8 Shocking Ways the Billionaires Have Schemed to Rob Us of Every Last $

"It’s part of an ongoing pattern for our ruling class and their view of America and Americans. It’s time we faced up to this grim fact. Too many of them are against us and against this country, weakening America to the point where it threatens to be permanently crippled, much like how the communists deformed Russia for decades.

They had their bolsheviks; we have our billionaire-bolsheviks. The effect of these two rapacious ruling elites is the same: the state and the people serve the tiny ruling class; and when we’re not serving them, we can fuck off and die. Literally. Because that serves them too."

emphasis mine

I couldn't have said it better ...

They control all the levers ... Even health care where they will force everyone to buy the defective product that health insurance companies produce ...

Every thing Congress does must benefit them first and foremost ... The people be damned ...

Check out the Democrats Climate Legislation ...

Kerry-Boxer Climate Bill Still Stinks Despite Cologne

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Your description of the ruling class as an alien, colonialist force is apt, and some of the more foresighted (and deluded) of them are already preparing to "escape" in their interplanetary pleasure pods when the ecological and social crises they have helped bring about comes to pass.

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You, having written this article, are a perfect illustration of what Reagan said. Having voted in the "liberal assholes" that promised you everything you wanted, you now blame corporate executives when those promises aren't fulfilled. The only way the worthless AH's can keep their jobs in congress is to promise to give you everything, and you are to stupid to understand their game. If Barney Frank, for example, had to get a "real job" he would be getting unemployment benefits. Why is it that you people continue to blame others for your own mistakes?

Yes, I believe it's wrong for corporate executives to get such ridiculous payouts, but understand something --- those payouts are approved by others, ---- just as the "bailouts" were approved by the legislators that you voted in. You have to accept responsibility for your own failures!

If you think our government can effectively run any business just take a look at the USPS. What a f' up! Keep whining!

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Without the shadowy, secret banking cabal AKA as the 'Fed,' none of this would be possible. (Quick, name me one member of the Fed, other than Ben Bernanke.)

We're born into economic slavery and die in debt, forever enslaved to the Fed's monetary policies which favor those who have wealth... lots and lots of wealth.

The wealthy elite are the ones who get bailed out when their Wall Street casino bets crap out while We the People get the layoff notices and watch our savings account interest go to nearly zero percent while Wall Street billionaires get 24 TRILLION in unsecured loans from the Fed, with NO accounting as to whom got the money or what it's being used for.

Welcome to the Dark Ages, America!

Get used to living on your knees.

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First off, reagan the Terrible's quote above was lifted from Benjaman Franklin, and he was right- Democracy is a transitional stage, which is why Franklin, and I, say that revolution is a necessity to counter that. He said that its necessarry to have a revolution about every 100 or so years to stop the exact BS we get to enjoy as part of our daily serfdom to the oligarchs who run this country (and the world, by extention).

As I say in alot of my posts, when you reach a saturation level as what we see today as far as corruption and the arrogance of the ruling elite are concerned, you can't and shouldn't expect, unless you are an idiot, that protesting or sending letters will change anything. The whores in government don't listen to us anymore- they accepted a job with a better paying slaveowner- the corporate and ultra-rich paymasters who play us all like puppets. Once you get into the government- ususally as a result of a sponsorship, if you can call it that, by the economic interests of your chosen district, you can ecpect to never get voted out. Don't you find it odd (and disgusting) that people serve 5, 10 or even MORE terms as congressmen or 4+ terms as senators, even despite numerous ethics and financial scandals, some of which are prosecuted and STILL they serve as your 'representatives' in government? These people, and I use the term lightly, are not working for us, folks, they are working for those who pay them the most- the assholes who get paid and get off on causing you and those you love pain, and who cash in on your misery from cradle to -literally!- grave. When youget to this point, the only way to cure the patient is to kill them and start over from scratch. Anything, and I do mean ANYTHING less will either do nothing, will be ignored/overruled/killed in committee or simply delay the more horrible plans they have yet to shove up the collective asses of the US subjects.

