Because We Let Them
By Paul Street
January 4, 2015
They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. Theyve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. Theyve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. Theyve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But Ill tell you what they dont want. They dont want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They dont want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking .They dont want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly theyre getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
You know what they want? Obedient workers people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, theyre coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? Theyll get it. Theyll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/because-we-let-them/
He always told it like it was.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)JayhawkSD
(3,163 posts)You buy a house for $100,000; $20,000 down and a $80,000 mortgage. The housing bubble makes that house worth $500,000. "Oh boy," you say, "I'm filthy rich." So you borrow another $400,000 against "the equity in you house" and you live it up. But then the bubble bursts and now your house is only worth $100,000 again, but now you owe $480,000 debt against it.
That's because that $400,000 was never real money. It was an inflated expectation. It was money the government printed to pump up the economy and which invertors put into bogus instruments which pumped up false values on houses because that money had to go somewhere and there were too few places to put it.
And that's what the "wealth" which the 400 have is. It's "quantative easing." It's $85 billion per month for five years that the government greated out of thin air by "buying government debt" and putting bogus money in its place. It's not real money any more than was that bogus value which homeowners lost when the housing bubble burst. It's looks good on paper but it is not real money. It is not backed by real assets or real security. It can go "poof" at any moment just like the value in homes went "poof."
niyad
(113,526 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)"We have a lot. We' take more. We want it all".
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)they feel their 'side' may be part of it, but not as 'evil' as the other side.
I think what they fear most is the people UNITING. They WORK to keep the people divided.
Which is why they hated OWS so much. It could not be identified as a political group so they struggled hard to make it so.
The claims varied from 'it's the TP' to 'it's the radical left' in an effort to get the sides to line up against it.
The truth was, it was just Americans who were awakening to what Carlin warned about and nothing scares them more than that.
polly7
(20,582 posts)But people (especially those suffering the most under austerity right now) are beginning to fight back, I just hope that enough will unite with strong enough voices to force their gov'ts to listen.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)figure out what was going on.
It took a while but Greece, one of the first to be destroyed by the Goldman Sachs run Austerity 'programs' in Europe, has finally begun to see the rise of more Left leaning parties.
Maybe it had to play itself out for people to see how awful it is, unfortunately a lot of people suffer in the meantime. But there was support at first for these draconian policies, now not so much.
I posted an OP about it in the Populist Forum http://www.democraticunderground.com/12772406
So there is hope of some changes coming, polly!
polly7
(20,582 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Figuring out what the problem is, is a vital first step in figuring out how to fix it. I think we are seriously finding that out now.
Love your sigline, btw ...
polly7
(20,582 posts)I'm just reading your link now .. you guys have a real gem in Elizabeth Warren and a few other vocal truth-tellers. Every gov't in the world needs one of her to expose this crap, because it is global, and we clearly see how badly those who can least afford austerity are already suffering with increased suicides, poverty, lack of access to health systems they once depended on, etc. etc. etc. Yes, they are getting angry over the push-back they're already seeing, thus the escalation in dehumanizing others, ramping up the war-talk and doing whatever they can to ensure the least resistance. It's going to get very interesting .....