mouthed Tea Baggers and Robert Sheer forced to watch CNN,(cursing under his breath) while on his Treadmill.  A picture my demented humor finds most amusing!

Deceptions or hoax’s may seem more easily apparent after eight years of Bush Shit, now as more and more people are beginning to realize and observe the constant raining of BS from behind the curtain, even non thinking brains are seeing this as certified BS, wrapping their brains around it or not!

Simply put the MSM seems one big Hoax, my observation may be hope,  not set in stone.

C.Curtis.Dillon
http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/
you will have to scroll the blogs back to #40 and read down. My thesis is that the Russian and Soviet governments fell because the ranks of the elite and their beneficiaries no longer had the will to self-sacrifice themselves when there was need. They all forgot that perpetuity comes only to those perpetually vigilant. The topic in the blogs reads down. Later you can read from #40 back up through “Tiresias’ Revenge”, a completely new (non-much-Freud)version of Oedipus’s important but hidden role in politics.

A few comments:

1) I see in many streams this resignation that there is nothing we can do to change the coming disaster.  At first blush, this would appear to the the case but I think we are being too negative.  In Russia, they’ve had 2 major revolutions in the last 75 years.  Both were thought to be impossible but succeeded.  The 1917 revolt overthrew the czar and, after 2 tries, created the Soviet state.  That revolt overthrew the powerful Russian army and the Cossacks who protected the imperial family.  It destroyed the monied class which was extremely powerful.  It was driven by workers and peasants. 

The second was even more improbable ... the revolt destroyed the feared Soviet state with it’s powerful military (the Red Army) and the KGB.  I’m still trying to find someone who can explain how this event was possible.  The KGB had spies in every major organization and should have anticipated the revolt but was powerless to stop the collapse.  Think about that ... the country disintegrated with only a few shots fired.

Revolution is possible ... think about who protects the power centers in America.  Our military is overwhelmingly made up of soldiers who have been cycled through Iraq/Afghanistan over and over.  They have seen the greed, corruption and hypocrisy of those actions and are deeply troubled.  The Russian revolution succeeded because the Army abandoned the government and supported the people.  Do you think our military would do anything less for us?

2) News organizations now have a need to generate revenue.  They can only do this by getting viewers or readers.  In the old days (when I was a young man) TV news was a loss-leader for the networks.  Reporting was an obligation and public service of the stations even though they lost money.  But the Murdoch’s of the world changed all that and now we have this profit driven disaster.  So, when a “compelling story” like balloon boy comes along, they jump on it and try to get viewers.  The important stories are not big audience generators because most people can’t wrap their brains around what is happening.  Health care and public option?  Afghanistan and Pakistan?  People can get pissed about Wall Street greed because that is a no brainer but most stuff is just too wonky for the typical America brain.  And Glenn Beck whining and crying is compelling even if totally brainless and full of lies.  Murdock knows how to generate viewers ... you have to give him that!

Perhaps, Scheer, you will now go out and get us a good writeup on What is Populism? One Ernesto Laclau is a pretty good author. As I understand it, it is only the Populists (the population) who can do anything about the crimes of Godman and Sachs and all the other boys serving themselves at our expense.

ardee, October 21 at 11:35 pm #

Will it make a difference? I do not know but it seems a logical step. I am down to three cards now, none of which charges interest over 11%.
*************************************

RD:
You are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.  When you do that, the three credit bureaus ASSUME you did it because you can’t afford to keep that card—and they down-grade your credit rating!

Since it has no annual fee, I prefer to keep it and when I charge anything on it, immediately pay it off so they get ZERO interest.  They are forced to lend the money and get no interest on it. Remember: The C/C cos WANT you to carry a balance and pay the minimum monthly.  Tney WANT us to have to carry 30 interest.

But I would like to be rid of them.  Citi was once the best C/C company, monitoring fraud better than anyone else, and being cool about lots of stuff.  But the change in C-rank officers, that led them to needing OUR tax money to stay solvent, is indicative of the incompetence and greed running this dinosaur.

The various posts since my last, are accurately analagous of our “system”. And which as one person stated, is getting even worse. Over the last forty years I have watched politics and interacted whenever I could. It tends to remind me of our alcoholic unit commander in Dachau, over fifty years ago. I bought a motorcycle after going though the tedious process of acquiring his written permission. He summoned me to his office one day, and barked at me, “Helthi, I dont allow motorcycles in my battery. Sell it.”  Yes, he could read, and acquiring his permission was no small task.  Intoxication by whichever, and preoccupation with whatever.  Other than genuine issues.

