Don’t Get Snookered

          

             From The Ramparts

                   Junious Ricardo Stanton

               jrswriter@comcast.net

              

          Don’t Get Snookered

    “Nearly two years after the major banks and financial firms drove the financial system and the economy as a whole into the ground through their reckless profiteering and speculation, the so-called “reform” avoids any genuine reform of the financial system and places no serious restraints on the activities of the most powerful financial companies. In important respects, it increases the power of the biggest banks and sets the stage for even more frenzied speculation and risk-taking.” http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010

    The US mind control apparatus constantly cranks out the ruling elite’s propaganda line, a lot of lies and disinformation for public consumption. It's designed so we will be more easily duped, manipulated and controlled.  Last week the media reported on the passage of the so called financial reform legislation. Keep in mind the media’s job is to promote the ruling oligarchy’s lies, not tell the truth, so don’t be snookered.

    Barack Obama raised almost a billion dollars in campaign funds most of it came from Wall Street, the major hedge funds, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the military industrial complex defense companies, lawyers and other special interests. If you doubt what I’m saying go to www.opensecrets.org, click on the Politicians and Elections tab, then click on Obama’s picture to see how much he raised, from what sources and how much has been spent. I say this so you will not be snookered regarding the legislation Obama and Congress are supporting and passing now and in the future.

    For example, the so called Health Care Reform bill was really a pay back to the insurance companies for donating money to the Obama and the Democrats. It has nothing to do with providing low cost, quality health care to all Americans because it won’t. All it does is make it mandatory for all of us to secure and pay for health insurance. So called universal coverage means we all have to have it. Just so you know, the health insurance trade association actually wrote the bill! Check it out for yourself.

     Despite the numerous lies Obama told us about his goals for health care, the bill will not reduce your health insurance costs. In fact due to the hidden taxes within the bill we taxpayers will be hit with even more taxes further draining more of your money. Plus if you don’t get health insurance, the IRS will come after you. How’s that for “change”  you can believe in?!

    The so called Financial Reform legislation the US Senate passed last week fits the same mold as Obama’s health bill scam, it’s a pay off to the big financial institutions. It’s the Democrats repaying the very same sleazy characters who caused the banking and financial collapse in the first place. This bill does nothing to regulate or control hedge funds or the trillion dollar Ponzi schemes that turned Wall Street into a giant casino. It didn’t restore the Depression era Glass-Steagall Act which the Clinton administration repealed to lay the groundwork for the massive speculation, fraud and the collapse we are now experiencing. Nor does it create anything like a Glass-Steagall Act which would prevent the collusion/ manipulation amongst commercial banks, insurance companies or investment brokers. Nor will it eliminate the need for additional bail outs in the future. It’s all a big sham.

    “It does not restore the legal wall between commercial banking and investment banking, a central reform carried out during the Depression of the 1930s to prevent deposit-taking commercial banks from engaging in the high-risk speculation that is the bread and butter of investment banks and brokerages. The weakening and final removal of this wall in 1999 during the Clinton administration encouraged the wave of speculation and swindling that led to the collapse in September 2008. It does not cap executive compensation. It does not eliminate or seriously limit trading in derivatives, the complex and opaque financial instruments that played a central role in the collapse of American International Group (AIG) and threatened to topple the entire banking system.Instead, the bill sets up what some have called a Potemkin village of regulatory structures with little real substance, which Wall Street banks will have little difficulty manipulating and gaming.” Obama’s toothless banking overhaul to become law By Barry Grey 16 July 2010 http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010 . Don’t be snookered!

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    Speaking of snookered, don’t be fooled or caught up in the corporate media’s promotion of the NAACP’s phony war on the so called Tea Party. The NAACP is a toothless tiger scratching for  headlines anyway and anywhere they can get them. It is trying to remain relevant in an era when for most Africans in America it is anything but. If the NAACP was politically astute they would realize the Tea Party is no threat to black people. It is a grass roots, divergent group of frightened, white folks who perceive their government has betrayed them. If the NAACP had done their homework they would know Dick Armey the former US Congressman and Republican House Majority Leader who as head of FreedomWorks, an organization dedicated according to its Website to lower taxes, less government and more freedom for everyone, is actually funding many of the tea Party gatherings and rallies. In fact they have one coming up in September in Washington D.C.

    The Teabaggers as they are derisively called, are being used by people like Sara Palin and Glen Beck to co-op very legitimate anti-government sentiment percolating beneath the surface in this country to give the illusion of grass roots support for the Republican Party; a party which but for the distrust of government by Teabaggers and assorted right wingers would be extinct . White folks are scared. They are losing their homes, filing for bankruptcy at higher rates than ever before and they have lost confidence in the government to address their concerns.  This is the essence of the teabag phenomenon. They aren’t even a real political party.

    Yes much of their ire is because Barack Obama is bi-racial which scares them even more. Part of it is because Joe and Jane Sixpack now realize the ruling elites have abrogated their covenant with non rich whites by deliberately destroying the US economy with casino capitalism, bailing out the fat cat culprits and leaving working class whites like themselves holding the bag. They know the kleptocrats on Wall Street, in D.C. and London are sending their jobs overseas, allowing millions of illegal immigrants to take jobs for less money at a time when their union benefits and pensions are in danger of being taken away. They are angry because their wages still remain stagnant or they are losing their jobs altogether. They see their standard of living collapsing before their very eyes and it frightens them. They hear talk of austerity and cutting their benefits while the US government wages ever more costly wars around the globe.

    This is why they are so vocal at their rallies and demonstrations. They are directing their anger, angst and frustration at Obama, who they see as the symbol of a US government gone wrong. (For black folks this is business as usual except for a token brown family in the White House.) Poor whites see Wall Street getting away with major larceny yet reaping huge compensation packages. They see mining companies, BP and Haliburton getting away with safety violations, they see them endangering their workers and despoiling the environment with impunity while the government agencies that are supposed to regulate them were asleep at the switch or their workers were caught watching porn on their work computers.

    At the recent NAACP convention, in an effort to get some press coverage the NAACP attacked a bunch of  scared and duped white folks. Then to make matters worse they failed to do their due diligence and got caught on the wrong side of the Shirley Sherrod issue. When the truth came to light, the NAACP leadership made themselves look even more pathetic by saying a tea party representative snookered them. If the Tea Party was so racist and such a bad organization, why didn’t the NAACP do their own research to find out what was going on at the Department of Agriculture? The NAACP leadership also claimed Fox News snookered them !? Duh, that’s what Fox news does on a daily basis, snooker its viewers on behalf of a right wing fascist agenda. If the NAACP hasn’t figured that out by now, they are even more out of it than I thought. 
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