In this book, “deregulation” is a four-letter word: a synonym for leaving the U.S. taxpayer, U.S. markets and the U.S. reputation wide open to greedy mindless homegrown plutocrats. In short, it is a synonym for leaving the nation vulnerable to conscienceless unpatriotic Wall Street thieves.
Here in easy to understand language, Robert Scheer has pealed back the layers that cover up the whole stinking mess that has become “stripped-down vulnerable deregulated America.” The method of robbery is basically a five-step political process: (1) “demagog” FDR and all existing regulations relentlessly as the enemy of free enterprise; (2) use paid lobbyist to help justify, tear-down and then rewrite new regulations; (3) use lobbyists' contributions to buy off the votes of key politicians in both parties to open up the laws for the impending thievery; (4) once legislation is passed, oversee the Wall Street financial casino with watchdogs that do not watch; and then (5) appoint members of the plutocracy who stand to gain the most, as facilitators and the palace guards of policy.
The present system of “high-level state sanctioned grand larceny” was designed and implemented, not by Ronald Reagan, or GW Bush, but by William Jefferson Clinton with the help of none other than the gang of four — Timothy Geitner, Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, and Lawrence Summers. However, the unsung hero of the grand heist, was Windy Lee Gramm, senator Phil Gramm's paramour and then wife, (who as a grad student was first his lover and then very quickly his wife). It was this “devious duo” that engineered the plans for the ultimate robbery of the American economic system.
I like the first and most popular review by the scholar. Here I will provide a snap-shot of my own and a couple of quotations from a rather good wikipedia review of Thoreau.
The film was longer, better, and had more stars than I expected, including William Hurt. Triteness was avoided. Above all, this movie is righteous and timely as we contemplate the present situation.
From Wikipedia on Thoreau:
The government, according to Thoreau, is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact the government is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice. Because of this, it is “not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize.”
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison…. where the State places those who are not with her, but against her,- the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor…. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.
The movie ends where I expected to begin. And now America begins anew, with a convergence of forces in 2012, where I had hoped it might end with peace and prosperity for all. The fight has only now begun as the public has awakened to the injustices done at our expense and in our name.
RIGHTEOUS.
Here are two lists of lists of summary reviews of non-fiction work that bears on the current and future nature of the world. Both are at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog under REVIEWS.
QUOTE (32): What has taken place over the last generation is a highly complicated merger of crime and policy, of stealing and government. Far from taking care of the rest of us, the financial leaders of America and their political servants have seemingly reached the cynical conclusion that our society is not work saving and have taken on a new mission that involved not creating wealth for us all, but simply absconding with whatever wealth remains in our hollowed out economy. They don't feed us, we feed them.
I defer to the other reviewers on the substance of the book, but want to provide links here to several books that address the larger context of the soul of capitalism and the corruption of the two political parties that have undermined the US Government and US economy with malice aforethought.
I am blogging twice a week at Huffington Post on what a Virtual Cabinet doing sane evidence-driven policies in the context of a balanced responsible budget might look like, and would welcome visits there by those interested in getting back to honest government and responsible capitalism.
This is an extraordinary book, combining gifted insights and turns of phrase with serious research that has a point worth fighting for: Wall Street led by Goldman Sachs has ripped off the entire US economy, and they still have most people thinking that politics matters.
It merits comment that while Michael Lewis was first, with Liar's Poker, and was recently quoted as saying he had no idea Wall Street would get away with these obvious high crimes against the public for another 30 years, this author takes us all up another level, weaving in everything–politics, culture, sex, booze, LSD, and the occasional rabbid racoon.
The author is especially deft at observing, documenting, and describing the combination of lunatic ignorance and blessed righteous anger within the Tea Party, at the same time that he points out they have no idea that they have been funded and directed by the very people who have stolen their economy out from under them.
I am especially impressed by the author's understanding of how Wall Street has managed to co-opt the very people they are destroying by leveraging the “shared” view of excessive government regulation. I for one absolutely believe that states should start nullifying federal laws and regulations that impair state-based businesses (e.g. butchers and cabinet-makers). What the people being destroyed do not understand is HOW they are being destroyed by Wall Street, which is essentially eating out the foundation from under them.
QUOTE (32): What has taken place over the last generation is a highly complicated merger of crime and policy, of stealing and government. Far from taking care of the rest of us, the financial leaders of America and their political servants have seemingly reached the cynical conclusion that our society is not work saving and have taken on a new mission that involved not creating wealth for us all, but simply absconding with whatever wealth remains in our hollowed out economy. They don't feed us, we feed them.
