“P. S. I Love You!”

 

P = Plunder

S = Steal

And yes, the insatiable moguls of the big banks and ravenous Oberführers of the multinational corporations love it!

We're talking about people who don't live and think like most of us.  For these folks, 'more' is never a question.  It's an answer!  The only answer.

When the economy crashed in 2008, largely the result of an orgy of speculation and gross distortion of the investment market by the greed of these banksters and corporate hustlers, they were more than happy to line up to plunder the Federal Reserve to the tune of $16 trillion dollars.  Why not?  Money was like manna falling from the heavens into the accounts of major banks all over the world, so that their addiction to casino capitalism could continue without a pause and set us up for the next catastrophic meltdown.

Besides outright theft of fiat money in the form of capitalization subsidies, at another level the plunder takes the form of a lot of acronyms -- NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP, TTIP, TISA -- and the gutting of any regulatory oversight.  These so-called "free trade" deals just lubricate the wheels for transferring the wealth and political control from the vast majority of citizens -- the ones who actually work a living, producing things of practical value, products which are markedly more substantial and less diabolical than debt leveraging, collateralization, privatization, and monetization -- to the already ultra-wealthy, ultra-powerful elite.

What will they come up with next?

Corporate greed and plutocratic avarice apparently knows no limits.  As if exporting our jobs to sweat shops in China and Bangladesh putting millions of American workers on the streets; gutting our manufacturing base by shuttering 50,000 factories; pursuing hostile takeovers to gain market share and even monopoly control; promoting predatory lending and liars loans to ravage families and small businesses; destroying unions and driving wages down to the point that a person can't survive any longer working a 40-hour work week; yes, as if abusing the enormous resources and financial power of corporations and their brothers in crime, the Wall Street banks, to relegate the average individual during the long working years of his or her life to the status of a serf weren't enough, now the rich are coming after the elderly.  Giving 45 years of your life to serving the "man" no longer means you are allowed to live a decent, comfortable life in your retirement years.  These criminals are now after employee pension funds.  And because any big pile of money is targeted for a P.S. I Love You blitzkrieg, regardless of who it rightfully belongs to, since 1985 using their pay-for-play puppets in Congress they have been raiding the Social Security trust fund.  Did you get that?  TRUST FUND, as in the fund of all of our accumulated contributions toward retirement, set properly aside and protected so that the money would not be used for anything else.  All the money is gone now.  It funded wars, bail-outs, every variety of corporate welfare and fiduciary abuse which has become standard operating procedure. The money the old folks in retirement homes in good faith paid into Social Security over their lives is just another asset for exploitation.

Just so you aren't deluded into thinking that the mountains of money stolen via all of the unprincipled, anti-social, anti-democratic, coldly callous and cruel instruments of wealth extraction the ultra-rich have ruthlessly applied in the past is ever enough, consider this:

Over the past several years, while poverty rates in America continue to increase, while real wages have barely risen and many are forced to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet, using a rather innocent-sounding device called quantitative easing, $3.5 trillion has been created out of thin air and made available to investment banks and our too-big-to-fail menagerie of casino capitalists.

$3,500,000,000,000!

Is there anyone out there who could use $10,000?  How about $1,000?

Actually, $500 would be a big deal for most of us.

Of course, none of the $3.5 trillion trickled down to you and I -- I assume this is not being read by hedge fund CEOs or any other members of the exclusive .1% club -- au contraire! Instead, it trickled up!

A lot of it found its way into offshore accounts and tax havens.

Plundered . . . stolen . . . socked away.

For what?

More yachts?  More vacation homes?  More private jets?

What else can they possibly buy?

Patience now!  Give them time.

Spending trillions of dollars is not easy.

It takes time and energy.

Arrogance and myopia.

Unfeeling and irrepressible selfishness.

A sense of entitlement and a disdain for the less fortunate.

Callousness, irresponsibility and a total lack of decency and compassion.

Fortunately for the rich, they won't have to plunder and steal to get these.

They already have them in great abundance.



[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



“P. S. I Love You!”

Irony Deficiency Anemia

Our government has become oblivious to the ignominious irony of its policies and actions. Therefore, it blunders on, never questioning why often much of what it does produces the very opposite of either its stated or actual intentions.

Without intended irony, it arms the rest of the world to make it safer. Anyone with a checkbook can obtain weaponry from America. The U.S. is by a huge margin the biggest supplier of military hardware to the international community. We are then shocked when these same weapons end up pointing at us, now in the hands of bin Laden, al Qaeda and other militant extremists.