Its past time shots were fired folks. Unless we make the nightmares of the elite come true and roll out the gibbets and gilloutines onto K street, Pennsivania Ave and main street and fill them with the bodies of those who are chuckling as the banks kick us out of our homes, the companies ship all the jobs overseas (to repeat the process over there) the biotech companies drug and poison our food, the HMO's and other health care companies deny us relief from our pain and the cops and military beat us, taze us and throw us into prison to rot, we'll get more of THIS. Protesting only works when you have a truly sympathetic and uncomprimized ear to hear them. Letter-writing only works when there is someone on the other end of it reading them. Voting only works when they aren't rigged. In short, people in positions of authority only care if they have to, and because they are allowed to put themselves up for sale, and you and I can't even afford the opening bid, we lost before the game even began. The only power we have at this point is direct and bloody action, unfortunately, and bandying ideas about what office to next hit with a letter-writing campaign or picket line isn't going to do anything but further motivate the assholes in office to hurt us all that much more.

Its time to stop talking and start fighting. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying, stupid or in on the bastards' game.

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One of the Frist family members just joined the board of directors at SAIC.

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The Lords and Ladies of the US (I call them LLUSh's, drunk on money and power) are only using the resources we give them. So let's stop giving. Its a free market economy, right? We are free to not go to the market.

A little coordinated effort on our part, say a program called Turn It Off, or TIO for short. Tio is uncle in Spanish, uncle, as in, I give up, I surrender, I capitulate. No more spending except for the bare essentials for, say, six months. Rice and beans, canned goods, board games, camp out in our homes and apartments. No cable, no fast food, no luxuries, no distractions.

After a few months WalMart, AT&T and Comcast can adjust executive salaries to take up the short fall, or outsource executive jobs to India for so much less.

Pick a date, say June 1, 2010 and start stocking up.

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When you recive insurance money on a ralative you are not liable for taxes on it. Would this also be true of dead peasant insurance?

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Vote third party.

VotE
E
Them all
Out

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I use the Post Office for personal and business mail and shipping. I don't remember ever having a problem. It's fast, cheap and reliable service. On the other hand, the private carriers often give me problems. The last time I ordered a computer, the private carrier left me a note to pick up at the computer at their warehouse ten miles away at 5PM. I had to wait until the truck returned at 6:30.

People also pick on the DMV. The last time I had to renew my driver's license, I was in and out of the DMV in under ten minutes. The last time I had to renew my car registration, I mailed in the form using the Post Office. The registration form was out to the DMV and back to me in six days.

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The specter of Ronald Reagan has hovered over this nation even before his ascendancy to the presidency. As governor of California Reagan was held by the lapdog mainstream media as the cynosure of what a good governor should be and do.

Reagan's backers knew that with his good looks, folksy charm and melted marshmallow strained through an old brassiere voice the oh, so easily influenced American people would follow his gospel of middle class stinginess disguised as hard work and thrift under siege by the lazy and effete, i.e. blacks and college students.

Once in the White House Reagan legitimized the destructive "free market" economics of Milton J. Friedman, making the link between a mythical "free" market and democracy.

Let us bury Reagan's ghost.

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and the billionaires control the Feds.

Why intelligent people would think the newest puppet-in-chief they prop up is any different than the older ones is beyond any logic I can comprehend.

Taking away the monopoly would be a step in the right direction in leveling the playing field. Why are so many articles on Alternet slanted against this?

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now part of Eaton Corp. They took out $500,000 policies on workers whereby the family would get $5,000 and the company $495,000 should the employee croak - folks weren't pleased (they had to get our permission to do this, they said).

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But where would one go? It appears that other than Greece or some Central and South American countries, true democracies are dying, even Canada and Western Europe appear to be becoming more fascistic. Multi-national Corporations and Capitalism are a scourge on the planet and unless we change quickly, I believe we’ll see not only a collapse of civilization but also environmental collapse and perhaps human extinction. I believe that civilization and humans are f---ed.

