Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made The Rich Richer And Turned Its Back On The Middle Class (ie Shit On Everyone Else)
I don't make any money recommending books and I don't particularly find hawking them relevant to any discourse on here. I have mentioned a couple of books I have read because they played into our themes. Winner-Take-All Politics is a newly-released book I plan to read because I know how important the 1970s were to the destruction of America. (By the way, if you want to read another horrific book on Washington power and corruption driven by neoliberal ideology, including using our military to enforce the will of some bizarre cult-like interpretation of Christianity, read The Family - The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. The author wrote this book from the inside of this political cult in Washington started in the 1930s known within its circles as the Family. A lot of extremist neoliberal Democrat and Republican politicians and lobbyists belong to this cult. And it is a cult. The book is taken from a direct account and is frightening on may levels. Many of our politicians are radical extremists hell bent on destroying the world. Not to burst your bubble about how morally-pure politicians are. I would highly recommend it.)
The general premise of Winner-Take-All Politics is that our government has been hijacked by the very rich. One area I want to focus on is their investigatory work that shows how the very rich began to mobilize against democracy in the 1970s. Because this aligns with some of my investigative analysis that we have briefly mentioned. That is, that economic activity within the United States peaked in the late 1970s to around 1980.
One result of this 1970s mobilization against democracy is that lobbyist numbers grew by nearly 1,000 percent during that period of time as the very rich pooled their resources to turn our politicians into a bunch of bought and paid for corrupt stooges. And it was this organization of the very rich which led to the successes, starting in the 1980s, of the modern-day neoliberal Republican party and its supportive Washington think tanks. Eventually to compete with such power and corruption, the followed suit and catered to corporations and the very rich. So, now we are left with a completely corrupt Washington which does no will of anyone other than those with deep pockets. We know lobbyists corrupt because they are peddling power for sale. Studies have confirmed policies supported by massive lobbyist spending has as much as a 3oo% greater likelihood of passing. Washington political idiots are selling out our country. China, Myanmar, banksters, corporations, billionaires. It matters not as long as you've got the dough.
If you understand this dynamic, you understand what types of wonderful gifts the very rich have brought us. A few examples are corporate welfare, "free markets", "free trade", endless wars through the assertion of American power, neofeudalistic economics, trickle down economics, Reaganomics, Clintonomics, corporate fascism, the reliance of citizens on government handouts, the destruction of the middle class, the destruction of pensions, the outsourcing of tens of millions of jobs so the very rich could keep more of the national income, endless banking corruption, dismantling of our food safety standards, the Internet bubble, the current lobbyist bubble, the radicalization of our military-industrial complex, the dismantling of the rule of law and on and on and on. Their evil scams are endless. By the way, they also brought us the Federal Reserve and the associated income tax in 1913. Debt-based money needs an income tax to back it and passage of both in 1913 is no coincidence to anyone who understands monetary economics or its history.
This dynamic is how Bill Clinton and Algore made $300 million dollars after leaving the White House. By doing special favors for the very rich. Still believe in anthropogenic global warming? Believe much of anything the media tells you? And now the very rich are backing the Tea Party and trying to turn it from a grass roots revolt against Washington into a movement which serves their own interests so that they can now keep all of the money they have stolen from society. And, indeed the vast majority of it was stolen via wealth transfer.
None of this is really anything new. It's the age old battle of good versus evil. The greatest evil which threatens our country resides within its borders. But our founding fathers told us this might happen. And so did many after them including Presidents Eisenhower, both Roosevelts, Jackson and Kennedy. And let's be honest with ourselves and drop the ridiculous belief that the mega rich in America are somehow different and that they care about democracy or you or me. There has never been any evidence of this. Once they got their way, they have ruthlessly butchered this country and its rule of law more than once.
