Over the years I’ve been writing in this “blog” I’ve read many many books about the inner workings of the United States government, mostly over the past 30 years (although I love to read about US history in general), and the more I read the more I realize how corrupted our government has become by the selfish interests of the corporate elite in America who are buying favors in Washington DC.  I knew it was farcical when the governor of Michigan (I think), one of the new breed of right wing governors who are going after collective bargaining rights of workers  state by state, called teachers members of “America’s elite.” (I’m a teacher)  And, I’ve been fully aware of the republican party’s “buy in” of Joseph Goebbels’ “big lie theory,” and the propaganda war they’ve been waging – I just didn’t know, until it’s been sinking in recently, how ingrained this propaganda has been during my lifetime and how difficult it’s going to be to overcome the damage.  I’m reading the sequel to “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins, I just finished “Vulture’s Picnic” by Greg Palast, I’ve read “The Wrecking Crew” by Thomas Franks, “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein, “The Family” by Jeff Sharlett, and “The Family of Secrets” by (I can’t remember the author’s name – it’s on my Nook), and many more books that ALL give the same picture.

There is a conspiracy of true “elitists” in America who are essentially “calling the shots.”  They are the “power brokers” at the head of what was once America’s corporate empire (imagine them referring to me as “elite”), but has evolved into a multinational corporate empire.  They have gained control of the inner workings of America’s government to the point where the “game” is so heavily tilted toward the “rich” that it’s just a matter of time, in my opinion, until “we the people” revolt.  In fact, that revolt appears to me to be in its initial stages as I’m writing this.  What should be a “wake up” to most Americans is that many people in the “rest of the world” are much more aware of the injustices of these corporations than America’s own public (because of the propaganda, which really seems to me at the brainwashing stage).  The thoughts that have struck me the most vividly in my recent readings are that, despite my continued DISDAIN for republicans (and justified, I might add), the evidence suggests that democrats have played a HUGE part in the deterioration of America’s middle class (and the middle class in untold numbers of nations around the world).

Many on the democratic “side of the isle” in American politics (including me on occasion) refer back to the administration of Bill Clinton as a success because during his eight years in office the American budget was turned from a HUGE deficit into a SIGNIFICANT surplus – with many (including me) expecting that surplus to be used to reduce the national debt.  Of course, that was not to be – but, is also a story for another day – what most democrats refuse to discuss are some of the decisions made during the Clinton presidency which have proven to be “game changers” in the “corporatocracy’s” assault on the middle class.  The best analogy I can think of is football – when the offensive line clears a hole “you could drive a truck through” – which is what the Clinton administration did for this corporate cabal which is attempting to control EVERYTHING!

What most people would refer to, should this subject come up, would be NAFTA and GATT – the “free trade” agreements which have subsequently been blamed for the departure of much of America’s manufacturing base to countries where labor can be found for next to nothing.  Workers in inhumane conditions working endless hours for pennies on the dollar compared to American workers and in an environment where there are no benefits to be paid by the corporations to the workers.  In fact, the only benefits involved seem to be the ones the corporations receive from the locations where they move their factories along with their ability to avoid the American tax code.  (Many of these corporate executives are the same people who are complaining about America’s national debt problem!)  As I see it, this is a very significant issue which has decimated many in America’s middle class by taking jobs they’ve held for years and essentially moving them outside our borders in an attempt to increase “shareholder value” AND corporate executive salaries and bonuses.  These trade agreements have played a large role in the now apparently accepted mentality that shareholders are more important than workers and that there is no such thing as excessive compensation for corporate executives.

