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"A tiny and closed fraternity of
privileged men, elected by no one, and
enjoying a monopoly
sanctioned and licensed by government." – Spiro T. Agnew
"Like no administration before it, the Bush
administration has mastered what the media critic
Walter Lippmann called "the
manufacture of consent" - the use of "psychological research, coupled with the
modern means of communication," to muster mass support for elite agendas.
Staging photo-ops whose choreographed drama and camera-ready visuals
("Mission Accomplished") are intended to play to the
emotions and overrule objections; reducing
complicated geopolitical issues to black-or-white dualisms (Team America:
World Police versus the Axis of Evil!); stonewalling the media,
cherry-picking intelligence and parroting Karl Rove-approved talking points -
the Bush administration represents the apotheosis of government by spin
control." - Mark Dery 6/7/08
American aristocracy has formed a new
policy which would call upon the
military of the United
States of America to
suppress 'threats' to the imperial plutocratic hegemony of
American aristocracy anywhere on
Earth.
This is a
fundamental departure from
American traditions first stated in the
Monroe Doctrine. No longer must a 'threat' be
clear cut and
imminent before the
psychopathology of the
Talmudic mindset takes action. Using
military
force against emerging 'threats' before they become
imminent has become
the Talmudists central military doctrine.
These 'threats' mainly consist in the loss
of previously contracted obligations of other nation states to the
plutocracy of the
American aristocracy and
their masters.
American aristocracy, the owners of the
American military-industrial-mass
media-corporate
complex, are reaping substantial
profits from ongoing
conflicts in
Iraq and
Afghanistan.
"The only way to
achieve a practical, livable peace in a
world of competing nations is to take the profit out
of war. " - Richard Nixon
George W. Bush
and John F. Kerry were fallaciously presented as two men on opposite ends of the
ideological spectrum,
liberal and conservative, left and
right. George W. Bush and
John F. Kerry are both Yale graduates, both belong to
the secret society Skull and Crossbones and both come from privileged backgrounds - prep
schools, summer homes, East Coast roots
and old money.
George W. Bush's and John F. Kerry's social status as American aristocrats determines their
ideology.
"The paths to
power are different
today from those of 100 year ago, but the
new paths are as exclusive as the old. Leaders are chosen from
a particular group because that is how it
has always been done. Tradition dictates
that incumbent leaders choose as their
successors people who "look like them." By
excluding outsiders, they are also keeping potential talent out." - Morgen Witzel
The political battle that
rages now has nothing to do with the common working lower and middle class
Americans, the Atlas supporting American aristocracies dreamtime. The battle is between those employed
by the military-industrial-mass
media-corporate
complex and their employers,
American aristocracy.
Now
government employees live better than most common
working middle class
Americans and the American Dream has become as it was in
Saddam Hussein's Iraq,
to work as a government enforcer.
Government work
remains a model of relative stability.
Top officials may become fabulously
wealthy as
Dick Cheney has.
Starting pay is good enough to provide a secure,
upper middle class
lifestyle and workhours allow
time for family and
vacations. Healthcare is relatively good, and
pensions - a relic in the private sector except for top
management - just appear to keep getting better. American aristocracy needs
enforcers. (My wife, who has
worked over 30 years in the
private sector, gets only a
two week vacation, the direct result of mergers and
corporate relocations.)
In
California a civil servant, after 30 years
of 'service', can retire at age 55
with 60% of his salary. Police
officers and prison guards get larger pensions.
Highway patrolmen can retire at 50 with 90% of
their pay. Retired state workers retain
health insurance. American aristocracy needs
enforcers.
"We have two classes of citizens: Government
employees who can retire at younger and younger ages, and those who have to
wait longer to retire so they can pay government employees." - Robert
Somerville
"I spend a lot of time fighting this incredible
goverment giveaway to what has become the new aristocracy -
public employees." - Richard
RiderAmerican aristocrats political propaganda perpetuates the
idea that the American aristocrats who own
controlling interests in the stock of
oil, insurance, banking, telecommunications and mass media corporations, as well as
weapons manufactures, are just regular
guys who shop at
Wal-Mart and eat at
McDonald's. (George H.W. Bush,
Sr. did not know what a bar code scanner was,
because he had never seen one!)
American aristocrats send their
sons to the "best"
private
schools and the Ivy League
universities.
Freshly
minted young American
aristocrats become
corporate
executives. Well
connected
corporate
executives rise to the top of the
corporate pyramid and become
CEOs.
American aristocrats contribute to
politicians that pass laws to subsidize
American corporations at the expense of common
working lower and middle class
Americans.
American aristocrats contribute to
politicians that pass laws so that 60% of American corporations pay no
taxes.
American aristocrats contribute to
politicians that pass laws so that a corporation is protected under the
Bill of Rights as a
living breathing
human being instead of a conceptualized 'thing' created by law and
allowed to exist and function
institutionally only by a construct of
law.
American aristocrats determine the massive lay offs
and the movement of corporations abroad
that gut the economies of cities and drive
families from comfort into
chaos.
American aristocrats support the notion that
critical thinking is
.
American aristocrats want common
working lower and middle class
Americans to believe that they are just luckier, more
photogenic versions of common
working Americans.
American aristocrats quote the Bible in political contexts that have nothing in common
with the original conceptual
image.
Bible stories resonate with common
working Americans because they are often about
individuals who, while deeply
flawed, overcome the trials and tribulations of
living - but these
men and women were not
celebrity heroes.
Paul would be in of commitment to a
mental institution in our time for his attempt to explain fledgling
imperial Christianity to the
gentiles.
King David not only had an affair but
murdered the woman's
husband.
Job never gave up under the
direst of circumstances.
These biblical role models
create an understandable
mythical moral
vision.
Their mythic moral
vision is what makes these
biblical role models
memorable, and for that
Americans still tell their
stories.
