Why U.S. Elected Representatives are wrong about everything.

July 28, 2014
War Is Coming - Paul Craig Roberts

The extraordinary propaganda being conducted against Russia by the US and UK governments and Ministries of Propaganda, a.k.a., the “Western media,” have the purpose of driving the world to war that no one can win. European governments need to rouse themselves from insouciance, because Europe will be the first to be vaporized due to the US missile bases that Europe hosts to guarantee its “security.”

As reported by Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge, the Russian response to the extra-legal ruling of a corrupt court in the Netherlands, which had no jurisdiction over the case on which it ruled, awarding $50 billion dollars from the Russian government to shareholders of Yukos, a corrupt entity that was looting Russia and evading taxes, is telling. Asked what Russia would do about the ruling, an adviser to President Putin replied, “There is a war coming in Europe.” Do you really think this ruling matters?”

The West has ganged up on Russia, because the West is totally corrupt. The wealth of the elites is based not only on looting weaker countries whose leaders can be purchased (read John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man for instruction on how the looting works), but also on looting their own citizens. The American elites excel at looting their fellow citizens and have wiped out most of the US middle class in the new 21st century.

In contrast, Russia has emerged from tyranny and from a government based on lies, while the US and UK submerge into tyranny shielded by lies. Western elites desire to loot Russia, a juicy prize, and there stands Putin in the way. The solution is to get rid of him like they got rid of President Yanukovich in Ukraine.

The looting elites and the neoconservative hegemonists have the same goal: make Russia a vassal state. This goal unites the Western financial imperialists with the political imperialists.

I have recorded for readers the propaganda that is used in order to demonize Putin and Russia. But even I was stunned by the astounding and vicious lies in the UK publication The Economist on July 26. The cover is Putin’s face in a spider web, and, you guessed it, the cover story is “A Web of Lies.”

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21608645-vladimir-putins-epic-deceits-have-grave-consequences-his-people-and-outside-world-web?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709

You need to read this propaganda both in order to see the gutter level of propaganda in the West and the obvious drive to war with Russia. There is no evidence whatsoever in the story to support The Economist’s wild accusations and demand for the end of Western “appeasement” of Russia and the harshest possible action against Putin.

The kind of reckless lies and transparent propaganda that comprises The Economist’s story has no other purpose than to drive the world to war.

The Western elites and governments are not merely totally corrupt, they are insane. As I have previously written, don’t expect to live much longer. In this video one of Putin’s advisors and Russian journalists speak openly of US plans for a first strike on Russia:

http://financearmageddon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/official-warning-u-s-to-hit-russia-with.html

That, no matter your "party" affiliation should be refreshing. The next and most obvious problem we have is the absolutely controlled and biased major news medias- nothing more than butt puppets to our corrupt govt.

And did you ever see an article in any new media of the meetings to discuss the plans- BLM was having over the sale of our lands to fracking companies??

Just what we need, another thread to allow Ron to pick the low-hanging fruit of blaming the media for everything. Rightwing playbook 101.

Reilly, we are mostly a nation of serial complainers, with Fox News setting the tone.

You need $$ to get your message out. You need $$ to counter the attacks your opponents put out. You need $$ because it influences the way people vote.

Again, your problem is with the Supreme Court. And voters.

Why U.S. Elected Representatives are wrong about everything.

One main difference is the notion of "scope" in a courts decision in terms of which circumstances the decision can be applied to: Conservatives: narrow scope, so personhood for corporations only in respect to their political spending privileges and no accountability. Democrats: broad scope, so personhood for corporations means it comes with all the bumps and warts of being a person, along with all the privileges.

Beggar's can't be choosers! I LOVE THE USA...

Can you list the number of people who have gone to jail who are members of a corporation, and were directly or indirectly responsible for the economic collapse of 2008?

Neither Democrats or Republicans work for the voting public. Voters are not their constituency anymore.

They work for one group only. Donors. The public gets served only along lines that happen to correspond with the needs of wealthy interests.