Unquestionable a great book, with one big missing piece: it does not follow the money back to Wall Street. Buckminster Fuller understood in the 1960's that the White House had become theater, I did not understand his meaning until the economic meltdown and my noticing that Goldman Sachs has provided the Secretary of the Treasury for the last six or so Administrations.
The Tea Party, a grand mix of idealistic individuals who really think they have a shot at making a difference, is funded by the Koch Brothers, and all the other wing-nuts this book discusses all have financial underpinning that serve a purpose: to create theater. They are the American version of a political circus that keeps people's eyes off the raw fact that the US is a two-party tyranny with election manipulation so embedded that we no longer qualify as a democracy according to international standards.
NOTE: To investigate funding yourself, just search, my preferred search portal is Duck Duck Go, for <Koch Tea Party funding>
Wing-nuts is an “order of battle” for the extremist fringe, but it does NOT explain why the US government and US economy are in the toilet. For that we need just one word: INTEGRITY (lost).
The wing-nuts are getting their time in the sun because the extreme wealthy that have hollowed out America, exported all the skilled jobs, allowed illegal immigration so they could pay even less for unskilled labor, are now nervous. Bush Junior did his eight, Obama gave Wall Street four more years, right now the best that Wall Street can think of is making the next four years a complete circus.
`All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing' (or words to that effect). Edmund Burke and Justice Brandeis are both cited on this one. It says a lot when two comedians make more sense and demonstrate more integrity than all of our Senators, Representatives, and Executive Branch officials. Perhaps it really does take a comic (or two) to save a Nation.
Just one of many books supporting my suggestion that this is all theater:
You can find all of my non-fiction reviews sorted into 98 categories at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. I have also created lists of reviews (e.g. corruption, education) and two master lists. The negative list is everything that is wrong with America and the world, the positive one everything that is right or could be right. Both those lists are also at the Huffington Post. It's time to restore the integrity of our Republic, that must of necessity begin with Electoral Reform.
When confronted with a persistent foreign policy problem that threatens U.S. interests, and that cannot be adequately addressed through economic or political pressure, American policymakers and opinion formers have increasingly resorted to recommending the use of limited military force: that is, enough force to attempt to resolve the problem while minimizing U.S. military deaths, local civilian casualties, and collateral damage.
These recommendations have ranged from the bizarre—such as a Predator missile strike to kill Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, or the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez—to the unwise—the preemptive bombing of North Korean ballistic missile sites—to the demonstrably practical—air raids into Bosnia and Somalia, and drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan.
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However, even though they have been a regular feature of America's uses of military force through four successive administrations, the efficacy of these “Discrete Military Operations” (DMOs) remains largely unanalyzed, leaving unanswered the important question of whether or not they have succeeded in achieving their intended military and political objectives.
In response, Micah Zenko examines the thirty-six DMOs undertaken by the US over the past 20 years, in order to discern why they were used, if they achieved their objectives, and what determined their success or failure. In the process, he both evaluates U.S. policy choices and recommends ways in which limited military force can be better used in the future. The insights and recommendations made by Zenko will be increasingly relevant to making decisions and predictions about the development of American grand strategy and future military policy.
Phi Beta Iota: An extraordinary flaw in the discussion around this book is the assumption that the US resorts to such actions because diplomatic and economic means will not suffice. The reality is that the US “way of war” has nothing to do with strategic analytics, whole of government competency (non-existent), moral contexts, or public interest objectives. We do these things for the same reason Bill Clinton let an intern cost the US taxpayer $50 million–“because we can.” We can also put a bullet in our head, that does not mean we should–but it is the virtual outcome of what Washington is doing now.
Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. “We pigs are brainworkers. The whole
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management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.” While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. –Joyce Thompson
Phi Beta Iota: Morality is how civilizations transmit the hard lessons of the past. Both Communism and Fascism–including Faux Democracy Of, By, and For the Corporations and Banks, lack morality. The only antidote to corrupt elites is educated non-violence, as both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison among others understood so well. This web site is an attempt to inspire public intelligence in the public interest.
Thomas Jefferson: A Nation’s best defense is an educated citizenry.
James Madison: Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
Righteous, Timely, Absorbing
Theater–Follow the Money to Understand