A recent
shining example of American
aristocracy newest ploy is the
celebrity politician.
Arnold
Schwarzenegger, the Terminator, married to
Maria Shriver.
Maria Shriver, contributing anchor
on Dateline NBC from 1989 until 2004, is the daughter of the
politician
Sargent Shriver and his wife
Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
Maria Shriver's
mother is a sister of the assassinated
John F. Kennedy, assassinated
Robert F. Kennedy, and
Patricia Kennedy.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
celebrity gives him unique
political opportunities - the ability to draw
crowds and cameras and to raise millions from
celebrity struck donors.
It was quite gentlemanly of the Wall Street
bond brokers,
American aristocracies front
men, to give $10
million for advertising
propaganda to pass the refinance of
California state government.
Arnold Schwarzenegger support assured
the passage of the $15 billion bond measure.
(Note: California state government would not
have had to be bailed out if Ken 'Kenny Boy'
Lay and his energy providing buddies hadn't overcharged California $9
billion through energy 'deregulation'. California now pays $3 billion a year to
repay bond indebtedness.)
Could
anyone else have raised so much money so
quickly or moved so many votes?
Ronald Reagan could have.
Ronald Reagan was the penultimate
celebrity turned politician.
Celebrity politicians simultaneously practice
intimidation and ingratiation.
Campaign contributors, ordinary voters and
lawmakers identify with 'world class'
celebrity and praise
celebrity status. (Most
religions would identify this as
idol
worship!)
Other
celebrity politicians include:
Fred Dalton
Thompson, The Hunt for Red October and In the Line of
Fire, made when he was a Senator from Tennesee.
Fred Dalton Thompson acting career
intersected a law practice, in which he was of
counsel to a major Washington law firm.
Fred Dalton Thompson has been an
assistant U.S. attorney; minority counsel, Senate Select Committee on
Presidential Campaign Activities; special
counsel to Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexande; special counsel, Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations; special counsel, Senate Intelligence Committee; member,
Tennessee Appellate Court Nominating Commission.
Helen Gahagan
Douglas starred on Broadway and in the opera was elected to the
House of Representatives in
1944.
Sonny Bono was elected to the
House of Representatives seat representing
Palm Springs in 1992, and re-elected in 1996.
Fred Grandy, gopher on the
Love Boat television series, was
elected to the representatives
seat representing Iowa four times.
Jesse Ventura, of World
Wrestling Federation fame, was elected govenor of Minnesota.
Andrea Mitchell,
NBC foreign affairs correspondent, is married to
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
CNN international correspondent, Christiane
Amanpour, is married to James
Rubin, a former assistant secretary for
public affairs and a chief spokesman for the
State Department.
Film maker Kevin Rafferty is
George W. Bush's cousin.
Richard D. Parsons
, the chairman and CEO of AOL Time Warner, was
counsel for Nelson Rockefeller and a senior
White House aide under Gerald
Ford.
Bill
Moyers served as deputy director
of the Peace Corps during the
John F. Kennedy administration and was
later a special assistant to Lyndon Johnson
from 1963-1965 before serving as Lyndon
Johnson's press secretary from
1965-1967.
In 1968 Shirley Temple was
appointed by
Richard Nixon as a
American
representative at the United
Nations. Shirley Temple served as
American ambassador to Ghana from 1974 to 1976, when
she became American
chief of protocol. In 1989
George H. W. Bush
appointed
Shirley Temple ambassador to
Czechoslovakia.
Ben Stein, was a speechwriter
and lawyer for Richard Nixon at the White
House and then for Gerald
Ford.
Diane
Sawyer was an assistant to Richard
Nixon for eight years.
ABC News correspondent Pierre Salinger was
the press secretary for
John F. Kennedy.
Peter Lawford , who
appeared in the movies Exodus,
Ocean's Eleven, and The Longest Day was married to
Patricia
Kennedy.
Politicians that can
sell product will always climb to the
top of the heap.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a born
salesman thus worthy of idol
worship in the cult of
materialistic consumerism in an
America where product sales are all that counts.
In the autumn of 2004
Arnold Schwarzenegger described how he
sold California in Japan, " I'm here to promote and promote and promote.
Market, market, market. This is what I
know how to do, and I
know that it pays off.
Everyone is making it sound better than it
is. Because that is what marketing is
all about."December 1, 2005 superior court judge Lloyd G. Connelly
ruled that state law bars state officials from
using taxpayer
money for propaganda and that the
Arnold Schwarzenegger administration
violated state law by producing
fake news videos.
In
2004 Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a
bill that passed the California legislature which would have regulated the
'food supplement' industry. The 'food
supplements' that would have been regulated are body building
drugs disguised as food supplements. In 2005 it
was revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger
had a contract worth $8 million to help advertise and sell these body building
drugs.
"Arnold Schwarzenegger is not a
populist. Arnold Schwarzenegger professional background is playacting, and his
personal life consists of associating with the rich and powerful. Before
running for office Arnold Schwarzenegger showed little evidence of self-denial
or social responsibility. Yet
Californians were taken in by Arnold Schwarzenegger laughable no-fundraising,
I'll-balance-the-budget promises." - Bonnie Sloan
In October 2005
Arnold Schwarzenegger was pushing
several initiatives in the $78 million special election he called in California. Speaking of
George W. Bush's
fund raising for the
Republican
party on the eve of the
election
Arnold Schwarzenegger stated, "We would
have appreciated if George W. Bush would
have done his fund raising after the
November 8 election, because you
know we need now all the
money in the world. We want to make sure that we
win, that we can have our
TV spots out there on
television, which is very important."
Arnold Schwarzenegger ran on a
political platform that stated he would not
follow in Grey Davis' footsteps. Arnold
Schwarzenegger claimed Grey Davis was too concerned with
campaign contributions.
Abraham Lincoln would
never be elected today.
Abraham Lincoln was ugly.