TO ZING, sama story in Europe, but we have still some media’s who don’t play the governement play,
but makes it any difference no.

D.R.Zing, I like your post.

Perhaps the problem is one of relevance: What could possibly be “relevant” when one is blessed with limitless prosperity: pleasure? self-fulfillment? sharing with the “less fortunate”?

And, when the prosperity ends, what lesson should we take from our experience: that a rising tide does not lift all boats? that good times last longer, benefit more people and contribute to saving the planet only when we behave responsibly and exercise restraint.

A stowaway in a helium filled, mylar balloon…? No intelligent, thoughtful person ever mistook such a shenannigan for “national debate”. Shame on the media circus, yes, but shame also on those who are fooled to think the media in America provide a public service when the actual public media (NPR, PBS and affiliates) are desperately under funded and tributary to rapacious capitalist advertisers.

The people who frame “the national debate” take a back seat to those who purvey entertainment and whose sole concern is turning a profit at the end of the day.

D. R. Zing—-I agree wholeheartedly with 95% of
your comments. I don’t believe the media fell for
the hoax behind the election of George Bush.  I
believe the media knew exactly what they were doing.
They were being paid to do so.  I believe the media
spending hours on a six-year old boy was what is
called in military terms “diversion.”  They were
diverting hours from covering important issues
confronting our nation.  I am not sure how people
in main street media sleep at night.  I guess they
don’t have a conscience which in Psychology is
labeled as Sociopathic.

Anarcissie—-I appreciate your concern and comments.
I probably won’t leave America.  When I was recently
in the hospital with swine flu for 8 days I spoke
with nurses from Costa Rica and Tahiti.  I ask, “How
could I live in your countries on $25,000.”  They
both replied, “Very well.  You would have someone
to clean your house and cook your meals.”  Living
alone that sounded appealing.  I hate dealing with
trival matters like house keeping.  However, it may
sound a bit paranoid but I would be an easier target
for the FBI and CIA.  While teaching Educational
Psychology at a university I appeared on a local
TV program hosted by a black fellow on Nov. 7, 1976
to discuss why wealthy people neglect poor people.
The black fellow lost his TV program and I lost my
teaching position.  I was unemployed for 18 months
until I finally found a job as a school psychologist
for a public school system.  I was never able to
return to teaching at the university level.  I can
only assume I was black-balled.  There is no doubt
I am known by the FBI.  I have a good friend who
works for the FBI.  During the 18 months of unemploymeent I went to Caliifornia.  I was living
in Pasadena.  A lady on Orange Grove Blvd. was renting rooms for $100 bucks a month.  I rented a
room while I searched for employment.  I also
received food stamps and welfare from California.
Quite a fall from having a doctorate and teaching
at the university level.  I stood in the welfare
line with the poor blacks and hispanics.  My hopes
were raised when a job became available in Monrovia,
California.  The school system was looking for an
elementary school counselor.  My Master and Doctoral
degrees were in Elementary School Counseling.  When
I went to apply for the job I was told, “I’m sorry
but we are getting pressure to hire a black.”  I
said, “Lady, I was raised in a coal mining town in
West Virginia where my father worked in the mines.
We were as poor as any black person.” She responded,
“Sir, I’m sorry. We are getting pressure to hire a
black.”  I ask, “What if a black man or woman appied
for the position and their mother and/or father
happened to be a lawyer, are you telling me they
would receive prescedence over me just because I
am not black?”  She said, “Yes sir!” I just turned
walked out of the office got behind my car’s steering
wheel and started laughing.

Why thank you, liecatcher.

But I’m not sure that I agree with you that Mr. Scheer missed the point by a mile. I think he made a very good point and hit it right on the head.

I just think your post expounded upon a couple of other relevant ongoing hoaxes. And you made excellent points about how to obtain and keep good health. And I certainly agree with that. All good. 

Take care.

Inherit The Wind, October 21 at 10:31 pm #

Two days ago I got a letter from CitiBank—one of those bailed out. My credit card rate is being increased to 29.9% AND is an AR—Prime plus 26+%!  Can you BELIEVE such chutzpah?  And it’s STILL perfectly legal!  Soon all the other credit cards will be “me-too”-ing us as this is a NEW way to empty our wallets.