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The peasant analogy is apt. Most commoners slave away for the better part of the year to pay a mandatory cut to the proverbial crown. The nobles (corporate executives, and certain firms by extension of corporate personhood) and the clergy (think tanks promulgating a self serving ethos) remain effectively exempt. It is deplorable when elites complain about income taxes and then somehow convince middle class and poor people to do the same. Most regular people don’t pay much in income taxes; they are slain by the payroll taxes taken from their salaries. Granted, taxes do pay for the fundamentals of a civilized society such as roads, policing, schools and general welfare; however, when those tax dollars are used to subvert the best interests of ordinary Americans through cynical deceptive means, it is akin to robbery.
Although we do vote in our elected officials and thereby are somewhat culpable for their permissive attitudes towards the predation of our modern day barons, the blame is not entirely ours. I doubt the founding fathers ever considered the possibility that legislators, regulators and other institutions of government could be seduced away from their responsibilities to the people. Many generations of legislation (the Financial Modernization Bill) and jurisprudence (corporate personhood, the affirmation that money is equivalent to free speech and regulatory neglect such as the non-enforcement of antitrust laws) laid the framework for our modern troubles.
Human history faced a similar predicament during the Dark Ages when warlords and knights used violence and coercion to consolidate power and wealth. Today’s knightly class uses complex financial instruments like derivatives and clever interpretations of the law to feed their rapacity. In the middle ages, there emerged a countervailing force to keep the greed and violence in check. The learned people of the Church (not as a religious institution, but as an educated class) institution created the concepts of chivalry and noblese oblige to restrain the nobility. Why did they do it? Because they could see the seedlings mass societal discontent, and to save the nobles from eventually cannibalizing themselves.
Unfortunately today, there is no such unitary countervailing force, but there are signs of societal change. For example(s): (1) former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has highlighted the dangers of allowing for judicial elections; (2) the Supreme Court this term will explore the concept of corporate personhood; (3) the excessively restrictive elements of intellectual property law are being challenged by the piracy movement (even the super conservative law&economics Judge Posner has questioned the usefulness of onerous IP laws); (4)many communities are enacting publicly funded elections so as to curtail the influence of money in election cycles; (5) the push to force Congress to post bills online for public review 72 hours before they vote on it; and (6)some companies are making sincere efforts at incorporating CSR (corporate social responsibility) into their operating procedures. It will take time for these concepts to reach critical mass, but the process can be quickened through more active political participation the local level which can translate into policy changes at the federal level. What is also important is media literacy and civics education. People need to know how to question facts presented to them so that they won’t be manipulated by cynical astroturf campaigns. Civics would teach citizens how to interface with and influence their government.
I believe that one of the principal reasons things have gotten so bad was because of poor education. A blanket of apathy was pulled over the eyes of the nation over the past 30-40 years as we abdicated civil responsibility and chased rampant dreams of materialism. This crisis should serve as a waking call.

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...shift the balance of power back towards democracy.

A lot of these ideas are going to require change via the ballot initiative. Not all states have the initiative system.

It all starts with clean elections.

We absolutely, positively need to level the playing field and eliminate money as the guardian of the gate to public office. Publicly funded elections are the only solution. Joe or Joan the American should be able to run and compete with any plutocrat on equal terms.

Once we have a sizeable number of fair and clean electoral victories, K Street needs to be cleaned up. By simply enacting publicly funded elections much of the muscle of K Street is lost. It's the need for constant re-election fund raising that gives K Street it's considerable power and leverage. But bribery is still bribery and any quid pro quo should be treated as the crime that it is.

Once the lobby is tamed, the issue of the "personhood" of corporations needs to be tackled. Any rational human being can intuitively understand the absurdity of this proposition. We have let a (deliberate?) clerical error by a clerk to the Supreme Court become the law of the land. (Talk about judicial activism and "original intent"!)

Anti-trust laws need to be enforced. Any corporate entity that is "too big to fail" is too big to exist and needs to be broken up.

The Pentagon also needs to be reigned in. There is absolutely no reason that we need to spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined. Sure, we need a national defense - and I support defending our borders. But there is no reason we should have troops in 70% of the world's countries.

Lastly, we need to gain control over our currency. We need to abolish the Federal Reserve. A private bank creating our own money by allowing us to "borrow" it from them with interest is perverse on it's face. As stated in the Constitution, Congress should control the creation and valuation of our currency.