Americans now like
photogenic Terminator type
leaders. Americans now want leaders who 'appear' to be flawless in
past and present, which limits the intelligence,
curiosity and
experience of
winning American candidates. Americans now prefer someone shallow, born with a
silver spoon in his mouth, to someone
with a width and depth of life
experience.
"I could opine here about
the exigent for the American voter to look
beyond the superficial and
telegenic candidate, but I may as well wish that
people would stop talking on their cellphones while driving." - Arch
Miller
Americans have disqualified
candidates for president and
vice president because they wept. An
inability to feel
emotion deeply is required for high office.
Americans now prefer 'real' (macho) men
(Terminator and weapons of
mass destruction under the hall table? ha ha ha).
Americans now
respond to political candidates as
Americans respond to
celebrities: Do we like them, find them
attractive, and can we identify with the character they project in
mass media? Will they look good, sound sincere, and be forceful when making
speeches?Americans appear to
believe that looking good in a military pose is more important than having a
grasp of what war actually involves to the
invading country and
the invaded.
A
conceptually accurate
understanding of the
history of
Iraq would have helped immensely
before America invaded Iraq, but Americans have been trained by mass media,
American aristocracies mouthpiece, to
mistrust men of ideas and
education.
tort reform
"Notice corporate outrage: How dare an elected
official represent any interests
of any other citizens? The
thought of permitting this kind of "precedent"
of citizens having a say in their
own government, and therefore quality of
life, is far too frightening to the
corporate thugs and the other
politicians who ride on their backs.
Corporations enjoy the
rights of individuals with none of
the social responsibilities.
Government is run by those with the
money for lawsuits." - Rhonda
HerbelCorporations have
been campaigning for tort reform ever
since corporations were first
chartered.
"The language of the
corporate
campaign against the individual's legal
rights itself conceives of the corporation's humanlike frailties and
sensitivity to damage. The corporation
must be protected from a "litigation
explosion". The individual becomes a
thing
responsibile for
explosions." - Jamie Court
The
RAND Institute for Civil Justice conducted a comprehensive study of injured
Americans in the 1980s and found that only 2
percent of those injured sought recovery through lawsuits.
"Despite all
the rhetoric about litigiousness,
empirical research shows that Americans are
not all that litigious" - Deborah R. Hensler, director of the RAND Institute
for Civil Justice
The National Center for State Courts reported that in
state trial courts in 1992, less than 2 percent of all cases were tort cases.
Between 1985 and 1991(including suits relating to asbestos exposure),
the number of product-liability cases in federal courts fell by 40 percent,
from 8,268 cases to 4,992.
During the same period of time, nearly half
of all federal lawsuits filed involved business to business
disputes.
"'Tort reformers' set up tax
exempt groups in at least 18 states to broadcast their mantra of 'lawsuit
abuses' with 27 active groups. They claimed to speak for individuals, operating
under names such as
Citizens
Against Lawsuit Abuse,
Stop
Lawsuit Abuse,
Lawsuit Abuse
Watch and People for a FAIR
Legal System. The money trail from many of these groups leads directly to
large corporate donors, including
tobacco,
insurance,
oil and gas,
chemical and
pharmaceutical companies, medical
associations and auto manufacturers." -
November 2000 joint report of Public Citizen and The Center for Justice and
Democracy
American government
waste and
abuse is a direct reaction to
mass media marketing of the lifestyle of the
American aristocrat.
American men and women holding
government positions have been conditioned
to believe that with a little luck, hard
work and aristocratic flare they too can join the
ranks of American
aristocracy.
The
General Accounting Office stated in a report that
hundreds of millions of dollars could be
saved each year if there were stricter controls
on the use of government issued
credit cards. From 1994 to 2003 the use
of government purchase cards increased from
$1 billion to $16 billion. General Accounting
Office audits of the charge cards found ineffective management, oversight
and weak internal controls at the departments
of Agriculture, Army, Navy, Air Force, Interior,
Justice, Transportation and Veterans Affairs.
A Navy employee had used a
government
credit card to make 59
fraudulent purchases worth more
than $132,000 which included two cars, cosmetic
surgery and a motorbike.
A Defense
Department employee used a purchase card to charge
$1.7 million in
fraudulent purchases from a
fictitious company set up by her brother.
Government
subsidies
corporate
waste and
Americans subsidize American government.
Government and
corporate
America abuses and
wastes more of the
public's wealth
than most Americans can even
conceive of. Most of this
waste and
abuse ends up as wealth in the hands of well capitalized clever
men who manipulate resources for personal gain. This
wealth is obtained through unfair business
practices, sweatshops,
government decree and no bid contracts!
Think Halliburton!
Los Angeles prosecutor Richard Ceballos wrote a
memo suggesting a Los Angeles county sheriff's deputy had lied in a search
warrant affidavit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
ruled that Richard Ceballos' statements about a
potential lie in a search-warrant affidavit
were "inherently a matter of public concern"
protected by the Constitution.
In May 2006 the Supreme Court
decided that the ‘memo was inflammatory' and that a
government employee while performing his
official duties may be fired or demoted for bringing to
light misconduct or corruption within the employing
public institution."The 5-4 decision essentially says that
government employees can be fired or demoted
if they reveal information about wrongdoing to their
co-workers, to management or possibly to
government investigators.
This
decision sends a terrible message and could be deeply damaging to efforts to
fight fraud, abuse and
corruption.
Almost half of all
fraud, detection in
government agencies is estimated to come
from tips, very often received through whistleblowers.
My office,
which is charged, among other things,
with rooting out fraud, and
waste in the Los Angeles city
government, routinely receives credible
whistleblower information from city
employees.
In the last five years we have conducted more than 100
audits and investigations, and I can tell you that if we had not offered
protection and anonymity to
whistleblowers, the results would
have been less than fruitful.
Let there be no doubt.