Without intended irony, it incentivizes corporations to export America's jobs, reasoning that the healthier these corporations are, the sounder will be the economy of the country, evidence of spreading poverty and grotesque income inequality be damned. TPP and TTIP are the latest virulent initiatives toward transferring national sovereignty to multinational corporations, strengthening America by draining it of its self-determination and economic vitality. These so-called trade agreements are NAFTA on steroids. We just hope there's an open seat at future Third World economic
conferences and those countries don't despise us for plundering their natural resources all these years.

Without intended irony, the President declares himself the "environmental president" while promoting the greatest surge in domestic oil and gas production in our history, including the use of fracking and opening up vast stretches of pristine land and fragile offshore sites to ruinous exploration and drilling. The U.S. still refuses to sign the Kyoto Treaty, only marginally participates in world conferences on the environment, and most certainly fails to provide much-needed leadership on issues like climate change and the rapid and dramatic decline in the health of the oceans. The only environment we have protected is a business environment which worships plunder for profit.

Without intended irony, America holds itself up as the beacon of democracy in the world while supporting ruthless despots and grotesque tyranny throughout the world, likewise tolerating the corruption of the electoral system in America itself. Welcome to a world where money buys politicians and the voice of the common citizen is silenced both by oligarchical monopoly of the national conversation and voter disenfranchisement.

Without intended irony, the U.S. promotes democracy in the Ukraine by encouraging the overthrow of an elected government and replacing it in a coup with neo-nazi thugs and plutocrats, who then rig the next election which they of course claim validates their rule, then training and supplying the neo-Nazi National Guard with weapons. As we should suspect, this is part of a bigger plan
which has nothing to do with spreading democracy, and in fact reignites
old antagonisms with Russia and puts us all at risk for World War III.
Nice work, eh?

Without intended irony, the U.S. affirms its commitment to ridding the world of nuclear weapons by spending more now on upgrading our existing stockpiles and R&D on new more destructive nuclear devices, than we did at the height of the Cold War.  With over 4,800 nuclear warheads in its current arsenal __ enough to destroy life on Earth many times over __ we negotiate agreements with our allies to expedite the efficient use and deployment of our bulging arsenals of collective mass suicide.

Without intended irony Obama promised to foster transparency in his administration, yet has increased secrecy, prosecuted whistle blowers at a record rate, has fanatically clamped down on leaks, drastically curtailed freedom of the press by attempting to force journalists to reveal their sources, classified more government documents and communications than any president in our history, has overseen massive and intrusive surveillance by the NSA and other national security agencies of innocent Americans, foreign nationals and even heads of state of America's allies, and continues to
expand the capacity of government agencies to unconstitutionally monitor and record every interaction by U.S. citizens.

Without intended irony, it honors its "responsibility to protect" by attacking other nations, killing a lot of innocent people, creating fear and animosity in the rest of the world, and as a result it fails
its responsibility to protect the people it is most responsible for, American citizens. With our cavalier use of military force, we are more feared, resented, despised than ever. Serious blowback is inevitable. How ironic, eh?

Without intended irony, we scold other countries, like Russia and China, for being bullies, while we ignore resolutions and concerted efforts of the United Nations, refuse to join the ICC or acknowledge its legal authority over us, reserve the right to use our military at any time and place of our choosing, skirt the Geneva conventions by using torture, harass and bomb countries we are not at war with using drones and special ops troops, and talk about needed cooperation among members of the international community while economically strangling with sanctions any country which does not bend to our unilateral dictates.

Yes, we fail to see the irony in all of this. We choose to turn a blind eye to the deceptions and self-sabotaging contradictions. This has indeed made our country sick, an anemic and feckless nation of sheeple, vis-a-vis the noble ideals we once held and now unconvincingly espouse. We struggle with buckling knees in an increasingly futile attempt to prop up the political house of cards we've built of self-deception and delusions.

No house of cards can rise forever. The longer we pile rationalizations and faulty logic on imperialistic hubris and sociopathic fantasies, the closer we come to its ultimate collapse.

It's no longer a question of 'if' but 'when'.

It will collapse.

Let's hope it doesn't take the foundations of our once great nation with it and we are still left with something upon which to rebuild.


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

When Hope Becomes Hype

 

I don't hate government.

I don't hate Obama per se.

I am against corruption.

I intensely hate lying.

I especially hate it when campaign promises are made with what I take to
be sincerity and genuine caring, then are with cool dispassion and
complete lack of remorse broken.

Having said that . . .

What happens when hope turns out to be hype?

