[Peace-discuss] Americans: Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs

[Brussel Morton K.]

Despair.  --mk
Americans: Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs
Posted By Paul Craig Roberts On August 19, 2009 @ 9:00 pm In  
Uncategorized | 11 Comments

"In a little time [there will be] no middling sort.  We shall have a  
few, and but a very few Lords, and all the rest beggars."  –R.L. Bushman

"Rapidly you are dividing into two classes–extreme rich and extreme  
poor." –"Brutus"

Americans think that they have "freedom and democracy" and that  
politicians are held accountable by elections.  The fact of the matter  
is that the US is ruled by powerful interest groups who control  
politicians with campaign contributions.  Our real rulers are an  
oligarchy of financial and military/security interests and AIPAC,  
which influences US foreign policy for the benefit of Israel.

Have a look at economic policy.  It is being run for the benefit of  
large financial concerns, such as Goldman Sachs.

It was the banks, not the millions of Americans who have lost homes,  
jobs, health insurance, and pensions, that received $700 billion in  
TARP funds.  The banks used this gift of capital to make more profits.  
In the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great  
Depression, Goldman Sachs announced record second quarter profits and  
large six-figure bonuses for every employee.

The Federal Reserve’s low interest rate policy is another gift to the  
banks.  It lowers their cost of funds and increases their profits.   
With the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, banks became high- 
risk investment houses that trade financial instruments such as  
interest rate derivatives and mortgage backed securities. With  
abundant funds supplied virtually free by the Federal Reserve, banks  
are paying depositors virtually nothing on their savings.

Despite the Federal Reserve’s low interest rate policy, beginning  
October 1 banks are raising the annual percentage rate (APR) on credit  
card purchases and cash advances and on balances that have a penalty  
rate because of late payment.  Banks are also raising the late fee. In  
the midst of the worst economy since the 1930s, heavily indebted  
Americans, who are losing their jobs and their homes, are to be bled  
into bankruptcy by the very banks that are being subsidized with TARP  
funds and low interest rates.

Moreover, it is the American public that is on the hook for the TARP  
money and the low interest rates.  As the US government’s budget is  
50% or more in the red, the TARP money has to be borrowed from abroad  
or monetized by the Fed.  This means more pressure on the US dollar’s  
exchange value and a rise in import prices and also domestic inflation.

Americans will thus pay for the TARP and low interest rate subsidies  
to their financial rulers with erosion in the purchasing power of the  
dollar. What we are experiencing is a massive redistribution of income  
from the American public to the financial sector.

And this is occurring during a Democratic administration headed by  
America’s first black president, with a Democratic majority in the  
House and Senate.

Is there a government anywhere that less represents its citizens than  
the US government?

Consider America’s wars.  As of the moment of writing, the out-of- 
pocket cost of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is  
$900,000,000,000. When you add in the already incurred future costs of  
veterans benefits, interest on the debt, the forgone use of the  
resources for productive purposes, and such other costs as computed by  
Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University budget expert  
Linda Bilmes, "our" government has wasted $3,000,000,000,000–three  
thousand billion dollars–on two wars that have no benefit whatsoever  
for any American whose income does not derive from the military/ 
security complex, about which five-star general President Eisenhower  
warned us.

It is now a proven fact that the US invasion of Iraq was based on lies  
and deception of the American public.  The only beneficiaries were the  
armaments industries, Blackwater, Halliburton, military officers who  
enjoy higher rates of promotion during war, and Muslim extremists  
whose case the US government proved by its unprovoked aggression  
against Muslims. No one else benefitted.  Iraq was a threat to no one,  
and finding Saddam Hussein and executing him after a kangaroo trial  
had no effect whatsoever on ending the war or preventing the start of  
others.

The cost of America’s wars is a huge burden on a bankrupt country, but  
the cost incurred by veterans might be even higher.  Homelessness is a  
prevalent condition of veterans, as is post-traumatic stress.   
American soldiers, who naively fought for the munitions industry’s  
wars, for high compensation for the munitions CEOs, and for dividends  
and capital gains for the munitions shareholders, paid not only with  
lives and lost limbs, but also with broken marriages, ruined careers,  
psychiatric disorders, and prison sentences for failing to make child  
support payments.

What did Americans gain from an unaffordable war in Iraq that lasted  
far longer than World War II and that put into power Shi’ites allied  
with Iran?

The answer is obvious: nothing whatsoever.

What did the armaments industry gain?  Billions of dollars in profits.

What about President Obama?  "A corporate marketing creation," sums up  
the distinguished British journalist John Pilger.

Obama is the presidential candidate who promised to end the war in  
Iraq.  He hasn’t.  But he has escalated the war in Afghanistan,  
started a new war in Pakistan, intends to repeat the Yugoslav scenario  
in the Caucasus, and appears determined to start a war in South  
America.  In response to the acceptance by US puppet president of  
Colombia,  Alvaro Uribe, of seven US military bases in Columbia,  
Venezuela warned South American countries that the "winds of war are  
beginning to blow."

Here we have the US government, totally dependent on the generosity of  
foreigners to finance its red ink, which extends in large quantities  
as far as the eye can see, completely under the thumb of the military/ 
security complex, which will destroy us all in order to meet Wall  
Street share price expectations.

Why does any American care who rules Afghanistan?  The country has  
nothing to do with us.

Did the armed services committees of the House and Senate calculate  
the risk of destabilizing nuclear armed Pakistan when they acquiesced  
to Obama’s new war there, a war that has already displaced two million  
Pakistanis?

No, of course not.  The whores took their orders from the same  
military/security oligarchy that instructed Obama.

The great American superpower and its 300 million people are being  
driven straight into the ground by the narrow interest of the big  
banks and the munitions industry.  People, and not only Americans, are  
losing their sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers for no other reason  
than the profits of US armaments corporations, and the gullible  
American people seem proud of it.  Those ribbon decals on their cars,  
SUVs and monster trucks proclaim their naive loyalty to the armaments  
industries and to the whores in Washington who promote wars.

Will Americans, smashed and destroyed by "their" government’s policy,  
which always puts Americans last, ever understand who their real  
enemies are?

Will Americans realize that they are not ruled by elected  
representatives but by an oligarchy that owns the Washington whorehouse?

Will Americans ever understand that they are impotent serfs?


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