Reclaiming our democracy is doable, and may not have to involve blood and violence as some of the posters have posited. But it is not going to happen by making phone calls and writing letters. It is going to take organizing, collecting signatures, and siezing the initiative (pun intended). People have to be willing to get in front of that metaphorical "Tianamen Square tank" without firing a shot or flinching.

Pax...
Pope Urban XXIII

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Al Qaeda wasn't the lone actor in 9/11. The same predatory billionaires who bleed this country had no trouble sacrificing/”disposing of" 3,000 dead souls on 9/11. When you wake up to that fact you begin to realize how cheap our lives have become to these people.

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When watching the documentary "Killing Pablo," I was first amazed at how powerful he was and even more amazed at how he was finally isolated. Family members of his victims, along with other elements of the society he terrified, started killing anyone who benefitted from a relationship with Mr. Escobar. Lawyers, accountants, and anyone else who made their bread off of Pablo was killed. Soon the terrorizers were the terrorized and Pablo was all alone.
I also remember hearing a quote from Franklin Roosevelt commenting on the passionate hatred Wall Street and the superrich had for him. He said something like, "Don't they realize that if it wasn't for me and what I do, there'd be revolution?" Even at the finest moment of government stepping in to help the little guy, the hero was just trying to save his family's big house.
Are those billionaires who are benefitting off the toil and deprivation of others any better than Pablo? Can we inspire another Roosevelt to fear for his family's house? If we don't then future generations will be able to relate even more than we to those old Russian novels.

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People die because they are sick or get hit by a bus or their number is up.

It has been well known and demonstrated for 50 years that smoking ciggybutts causes cancer. If I get cancer from smoking ciggybutts why should you pay for my meds? (but you will )

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I pay way too much for energy (gas and heat), insurance, flimsy plastic products, and food grown on corporate farms.

I wouldn't know how to live a week without contributing to the corporate robbers. I try, but have found it impossible.

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I work for a small 9 person family business, employed for 12 yrs now. I stopped getting raises about 5 yrs ago because the owner bought himself a high-maintenance wife, a custom new house in a ritzy neighborhood ($38,000 on a kitchen countertop alone). Recently he purchased the acre next to his home and crashed down the existing house. Next he purchased a 22nd floor condo overlooking the Atlantic and a 2010 Rolls Royce, blah blah blah. Now that the downturn in the economy is starting to affect the incoming checks to the business, he is going to cut my paycheck so he can keep up his big-dick lifestyle. No matter that I have been a devoted employee and helped keep this business rolling all these years. He stopped paying health insurance to employees so he can pocket the cash. It is disgusting. I do not envy his purchases, but I see my income going to support his largess, it makes me depressed. He's not suffering, he's living fat off of my lean.

Sushi
"Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting someone else to do the work. "

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the Rockefellers, for starters!!! They have been manipulating finances & the economy for a very long time, in many illegal ways!!!

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You know, after surviving a whole 8 years of Bushco and his Thugpublicans.

If we had all decided THEN that we'd had enough, perhaps we'd be far away from this crises.

Pity the fools who think revolution is an option now! Wait until the mightiest government in the world decides to rest it's Eye on you, and come for you. What then?

No, the best way to gain traction is to play the game their way, defeat them from the inside.

Let's start our own mortgage companies, our own banks, our own EVERYTHING! It's easy, really.

Just takes one.

I've already started.

I will make everyone a home owner, no matter the cost to me.

What will you do?

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My husband was in the same boat; a half-million dollar boat, to be exact.The more the boat and whatever expensive things the owner needed to keep up with his buddies, the more my husband's pay was cut, even though my husband was the one who ran the business. Luckily for us, my husband was able to find a wonderful new company who pays him what he is worth and appreciates his long hours and business sense, although it did take a much (much!) longer search than usual, thanks to our George W. Bush Economy. We are positive that his previous employer took advantage of my husband simply because he COULD, due to the terrible job market. We are also sure he was very surprised when my husband said those wonderful magic words: I am leaving.

The old company is going to be in rough waters without my husband, but we needed to stay afloat, and we were sinking fast while subsidizing someone else's expensive lifestyle. Thank goodness we were thrown a lifeline.

