[Vision2020] Missed votes...The Payoff...Vote The Bigot Party!

Ted Moffett starbliss at gmail.com
Tue Sep 2 23:38:02 PDT 2008


What are "we" paying them for?  Good grief, Paul, you are too smart to pose
the issue in this manner.  "We," as in the average taxpaying Jane or Joe, do
not pay them, at least not the big bucks.  And the legislation that they
vote on is often written in secret, worded by the very financial interests
who are controlling the politicians who vote or don't vote.  The appearance
of participation or not in the voting process in the US Congress is often an
expression of back room manipulation and crafting of legislation, aimed at a
vote outcome that is carefully planned by the powerful financial
interests financing the politicians.

The control of the US Congress, especially the US Senate, is in the hands of
those who fund campaigns and lobby with the deepest pockets: the Fortune 500
corporations and millionaires and billionaires.  Even the grass roots
Internet financing of some candidates is dwarfed by the billions at the
disposal of the economic elite, on the left or right, who control
media exposure as media has become increasingly consolidated (so much for
diversity in that marketplace, as right wing talk radio dominates, even with
Air Americas emergence) as never before.  US Senate races and re-elections
are realistic only for candidates with massive financing, and no one can
seriously run for president in this day without funding exceeding 100
million dollars.  Am I correct?

Given we worship money and the power it offers, is this a surprise?  Any
candidate who poses a serious challenge to the power of corporate America,
will discover the power of money to undermine or marginalize their
campaign.  Look at the real deal libertarian Ron Paul's drift into oblivion,
in part due to the corporate controlled media ignoring him.  Or the "Swift
Boating" of John Kerry, financed by some very deep pockets.

Right or left wing, conservative or liberal, are political stereotypes to
manipulate the public to pursue an agenda based on maximizing wealth and
power for a economic elite, now expressed in a multinational globalized
economy.  The national sovereignty of the United States is more and more
becoming a quaint notion, the struggling US middle class more and more an
economic embarrassment, as US jobs move overseas and our labor force
competes with under a dollar an hour foreign workers supplying goods to a
global marketplace, a fact that Obama and McCain appear hesitant to
emphasise as a dominate campaign issue, though Ron Paul certainly has.
Whether Obama or McCain wins this election, they will be facing the power of
the multinational economic elites to control out government, so I wish them
luck.

We have "The Best Democracy That Money Can Buy" as Greg Palast titled his
book on this subject:

http://www.gregpalast.com/
-----------------
Kudos to capitalism... Those who succeed in achieving the most wealth and
power should run the nation.  They earned their power and wealth based on
their superior talents and work ethic, correct?  You don't realistically
think that the average Jane and Joe getting by on low wage jobs should be
able to control the government via their puny tax contributions to a
politicians pay?

And if the US Congress appears lazy and ineffectual, don't despair!  Private
free enterprise will run our lives with the magic of the marketplace solving
all problems... After all, government is just in the way of the workings of
this marketplace "magic."  Or are you one of those "socialists" who harps on
about the need for regulation of capitalism by the government, suggesting
the unregulated capitalist market does not serve the best interests of the
nation (Blackwater private sector taxpayer funded soldiers of fortune paid 5
times what a soldier in the US military earns...The fairness of the
marketplace in action?)?

I won't attempt to more fully "unpack" the implications of what I wrote in
this post... Those of more intelligence and erudition than I have already
spoke (Noam Chomsky, one of the greatest political intellectuals of our
time, for example), and are being ignored, it appears.

However, given that my post on Monday, August 18, 2008, in which I mentioned
Plato's view of democracy, and how it relates to local elections, the wisdom
of the voting public, and the politicians elected, was dismissed by some on
this list as though it was impolite and unreasoned, I offer it again now as
commentary on the foolishness of the voting public, controlled by the
science of persuasion in modern political campaigns ("Vote For The Bigot
Party," as the protester in downtown Moscow declared).  Get ready for the
"Swift Boating" of Obama or McCain (a nonpartisan take):

http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2008-August/055439.html

Plato might have been correct, that Democracy is flawed, that society should
be run by committees of experts, who really know what they are talking
about, rather than by politicians with questionable expertise, elected by a
public of questionable wisdom... Or do I misunderstand Plato's "Republic?"
[image: DaveGProtest]

Ted Moffett

On 8/31/08, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I hope this topic becomes large enough and loud enough of an issue to
> actually shame our Congressmen and women into actually participating
> and/or voting occasionally.  I was on leave for a few days when I was at
> the Naval Academy and toured DC.  This was in '86, I believe.  One of
> the things I did was watch a session of Congress.  I don't remember if
> it was the House of Representatives or the Senate.  It was a surreal
> experience.  There were, literally, a dozen Congressmen there.  Almost
> every one of them was reading the newspaper and paying absolutely no
> attention to the Congressman that was speaking.  The one that was
> speaking was expressing enthusiastic support for something, I don't
> remember what.  Not one of the Congressmen that were there acted as if
> they even heard what was going on.  That one visit trashed my view of
> our legislative branch forever.  I was actually naive enough at one time
> to think that the idiots running this country actually cared about
> something.  If we're not paying these guys and gals to discuss and
> debate the issues, let alone vote on them, then what are we paying them
> for?
>
> Paul
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20080902/2cf8f96a/attachment.html 


More information about the Vision2020 mailing list