I have consistently canceled any of my credit cards that does this, including my once cherished American Express card. I include a letter, with the final payment and cancellation, that explains why I think such action a contract violation and one that shows plainly that the company cares nothing for its card holders.

Will it make a difference? I do not know but it seems a logical step. I am down to three cards now, none of which charges interest over 11%.

Two days ago I got a letter from CitiBank—one of those bailed out. My credit card rate is being increased to 29.9% AND is an AR—Prime plus 26+%!  Can you BELIEVE such chutzpah?  And it’s STILL perfectly legal!  Soon all the other credit cards will be “me-too”-ing us as this is a NEW way to empty our wallets.

At least Barney Frank and others in Congress are looking to restore some sanity and once again bar commercial banks from trading in stocks and bonds—Geithner and Summers will fight that like crazy—it will KILL Goldman, Sachs, now that they are a commercial bank.

But IF President Obama stops listening to them and, instead, returns to his BEST economic adviser, Paul Volcker, he’ll support de-coupling as well.  Volcker is the ONE man alive with the chops of saving the economy—Obama should not let Summers continue to cut Volcker out.

TO:By D.R. Zing, October 21 at 9:24 pm

Hey By D.R. Zing:

Outstanding !!!!!!

The term hoax can probably be used to mean red
herring,

misinformation, disinformation, & makes for
convenient

headlines. For the uneducated & undereducated there
is

always reality TV & other mind numbing & dumbing
trash.

A six-year-old and his dad tie up the national media for several hours; no other news gets out during that time.  The next day hundreds of local newspapers block out all front-page news with coverage of the story. 

If it’s that easy for a six-year-old, imagine how easy it is for pros like Karl Rove:

** The abortion debate.  This hoax keeps us from discussing overpopulation.  The pap that the media swallow:  Overpopulation is a non-issue because we have the technology to feed everyone in the world.  Correct.  High fructose corn syrup, ketchup and potato chips.  The media fall for the abortion hoax because it sells papers and draws TV viewers.  It is totally irresponsible for them to cover it. 

** The greenhouse hoax.  Only an idiot wouldn’t recognize that we are destroying our ecosystem. By the early 1990s, ninety-five percent of the world’s scientists believed human behavior was disrupting our climate. But for over a decade media outlets presented the story as if it were an even split. Thank God Al Gore dumbed down a PowerPoint presentation enough to make the media understand. If it wasn’t for him, the idiots would still be saying: Go find out what the scientists who work for oil companies think about climate change.   

** The gun control hoax. Americans have more personal weapons than any other industrialized country in the world. But by whipping up a frenzy, the media prevent us from discussing a much more serious issue: Government sales of small arms to developing nations.  Not just our beloved assault rifles but also rocket propelled grenades, surface to air missiles, helicopters, tanks, landmines. It’s insane. But we don’t discuss how to stop our own government or other governments from doing it because neither Democrats nor Republicans want to disrupt this profit center. The media actively participate in perpetuating the hoax that the world needs more weapons.

** The hoax candidacy of George Bush. The media fell for the hoax that even though Bush was not qualified for the presidency by experience, intellect or disposition, he would do okay because he would hire the right advisers. He did not. His candidacy should have never been given any credence. It was a hoax. The media fell for it. The world paid the price. 

** The hoax of presidential election coverage.  Early in the elections candidates are not evaluated for their ideas; they are evaluated by how much money they raise. In an obscene sodomy of logic, the media argue that basing coverage on ideas is subjective, but basing coverage on campaign contributions is objective. Bend over Socrates. You’re gonna love this hoax.

The media bounce from once hoax story to another without ever admitting they’re being bamboozled. And they bamboozle the world.

The six-year-old should be given an award for making idiots of the idiots.

berniem’s comments:

Sad, ugly, hopeless…. but so true!  No wonder so many keep looking the other way.

Zooming In on the Year’s Biggest Hoax
Posted on Oct 20, 2009
By Robert Scheer

Hey Robert Scheer:

You missed the mark by a mile.

The Banksters have been ripping of main street for

over a century. With the creation of the FED on

December 23, 1913 by Woodrow Wilson, one of

the most successful criminal cartels in history was

legitimized;that’s old news.

The real hoax is the “health care” hoax, with people

lining up like lemmings for the swine flu vaccine &

don’t have a clue what health is or that they risk
death

from the vaccine. The last time the swine flu scam
was

run was when Ford was President & he was a shill for

the drug companies. So many hundreds of people died
&

became paralyzed that the scam was stopped, because

unlike the current MIPIC:MEDICAL INSURANCE

PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, back

then suing for wrongful death was allowed. Currently

survivors families are up the creek without a paddle.