You do not live in a democratic republic at all. I'm not sure what to call it.

Your vote is meaningless. Both candidates with any chance to win have been found acceptable to the donor class long before you get to vote on them.

Our so called form of Democracy is truly just opium for the masses.

Read this .. it's nothing new. These types of memo's have been leaked before suggesting that any candidate spend at least half their time fundraising. Or more. Not working for the people.

You can love your child, yet still be disappointed in their behavior. The whole "love it or leave it" crowd seem to be too simple minded to understand that.

Jul 29, 2014 - 10:01am PT
So I wonder if people in Costa Rica bitch about not having the government
they deserve or chose. It must suck to be without a military in addition
to have to put up with that rather universal health care system.

Of course the people most resopnsible for the collapse of 2008 all worked for the government,

"Those people" in charge during those years were "overseen" by Republicans, and make no mistake about it they did nothing but watch as those markets imploded, deluded with their own ignorant belief that markets don't need responsible regulation and all will be well if markets are left to be "free".

Both candidates with any chance to win have been found acceptable to the donor class long before you get to vote on them.

Apogee, that requires criminal behavior. Getting defrauded by borrowers is not a crime. Helping borrowers defraud federally-insured lenders so you can sell more houses, RV's, cars, loans or anything else is a crime, and I know people who served time for doing that. Of course the people most resopnsible for the collapse of 2008 all worked for the government, and are exempt from criminal or civil liability for stupidity or worse.

John

Bill Clinton's biggest blunder was a blow job

10Million for a senate race? What does a senator make? 200 300K not sure

GOLD is the money of the KINGS,
SILVER is the money of the GENTLEMEN,
BARTER is the money of the PEASANTS,
but DEBT is the money of the SLAVES!!!

We are actually pretty damn close. Re-instate the banking regulations that were in place until Reagan showed up.

it's all about the banksters and their handlers

Ya know what stuck me immediately about Romney, was that he was incapable of lying or being dishonest.

As long as there are honest people like you and me, there is still hope for honest gov't. Right?

Ya know what stuck me immediately about Romney, was that he was incapable of lying or being dishonest.

Just see the politards how steeped they are in their daily phantasmic illusions ......

Jammer is right... the only source of monetary value is labor.

The entrepreneur assumes more risk in exchange for the expectation of a higher reward.

Its labor that is at risk; it could be all for nothing.

Since Citizens United has effectively entrenched our current system even deeper, there don't seem to be a plethora of potential solutions being offered up these days. Mostly complicit resignation and cynicism.

our Representative government is supposed to be about the people first.

I personally think it is painfully obvious that labor is not valued at it's free-market rate in our current system, and that theft is outright rewarded. You seem to liken that to "acquiring capital" and "the means of production".

And your alternative would be, then (madbolter)?

Individuals are going to vote in their own interests, right?

Individuals are going to vote in their own interests, right?

It is the second sense of "entitlement" to which I refer. Tax credits just because you're poor? Sorry. No. Tax credits just because you're poor and keep pumping out the kids? Sorry. Double, triple no! Illegal alien that manages to pump out a kid on American soil and then jump on the welfare roles? Infinitely NO! You don't get to vote yourself a fuller and fuller teat at taxpayers' expense just because you and a huge pile of people like you CAN. If you don't PAY taxes to keep this nation running, then you do not have the long-term best-interests of this entire nation fundamentally at heart. And that is the sense in which "people voting their interests" implodes.

And anyway....isn't the concept of 'majority faction', in essence, the simple principle behind our democratic election process?

Are tax credits the only example of 'entitlements' that you can offer?

Jammer, you and Gary share the same view on the value of labor. You eliminate an essential ingredient in acquiring capital. It is not enough merely to labor for it. You need to spend less than you make. Deferred gratification enriches economies. Unless you reward that deferred gratification, you will have no incentive to accumulate capital.

what do you propose instead of Social Security?

