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Plutocracy

A Telling Tale Of Two Press Lords

September 25, 2023 Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org. , , , , ,
Murdoch has been wreaking all this damage ever since he inherited — way back in 1952 — his first media property, a daily Australian newspaper his daddy had owned. Over the years, especially those years since his Fox News became America’s premiere news network in 2001, no single individual anywhere on Earth has done more to make our world safe for grand fortunes. Could we realistically have expected anything even a bit more socially redeeming from a media mogul as powerful as Murdoch? Well, actually, history does offer up some models for media moguls interested in something besides maximizing their mega millions.

Why Democracy Is Not Possible Under Capitalism

September 14, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , , ,
In Atlanta, residents are using the existing democratic systems under capitalism to fight the construction of a multi-million dollar training ground for militarized police repression, and finding those systems lacking. Meanwhile, in socialist Cuba, the people and the government collaborated on formulating the world’s most progressive family code. Is it possible to have democracy under a capitalist system? Under a different economic system, such as socialism, what would democracy look like? Mariah Parker, Stop Cop City activist, labor organizer with the Union of Southern Service Workers, and rapper, spoke to over 300 attendees of the Dilemmas of Humanity: A Socialist Horizon conference in Atlanta on September 2, as part of a panel discussion on Socialism and Democracy.

On Contact: How Joe Biden Is Not FDR

May 9, 2021 Chris Hedges, RT. , , ,
On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to history professor and author Paul Street about the Biden administration and its continuity with the Democratic and Republic administrations’ policies and programs to benefit the elite and corporate interests, rather than working-class Americans.

Gamestop—And the Game That Never Stops!

February 2, 2021 Jack Rasmus, ZNet. , , ,
This past week a video game company in trouble, Gamestop, became the center of media attention.  Day traders had driven up the company’s stock price by thousands of percent in just one day. The mainstream media narrative was the ‘small guy’ investor challenged the big boys of finance who had bet Gamestop stock price would contract, not rise sharply.  The little investor, so the story goes, initially won big but Gamestop’s stock price escalation was stopped in its tracks by coordinated forces of Wall St., as trading was abruptly halted later in the day in the midst of the run-up. But that narrative, that media spin, has it wrong.  The real meaning of what has happened is quite different.

How Corporations Bankroll US Police Foundations

June 20, 2020 Gin Armstrong and Derek Seidman, Eyes on the Ties. , , ,
As calls to defund the police gain traction, bloated police budgets are coming under scrutiny for siphoning public resources away from black and brown communities. While police budgets are typically public documents that must be approved by elected officials, there are other institutions in place with the sole purpose of funneling even more resources toward law enforcement.  Police foundations across the country are partnering with corporations to raise money to supplement police budgets by funding programs and purchasing tech and weaponry for law enforcement with little public oversight. Annual fundraising events and parties like the St. Paul Police Foundation’s “Blue Nite Gala” and the Chicago Police Foundation’s “True Blue” event are huge moneymakers.

These ‘Are The Good Times — Compared To What’s Coming Next”

April 30, 2020 Chauncey DeVega, Salon. , , ,
Empires fall a little bit at a time and then all at once. Over the last two decades, America has proven itself to be well along on that journey. The coronavirus pandemic has simply pushed our nation further along that downward spiral.  Ultimately, the pandemic has further exposed and exacerbated — for those still somehow in denial about the decades-long reality of America as a decaying empire — deep political, social, economic, cultural and other societal problems. The country's infrastructure is rotting. Trump presides over a plutocratic, corrupt, cruel, authoritarian, pathological kakistocracy. The commons is being reduced to rubble while the ultra-rich extract ever more wealth and other resources from the American people. Excessive military spending has left the United States incapable of attending to the basic needs of its people.

Curtains Up!

April 26, 2020 David Perez, Information Clearinghouse. , , ,
Welcome, everyone to the longest-running play in U.S. history: “Voting for the Lesser Evil.” The play’s strength, as you well know, is its easy-to-memorize script, combined with its superb ability to change the essential characters—all while keeping the same dialogue! Our set design also remains largely the same, although recently we’ve had to highlight red and blue colors and build a swing to denote the characterizations of “states.” Throughout the decades, our show has been labeled a melodrama, a tragicomedy, and even science fiction. The beauty of ““Voting for the Lesser Evil” is that it’s all above the above! Some people have lobbied for the play being renamed “The Greatest Show on Earth.” It does remind one of a circus, doesn’t it?

Budget Proposals Highlight Priorities Of Rich And Shameless

February 3, 2019 William Rivers Pitt, Truthout. , , ,
The Trump administration’s 2018 budget proposal was a genuine masterpiece of cruelty. “President Trump’s 2018 budget contains the largest dollar cuts to programs for low- and moderate-income people proposed by any President’s budget in the modern era,” wrote The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities at the time. “The plan would cut these programs by an estimated $2.5 trillion over the next decade. About two-thirds (66 percent) of the budget’s cuts would come from these programs, which help low- and moderate-income families afford the basics or improve their upward mobility.”