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That is a big number and it seems like a bottomless pit.

But the reality is that most of the world is subsisting on a dollar a day; a dollar a day in the hands of a good organization can also equal medical care, FAMILY PLANNING, education and capital for small family businesses.

15 million multiplied by 365 days in a year equals 5.5 billion - which equals LESS THAN ONE PERCENT of the $630 billion quietly approved for 2009 defense spending after all the fuss over the one-time $750 billion Wall St bailout.

In short, we have the resources and the technology to end poverty and maybe even war, FOREVER - but that's not where the monied interest is :.(

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It's legal to go buy life insurance policies for a large group of people like that? Does that mean I can go to a nursing home & sign up everybody I see so I get sent $500k whenever somebody croaks? I think I just figured out a way to finally pay off my student loans...oh wait, I have morals. So much for that plan.

Or is this just another example of how corporations claim to have the same rights as a human being but only when it's convenient for them?

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I feel safer now...though not as well off.

Two years ago the bottom fell out.

I let the mortgage company take my property...I could not sell it anyway, let them deal with it.

I stopped paying all my credit cards...I had to use them to try to keep the mortgage paid so some of the same banks just redirected the same money anyway.

The banks are paying 800% higher premiums for property insurance, but I am sure there is a kick back there somewhere.

I don't have health care. I use a local sliding fee clinic for minor stuff. I will pack a lunch and go to the ER for my hip later. Let them send me a bill...I will just add it to the pile awaiting bankruptcy anyway.

When you push everyone into a corner with greed what else do you expect people to do?

I say everyone should use the "system" we have to push these expenses right back in the laps of the greedy.

I'm tired....

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Quote: "It’s as if America is some kind of despised abstraction to our ruling class".

The actions of these people speak for themselves. I am more than a little convinced that war has been declared on the masses of the world. The super-wealthy are only too happy to use gigantic bulldozers to push the rest of us off of the face of the earth. In fact, I believe that they are on a mission from the devil to do so.

Don't believe it? Just stick around for a few more years. You'll be more convinced than I am.

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All informed people must call our current state of affairs what it is: Corporate Socialism. Our Government serves corporations, our military serves corporations, our evolving police state serves corporations, our tax money goes to corporations.
Say it over and over again until even the thickest among us use the terminology and have a glimmer of understanding.
Corporate Socialism is an emense evil.

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Absolute monarchy, where all the people are serfs and submit to the will of one selected or self-selected person, is one of two viable systems of government. The other viable system is oligarchy, where the chief is selected by and from among a few, rules for their benefit, and uses their wealth and power to control the masses of serfs.

In mythology and legend, the US speaks about being a democracy, but it is in fact an oligarchy. The so-called extension of rights to the serfs was not a method of governing, but a method of economy--of making the rich richer by giving the serfs the illusion of being free and equal. The Congress is a group of parasites and pretenders to wealth and power totally bought and paid for by the oligarchy. 99% of us are serfs, with value only as serfs, fodder for toxins from the pharmaceuticals, fodder for exorbitant fees from doctors and hospitals, subject to the whims of banksters, controlled by "irrational" laws (like the war on drugs) for the sake of the oligarchy. That's the way it is.

Now, as the supply of available oil declines and as we enter an energy-poor future, faced by food, water, and security problems because of climate change, you can expect the contours of politics to change back into the Lord-and-Serf, master-slave, model that governed the vast stretch of pre-industrial civilizations. There are too many of us serfs to feed, clothe, house, and provide security. Expect the rich to get richer, the serfs poorer and fewer, and life that is nasty, short, and brutish. That's reality.

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now Mr. Aims sees it, and Alternet is at least implicitly recognizing it, too.

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"The Walton family alone is worth more than the bottom 100 million Americans combined."

The Walton family (founders of walmart) are worth more than the bottom 100 million U.S. Citizens put together?

How ironic, considering walmart makes their money off of that bottom 100 million, as most of them shop at walmart.

Then again, come to think of it, every company makes money off of us. That's why we have nothing and they have everything.

I especially liked that dictatorship reference. Indeed, no American would tolerate seeing some sort of nazi parade going down the street, so the corporate interests and their government marionettes have learned to avoid that physical presence and still hold power like any other dictatorship.