These people working outside of the view of democracy truly are evil. It is a class of people who seek to subvert democracy and our government for their own personal power, just as happened in Rome and thousands of other cases throughout human history. In the process, the modern day incarnation here in America has literally destroyed millions of people's economic lives. They have caused countless thousands upon thousands of deaths through the distortion of the affordability of health care and the denial of it to countless Americans. I could cite example after example of how this dynamic has had a profoundly disruptive and cruel effect on freedoms and democracy. Evil must be recognized as evil. This isn't just greed or capitalism. The vast majority of us have relied on capitalism to serve food on our table and we never resorted to these tactics. This is pure evil. It is the ruthless treatment of human beings as objects without empathy or concern for their well-being of any kind. That is the very evil that has been estimated to have killed over a billion human beings since records of heinous atrocities have been kept. These people have done much more damage to our country than any political or military enemy of the United States. And, in fact, they have created many of the enemies of the United States though Blowback of America's neoliberal foreign and military policy. Here and here.
How often have we written that economic activity in the United States peaked around 1980? It is no coincidence that this book is confirming my quantitative analysis of economic facts and history. And, yes it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. If you live in Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburg or any of the thousands of smaller cities and towns in the industrial belt, none of this is a surprise because you have lived it. Interestingly, if we apply economic value to equity markets, does that mean we could actually see a worst case scenario where stock markets return to levels not seen since the 1970s? I don't believe so but then much relies on future events. No one really knows but I would not consider it completely impossible.
The very rich are almost always driven by the god of power and megalomaniacal ego. It is the very rich which is always the source of class warfare. Always. Endlessly. Without exception. It would be a great paradox to ever be anything else. Because their ego serves the god of power and will do almost anything to anyone to achieve it. One cannot serve two masters. One either serves power or democracy. One cannot serve good and evil. The ego either serves the intent to control or the intent of truth.
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it. " -- John Dalberg-Acton
The world is seldom as it seems. Much of what we read in the mainstream media is the very rich or power-seeking attempting to influence or manipulate our view of the world. That is either via some type of ad hominem attacks or hyperbole to divert attention from the real issues at hand or outright distortions of the truth. Newt Gingrich is one who comes to mind in today's ad hominem attacks on our President. Yet it was Gingrich who is substantially complicit in destroying America. Our current President inherited Gingrich's mess. That said, he really hasn't done anything but make it worse.
"Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Lobbying, corporate personhood, privately funded political campaigns, secret meetings with our politicians, secret government and all of the other smarmy anti-democratic corruption in Washington must be eradicated to restore our country to its greatness. It's time to vote all of them out. And the two party system with them. We need transformative change from real democratic leadership. That is, we need leadership provided by We the People.
Title link also here.
The general premise of Winner-Take-All Politics is that our government has been hijacked by the very rich. One area I want to focus on is their investigatory work that shows how the very rich began to mobilize against democracy in the 1970s. Because this aligns with some of my investigative analysis that we have briefly mentioned. That is, that economic activity within the United States peaked in the late 1970s to around 1980.
One result of this 1970s mobilization against democracy is that lobbyist numbers grew by nearly 1,000 percent during that period of time as the very rich pooled their resources to turn our politicians into a bunch of bought and paid for corrupt stooges. And it was this organization of the very rich which led to the successes, starting in the 1980s, of the modern-day neoliberal Republican party and its supportive Washington think tanks. Eventually to compete with such power and corruption, the followed suit and catered to corporations and the very rich. So, now we are left with a completely corrupt Washington which does no will of anyone other than those with deep pockets. We know lobbyists corrupt because they are peddling power for sale. Studies have confirmed policies supported by massive lobbyist spending has as much as a 3oo% greater likelihood of passing. Washington political idiots are selling out our country. China, Myanmar, banksters, corporations, billionaires. It matters not as long as you've got the dough.