However, just as 99.9% of the populace think the FED

is a government agency, the same number think that

health can be purchased in a container, or a
building.

The reality is that the current system fleeces the
public

by treating & testing for real or made up symptoms.

Health can only be attained by a lifestyle in which
one

eats good food in moderation, get adequate rest, &

does aerobic & weight bearing exercises. The proof

of the hoax is that without health insurance about

40,000 to 100,000 people die each year. With it

the number is in excess of 700,000. For the details

please Google: “The American Medical System
Is The Leading Cause Of Death And Injury In The
United States”

To answer Scheer’s question, they are addicts to money power and control, and
to the status, pleasures and comforts they provide. Unfortunately, these are not
absolutes, so the opposite effects eventually come ‘round. Guaranteed.

Ever lived with an addict? Been an addict? Still an addict? I’m not condemning,
it’s just what confused humans fall into. And I don’t mean just with drugs,
alcohol, sex, food, tobacco – but any psychosensual experience, that must be
had again and again, more and more. It could be anything. It’s compulsive,
meaning one can’t control it, has no choice, or so one “believes.” It is a
hypnosis of sorts, a conditioned response, an acquired taste.

Sue Cook points out that no one ever spells out what is being done about it, it
being the greed at the top. Well, she’s right, because the writers may not know
the answer, or what exactly it is that needs an answer. With all due affection
and respect, Mr. Scheer may have his own confusion and compulsions.

In this country and culture, some addictions are accepted, like alcohol, others
are not. For instance, marijuana (which is not physically addictive) gets you jail
time where alcohol may only garner a ticket and a fine. The avarice of “he who
has the most toys wins” – this addiction is okey dokey. Greed is good, so it’s
said, the prime mover of capitalism after all, which today, has overtaken
democracy in this country as the American Way.

But addiction is not good, ever. It is a weakened human condition. It is the
result of not paying due attention. Not investigating what is happening, looking
into one’s own experience, looking at who or what one thinks and believes one
is, versus what one actually is. Not facing what is leads to distraction,
confusion, and in that confusion, one fails to deal with what is. Rather one
deals with what isn’t, what one imagines. It’s a vicious cycle. But when the pain
gets bad enough, when the suffering is overwhelming, one has a chance to
break through and take a deeper, more honest look. A chance that is often
passed up.

The answer is not in further intellectualizations, associations, comparisons,
analyses and conclusions. This is just thought which is from memory and
memory is a graveyard. It has its use and place. But not in getting past
addiction, illusion and delusion.

The answer is in really looking at it, being with it. With what? This! This thing
called living, experiencing, always right here, right now. What the hell are we
doing here, each of us? What is this?

When seen clearly, it’s the death of illusion and recognition of truth, what
actually is. It’s unconditional freedom. And this is frightening to addicts like
those at Government Sachs, and elsewhere, even here on the blog.

For those here who just wanted to have an entertaining chat, sorry to interrupt.
Please carry on. For those who want to cut through and know, please respond.

Robert Scheer here operates on a couple of common assumptions about the “global” command-and-CONtrol apparatus….that its awful effects on the subject/citizenry these days are somehow due to mostly minor (and therfore fixable) malfunctions, and that getting rid of some crooked ‘players’ in positions of “power” will get it all humming smoothly along again for the benefit of “....your huddled masses.”  Of course quite the opposite is the actual case.

The damned CONtraption is performing exactly as it was designed and built to do, and its ‘operators’ are only pretending to run it anyhow….it’s been effectively on ‘automatic-pilot’ for centuries.  With these grossly mistaken beliefs ‘informing’ the analysis, it’s sure no wonder nothing emerges suggesting anything remotely resembling a remedy.

Here’s one….The Tiyoshpaye Way.

HokaHey!

