What has happened in reality is that the very rich and powerful have become very much more rich and powerful while the rest of us have barely held our ground or fallen behind economically. Since they substantially control the media through which we receive our information through both ownership and advertising, they continue to do everything in their power to convince us that allowing them to amass wealth and control the processes of both the economy and our government is the only way things will work well. All evidence shows the exact opposite to be true.
They tell us if things are not working well, it's because the government is interfering in the process or because taxes are too high and robbing the economy of initiative and investment capital. They call it socialist, communist, facist. They are calling Obama an elitist and neo-monarchist. This is name calling and designed to induce fear. It is a tactic used by those who cannot win a rational argument. In fact it is they who consolidate control themselves in ways that defy our democratic principles. The history of religion shows this to be a [false] belief system which has been used with only minor changes in language to control society for over 5,000 years. "Belief" is much easier and cheaper than force of arms to keep society subdued.
If you really look, you will see that the real problem is the corrupting control of government by big money interests, not government per se. What are a few examples? Do you know that the first third of the money we pay in medical insurance premiums are spent on finding ways to deny the coverage we paid them to insure? In effect, we are paying them NOT to cover us. They are spending our own premium money to disallow the coverage we bought. This money they are taking away from us is enough money to pay for the health care of the uninsured! Those numbers are well established facts if you do your research, but, of course, that's not what we normally hear in our media. Does anything smell fishy about that to you? Unfortunately, this type of story is not the exception, it is the rule of how things work when selfish interests are allowed to control both the information and the process.
Or how about using $ millions in campaign contributions enabled the drug companies "convince" [bribe] Congress to write so-called "reform legislation" which forbids the government from negotiating the price they charge us to be as good or better than the price they charge in other countries? That's called reform? Is government to blame? Or is the ability of drug companies to buy the process through unlimited campaign contributions to blame? There's no doubt in my mind.
Did you see Erin Brockovich and how Pacific Gas and Electric knowingly poisoned the ground water and who hired a host of lawyers to deny any responsibility while people got sick and died? It's a true story you know. And industry interests tell us that the Environmental Protection Agency is bad and needs to be limited or eliminated. They tell us that people like this who are sick and dying due to PGE's actions are driving up the cost of everything by their "frivolous" lawsuits. Yes, some suits are, but many if not most are redress of real injuries, and if we ever limit the courts from pursuing our protection from corporate abuses, God help us.
These abuses are not the result of governmental regulation. They are the result of bad or no regulation coupled with corporate malfeasance and greed. They are the result of the lack of regulations which protect us. For many years Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, was one of the strongest advocates of low taxes, deregulation and the ability of the free market to police itself of abuse. He has now changed his mind and is speaking out. He fully admits that he was wrong about all of these points particularly regarding the deregulation of the financial institutions.
Regulation came into being during the Great Depression which made things so bad that our government was finally able to limit the extreme abuses of giant corporations. The Glass Steagall Act of 1933 protected us for half a century from high risk financial instruments which are not much more than scams. In the 1980s greedy business interests were able to remove the regulatory limits which allowed them to create the the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980-90s, the Enrons, the toxic mortgages, the virtual cons which came to be called derivatives, the huge "profits" resulting in usurious salaries, benefits and bonuses going to those who created the economic crisis we face today.
The problem is not big government. It's unrestricted big business operating under the sole principle of "profit motive" while ignoring all moral responsibility for the damage they have done to the rest of us and our environment. While we lost our homes, our jobs, our retirement accounts,...while tax dollars bailed out their companies that failed because of their high risk gambles they made -- not with their own money, but with ours,...after they received our bail out, they turned around and gave themselves those $20 million bonuses again. Again we are told the problem is government. No, it was government controlled by greedy business interests which made us believe that they were too large, too important to fail. It's a lie.
Do we need schools? Do we need roads and bridges and airports and air traffic controllers? Do we need police and fire protection? Do we need environmental protection for our air, water and land? Libraries? FDA? CDC? The protection of laws and courts to enforce them? FDIC insured investments? Protection from unfair labor practices -- sweatshops, child labor or slave labor, health and safety on the job? Do we need Medicare and our Social Security retirement programs and the taxes to fund them? Then we need government. Government is not bad. [This is not to say that we don't need to ferret out real waste and abuse. We should and must, but that is an entirely separable issue. Most of these abuses are not intrinsically the fault of government, but because private interests have been able to distort the government in ways that serve their private interests.]
We are told that we can't afford the governmental programs because of the growing debt. No, we can't afford all these things because the very rich are paying historically low tax rates while the rates for the rest of us have remained level or gone up. We really do need many if not most of our government programs and we need the taxes to pay for them. And we need those who can most afford to pay taxes to pay their fair share. If we still had the tax rates in effect in the 1940-50, we would have something like an additional $2 trillion per year in the federal treasury -- enough to put the budget in the black and to begin to pay down the deficit, fund Social Security and all those other things our government "wastes money" on.
While taxes were high [going up to 94% as opposed to only 35% today], the economy grew, there was no lack of motivation or creativity or investment capital, the middle class grew, savings grew, people could afford homes, education, cars, health care... For over a half century taxes were nearly double today's rates for the most wealthy; things worked; and, no, we didn't become communist. The ideas that government and taxes are bad are all a tactic based on fear which keep us from seeing what the real problem is: the extreme greed of the very wealthy and how that warps everything else. This corruption of our society only continues because we believe what they teach us.