If employees
are no longer protected by the
First Amendment when they speak out then
precious sources of information will wither
away. " - Laura Chick, Los Angeles city controller.
Laura Chick helped
the US attorney to successfully prosecute the public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard, with the
help of employees of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, for
fraudlent over billing for
several million dollars. (American
aristocracy may win again! Doug Dowie and John Stodder freed on bail while
awaiting an appeal on their prison sentences, due to the following Supreme
Court decision.)
"The U.S. Supreme Court
decision to deny whistleblower
protection to public employees continues what many of us already
know. As the salaries of top
government bureaucrats rise faster than the
price of gasoline, job protection and
career advancement become everyone's top priority. Nonelected bureaucrats
surround themselves with "yes men" loyal only to the boss, often at the expense
of the very people their office was created to
serve. Intelligent employees know that
submitting ideas, comments or criticisms up
the chain of command is futile at best and
career suicide at worst. The result?
Government gets bigger, slower, less
productive and more costly. The State Legislature should
restore the
whistleblower
protection that the Supreme Court took away
by a 5-4 vote. While shooting the messenger may protect the bureaucrat, it does not
protect the public." - Daniel J. Schmidt
Oil price anxieties are acute among
American aristocracy which wants
America to continue to
burn a quarter of the Earth's oil
production or more.
"Soaring oil
prices are the inevitable result of a policy that creates a
monopoly on energy for
oil companies and ties
consumers to a product with
serious health and environmental
consequences." - Nathan Springer
Nearly every severe global
recession of the last 50 years has been preceded
by a jump in the price of oil.
American aristocracy sees control of
Iraq as the key to lowering
American oil
prices, bolstering the American
economy and ending OPEC's 30-year
stranglehold on the global oil market.
Iraq is important as
political turmoil has now throttled
oil booms in Columbia, Russia and Africa. What has
happened and is happening is unfortunate and possibly unexpected by federal
government administrators
blind to the
history of
Iraq. Educated individuals would have had the
foresight to realize that firing all
Iraqi government employees, Baath party members,
would undermine the American
military machine by turning those that
knew how to run state
institutions into
insurgents blowing up
oil pipelines!
For the past few decades
investment
banker Matthew R. Simmons, chairman and
CEO of the leading oil industry
investment
bank Simmons & Co. International,
has been financing the exploration and
development of new
oil reserves. In a newly released
book, Twilight in the Desert,
Matthew R. Simmons states;
(1) Most of Saudi Arabia's
oil output is generated by a few giant fields, of
which Ghawar - the Earth's largest - is the most
prolific.
(2) These giant oil fields were
first developed 40 to 50 years ago, and
have since given up much of their easily extracted oil.
(3) To maintain high levels of
production in these major
oil fields, the Saudis have come to rely
increasingly on the use of water injection and
other secondary recovery methods to
compensate for the drop in natural field
pressure.
(4) As time passes, the ratio of
water to oil in
these underground fields rises to the point where further
oil extraction becomes difficult, if not
impossible and there is very
little reason to assume that future Saudi exploration will result in the
discovery of new
oil fields to replace those now in decline.
The Earth's most
technologically advanced nation,
America, has made only feeble efforts to
develop alternatives to
oil or to improve fuel efficiency, especially in
cars. Not only is fuel efficiency seen as detrimental, oversized vehicles are
subsidized by the
government through
tax breaks!
American
aristocracy needs to concede that the
oil supply is not
limitless, that cheap
oil days are over
and America needs an entirely fresh approach
to energy.
retaining
power through theft
"Everywhere I turned I saw
people who seemed quite happy to make
money doing things that drained and
liquidated our permanent infrastructure and productivity as a people and a
nation." - Catherine Austin
Fitts
"If we continue to bestow
wealth, trust and honor on the cheaters, then
the devastating message that is conveyed to society in general and to youth in particular will
diminish all our lives." - Mark M. WilliamsA good example of the
way in which
American aristocracy steals from common
working lower and middle class
Americans is the California
energy market debacle. Lawyers for big energy wrote the energy deregulation law. Lobbyists
presented it to the California legislature on the
last day () it could get on the initiative
ballot and without examination
allowed its passage.
Big energy
then spent a huge sum of money on
mass media advertising.
Actors hired by big
energy explained how this was going to
be the best deal for all Californians. Californians were told they would be
saving money for the next fifty years. (Instead California will be in
debt for at least
fifty years.)
The law
went into effect. To make a energy
market feasible the
energy industry had to purchase software from a
Ross Perot company that would allow it to
trade on the newly opened,
Enron operated,
private
energy market.
Enron, as a trader in it's
self-regulated private energy
futures exchange, made bad energy futures bets.
At the same time, to
make this an even better deal for energy
companies, a Ross Perot marketing company went to
work selling a manual that taught
energy
traders how to drive up
energy prices through trading schemes with other
profiteering trader's.
To offset loses
Enron traders and other
profiteering trader's
manipulated California's
energy market throughout the 2000-2001
energy crisis through schemes with
nicknames including Fat Boy,
Get Shorty,
Death Star. These tactics were used
to manipulate wholesale
power markets
while delivering profits to the
energy
traders even as Californians
suffered through rolling blackouts and soaring
energy bills.
These
trading practices are documented on the Colorado
River Commission phone conversation tape recordings and mirror those found
in earlier investigations. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
opposed the release of the tapes and has
opposed the refund of $9 billion stolen from
"Grandma Millie", a fictitious California grandmother, that
Enron traders joked of
stealing from.
A
trader identified as Mallory on the
transcript stated "If the line is not congested I just look to congest it. If
you can congest it, that's a money maker
no matter what 'cause you're not losing
money to move it down the line."
Traders also stated on these tapes
that their scam was
protected because
George W. Bush would not allow the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to impose price caps as one of
George W. Bush's good buddies,
Enron CEO
Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay.