Sorry, this country isn't democratic in the first place. It's a republic. We elect people to make decisions FOR us, instead of actually taking the initiative to LEARN about issues, and vote on them ourselves.

It would make the process go a bit slower, but dammit, it's honest.

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...to work for an insurance company in the 80s, where I learned all about "Dead Peasants". I also learned that my beloved husband, with his heart disease controlled but still present, was considered by the trucking company where he worked as the ideal "Dead Peasant"--one who wouldn't long survive his retirement (if he got there at all).

Now, I love my husband and I was doing everything I could, with every cutting-edge treatment and method I heard of, to keep him with me. He retired in 2006. We had two beautiful retirement years where we traveled, saw family, etc. Then he needed a 5-vessel bypass. He got it the day after being diagnosed, (they didn't even let him go home) and he's happy and healthy right now.

I am so happy...but see, I'm sorry for my husband's company. His "Dead Peasant" won't pay off for them until he's at least 90. His health is - and was - otherwise EXCELLENT.

"Happens," the doctor advised us, "and that's the worst of some of these cases. People can be healthy in every way until their hearts give out."

Eventually the company will collect on him. But not till he's lived at least as long (all things considered) as he did, while he worked for them with his heart ready to quit at any particular time.

And for me, that's an EXTRA PLUS. What a decadent and demeaning practice.

Here's how we shortstop that: the Republicans want us to "DIE QUICK"??? Out of SPITE, (perhaps) we've stopped smoking--we're healthier than ever--and now, with President Obama and Democrats at the helm, we'll stay that way.

To the Republicans: Take your Dead Peasants Insurance and stick it where the sun doesn't shine. Hope that everyone reading this learns, and costs you people, what my husband's "Dead President" insurance will have cost you, in premiums, by the time that he dies!!!!

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Bush should be known as the magical president. When the twin towers were hit Bush DISAPPEARED. The Iraq nuclear missiles DISAPPEARED. The CIA tapes of interrigation DISAPPEARED. Bush was nowhere to be found when 'shotgun Dick' disclosed that Valerie Plame was a (covert) CIA agent which was classified information. When our embassy in Serbia burned Bush DISAPPEARED. Bush's Robber Baron presidency has made our money DISAPPEAR. With Voodoo Economics Georgie has made most of our jobs DISAPPEAR. But what would happen if Bush really disappeared? Can you imagine 'Deadeye Dick' with his finger on the nuclear trigger? If that were to happen everyone might just DISAPPEAR!!!!!!! When he wanted to put all the Social Security money in the stock market, Barney Frank said that Wall Street needed to be re-regulated. Bush replied by disappearing. He did manage to APPEAR just long enough to lobby for and sign into law CORPORATE WELFARE for the international banks. Goodbye Goofball Georgie, have fun in Texass.

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It may be called "the ruling class" but in actuality it is the ruling CRIMINAL class, a distinct type of mentally ill but manipulative subhumans that has existed since the beginning of our time; and thanks to eight years of George Bush and Dick Cheney, there are precious few laws remaining to regulate and/or prosecute these modern-day pirates, and even fewer individuals in justice or law enforcement willing to enforce the laws that we do have. Has anyone heard more than a peep from our Attorney General, Eric Holder since he was appointed?

Bush and Co.. by allowing these people to get a firm grip on our society and hold it for nearly a decade, set the ball rolling to drive us back beyond 19th century Russia, all the way back to Loius XVI France. Or even back to the feudal Middle Ages. It is happening slowly, too slowly for most to recognize; but it is happening, just as surely as we humans have exhibited the form of greed that has spawned these cycles of misery for all of our history.

George Santyana was right; we have forgotten the lessons of history once again and thus are condemned to repeat them.

H. G. Wells may turn out to be right as well; he had future human (mis)development turning the vast majority of us into the passive, submissive Eloi, providing slave labor (and food) for the "ruling class," the rapacious, vicious Morlocks ... only a matter of time and degree from where we are heading today ...