The jig is up! Fagitaboutit! Nothing is going to change in the world of finance; expect nothing in the way of meaningful health care reform; no end to the military madness; jim crow continues to survive in the “conservative” version of the witness protection program. As much as some of us would wish it otherwise, the majority of Americans today are semi-literate, greedy, self-centered, intolerant bigots who live some type of fantasy where they see the “good olde days” returning if everyone just knows their place, waves the flag, thumps the bible, and minds their betters. Thems that don’t follow this dictum are anti-american, unpatriotic, socialistic, troublemakers who have no respect for the law or the moral values of these united states. Furthermore, why does anyone need to know any more than what can be learned on fox? We don’t need to throw any more money at our superior educational system because we’re “americans” and our marvelous military will make sure that nobody upsets our applecart. Climate change may be a problem for the rest of the world but not us since our corporations always do what’s best for us, just like our bankers.  Face it Progressive people. We’re wasting our time dealing not only with politicians, plutocrats, oligarchs, and proto-facists, but also with John & Jane Doe, Joe Sixpack( Bagadonuts, The Plumber, Shmoe, Etc…), Mr & Mrs Main St., what have you. The elite bunch are making money from all this while the rubes are complacent and too stupid to see whats happening(like the frog in the pot of increasingly hot water, the fiddling grasshopper, you name it). The good ol’ u.s. of a. is on the same highway to hell that all previous empires have travelled. Unfortunately, instead of changing course, We’re picking up speed.

We in Europe are loosing slowly our freedom, now they start in France and elswhere to take here and there freemovements out of the internet, the net is to free and they can not sufficiently controle it, they want an 100% grip on it, I think we slowly are pust in an direction of big protest movements, but than it will be hard against hard, well maby Sarkosy is an reincarnation of Napoleon, to make an big Europe, God help us, if he excist.

You can probably figure out some way of taking a walk without leaving the country.  I don’t see the point of moving across national boundaries—the global work machine is there as it is here.  I lived in Canada for two years, out in the woods, and there it was, clear-cutting the forests and selling junk.  I could have stayed home for that.

Someone ask “What can we do to overthrow the ruling
class in America?”  The answer is “NOTHING.”  Try
violence and they have the Pentagon and police
forces behind them.  Try politicians and you’ll get
NOTHING accomplished because politicians are humans
and humans worship MONEY. The political approach
has been tried over and over and over and over!
Like the Titantic the American ship is sinking.  When
it gets close to going under the ruling class will
just move to another country.  As ironic as it sounds
America may wind up being left to the Native
Americans if they can overcome the radiation left
from the nuclear bombs.  I am not part of the ruling
class but I am seriouly considering leaving America.
All my immediate family are gone.  I have cousins,
nieces, and nephews I will try to take with me but
I don’t think they will go.  They will stay with the
sinking ship.  I read on another post that some
believe the Freemasons to be partly the cause for
many of our financial woes.  I don’t know.  I haven’t
studied the issue.  For those of you interested there
is a documentary tonight at 8 pm EDT on History
International channel discussing the relationship
between the Freemasons and our founding fathers.

It’s commical to read all the horror story attrocities happening in the banking business.  We read with sickening interest, and hope by the end of the article it will spell out specifically what is being done about it.
Surely we can’t expect our elected leaders that continually feign outrage over exec’s bonus payouts to actually follow through with their threats of taking control by putting caps on the very people who have paid their campaigns handsomely?
Why wasn’t it Chris Dodd and Barack Obama the two top recipiants of those funds? I think so.
Look at Tim Geitner the tax cheat.  Was he dropped from contention from Obama’s staff after this revelation? How about lobbyist on Obama’s staff Mark Patterson? He was Goldmen Sach’s chief of staff to Geitner. Remember the Tom Daschle debacle?  Their all one big happy family. It’s all so hypocritical.  So where are we going with this? ...NOWHERE! (which is my point.)  Maybe we should just follow thier lead…If ya can’t beat em, join em!

Obama is continuing the program that was instituted by the Bush family, which continued the activity that was initiated via “Operation Paper-Clip.” The industrial- military machine is guided by the zionists that control the fraudulent activity, “The Federal Reserve” which is bankrupting the western world.
  Who is paying for the “stalags” being built by the US Army in Irak, why are they so large and is a crematorium built into each facility, as the NAZIs did in WWII?

“The die is cast: People working in finance grabbed two-thirds of the growth in GDP over the last decade, with the rest of us scrambling for the other third.”

This is the bottom line for our action and for the continuing exploitation of us by plutocrats.

So what is anyone going to do about this? In the late 80s, five hundred thousand East Germans took to the streets to force the corrupt East German regime to tear down the Berlin Wall. No, it wasn’t Ronald Reagan.

Is that what we should do to overturn corrupt Wall Street and the political lackeys who support them?