Government of Ukraine Collapses

Today the Ukrainian government resigned. The prime minister Yatsenyuk, or “Yat” as affectionately called by Victoria Nuland who put Yat into office, resigned along with the entire Cabinet. The parliament refused to vote the harsh conditions demanded by the IMF. I am not sure what this means. Perhaps it is just a tactic to force the parliament to do as the IMF says. Or perhaps Yat, Washington’s stooge, has realized that IMF or no IMF, Ukraine’s economy is imploding and wants to get out of the blame.

The point for now is that I checked the BBC, the New York Times, and CNN and there is not one word about the collapse of the government of Ukraine.

I did notice that the BBC, now a reliable element of Washington’s Ministry of Propaganda, reported, as if it were true, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf’s claim that the Russian military is shelling Ukrainian forces. When Harf tried this out today on a roomful of journalists, they laughed her out of the room. Evidence, evidence! they demanded. Why, Harf was asked, do you think something is made true by you saying it!?

So, as usual, real news is missing from the Western press, but fake news is reported.

Professor Michael Chossudovsky has provided an account of the collapse of the Ukrainian government on Global Research. http://www.globalresearch.ca/collapse-of-ukraine-government-prime-minister-yatsenyuk-resigns-amidst-pressures-exerted-by-the-imf/5393168

In the case of welfare, I am FORCED to pay an arbitrary amount of money to people I would not otherwise be willing to support, and that payment provides neither protection of my inalienable rights nor produce a product I could not otherwise produce on my own and that directly benefits me.

You have a very strange definition of 'entitlements'.

You might feel that there are those who receive Welfare develop an inappropriate level of entitlement attitude towards it, but pretty much the rest of the world defines welfare as a 'Social Program'.

And you are pretty spiteful about it, too.

I have known a number of people who are on welfare, and none of them wanted to start receiving it, and all of them did everything they could to get off of it, and back on their own feet, as soon as possible.

Of course, there are abuses....

and you seem to have gained the view that all persons receiving welfare wish to do nothing more than suck on the gov't teat for the rest of their lives, and that we should not (as a country) do anything to help those in genuine need.

Man, that's a negative view of the world.

MB -- "I am very unhappy to see the greatest nation on Earth slowly pitch off the cliff in exactly
the way that the founders hoped to avoid and that de Tocqueville predicted."

And then you have these stupid brainwashed idiot politards here babbling incessantly parroting MSM with no clue what's going on ......

Andddd... the puppet-masters win again: class warfare and class envy are alive and well.

Throw every one of the incumbents out of office as a first step.

There are plenty of good people in congress.

Strongly disagree, DMT. The only source of monetary value is what you can exchange it for. Since I am required to pay my taxes in U.S. dollars, and I can be jailed if I don't, I can exchange U.S. dollars for my freedom which, to me, has value.

In addition, labor is simply one factor of production. You can't eat unless you harvest a crop, but you can't plant a crop unless you have seed for the crop, and unless you water it, and unless you have soil in which to plant it, etc. etc. In general, production requires varying amounts of the following (in alphabetical order):

1. Capital;

2. Entrepreneurial leadership;

3. Labor; and

4. Resources (some older texts lump all resources as "land").

Trying to say that any one factor of production is "primary" leads to the equivalent of proving the chicken came before the egg or vice versa.

Incidentally, the popular "Marxist" idea that labor is the sole source of value contradicts what Marx himself believed. He used a labor definition of value (thus, if have to work four hours to buy a suit, the suit is "worth" 4 hours to me. It didn't matter to Marx that it took ten minutes of labor in the factory to make it.

John

Nevertheless, the only source of monetary value is labor. Diamonds and all the gold in the world are worthless pieces of earth, without labor. No part of civilization exists without it. No part of civilization gets built without it. No diamond, gold, oil or even grazing grass for (human manufactured, with LABOR) cows without labor. You can't even print money without it, much less distribute it.

Money is a promise of work. Nothing more.

DMT

Its the Teabaggers. Even their own party hates them.