"According to opensecrets.org, Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay and his
Enron pals gave more than $6.5 million to
political campaigns over a 15 year period."-
Dennis Doyle
"This helps make California's case because
it clearly shows the intention to abuse the market by several new energy players, and it
clearly shows that this ricochet game was being
played by parties in
cooperation with each
other." - Erik Saltmarsh, chief
counsel and acting director of California's
Electricity Oversight Board.
"This is more than a smoking gun. It
is an audiotape of the gun being fired, the
bullet hitting the victim and the
murderer standing over the victim and laughing."-
Russ Campbell, a Nevada Power lawyer.
Unbelievably these tape recordings came to
light because Enron sued the small Snohomish County Public
Utility District for $122 million claiming it had been underpaid. So
Snohomish County spent $100,000 having the Colorado River
Commission phone conversation tapes transcribed.
American aristocracy cashed in big time on this one.
Will they be required to refund Grandma Millie's
money? Not likely! (see bond bailout)
"The 2001 California
energy crisis precipitated by Enron shenanigans
resulted in several deaths. Why were no manslaugter charges brought?" - Tom
Lutz
"The
politics that has dominated Washington since
the election of
George W. Bush is a
corrupt brand of right-wing
corporatism. People who reside in
the highest 1% of the income spectrum or have K Street
lobbyists at their
command have done very well." - Jonathan
Chait
In the summer of 2006 two Houston energy traders were found quilty
of wire fraud for
fraudulently quoting energy
prices. In March 2007 former trade manager John Forney was sentenced to 2 years
probation and fined $4000 for driving up the price of power in 2000 and 2001 by
faking transmission congestion. James Brooks, Wesley Walton and James Patrick
were convicted in 2008 of reporting false trade data to
manipulate natural gas prices from 2000 to
2002.
These six are scapegoats
as they are the only ones ever prosecuted in the multi-billion dollar rip-off!
California had to sell bonds to pay off the $9 billion rip-off
American aristocracy protects it's own! The
designers of the rip-off remain
free and wealthy!
The greed never ends:
British
Petroleum agreed to pay a fine of $303.5 million in October 2007 for conspiring
to fix propane prices in 2003 and 2004. In 2006 British Petroleum reported an
adjusted net profit of $22 billion or $60 million per day.
The Carnegie Mellon Electricty Industry Center in Pittsburg
concluded in 2008 that American electricity
consumers are paying more for
electricity than they would have if the American electrical industry had remained
regulated.
"Those of us in the renewable-energy trenches are
finding the battle to install solar becoming more difficult as building
officials implement new restrictions that are not only seriously increasing the
costs but in many cases making it unfeasible to install panels on a great
percentage of rooftops. Instead of becoming less costly, streamlined or more
manageable, the permit process in most Southern California cities has become a
Sisyphean task. Almost daily, municipalities are adding fees and requirements
that make getting a permit the most difficult part of going solar. If these
trends continue, it will soon be impossible to get a permit for a solar system
unless you are working for a municipality or a utility." - Patrick A. Redgate
08/08
"Anyone thinking that Big
Energy (including Big Solar and Big Wind) will solve
America's energy problems must suffer from
Stockholm syndrome. As long as we are implementing a new
paradigm and point-of-use renewable
generation is feasible on hundreds of millions of properties already, why
re-enslave ourselves to wasteful, wilderness killing centralized power
plants and massive power lines owned by
monopolists, rather
than working harder for independence from all Big Energy
monopolies, whatever
their fuel? The debate is not Big Fossils versus Big Renewables, it is Big
Energy versus ratepayers and the planet. We all
know which lobby is stronger." - Shelia
Bowers 08/08
In the second quarter of 2007
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. reported
record earnings, mostly from it's insurance division, of $3.1 billion
($3,100,000,000). Berkshire Hathaway
Inc. made over a billion dollars
a month basically by selling insurance. "Those who
do not live in high-risk areas should not be made to subsidize those who do, as
such subsidies actually encourage more building in such areas." - Gary C.
Simons
"All across the country, insurance companies of every sort have
attempted to reduce their risk by increasing rates, dropping customers who
submit claims and, as a final insult, denying legitimate claims. If there ever
was a definition of a "criminal enterprise," the modern
American
insurance industry fits the bill!"
- Carl Schellenberg 10/28/07
Another American aristocracy ploy is the selling of
insurance.
Insurance companies are owned and
operated for the benefit of
American aristocracy, not to 'protect' the
individual from financial calamity.
Take for example a recent case in which two retired women, Linda Williams and
B. Walker were sued by a neighbor, Juanita Wasson, who sustained a broken hip
after being knocked down by their automatic garage door.
Farmers
insurance defended the homeowners
association, to which Williams and Walker belonged, but filed a cross compliant
against them believing that they did not have
the resources to
fight in court. The two women maxed out there
credit cards to hire lawyers.
The conclusion, $ 8.3 million was levied against Farmers
insurance as punitive damages for
breach of good faith!!!
"I became
aware that many adjusters employed
by Allstate were engaging in conduct which was improper, unlawful,
fraudulent, and in bad faith. I
became aware of cases in which the
adjuster retained an engineer and requested that the engineer provide a report
determining and detailing the cause and extent of the damage caused by the
earthquake. Allstate's adjusters were requiring engineers to provide a draft or
preliminary report for the adjuster's review. Where an engineer's draft report
attributed any amount of damage, in the adjuster's opinion, that could possibly have been exacerbated
by the earthquake and/or damage which may not be covered under the
policy according to the adjusters, the adjuster
would instruct the engineer to alter the report to reflect the adjuster's
changes. Engineers were repeatedly instructed to alter draft reports in order
to minimize the damage attributable to covered losses in order to reduce any
potential payments to the insured and in order to benefit Allstate's financial
interests."- Allstate claims analyst Jo Anne Lowe commenting on the Northridge
earthquake of 1/17/94 in California.