Their addiction is a form of insidious insider terrorism! They are obsessed and
compulsive and can’t see any other way out of their very troubled psycho-
emotional state other than more of the same. They, along with the many other
corporate/political greedaholics (actually egoicfantasyholics, but that’s another,
even better story) across many big-time industries, are in need of serious
treatment. And now – before they take us all further down.

The real problem is that this theft is NOT illegal! There has not been ANY reform—no regulation—of the financial system since the 2008 financial meltdown. There is nothing stopping those financial wizards from screwing the people over again, and again, and again. We must demand that Congress institute real regulation. If it doesn’t, this nation is doomed. Doesn’t Obama get it? He seems enamoured of the whiz-kids who advised Bush out of office!

NB: Do watch that Frontline PBS special, as someone here suggested. It’s a stunner.

Well discussing this issue is all fine and dandy and a lot of people here have written some very neat stuff but the fact of the matter is that we are missing the important point. These are illegal acts, banks are legally stealing our money and where is the Federal Government. I do not care who the president is, I just want to know where he or she is. When is someone going to get these crooks in jail? We are in such a moral and ethic deterioration around the world that even suggesting justice is absurd and even called ‘wishfull thinking’. Well if this is what democracy is all about then lets find a different kind of government. Government is representing us and the interests of society in general. When they were not capable of doing that they were replaced with democracies. It is time we replace them as well, as we still have not found the best way of governing ourselves as human beings despite the fact that we claim to be an inteligent animal.

Noble concepts in theory! Folktruther, mentions the “introduction of cooperative rule of the economy”, so when the dust clears, is it surmised the opportunists, those successful enough, (using the word successful as gaining control) would not utilize normal power pecking orders to force the weaker less powerful and unfortunate to follow set rules as preferred by the new order?  Otherwise, why would it not be a return to the old order?

PLUTONOMY.  I like it, Anarcissie.  the mostrous class inequality has empowered the rich and dispowered the population to allow the plutocracy to rule and create a plutotomic power system. 

The plutonomy can only be mainstained by violence: war abroad and coercion at home.

the violence can only be concealed, disguised and justified by delusion and irrationality.

What is needed is an movement against the American plutonomy and the plutocracy that rules it.  Called, say: American People Opposed to Plutocracy. AMPOP A new Costitutional Covention to take the money away from the rich under article V of the US Consstitution.

And the introduction of cooperative rule of the economy, whatever that might mean. The US is in the fortuate position that it has two oceans protecting it and weak neighbors, so such a movment would not have the intervention problems that the Russians experienced.

This further reinforces my belief that progressives will fail to make serious progress on any issue until we tranform the way elections are financed in this country.  The people no longer elect their leaders—corporate America (and other special interests) appoint them.  Campaign finance reform should be the #1 issue of all progressives—only after we extract corporate money from politics will we be able to successfully advocate for the peoples’ agenda.

To say it a littel direct, every well clear thinking American citizen must see that this kind of people just behave as a oil pats on the wather, it grows and grows, the whole money and media world is more or less interwoven, famelies and religious friends, brother hoods and sectairian groups, its like that severe illness that grows just till it kills is host or individu.

47 million American citizen are real very poor, and others have so much they never can use it all in their livetime, this is a shame, for every so called democratic country.

Is there a way to find out where the ruling class
invests their money?  I’ll bet a dollar to a
donut that they invest mostly in the Euro!

Great, but sobering article Mr. Scheer.  I hope that you have sent a copy to
President Obama, Mr. Geithner, and Mr. Summers.

I am so disappointed in President Obama.  I honestly thought he could or would
bring in objective, smart thinkers.  Instead, he has helped the old guard carry
away the last of the the U.S. economy. It is an outrage.  It has broken the backs of
the middle class.  Corporate America owns this nation.

Corporations will not behave resposibly untill the officers of those corporations are leagaly bound and finacialy tied to the company.

If the CEO’s personal assets were at risk, I think we would see different behavior.

When Lehman went down in flames none of the Exects lost their homes, had to move in with relatives or shop at a food pantry.  They got to keep everything they stole prier to the bust.  The guys at Goldman sacks America did even better.  Thanks to us.

One more point.  I’m not surprised that the Wall St Wiz Kids end up running the Treasury.  What bothers me is the number of them who have been Dirrector of the Central Intellegence Agency.  Now that’s what I call insider information.  What better place to be when you have Billion$ to invest?