That’s the most obvious of the, what I call, “foopahs” of the Clinton administration.  But, there’s a couple others that I believe might play an even larger role in the corporate takeover of America’s political process.  First was the Telecommunications Act of 1996.  At the time of this bill there were many thousands of small, medium, and large broadcast media outlets in America, with a somewhat thriving print media was well.  Now, I realize that the internet has had a profound effect on the print media, but the bottom line for me is that America’s newspapers were considered by the founders of our nation as the “Fourth Estate.”  That meant the fourth branch of government, the “connection” to the people which was supposed to keep us “informed” as to what is going on in the halls of Congress, the White House, and the court system.  Well, the newspapers have been dropping like flies since that date AND they have seen a contraction of ownership with the ability of people like Rupert Murdoch to gain a huge market share by buying up the competition.  I’m not a fan of the Wall Street Journal (I’ve subscribed to it occasionally over the years), but when I saw that Murdoch had been allowed to purchase it I could do no more than shake my head in disbelief.  What is this country coming to?  The man has proven himself to be a partisan through his political donations and through his other media outlets (especially “Fox news” which should be titled “GOP news”) and, I was convinced that the government would not allow one person to control so much of our media – yet, it was approved with nary a whimper.  I believe that over 90% of America’s media outlets are controlled by less than 10 corporations who are all led by republicans – hence our “liberal media” – this is the foundation of the great propaganda “machine” they’ve created.  And, trying to reverse this trend is like asking the fox to watch over the hen house – not an appealing proposition!

Yes, there’s another “foopah”  that I don’t think gets the amount of attention it should – mainly because the republicans are TOTALLY pleased by the results (they were actually very supportive of this one – and, I’m sure the others as well – so much for bipartisanship) and, I’m guessing, that the democrats would prefer to allow people to believe this was ALL the fault of republicans – and, that’s the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act.  If you’re not aware of what “Glass Steagall” is, it’s the name associated with a bill passed during the thirties under FDR (Glass and Steagall were the co sponsors of the bill) which essentially prevented the banks from becoming “too big to fail.”  That is, banks that were taking money from depositors (which was guaranteed against loss by the federal government) were not allowed to combine with Wall Street investment banks and they were also not allowed to combine with Insurance companies.  Three of the PRIME instigators of this “repeal” were Robert Rubin (then Clinton’s Treasury Secretary), Larry Summers (a Goldman Sachs big-shot and Clinton economic adviser and later Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser), and Timothy Geithner (another Goldman protegee, then assistant Treasury Secretary under Clinton, and now Treasury Secretary under Obama). It was Obama’s choice of Summers and Geithner that was one of my first “red flags” as I realized President Obama was not going to be the “change agent” I had understood him to be during his election.

It’s true these three worked in coordination with republican senator Phil Gramm to get this through, but the end result is probably not something democrats will be “crowing” about anytime soon.  You see, democrats (and, despite my “independent status” myself included) like to point out all the conflicts of interest that have devastating after effects on the general public and are done by republicans.  However, the repeal of Glass Steagall allowed Citigroup to become a HUGE conglomerate of insurance companies, banks, and investment houses (to give just one example) and one of the leading causes of the 2008 national economic collapse along with a chief recipient of the HATED TARP bailout orchestrated by Hank Paulsen (another Goldman Sachs protegee and CEO).  The sad reality is that Rubin, Summers, and Geithner went from the Clinton administration to key Wall Street positions and helped to create the aforementioned collapse.  Rubin is, to me, one of the worst examples of what’s wrong with our government and it’s ties to the corporatocracy.  He went from his position as Treasury Secretary (Glass Steagall was repealed in the final year of Clinton’s presidency)  to chairman of Citigroup with an ultimate payoff in the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars! (Rubin, Summers, Geithner, Paulsen ALL have a common “thread” which is Goldman Sachs!)

This should be evidence enough to cause people who are planning to support democrats in 2012 (including me) pause to think about how to go about this.  But there’s more – which only helps me to understand how deep this corporate infiltration of our government has gone (and, I encourage you to read any of the books I listed above if you haven’t already done so – there’s some “eye popping” information in them).  And, the really sad part for me – because I so enthusiastically endorsed Obama in 2008 and so much want him to SUCCEED – is there’s a plethora of evidence that President Obama’s administration is going along with much of the “coolaid” that I would certainly expect him to oppose.  (I’m only going to give a couple examples, but I believe Palast’s “Vulture’s Picnic” should be required reading for all American adults of voting age)