In April 2007 a jury verdict was
rendered in a case against Allstate. Allstate was ordered to pay over $2
million to a Louisiana homeowner who sued the insurer for manipulating an
engineering report to reduce its payment in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina.
Do you believe that long term
care insurance is a
good idea? Think
again! Become disabled and make a claim and your
insurance
policy will be ‘discontinued'. Just ask
Veray Smith, Vera Smith's daughter and now, thanks to a ‘discontinued'
insurance
policy, Vera Smith's full time care
giver.
Think the workman's compensation
insurance
policy your employer carries will protect you?
Not if you are assaulted and
seriously injured on the job! Just ask Mary Stone who had to wait a year for
surgery and who then lost the use of her right arm because she was denied
postoperative physical therapy by her employer's workman's compensation
insurance
policy carrier.
"The statement that "for the majority of people hurt on the
job, the overhauled worker's compensation
system works" is at odds with
reality. This reform was
designed to line the pockets of
wealthy insurance
industry CEOs
and stockholders at the expense of working people. The
reality is that if you are someone who lives
from paycheck to paycheck, worker's
compensation reform leaves you one serious injury away from utter financial ruin." -
Ernest A. Canning
"An unregulated oligopolistic
insurance-brokerage sector
inevitably leads to predator pricing. "Cartelized competition" is what we have
in American
insurance
markets." - Jerome Gordon
THE
REALITY IS THIS: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ADEQUATE
FINANCIAL RESOURCES TO HIRE LEGAL
REPRESENTATION THE 'INSURANCE' YOU
BELIEVE WILL PROTECT YOU AND YOUR ASSETS IS NOT WORTH THE
VALUE OF THE PAPER IT IS WRITTEN ON.
"The insurance contracts
state clearly if anything in the application is false
or , insurance coverage may be rescinded." -
Tom Epstein, BlueSheild spokesman
The nature of reality
is that not all things are
known, there are unknowns, therefore all information is
incomplete.
In California it is
nearly impossible to purchase individual health
insurance (not employer provided)
unless you have never had surgery,
allergies,
asthma, ear infections,
ulcers or been
depressed.
"According to regulators' postings, rejection letters and
interviews with insurance brokers,
conditions that can lead to outright rejection or a higher premium include:
AIDS, allergies,
arthritis,
asthma,
attention deficit
disorder, autism, bed-wetting,
breast implants, cancer, cerebral
palsy, chronic bronchitis, chronic fatigue
syndrome, chronic sinusitis, cirrhosis, cystitis,
diabetes, ear infections, epilepsy, gender
reassignment, heart disease,
hemochromatosis, hepatitis, herpes, high
blood pressure,
impotence,
infertility,
irritable bowel syndrome,
joint sprain, kidney infections, lupus, , muscular dystrophy,
migraines, miscarriage, pregnancy,
"expectant fatherhood," planned adoption, psoriasis, recurrent tonsillitis,
renal failure, ringworm, severe mental
disorders, sleep apnea, stroke, ulcers
and varicose veins." - Lisa Girion
"Insurance companies are offloading
sick people onto the county system. They want a guarantee that they are going
to make money. That's why they won't take
sick people. They are missing the point about assuming some risk." - Scott
Svonkin
Insurance companies refuse to underwrite individual health
insurance policies for people that are employed
in - controlling air traffic; moving buildings;
chemical and rubber manufacturing; circus or carnival work; concrete or asphalt work; crop dusting; firefighting; furniture and
fixtures manufacturing; as a lumber jack; oil well and
refinery operations; police
work; roofing; sandblasting; sports; stables;
stockyard; stunt work; telecom installation;
transportation; tree trimming; tunnel
excavation; war reporting and washing
windows higher than three stories up.
In 2005 the
insurance
industry amassed record
profits of $44.8 billion ($44,800,000,000)
in a year of catastrophic
loss.
"Unless insurers can get relief you are going
to see a pullback by private
industry."- Robert P. Hartwig, chief
economist of the
industry funded Insurance Information Industry
$44.8 billion profit is penny ante
stuff to these rough riders of catastrophic
calamity. $44.8 billion is just not the return that the
insurance
industry expected on their difficult to understand legalize
laden, layers of lawyers approved insurance policies.
Barbara
Fowler, Health Net's senior analyst in charge of rescissions reviews, was
expected to cancel 15 policies a month in 2001. Barbara Fowler exceeded her
quota by canceling 275 policies. 2003 was a banner year for Barbara Fowler as
she saved Health Net $6 million by canceling 301 policies. In 2005 Health Net
set a goal for Barbara Fowler to save Health Net $6.5 million which she
exceeded. Barbara Fowler's bonuses ranged from $1654 to $6300 for canceling
health insurance policies of individuals experiencing expensive medical
costs.
"No surprise that Health Net gave out bonuses to drop sick
insurance policyholders. The for-profit health insurance industry will always
be the winner, as it has to be." - Sheila Hoff
In a consent decree in
November 2007 Health Net agreed to pay a $1 million fine and promised to no
longer engage - never ever again - to link compensation to coverage
cancellation. (At least they now understand it is not good to make it blatantly
obvious!)