How To Build A Movement For Transformational Change

July 8, 2018 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance , , ,
In recent years, people have asked us what they should be doing to build an effective movement that can create transformational change. In response to these questions, Popular Resistance created an online school. The first course, which consists of eight classes, provides information about how social movements grow and succeed, what roles different people and organizations play in movements, how to overcome obstacles and how to develop strategic campaigns. In addition to discussing analyses of social movements by leading thinkers on social movement theory, we bring our experiences to the classes.

Government By Goldman

September 24, 2017 Gary Rivlin and Michael Hudson, www.theintercept.com , , , , , ,
By Gary Rivlin and Michael Hudson for The Intercept. Steve Bannon was in the room the day Donald Trump first fell for Gary Cohn. So were Reince Priebus, Jared Kushner, and Trump’s pick for secretary of Treasury, Steve Mnuchin. It was the end of November, three weeks after Trump’s improbable victory, and Cohn, then still the president of Goldman Sachs, was at Trump Tower presumably at the invitation of Kushner, with whom he was friendly. Cohn was there to offer his views about jobs and the economy. But, like the man he was there to meet, he was at heart a salesman.

Populism Defeated: Trump’s Bait And Switch

December 11, 2016 Nomi Prins, www.tomdispatch.com , ,
By Nomi Prins for Tom's Dispatch. Only a month has passed since November 8th, but it’s already clear (not that it wasn’t before) that Trump’s anti-establishment campaign rhetoric was the biggest scam of his career, one he pulled off perfectly. As president-elect and the country’s next CEO-in-chief, he’s now doing what many presidents have done: doling out power to like-minded friends and associates, loyalists, and -- think John F. Kennedy, for instance -- possibly family. Here, however, is a major historical difference: the magnitude of Trump’s cronyism is off the charts, even for Washington. Of course, he’s never been a man known for doing small and humble. So his cabinet, as yet incomplete, is already the richest one ever. Estimates of how loaded it will be are almost meaningless at this point, given that we don’t even know Trump’s true wealth (and will likely never see his tax returns). Still, with more billionaires at the doorstep, estimates of the wealth of his new cabinet members and of the president-elect range from my own guesstimate of about $12 billion up to $35 billion.

Endorse The People’s Agenda

November 22, 2016 Staff, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
Right now is the opportune time for people to say no to plutocracy and demand a people's agenda. The rejection of the Democrats and the unexpected election of Donald Trump have caused confusion among the elites and have opened political space. The people's defeat of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a victory over the power of transnational corporations, confirms that when a movement of movements works together, we win. People across the country are rising up and will continue to do so. This is critical for social transformation. We encourage you to organize in your communities and to take the streets.We must also be clear in our demands. We are offering an outline for a People's Agenda.

Plutocratic Forces Crippled Democracy, And Why It’s Up To Us To Fight Back

October 20, 2016 Ralph Nader, www.alternet.org ,
By Ralph Nader for Alternet - In the 1920s, near the end of his spectacular career as our country’s most prominent fighter for working people, labor leader, presidential candidate, orator, and all-around progressive Eugene Debs was asked by a reporter: “Mr. Debs, what do you regret the most in your lifelong struggle for justice?” Debs looked at him and replied: “What do I regret the most? I regret that the American people can have almost anything they want under our Constitution, but they seem not to want much of anything at all.”

Newsletter: Living In The Illusion Of Democracy

October 1, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, http://www.PopularResistance.org , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The hubris and manipulation of the two establishment parties is evident in the presidential debates. The two Wall Street funded parties decide who is allowed to participate in the debates. The so-called debate ‘commission’ is a disguise of the Democratic and Republican parties. It is a commission in name only, in reality it is a corporation created by the two parties and controlled by the two parties. When the disguise is removed, it becomes obvious that the Democrats and Republicans are choosing to only debate Democrats and Republicans, and preventing any competition. In 1988, the Republican co-founder, Frank Fahrenkopf, who remains a co-chair, indicated at the news conference announcing the ‘commission’ that they were “not likely to look with favor on including third-party candidates in the debates.” The New York Times quoted the Democratic co-founder, Paul Kirk, saying: “As a party chairman, it’s my responsibility to strengthen the two-party system.”

The Third Capitalist Party

August 14, 2016 Travis Richard Sweatte, www.jacobinmag.com , , , ,
By Travis Richard Sweatte for Jacobin Magazine. United States - In the aftermath of the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton may have a commanding lead, but it’s clear that she won’t be able to win over segments of Bernie Sanders supporters and other independents. Many Americans — repulsed by both Clinton and Trump — are eager to cast a protest vote for a third party. Predictably, mainstream commentators have roundly criticized these candidacies, evoking the memory of Ralph Nader’s Green Party run in 2000 and the specter of “election spoiling.” Much of this hysteria has centered around the “Bernie or Bust” campaign, which is increasingly associated with the Green Party candidacy of Jill Stein. But despite the liberal press’s endless hand-wringing over the remote possibility of Stein spoiling the race for Clinton, the fact is that the Green Party is by no means the largest third party in American politics.
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