Here is a sampling of the record of Obama and his administration since he took office:

• Carried out military interventionism in Libya without Congressional approval.
• Gave a no-bid contract to Halliburton cronies – just like Bush did.
• Has an administration full of lobbyists, after promising he wouldn’t have any.
• Has close ties to Wall Street, but pretends to support Main Street.
• Broke his promise to close Guantanamo Bay.
• Instigated conflict in Ukraine, then lied to the American public about it.
• Continues to support with aid and armaments extremist factions of al Qaeda terrorists in Syria.
• Supported the $700 billion TARP corporate-welfare bailout just like Bush.
• Waged the biggest war against medical marijuana of any president, which was the opposite of what he had promised.
• Nominated the six-time tax cheater and Wall Street insider, Timothy
  Geithner, to head the government agency that enforces the tax laws and
  oversees banking policy.
• Gave tax dollars to AIG executives, then pretended to be outraged about it.
• Expanded Bush’s unconstitutional government faith based programs.
• Supported Bush’s unconstitutional Patriot Act, signing NDAA into law New Years Eve 2011.
• Increased the national debt more in one term than Bush did in two, contrary to campaign pledges.
• Continues and defends Bush’s policy of unconstitutional, indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without filing any charges.
• Continues and defends Bush’s policy of unconstitutional, warrantless wiretapping.
• Has avoided prosecution of Wall Street criminals.
• Had four U.S. citizens killed without judicial process.
• Using drones has murdered over 2,000 people, at least a third of which are innocent civilians and include women and children.
• Illegally put thousands of guns into hands of criminals via Operation Fast and Furious.
• Falsely has claimed “This is the most transparent administration in history” when astute observers judge it to be the least.
• Had “off the record” meetings with lobbyists, against his promise to reduce the influence of lobbyists.
• Broke his promise to put health care negotiations on C-SPAN.
• Supported new bailouts for speculators who caused housing bubble.
• Used “off the books” funding for military interventionism, something he was extremely critical of during his first campaign.
• Falsely claimed he would wait five days before signing bills.
• Gave tax dollars to campaign contributors and lobbyists, and falsely claimed the money was for “green energy”.
• Rewarded his fundraisers by giving them federal jobs, after promising “the most sweeping ethics reform in history.”
• Falsely promised “stimulus” spending would be transparent.
• Promised relief from the onerous effects of GATT and NAFTA but now
  is secretly promoting TPP and TTIP,  two of the worst trade agreements
  in history. TPP has been called NAFTA on steroids.
• Allows campaign contributors to give lobbyists access to the White House.
• Falsely has stated his campaigns were not funded by large donors.
• Approved giving 20 F-16 fighter jets to a Sharia dictatorship.
• Has Freedom of Information Act record worse than Bush’s.
• According to Ralph Nader, Obama is a “war criminal” who is “more aggressive, more illegal worldwide” than Bush.
• Nominated Jack Lew to be Secretary of the Treasury, a man who had
  participated in what Obama himself had called “the biggest tax scam on
  record.”
• Purchased 2,717 mine resistant armor protected vehicles for use on civilian streets in the U.S.
• Using the Espionage Act has persecuted numerous whistleblowers.
• Oversees and encourages the spying on U.S. citizens innocent of any
  crime as well as on foreign dignitaries, many of whom are our allies.
• In direct opposition to freedom of the press guaranteed in the
  Constitution, harasses and threatens journalists with prosecution.

If this were the record of a Republican __ a Romney or a McCain __ I would be
angry and very frustrated, but it would hardly come as a surprise.

That this is the record of a man and a political party zealously promoting the
appearance of progressive values, claiming with high rhetoric to have
the welfare of the country and its people at heart, is infuriating. It is a callous and most certainly calculated betrayal.

We were told we were being given hope.

It turned out to be hype.

[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Spreading The Love

                "I'm America's CEO."

In the post-election euphoria, we've been led to believe that President Obama's trip to Asia is about spreading goodwill, creating new friendships, renewing old alliances, and making the world safe for democracy.
It's a charm offensive that's much longer on "offensive" than "charm".

What this trip is actually about is selling TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership" __ "selling" here being the equivalent of jamming a building the size of the New York Federal Reserve between the spread cheeks of the leaders of the countries in this part of the world.

TPP is not exactly popular even in the U.S. In fact, the more people learn about it, the more they realize that it's a Trojan Horse, another so-called trade agreement, which in point of fact mitigates the effectiveness of many environmental and worker-protection laws, compromises the sovereignty of nations, and puts in place yet another powerful mechanism for the already bloated and rich transnational corporations to amass more socially unproductive profits. Encouragingly, more and more people are outraged and speaking out against it. This is predictably being countered by a public relations campaign using our public officials as spokespersons for the transnational corporate elite who are promoting this onerous, ill-conceived weapon of economic destruction.