"It is disgusting how Health Net dropped a patient in the
midst of chemotherapy. Barbara Fowler, Health Net's "senior analyst in charge
of rescission reviews" profited from it through bonuses. How many years in
medical school did Barbara Fowler study? Isn't Barbara Fowler practicing
medicine without a license? In fact, doesn't the entire medical insurance
industry practice medicine without a license in making decisions to refuse
care?" - Bill D. Holder
"Thank you for your
story on the families who thought they had
insurance coverage. They had been
paying for medical insurance for
years. However, once the insurance
was needed, the policy was canceled and claims
denied, leaving them tens of thousands of dollars in
debt." - Rosanne
Klein
"We have allowed insurance gatekeepers to
manipulate our lives in ways the
public does not even comprehend, until it
happens to them." - Betty Jo Atnip
On November 7, 2007 Lousiana
attorney general Charles Foti sued Allstate, State Farm, Lafayette Insurance
Co., USAA Casulity Insurance Co., Farmers Insurance Exchange, Standard Fire
Insurance and other insurance companies for colluding to reduce claim values. A
consulting firm, McKinsey & Co. was accused of being the architect of
sweeping changes in the insurance industry beginning in the 1980s. McKinsey
advised insures to "stop ‘premium leakage' by undervaluing claims using
the tactics of deny, delay and defend." The insurance companies coerced policy
holders into settling damage claims for less than their actual value by editing
engineering reports, delaying payments and forcing policyholders to go to court
to challenge insurance estimates of loss after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"This scheme gave insurers an unjust advantage over policyholders by
reaping huge profits from the misfortunes of persons whom they pledged to
protect from the risk of loss." - Lousiana attorney general Charles Foti
"When the rich make
war it's the poor that die." – Jean-Paul SartreDo you
believe that American aristocracy cares about the men and women in
uniform - American
soldiers?
American aristocracy sure puts on a
good show of supporting
America's soldiers but do they put their
wealth where their mouth is?
No they
have been given massive tax cuts!
If they support American soldiers, why is there a shortage of vehicle
and body armor in Iraq? And once
some body armor was provided how did they treat the
soldiers that were
wounded?
First Lieutenant William Rebrook IV, who
graduated from West Point with honors, was discharged from the
army after receiving a shrapnel
injury in
Iraq. Before being allowed to leave
he had to scrounge cash from his buddies to pay $632 for his body armor vest
that was destroyed as a biohazard.
"I last saw the body
armor was when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated
in a helicopter. They took it off me and burned
it." - William Rebrook IV
"George W. Bush is arguing that
our troop's morale is hurt by irresponsible discussion of the
war in Iraq. I
wonder how he
feels about the
news
stories that report that in three
years, the George W. Bush
administration hasn't been able to provide them with proper body armor." -
Marion Lewish
On March 30, 2006 the army banned
privately purchased body
armor. A watershed: the soldiers must
finally be fully equipped! (The insurance underwriters probably
refused to include the body armor of out-of-the-loop
competitors not 'affiliated'
with American aristocracies
military-industrial-media-corporate complex. Independent testing
confirmed that the American militaries claim that out-of-the-loop
competitors body armor was not
as good as governmnet issue was false, in fact the out-of-the-loop
competitors body armor was
better.)
Ryan Kelly, 25, was billed
$2,231 by the military and spent nearly
half a year fighting the billing. I guess
leaving one of your legs behind on the battlefield is not considered payment
enough!
"It hits you in the gut. Its like 'Thanks for the
service and now you owe us'." -
Ryan Kelly
Jordon Fox, 21, was partially blinded in his right eye and
sustained a back injury when a roadside bomb exploded in Iraq. After being
discharged Jordon Fox was asked to repay $2,800 of his enlistment bonus of
$7500 because he had not completed his full three years of service. The Army
also withheld Jordon Fox's unused leave pay.
By the end of 2006 over
200,000 veterans of the Afghanistan and
Iraq wars have been treated at
Veterans Administration medical facilities. Over 66,000 have been treated for
post-traumatic stress
disorder, acute depression and
substance abuse. At some Veterans
Administration medical facilities it can take several months to be seen by a
doctor for mental health issues. The Veterans Benefits
Administration has a backlog of 400,000 pending claims causing veterans to wait
from 6 months to 2 years to receive benefits they are entitled to by
law. It is likely the cost of providing benefits
for the returning Afghanistan and
Iraq war veterans will cost between
$300 billion to $600 billion.
In March 2007 the public was informed by
mass media of the deplorable conditions facing our
returning wounded veterans of American aristocracies failed missions in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Oliver Stone's film "Born on the
Fourth of July" shows in wretched detail the condition of
military hospitals and what wounded
Vietnam War veterans had to
endure.
This was not
fiction and is not
fiction now.
"I suspect the
crocodile tears coming from Washington are just that, an attempt to
play the innocent while a few
scapegoats are hung out to dry." -
Albert G. Silverton
"While the administration castigates
any who oppose the war as not supporting our
troops, the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton cabal denies benefits to our wounded
servicemen and
women and prepares them for a
future of homelessness by acclimating them to life
among roaches and rats." - Craig Wright
While genetic
discrimination is banned in most cases throughout America it is alive and well in the
American military. Although only in a few
cases does a specific mutation predicate the onslaught of genetically triggered
disease, Huntington's disease is one of the extremely few, individual soldiers
are routinely ousted for being genetically predisposed to a disease.
In
those that are genetically predisposed typically an external event triggers the
onset of the medical condition.
Jay Platt developed Von Hippel-Landau
disease while serving as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan. The trigger for Jay Platt was
solvents used to clean weapons. Discharged with no medical benefits.
"You could be in the military and be a six-pack-a-day smoker, and if you come down with emphysema,
'That's OK. We've got you covered,' but if you happen to have a disease where
there is an identified genetic contribution, you are screwed." - Kathy Hudson,
director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins
University
"The Army's Actionable Medical Information review policy is
designed to review professional medical research intended for release in a
public forum. The policy specifically targets materials that utilize 'any
medical information derived from a combat theater'. It appears that the policy
has been used to review medical information other than that derived from a
combat theater. The motivation for such review is unclear. The result, however,
is an infringement on the public's right to know." - Katherine Rabb
"The war on terrorism has provided a convenient excuse to stifle
scientific discourse and the release of information on government operations.
Those who stand to lose the most from this policy are the service members it
was ostensibly designed to protect." - Maj. Remington Nevin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin used migration
as a method of controlling target
populations. By removing Ukrainians and replacing them with Russians
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin gained
control of the Ukraine. Poverty stricken
illegal immigrants from Latin America, forced out of Latin American
economies by NAFTA, are diluting the unity of the
American middle-class by replacing mostly
Protestant American middle class workers with
Catholic Latin American unskilled workers willing to work for reduced
wages.