No, the problem is not government; it's government controlled by and serving the very wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. This idea is not socialism or communism. That notion is all a con. The answer to most of our problems is not less government; it's working to make sure the very democracy, the government of, by and for the people that the founders of our nation established is alive and well today. It's not working for less government; it's working for GOOD government. Will our government serve and protect us, or will it serve and protect the ability of the wealthy to take the lion's share off the top without regard to the rest of us? Which do you prefer? Which is the true foundation of our great nation? Which is the basis of the society which five centuries of our fore bearers fought to gain for us?
Since the dawn of civilization the very rich and powerful have done everything they can to convince the rest of us that we should trust them,...that they know what they are doing,...that things will fall apart unless we let them control the process,...that they deserve their wealth and power,...that they earn it through their intelligence and hard work [as if they are the only contributors to our economy and the only ones worthy or rewards],...some go so far as to claim that their wealth and power are a sign of God's blessing and that if we don't share in the blessing it is because we are not worthy. If you read the Old Testament prophets or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, it is clear that status, wealth, and power are the antithesis of the Bible teachings. "Woe unto you, you Scribes, you Pharisees, you hypocrites..." But it amazes me how many people who say they think the Bible is the unerring Word of God believe it justifies economic injustice, that it does not demand taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves...
Since the end of the Dark Ages, the western democracies have struggled against what was then called "the divine right of kings and nobles," or today is what amounts to the "divine right of profit." It's all the same thing. It's all a belief system and a carefully crafted lie they perpetrate that allows them to continue their strangle hold over everything without opposition. It's time to end this fiction. It's time to see that the "emperor has no clothes." It's time to see that the ultra-rich who are driven by greed should be the last people on earth we should trust with the power to control our economy and government. It's time to take back the power that rightfully belongs in the hands of the citizens of our great country, not in the hands of those who abuse it.
Contact us: wedonthavefreespeech@outlook.com
p.s. If
you want to read or share our complete introductory series and other blog posts
about this and other issues, see our Annotated Table of Contents below. Or if you have questions or comments,
email us.
Annotated Table of Contents
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/sign-the-pledge-big-out?source=c.em&r_by=14960502
Insist candidates vote for a single act of Congress
stating: “There is no relationship between speech and money stated or implied
in the US Constitution and therefore no such relationship exists” as the basis
of further reforms to limit the abuses of Big Money interests.
Best summary of the proposed “Recover our Democracy Act;”
its Constitutional basis; removing purported legal objections, public financing
of elections, limits on campaign contributions, public funding of federal
elections, preprogrammed campaign website, redefining a bribe and much more
Cut and paste text to share by electronic media to spread
the word on our plan
Our appointment being ignored while lobbyists immediately enter
our Congressman’s office
Being on the outside: Explaining the meaning of our logo…the
corrupting influence of Big Money
Political contributions, Citizens United Supreme Court
Decision, “We don’t
have free speech. We can’t afford it,” our
solution is an act of Congress,
“Backdoor money in politics, quid pro quo, “anything of material value
offered or given to, or received and accepted by any candidate, incumbent or
governmental employee under any circumstance shall be defined as a bribe,” penalties defined for candidates and government
employees.
Our early commentaries: Free speech is fundamental to
democracy, different views, uses and limitations of free speech, public
financing of elections, fair and balanced media coverage
Original free speech: freedom to speak our mind, power
to “buy” both the “content” and the “delivery” of “free” speech, "personhood" of corporations,
Supreme Court and Citizens United,
ownership of the media, points of view, political advertising, educational content,
bought speech,…
Trickle down economics, tax reductions, income disparity,
deregulation, power by changing belief systems, abuses, distortions and lies, is
it regulation or just bad regulation?, affording governmental programs and high
taxes, millennia of struggle by the rich to retain control vs. democracy,
85% of Democrats, 81% of Independents, and 76% of Republicans opposed
Citizens United
Humans speaking their mind
without fear, means of extending the reach of speech [meida], bought speech,
literally “free” speech decoupled from money, power of the media, corporate personhood,
limitations of free speech, campaigns and political speech, alternative communications
for elections: public financing, freedom of the Internet….
Figures on campaign
contributions given by largest lobbying corporations [6+ years old = pre Supepr
PACs]
One of our earliest posts:We don't have free speech
that has meaningful access to our own representatives. Our logo, our slogan, our chants, young adults, spreading
the word on the Internet, Obama’s election, making videos,
Largely unedited, free associated ideas on framing the legislation
Free public website designed
and formatted to conduct campaigns for office and public issues , FEC provided
bank account, and credit cards , campaign accounting system and
regulations, partial design specifications, real time public review access…
…the most logical
public space to allow the free flow of information on issues of public interest
“understanding the
power of corporations as a means of amassing power and money, the founding
fathers originally rejected the existence of corporations,” corporations
are not mentioned in the Constitution and have no protected rights; therefore,
Congress may limit or abolish corporations as deemed necessary for the public
good. Growth of corporate power, personhood of corporations and personal rights
attributed to corporations , theory of 14th amendment [due process]
applies to corporations,
No comments:
Post a Comment