DMT

The Washington Post

In Tunisia, act of one fruit vendor sparks wave of revolution through Arab world

By Marc Fisher March 26, 2011

SIDI BOUZID, TUNISIA — On the evening before Mohammed Bouazizi lit a fire that would burn across the Arab world, the young fruit vendor told his mother that the oranges, dates and apples he had to sell were the best he’d ever seen. “With this fruit,” he said, “I can buy some gifts for you. Tomorrow will be a good day.”

For years, Bouazizi had told his mother stories of corruption at the fruit market, where vendors gathered under a cluster of ficus trees on the main street of this scruffy town, not far from Tunisia’s Mediterranean beaches. Arrogant police officers treated the market as their personal picnic grounds, taking bagfuls of fruit without so much as a nod toward payment. The cops took visible pleasure in subjecting the vendors to one indignity after another — fining them, confiscating their scales, even ordering them to carry their stolen fruit to the cops’ cars.

Before dawn on Friday, Dec. 17, as Bouazizi pulled his cart along the narrow, rutted stone road toward the market, two police officers blocked his path and tried to take his fruit. Bouazizi’s uncle rushed to help his 26-year-old nephew, persuading the officers to let the rugged-looking young man complete his one-mile trek.

The uncle visited the chief of police and asked him for help. The chief called in a policewoman who had stopped Bouazizi, Fedya Hamdi, and told her to let the boy work.

Hamdi, outraged by the appeal to her boss, returned to the market. She took a basket of Bouazizi’s apples and put it in her car. Then she started loading a second basket. This time, according to Alladin Badri, who worked the next cart over, Bouazizi tried to block the officer.

“She pushed Mohammed and hit him with her baton,” Badri said.

Hamdi reached for Bouazizi’s scale, and again he tried to stop her.

Hamdi and two other officers pushed Bouazizi to the ground and grabbed the scale. Then she slapped Bouazizi in the face in front of about 50 witnesses.

Bouazizi wept with shame.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he cried, according to vendors and customers who were there. “I’m a simple person, and I just want to work.”

Revolutions are explosions of frustration and rage that build over time, sometimes over decades. Although their political roots are deep, it is often a single spark that ignites them — an assassination, perhaps, or one selfless act of defiance.

In Tunisia, an unusually cosmopolitan Arab country with a high rate of college attendance, residents watched for 23 years as Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s dictatorship became a grating daily insult. From Tunis — the whitewashed, low-rise capital with a tropical, colonial feel — to the endless stretches of olive and date trees in the sparsely populated countryside, the complaints were uniform: It had gotten so you couldn’t get a job without some connection to Ben Ali’s family or party. The secret police kept close tabs on ordinary Tunisians. And the uniformed police took to demanding graft with brazen abandon.

Still, the popular rebellion that started here and spread like a virus to Egypt, Libya and the Persian Gulf states, and now to Yemen and Syria, was anything but preordained. The contagion, carried by ordinary people rather than politicians or armies, hits each country in a different and uncontrollable way, but with common characteristics — Friday demonstrations, Facebook connections, and alliances across religious, class and tribal lines. This wave of change happened because aging dictators grew cocky and distant from the people they once courted, because the new social media that the secret police didn’t quite understand reached a critical mass of people, and because, in a rural town where respect is more valued than money, Mohammed Bouazizi was humiliated in front of his friends.

Here is a prime example of that Liberal Democratic thieving buffoonery that was re-elected to the Senate tonight... A fuming Comedian who can't or doesn't know how to pay his taxes.

Here is a prime example of that Liberal Democratic thieving buffoonery that was re-elected to the Senate tonight... A fuming Comedian who can't or doesn't know how to pay his taxes.

The biggest single thing voters can do for anti-corruption is to vote for the next president who may get Citzens United reversed.
This basically means vote against a Repub for the next president.
It is the conservatives on the Supreme Court who held that corporations are people.

Corporations are not people.

These are realities.

With all due respect, corporations are a shorthand for people