I’d start with the connections to Wall Street (Summers and Geithner among others) but let’s take a look at “big oil.”  Do you remember the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a couple of years ago?  The so-called Deepwater Horizon oil spill?  If you want to get to the “truth” as to what happened there and the “truth” about BP – read Palast’s book mentioned above.  What’s significant to me is that a common thread among all these books is the willingness – in fact eagerness – of the big oil companies, with BP being possibly the worst offender – to essentially rape societies of their natural resources in such an arrogant way that I believe history will look upon them as the perpetrators of evil.  I don’t have space to go into the details, but when President Obama “negotiated” the apparent $20 BILLION dollar fund from BP to pay off the Gulf Coast people damaged by their negligent (probably criminal) behavior in the Gulf he chose Kenneth Feinberg as the administrater.  This man came with a “track record” of being “pro BP” in this case – based on his previous work – again, read “Vulture’s Picnic” if you want the details.  Palast estimates that Feinberg will minimize, by BILLIONS, the amount of money BP ultimately pays for destroying the Gulf of Mexico and essentially murdering 11 of their employees.  He will make it as difficult as possible for people who claim damages to collect and will use their desperation against them in the negotiating process to reduce BP’s exposure to their claims.  Just as many are wondering why no one has gone to jail for the Wall Street fiasco and the crimes of the Bush administration, well you can add the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to that list.

There’s another indication of Obama’s connection to the large corporate interests in his willingness to approve Nuclear Power plants despite ALL the evidence about their safety issues.  Palast uncovered some interesting evidence that you’ll find nowhere else about the power plants that teetered on the verge of meltdown in Japan following the earthquake there and Obama’s administration has approved government loan guarantees in the tens of BILLIONS for a couple plants in the South that could receive funding NO OTHER way because the “real” financial market wouldn’t touch a nuclear power plant with “a ten foot pole.”  As with many of the projects the U.S. has been funding over the previous 30 plus years, both in this country and around the world, the real purpose of the money is to pad the pockets of America’s largest corporations (many of which are now owned by foreigners to different levels).   Keep in mind one of Obama’s chief economic advisers is the CEO of GE, a major “player” in the construction of nuclear power facilities.

Republicans continue to “bash” Obama for “tearing down” our military, while we continue to spend hundreds of BILLIONS on defense related projects that are essentially useless.  That is the one manufacturing sector we have kept in this nation – defense spending.  The reality is that defense related spending has increased at the usual rate under President Obama.  President Eisenhower’s warnings about the military industrial complex have come true – and that seems to be an area where there’s bipartisan agreement – spending this nation’s wealth on the military while the roads, bridges, schools, etc. are crumbling and people are suffering from a HUGE jobs crisis.

I’m trying to stay “upbeat” and I’m planning on supporting and voting for President Obama (can you actually believe the alternative?) – and, voting against EVERY republican I have the opportunity to do so – but for the long term, I’m going to support movements like the recall Scott Walker movement in Wisconsin (that’s presently where what little money I have is going), candidates like Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts,  Alan Grayson in Florida, and Dennis Kucinich in Ohio.  Progressive activists that “tell it like it is.”  I’m too old and broken down to physically join the “Occupy” movement, but I can tell you, from what I’ve heard from their leaders, I’m all in with their movement as well – I hope it springs forth with “vigor” (in the words of Teddy Kennedy) next spring (no pun intended :o).

The real truth is that I continue to hope that members of the democratic party would “snap out of it,” gain some backbone – and, put up a REAL fight for the “change we can believe in.”  I honestly think President Obama was thinking that if we could “go back” to the way it was under Clinton, people would be happy.  I believe the one thing that the populist movement on the “left” agrees with the grassroots “tea baggers” is that we don’t want to go back to “the way it was.”  Well, let me restate that this way; I think we want our leaders to go back to the way it was supposed to be.  Now, there’s plenty of room for disagreement over what that means, but I’m convinced what it doesn’t mean is lobbyists controlling Washington, backroom deals controlling Congress, AND the “Big Lie theory.”  I think there’s millions more Americans besides me who are sick of all the LYING!  America’s “leaders” have been lying so long, they believe their own lies as soon as the words come out of their mouths. It’s time for America’s people to demonstrate to the rest of the world how to reclaim a government gone awry PEACEFULLY.  If President Obama and the democratic party are smart, they’ll join with the people they supposedly represent in order to speed up this process!