Mr. Scheer’s commentary is somewhat temperate given the “realities” of the Wolf
Blintzes kind of entertaining report. Most printed and on air reporters are to put it
mildly illeterate. Or in kafkasque ” the hoaxers reporting on hoaxes”.

Kudos to Mr. Scheer and others on the internet for reporting intelligently and
informatively as to the realities ib present day America.

America seems headed to becoming the “real” colossal hoax of the 21st. Century.

Outrageous!

Let us hope our legislators don’t hand the health insurance lobby whatever is left of the prosperity bubble.

Heaven help us get it right.

We had EIGHT YEARS of Bush/Cheney dumbing down our young people.  They don’t understand any of what is going on in the financial world, in government, in society..they simply have not been taught how the systems work.
NOW, we have a generation of young people happily watching garbage on TV stations, owned by mega-corporations, that provide them with no knowledge, no information, only entertainment and they don’t know or want to know anything that might stretch their brains a little.  Ignorance is Bliss is their reality.
There is an attitude of hopelessness in our society.  “Corporate” cheats us everyday, what’s one more mogul cheating the public, the government, the very company he manages.
Middle-class citizens have stopped caring.  There is no longer citizen power other than the voting booth and even voting seems to not empower the public any longer.
Lobbyists and corporations are running our government and our lives.  We no longer have voices, instead we just fewer choices at every turn.
I hear people who are terrified of national healthcare because their minister talked about it in church..oh, boy.
It’s time to turn off the TV, time to subscribe to a REAL newspaper and think for ourselves.

Some of you seem to think the situation which Robert Scheer draws our attention to here can be solved by top-down reform.  I doubt this.

We now have an economic system which can justly be called a “plutonomy”, a recently-coined word modeled on “plutocracy”.  In a plutocracy, the wealthy have dominant political power; in a plutonomy, the wealthy have dominant economic power, and can rewrite the economic rules to benefit themselves however they please.  As a result of the ascendancy of the plutonomy, if poor people make bad investments, they lose their money; if the very wealthy make a bad investment, the government (i.e. the taxpayers) will bail them out.  These people are not going to reform themselves in any way which is to their disadvantage.  Prior to the first major bailout of the current crisis, something like 95% of the people wrote to their Congressional representatives and asked them to vote against it.  You know the result.

As for sources of news, I’d say PBS and the New York Times are about like Soviet-era Pravda: their content is what the upper echelons of the ruling class want the middle echelons to think, to which the rest of us are allowed to listen in.  Sometimes, by comparing lies and misrepresentations, you can get an idea of what’s actually going on, but remember what kind of material you’re dealing with.

Seems almost everyone is on a treadmill watching pablum oozing from a TV screen, even the word reality has been corn holed by the media with alleged reality TV. 

Real News from the MSM?

  For some reason I find Robert Scherr’s tread mill experience most amusing, he was lucky it wasn’t a complete composite of Sarah Palin’s speeches, (except it would not last more than a few minutes)  a picture of Palin and the sound of finger nails scraping on a chalkboard Robert Sheer running on a treadmill trying to getaway! Very funny!

In the end, the reality looms over amusement and the ugly belly of reality, real reality assumes the position and one is forced to realize the insidious issues at hand.

I agree with Scheer on few things, but this is one of them. 

The top dog (maybe even top 3 or 4 execs) at ANY company that gets bailed out by the government must be fired immediately and forgo ALL pending compensation (salary, bonus, stock options, etc).

There is very little incentive within the financial industry promoting responsible stewardship of the companies.

CEOs cannot be expected to act differently if they share on the upside and not on the downside.

As long as financial companies expect the government to bail them out, this type of management will continue.

We need to let companies fail.  If they are “too big” to fail, then we need to split them up into smaller companies that are not too big to fail.

Meanwhile, Wall Street has bought off our politicians (Dems and Repubs), and the CEOs are laughing all the way to the bank (or, in their case, laughing all the way to the office).

Available information indicates that the current filler of the US presidency was supported by the John D. Rockefeller machine. Perhaps Allen Keyes will rustle up a genuine birth-certificate for the imposter, which will disqualify him. However, since the 41st US president imposter was not American-born, a precident was set.
  Viewing what one says versus what one does, “-what you do speaks so loud, I cannot hear what you say,” an “American Indian” saying, tells it like it is. Obama is continuing the program that was instituted by the Bush family, which continued the activity that was initiated via “Operation Paper-Clip.” The industrial-military machine continues to call the shots, and is guided by the zionists that control the fraudulent activity, “The Federal Reserve.”
  Retired CIA, FBI, similar agents and whistle- blowers are telling it like it is. Who is paying for the “Stalags” that the US Army is having built in Irak? And why are they so large ? Is there also a huge crematorium built-in ?

