By Tim Gatto
July 12, 2009 -- -Information Clearing House--Every one of us has their own “take” on what is happening in this brave new world. I am no different than most, I also have an opinion on what’s going on. When I write an article I usually have no problem giving my opinion as to what is really happening. This time however, I’m going to try not to give my opinion. I only want to present the facts as I understand them. The truth is much more damning than any opinion I could offer, as Sgt Joe Friday once said in Dragnet, an old TV police show; “Just the facts Ma’am, just the facts”.
Let’s start with the two political parties that supposedly “run” this country. The truth is that political parties don’t run this country, money does. Our entire political system is based on wealth. This has been true in some degree since the day we gained our independence, but it has never been as apparent as it is now. Money drives political campaigns. All the politicos know this and so do most people. Senators Russ Feingold and John McCain tried to reform the way that political campaigns were financed, but by the time the reforms were passed by Congress, the politicians and lobbyists had gutted the bill, making it so weak that it was too little, too late.
We, the people, are supposedly equal under the law, and we are, except that some are more equal than others depending on their net worth and how their money is used. During the last presidential election, money coming from “ordinary folks” in a “populist surge of donations” put Barack Obama over the top and they supposedly carried the day.
It never happened.
What really happened is that the people who controlled the financial sector of the economy saw a massive train wreck about to happen and they needed someone malleable and ambitious enough to work with them to clean up the mess that would follow. At that time, A junior Senator from Illinois with his golden tongue a good understanding of quid pro quid, stepped into the batter’s box. The financial sector then showered him with campaign funds in order to minimize the catastrophe that was, beyond a shadow of doubt, going to happen. The truth was that everyone in government, and those working in the financial sector, knew that the only recourse available to prevent a financial meltdown, was for the Federal Government to bail out the bankers, the stock exchange, the real estate market and the hedge fund people, mortgage lenders and the manufacturing base (Automobile manufacturers and the defense industry).
Let’s take a look at campaign financing. Obama raised $745 million, McCain raised $368 million.
Finance, Insurance & Real Estate: $130,634,154 Total. Democrats $69,987,307 GOP: $60,525,764
Total Individuals PAC’S To Democrats To Republicans
2008 $468,809,924 $396,331,007 $72,478,917 $238,597, 503 $229,267,201
Securities and Investments
Total Individuals PAC’S To Dems To Republicans
2008 $154,918,793 $143,495,995 $11,422,798 $87,965,961 $66,736,485
When it comes to influence, the average American has very little. It’s amazing when you consider how the political parties package their candidates. They use the oldest trick in the book to win elections. Divide and conquer. Left, right, rich poor, black, white, legal, illegal, it’s all a ruse.
The hot-button issues still resonate; abortion, gay and lesbian, health care, education and taxes and the all-important “national security” as if Venezuela were to suddenly invade the Gulf of Mexico with help from Bolivia.
Our lawmakers have broken the backs of the Unions. They pass agricultural laws that drive independent farmers out of business because the costs of doing business have become astronomical. Meanwhile fear-mongers and ideologues such as Rush Limbaugh claim that Obama is practicing some new variation of “socialism” that has allowed corporations to return to the era of monopolies. Standard Oil, AT&T and big Pharmaceutical companies merged with their competitors and drove smaller operations out of business.
Our nation is continuously at war. The War on Drugs, the War on Crime, the War on Terrorism and the War on Climate Change challenge our resources so that we now fight wars for these resources. We celebrate our freedom while our phones are being tapped, our e-mails read and collected, our computer keystrokes are recorded and plans for an RFID chip in a National ID card are being planned.
These are not right or left issues or liberal/conservative issues. Until 2008 the Republicans spent money like drunken sailors on liberty, now the Democrats find themselves buying American auto manufacturers and controlling interests in banks and insurance companies. We buy American dollars from the Rothschild’s and the Mellon’s and the Rockefellers at interest through private banker that have the audacity to call themselves “The Federal Reserve” We cannot print our own national currency; this was a primary reason we fought to free ourselves from Great Britain. Our money comes pre-packaged with debt attached.
Congress denies legislation for Americans so that they may stay in their homes while authorizing 80 million in additional funds so that we can continue to send unmanned drones into Pakistan to bring death from the sky blasting suspected Taliban forces that turn out to be wedding parties and picnics.
Our “Shining City on a Hill” has caused more than one million dead Iraqi’s and over four million refugees. Our thousand points of light are actually depleted uranium projectiles that emit alpha radiation that bring death in the form of fission and birth defects to Iraqi children Along ken strands of DNA in our soldiers that bring deformities to American children. A thousand points of light in the form of white phosphorus that when burning, doesn’t stop until it has burned through flesh and bone until it lands on dirt.
We watch as American and NATO troops take the Helmand Provence in Southern Afghanistan that will be used for the all important oil pipeline that was planned by UnoCal years ago when President Karzai, the Afghan leader worked for the American oil company. Now we have permission the fly over Russia to resupply Afghanistan with soldiers and instruments of war while the Russians sit back and watch our people die.
The American people are slowly realizing that we have traded one war-monger for another. Once we were in Afghanistan to fight al Qaeda, now we are trying to kill the Taliban. In reality we are killing anyone that stops us from building that oil pipeline.
Almost a decade ago we saw a candidate tout “compassionate conservatism”. Nothing was further from the truth. Now we have a President that speaks of “change”. The only change I see is a different battlefield for people to die.