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Wake up People. Turn off your damned TV's and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

The American Sheeple have ALLOWED these crooks to fleece them. I have no sympathy for my fellow Americans, because you're all too busy with American Idol and fluff. When will you start caring about your standard of living to the point that you DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

Why doesn't some poor jerk who's lost everything in Katrina or whatever and now has nothing to lose, go hunt down William McGuire of UnitedHealth and put him in the ground? These executives bleed like everyone else.

Seriously though....Americans are their own worst enemies because they ALLOW this sh*t to happen.

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My next-to-last employer went to Farmers and took out a policy on me.
He's now out of business, many thanks to his competitor and my little whistle.

My employer in the late 1980's and early 90's took out one on me.
The HR man was busted for collusion in an auto-theft cabal. The company was qui-tammed and fined multimillions.

No crook ever commits a single unaccompanied one-time criminal act. They commit multitudes. Keep your eyes open, talk to everyone, and sooner or later the SOB's will be laid low.

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....That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Wake up people - it's time to take to the streets with torches and pitchforks like our ancestors did! The goverment - both sides of the aisle - is in league with corporatism and until we stand up for our rights we've no room to moan and complain!

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Remember Peter Finch's character in the 76 film Network?

There are a lot of people in this country and all the other western countries who are getting madder and madder.

For the most part we are downtrodden, sheeple as someone so brilliantly said...

It's time for the peasants to revolt. We must be prepared. The government have already built Fema camps, they have 400,000 military stationed here no doubt to cope with civil unrest.

We have no doubts that civil unrest is bubbling under. Angry comments on sites like this will soon wear thin as the people come together to make their own form of war.

This will not be an easy transition. The world of corporate socialism, rule by the many is toppling. They are propping it up, reminding us of Nancy Reagan's cosmetic surgery. Underneath the smooth skin is a rapidly ageing corpus.

And they will not give up without a tooth and nail fight.

The rich will hire people to protect them from the revolting peasants and soon those protectors will turn against their masters.

It will happen... the world may suffer huge devestation and it may clear the air and land and sea for rebuilding it on a fairer basis.

We may have to sacrifice ourselves and in a world where we're taught from birth to be self-oriented [self and kin] it will be a big transition for all of us... to share of ourselves, of our goods and our land...

Is there a Tony Stark out there? It will take one billionaire, power monger to have an epiphany and turn against the pack and the cracks will widen into gaping craters...

We must stick together on this... Now we are in the time of mass information.. the masses are being bombarded with Michael Moore and Zeitgeist style messages.. and sooner or later they won't be able to plug their ears... and as more and more 'regular' folk lose all... they will realize the time has come to band together and resist.

We must not come from anger or revenge but from a place that is about what is 'the right thing to do'.

Check out the Venus project.

The Venus Project - resource based economy harnessing technology, science and nature for a different kind of world

Sunny

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Do we need to lose everything we have worked for simply because we get sick?

The G20 meeting in PA. was a sign of things to come or should I say have now arrived. Funny how our tax dollars are being used these days. Our government will make the Iranian response look like a bake sale.

We really do need a change we can all believe in even if we have to do it ourselves.

Long live the bottom 90!

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It just dawned on me that the new bubble is in fact the,“dead peasant insurance”, but not for the reasons I first thought.

Follow this. So these slimy corporate suits take life insurance policies out on it's employees and over time make a rather handsome return to fuel self bestowed bonuses but over time this is not enough to out do the last unjustified bonuses. Waiting around for them to die is tedious and so random that somehow they must intervene. So these ruling deletes decide to let the public see more of the injustices and inequalities of the system they have helped to create.

Soon the public starts to become angry so of course some of that very public might want to take literal shots at those in these corporations which show total arrogance for the people.

The moral of the story is that corporations are stirring up the proverbial bees nest in the hope of ushering in a higher revenue stream hoping that some of their own will get picked off in the process to help their bottom line which is to amass as much money as they can no matter how that money is made and as a result, as that violence escalates, will be able to seize control of the country in the name of quelling the violence they had instigated through their puppets in Washington.

Sounds like a win win for the corporate whores.

Stop buying their wares and failing for their commercials.

Live local, buy local and be local to cut off their next fix of our money.

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