The reason Goldman has been able to take our money, not lend it back to us, and
instead use it purely for amassing their latest fortune is because of the repeal of
Glass-Steagall - now they get to pretend to be a Commercial bank while
continuing to live as an Investment bank.  When we demand only public funding
for elections, then congress members won’t have to be whore to the “interests” to
get elected.  I hope I live to see that day.

The Hoax is that cable news, whether CNN or Fox Noise, pseudo-Christian
stations, is on the par with local ambulance chasing stations.  For citizens, it takes
real digging to find actual facts and good analysis among the many articles and
sources. I would recommend the Economist, Financial Times, hard news stories in
the NYT and Wall Street Journal, plus Bill Moyers and Center for Economic and
Policy Research, Truthdig, Huffington, Guardian, Christian Science Monitor,
Telegraph, Pew Research, FactCheckdotCom. Happy to hear about others.

PBS’s Frontline series had a great episode on last night called “Financial Crisis”.  It
shines a pretty good light on the incestual relationship between Wall Street and
Government.  I recommend watching it on-line if you missed it last night.

If Obama watched it I think he would have some serious second thoughts on some
of the primary players that he is relying on for economic advice.  That is if he has
the peoples best interest in mind…

Protests start with our young people. I wonder how many of the readers on
Truthdig are in their late teen to late twenties age group? I would venture to
say that the percentage is not great. The real question is why don’t they care or
am I just not seeing it?
The beerdoctor states that it is Robert Scheer’s guy in the White House who has
enabled all of this to continue. True. I believed Obama with his “change”
mantra. When throwing money at Wall Street without accountability continued
under Obama I was rudely awakened, not just to the fact that Obama is “one of
them” but to the fact that we have no recourse. thelandguy states “that it’s time
to change”, that time has come and gone I am afraid. Wall street has
accumulated so much money at the expense of Main street that they now
control everything. The two party system suits them fine, easy to control by
financing the candidate of their choice. The news media is theirs, look at Fox,
all the ranting and raving ups the ratings. They control the corporations that
decide what we eat. The Mom and Pop diners did not survive so we go to
MacDonalds or Carl’s Junior where again the corporations by deciding what we
consume control our physical and mental health. Do you really think the moneyed elite would allow “change”? Perhaps our young people know this and have decided it is not
even worth a try so they would rather watch “Balloon Boy” and his pathetic
parents.

The problem I see with Robert Scheer’s analysis comes from the fact that he goes on and on about the bankster system now factually in place, but he seems to ignore that it is his guy in the White House who has enabled all of this to continue.
Complaining about corporate owned media outlets has become a cheap shot alibi for ignoring the reality of a Democratic party that has abandoned all of its traditional principles. As John Lennon once noted, playing these mind games can (and will) go on forever.

You have to count 1 + 1 = 3 other wise you geth anti Jewis say racist, Wolf Blitzer and friends speek all the same language, all the Media come and go in the same direction, completely non American( People) thinking, others wise sayd, reed the books from Saul Bellow, clear you self up.

LOL, I should have stayed in the states; there’s lots
of bridges I could’ve sold to y’all.

“Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it”.

How did our elected leaders expect a lesson to be learned when they lavished a trillion or so on the crooks? Money with no strings attached, just , “here guys take our childrens future and try to do better next time”. Yeah, that will work ......

One problem with your suggestion - - .  Is there enough space around the building for all the highly qualified “personnel” who fall into the subject category?

Hmmm ... let’s see why the Wolfe wouldn’t say anything.  CNN ... part of large media conglomerate which is beholden to ... Wall Street!  I’m sure at least one senior person on the Wolfe production team has been told by the C-suite guys not to focus too much attention on the re-emergence of the casino on Wall Street and to the once again obscene bonuses being paid.  I’m not in the least bit surprised that this is happening because the bankers who got bailed out last time are anticipating another, similar action by the government when they once again push the world’s economy over the edge.  And, unfortunately, they are right because the country will never let the entire world’s financial system go in the crapper just to teach them a lesson.  But, I would suggest a nice military tribunal and firing squad against the NYSE building as an alternative hint to these crooks that the next time they do this there will be consequences for them as well.  The charge ... treason!