If you understand this dynamic, you understand what types of wonderful gifts the very rich have brought us. A few examples are corporate welfare, "free markets", "free trade", endless wars through the assertion of American power, neofeudalistic economics, trickle down economics, Reaganomics, Clintonomics, corporate fascism, the reliance of citizens on government handouts, the destruction of the middle class, the destruction of pensions, the outsourcing of tens of millions of jobs so the very rich could keep more of the national income, endless banking corruption, dismantling of our food safety standards, the Internet bubble, the current lobbyist bubble, the radicalization of our military-industrial complex, the dismantling of the rule of law and on and on and on. Their evil scams are endless. By the way, they also brought us the Federal Reserve and the associated income tax in 1913. Debt-based money needs an income tax to back it and passage of both in 1913 is no coincidence to anyone who understands monetary economics or its history.
This dynamic is how Bill Clinton and Algore made $300 million dollars after leaving the White House. By doing special favors for the very rich. Still believe in anthropogenic global warming? Believe much of anything the media tells you? And now the very rich are backing the Tea Party and trying to turn it from a grass roots revolt against Washington into a movement which serves their own interests so that they can now keep all of the money they have stolen from society. And, indeed the vast majority of it was stolen via wealth transfer.
None of this is really anything new. It's the age old battle of good versus evil. The greatest evil which threatens our country resides within its borders. But our founding fathers told us this might happen. And so did many after them including Presidents Eisenhower, both Roosevelts, Jackson and Kennedy. And let's be honest with ourselves and drop the ridiculous belief that the mega rich in America are somehow different and that they care about democracy or you or me. There has never been any evidence of this. Once they got their way, they have ruthlessly butchered this country and its rule of law more than once.
These people working outside of the view of democracy truly are evil. It is a class of people who seek to subvert democracy and our government for their own personal power, just as happened in Rome and thousands of other cases throughout human history. In the process, the modern day incarnation here in America has literally destroyed millions of people's economic lives. They have caused countless thousands upon thousands of deaths through the distortion of the affordability of health care and the denial of it to countless Americans. I could cite example after example of how this dynamic has had a profoundly disruptive and cruel effect on freedoms and democracy. Evil must be recognized as evil. This isn't just greed or capitalism. The vast majority of us have relied on capitalism to serve food on our table and we never resorted to these tactics. This is pure evil. It is the ruthless treatment of human beings as objects without empathy or concern for their well-being of any kind. That is the very evil that has been estimated to have killed over a billion human beings since records of heinous atrocities have been kept. These people have done much more damage to our country than any political or military enemy of the United States. And, in fact, they have created many of the enemies of the United States though Blowback of America's neoliberal foreign and military policy. Here and here.
How often have we written that economic activity in the United States peaked around 1980? It is no coincidence that this book is confirming my quantitative analysis of economic facts and history. And, yes it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. If you live in Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburg or any of the thousands of smaller cities and towns in the industrial belt, none of this is a surprise because you have lived it. Interestingly, if we apply economic value to equity markets, does that mean we could actually see a worst case scenario where stock markets return to levels not seen since the 1970s? I don't believe so but then much relies on future events. No one really knows but I would not consider it completely impossible.
The very rich are almost always driven by the god of power and megalomaniacal ego. It is the very rich which is always the source of class warfare. Always. Endlessly. Without exception. It would be a great paradox to ever be anything else. Because their ego serves the god of power and will do almost anything to anyone to achieve it. One cannot serve two masters. One either serves power or democracy. One cannot serve good and evil. The ego either serves the intent to control or the intent of truth.
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it. " -- John Dalberg-Acton
The world is seldom as it seems. Much of what we read in the mainstream media is the very rich or power-seeking attempting to influence or manipulate our view of the world. That is either via some type of ad hominem attacks or hyperbole to divert attention from the real issues at hand or outright distortions of the truth. Newt Gingrich is one who comes to mind in today's ad hominem attacks on our President. Yet it was Gingrich who is substantially complicit in destroying America. Our current President inherited Gingrich's mess. That said, he really hasn't done anything but make it worse.
"Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Lobbying, corporate personhood, privately funded political campaigns, secret meetings with our politicians, secret government and all of the other smarmy anti-democratic corruption in Washington must be eradicated to restore our country to its greatness. It's time to vote all of them out. And the two party system with them. We need transformative change from real democratic leadership. That is, we need leadership provided by We the People.
Title link also here.
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