Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Video Congress And The Plutocracy Doesn’t Want You To See

In the private sector, corporations typically demand very substantial authority over their employee’s life.   That often involves over their personal lives as well.  And if there is any hint of impropriety or even difficulties in someone’s personal life, the person in question is typically terminated.   We even see silly instances of people being fired for posting personal opinions on their own time of what the corporate authority deems as unacceptable perspectives on sites such as Facebook.   Sometimes the actions may be appropriate.  Sometimes not.  But there is no mediation process able to consider issues with any impartiality other than our often corrupted and wildly expensive court system.  You may believe corporations can do what they wish but I beg to differ.  Corporations exist through the access to society’s resources and society’s capital.   They only exist because society allows them to exist and funds their existence.  And , therefore, they exist to serve society.  I personally believe the corporate state and capitalism has gained well too much authority over democracy in countless areas of our lives.  This is due primarily to deregulation and capitalism run amok.  By the way, for all of you deregulators, as we said on here before, the greatest Republican president of the 20th century and one of our greatest leaders, Teddy Roosevelt,  remarked that unregulated capitalism resulted in tyranny and corruption.  (More specifics about Roosevelt’s views on capitalism are found at the Roosevelt Center and various other journalism sources.

Politicians are held to a very different standard.  A friend sent me this article about Nancy Pelosi’s husband and the appearance of impropriety.  And a loophole that exists within the House that allows that certain impropriety

Additionally, there is the issue that is now rising regarding Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.  And how he failed to report gifts and the fact that his wife is a lobbyist who has accepted nearly a million dollars from an organization whose goal it is to overturn Obama’s health care plan.   Thomas should clearly recuse himself from the Supreme Court on any cases involving  unreported dealings of both he and his wife.   That includes the health care debate.  Links to these stories are here and here.   We most assuredly need to reform the court system and that means life time appointments should be reconsidered.    We need a much more equitable method of selecting judges that reflects democracy rather than serving the monied plutocracy. 

These are but two of countless examples.  The reality is politicians, and mind you the Supreme Court justices are clearly politicians elected by political ideologues, as part of the plutocracy, hold themselves to a different standard than us mere citizens are held to.   They view themselves as above the laws and norms that the rest of us have to adhere to.  Or as we have cited at least a half a dozen times:

"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve. But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime." -- Frederic Bastiat

This is a nice point to put up a video that politicians clearly don’t want anyone to see.  A video that will leave you very disturbed.  Well, maybe I should say even more disturbed than you already are.  

And, while I am at it, I’ll pass along a few reforms that seek to restore virtue to Congress.  Mind you, it should also apply to the Supreme Court and the Executive Branch.  These comments were posted by the nearly 90 year old LuRain Penny, a favorite blogger of a friend of mine.

posted by TimingLogic at 12:30 PM