Don't be fooled by this self-serving and bogus propaganda.

Yesterday, for example, I read an article called Canada Sued under NAFTA for Banning Fracking which tells about an American corporation initiating a lawsuit for damages of $250,000,000. You see, if a business entity feels that the laws of a participating country interfere with their now inalienable rights to exploit that country, NAFTA sanctions "investor-to-state" litigation. In this case, Lone Pine Resources Inc. spent large sums of money securing mining permits, but Quebec Province, where the mining was to take place, later determined that exercising those rights would cause grave environmental damage. NAFTA allows U.S. and Mexican companies to sue the Canadian government if they feel they have been wronged by a government policy or action. This is saying that Lone Pine Resources had no responsibility in determining in advance the environmental impacts of its plans. It can throw money down, then if local authorities discover that their proposed mining will pollute the water, dump toxins in the soil, subject people to carcinogens and other life-threatening chemicals, Lone Pine Resources has to be compensated for their own shortsightedness and stupidity.

As the article goes on to say: "Amazingly, instead of looking for ways to scale back and eliminate the rules in our trade agreements that threaten public interest policies in favor of corporate profits, eleven countries, including the United States and Canada, are currently in the middle of negotiations to expand the NAFTA investment rules in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact."

This is madness!!

TPP is NAFTA on steroids. Yes. Anyone who has looked at this "trade agreement", as its being misrepresented, can see it's nothing but another monstrous assault weapon being handed to transnational corporations to bulk up their bottom line at the expense of just about everything having to do with quality of life __ safety, human rights, worker rights, sustainability, environmental protection. Please! Just read this and this and this, then do your own research. This is not a shades of gray issue. It's black and white, folks.

Let me give a brief example from my own experience.

Japan Post is the postal service here. It is truly amazing in every respect. It's essentially a privatized, public service institution that with scrupulous government oversight, conjoins several organizations to provide a variety of services. At Japan Post, not only can you mail letters, cards, and packages locally and internationally, but you can pay your bills with a fully-functioning cash transfer system, do banking with an ATM machine, secure an entire range of insurance (home, life, auto, accident), purchase gifts, make travel plans and purchase tickets. When I look at the shell of an institution the U.S. Postal Service has become under the relentless assault of private corporations there, it's no contest. It's like comparing a scrub game of neighborhood football to the Superbowl.

The Japanese are furious about TPP. Under TPP, corporations in the U.S. through legal challenges would tear Japan Post apart. They'd claim the panoply of services and the incredibly competent and efficient delivery of those services are "unfair competition".

It's competition alright. It actually works! It provides useful services making the lives of Japanese citizens better and more hassle-free.

This is just one small example. I'm not going to do all of the work for you. Just extrapolate from this, read the recommended articles and imagine what will happen if these countries are "persuaded" __ read that as "coerced" or "bullied" __ into this agreement. America's military and economic power often makes such negotiations a sham. America is good at making less powerful nations an offer they can't refuse.

For those of you who might not have heard, America is a very unpopular country in most of the world. Despite the whitewashed image which is promoted by corporate media in the U.S., anti-Americanism is exponentially on the rise. I have experienced this first hand.

People defensively suggest that I don't love my country. This is both silly and ignorant.

I've always loved and always will love what America represents. I love the energy, the optimism, the whole idea of government of the people, by the people, for the people.

But TPP is not America. Corporation X and Corporation Y just because their registered in Delaware isn't America. The tiny powerful coterie of wealthy elite investors and Wall Street bankers who are turning our government into a puppet show isn't America.

You and I are America __ the people referred to in "of the people, by the people, for the people." We are America.

And no proud, sane, decent American would get behind TPP and the expanding corporate juggernaut that's being done in the name of proud, sane, decent Americans. Proud, sane, decent Americans believe in opportunity, justice, fairness, the "general welfare". Proud, sane, decent Americans truly love their country, and would never put corporate profits ahead of how America is supposed to serve its citizens. Proud, sane, decent Americans don't compromise the integrity of communities and schools to improve the bottom line. Proud, sane, decent Americans understand the hope America represents to the world. Proud, sane, decent American respect human rights and human life.

No, I don't hate America. But a lot of people in the world do. And if TPP and similar such agreements are put in place, the worst is yet to come.

We won't have time to spread the love.

We'll be too busy defending ourselves from all the hate.



[ This originated at the author's personal web page . . . http://jdrachel.com ]