"The operators were bringing in Mexicans to
work as scabs in the mines. In this
operation they were protected by the military all the way from the Mexican
borders. They were brought in to the strike territory without
knowing the conditions, promised enormous
wages and easy work. They were packed in cattle cars, in charge of
company gunmen, and if when arriving,
they attempted to leave, they were shot. Hundreds of these poor fellows had
been lured into the mines with promises
of free land. When they got off the trains, they were driven like cattle into
the mines by
gunmen." -
Mary "Mother" Jones 1925
Americans need to realize that they have been led
down the primrose path by the purveyors of laissez-faire capitalism, also known
as corporatism. The purveyors of laissez-faire capitalism keep telling us if we
just wait a little longer, get a better education or just work real hard then we too
will be able to join that exclusive
billionaires club as our boat is buoyed by all the
wealth trickling down.
Do you
believe in the idea that wealth
trickles down ?
The senior Americans
that have to work at
Wal-Mart and McDonalds to make ends meet appreciate your acceptance
of this spurious theory put forth by
American aristocracy.
Inadequate wages and benefits
forced workers at Wal-Mart stores in California to
seek $86 million in state
government assistance for the year 2003.
In 2005 Wal-Mart, an excellent
example of American unbridled
captialism run rampant, agreed to
pay a fine brought by George W. Bush's
Labor Department for breaking child
labor laws by having
children, under 18,
operate machinery.
In an agreement between the
Labor Department and Wal-Mart
reached in late 2005 the Labor Department agreed to give
Wal-Mart a fifteen
day notice before undertaking any labor
related investigations. This agreement is unprecedented; was drafted by
attorneys for Wal-Mart and is the only
agreement in existence between the Labor
Department and industry that
forewarns, with a 15 day advance notice, of an
impeding Labor Department violation investigation.
Wal-Mart agreed to pay a fine of $11 million
in 2005 to settle charges that it used hundreds of
illegal aliens to clean stores.
Oops! Wal-Mart forgot to cut a
deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). November 2005, 125
illegal aliens were arrested on
a Wal-Mart construction project. The
original contractor had been fired and Wal-Mart had brought in it's own
work
force of
illegal aliens!
"By working
for less than living wages,
illegal aliens have taken over
whole job sectors that were filled by
people who used to do the work for a
living wage." - Robert Rush
Although
American aristocracy and, in particular the
George W. Bush administration,
claim to believe in the rule of law and
order they fail to
enforce the laws that are detrimental to the furtherance of
excessive unearned profit for their
buddies.
One example of this is the use of
illegal alien labor by
unscrupulous
American aristocrat employers who have no qualms
about using illegal alien labor
knowing full well that by undercutting their
competitors they will drive those
legitimate law abiding business' out of business.
"Immigration, legal and
illegal, keeps wages lower than
they otherwise would be."
- James P. Smith, chair of labor
markets and demographic studies at Rand
corporations.
"The assertion that there are jobs that
Americans simply will not perform is an
asinine idea on its face. Would you mow your
neighbors lawn for $50,000 a month? Of course you would. Would you do it for
$20 a week? Of course not. So the problem isn't the job, it's circumventing
market forces to determine the fair
value of the job." - John Boydstun
"The
fact that an estimated 12 million people are in the
America
illegally ought to send a loud
message to all Americans. Congress bends to
the will of corporations and is willing
to sell out the middle class for the
greedy bottom line.
Citizens of
America used to support their
families by working in construction, meat packing,
trucking and textiles. Not anymore. Jobs nobody wants? You're kidding, right?"-
Blaine Oakes
"You can't have a huge increase in the
labor supply without having an impact on the wage
structure. If one cares about the
well-being of the less advantaged, having a guest
worker program to import hundreds of
thousands of workers is a huge
mistake." - George J.
Borjas,
Harvard University professor and the nation's leading labor
economist on
immigration. His research
concluded that the immigrant influx between 1980 and 2000 lowered the wages of
American
workers.
"Between 1925 and
1965, U.S. immigration levels were so low that the foreign-born population
declined. During that period, the United States built the largest
economy the world had
ever seen. And while building this economy, we
also successfully prosecuted a world war, initiated the space program, hosted a
vibrant labor movement, made huge strides for civil rights and established a
vast and stable middle class. The
idea that we suddenly can't run a country
without an unlimited supply of uneducated and unskilled foreigners is absurd."
- Michael Scott
From 1993 to 2003 the number
of arrests of illegal aliens at
work sites went from 7630 in 1993 to 445
in 2003, and the number of fines dropped from 944 in 1993 to 124 in 2003 while
the number of illegal aliens in
America continues to climb to an estimated 12
million by early 2006.
"I have championed the
idea that most
illegal immigrants would leave
America on their own, or not come in the first
place, if laws designed to discourage
illegal immigration were
actually enforced. The 1986 Immigration
Reform and Control Act contained amnesties for
farm workers and
other
illegal immigrants, as well as
sanctions for employers who hire them. The amnesties were carried out but the
enforcement was not.
Illegal immigrants and
American employers
know that the government does not take
enforcement seriously. As proof, consider
that in 2004 not one employer was fined for hiring
illegal immigrants. The
government should
enforce current laws before any guest worker program is considered by Congress." -
Representative Lamar Smith, Texas
Republican
It has become quite
clear that the federal
government of the
United States of
America only enforces the laws that benefit the American aristocracy. On March 26th,
2006 the illegal aliens became
emboldened in Los Angeles. Waving Mexican flags a half a million
illegal aliens took to the
streets of Los Angeles to protest possible sanctions being considered in
Congress. On March 27th the illegal
aliens poured out of the high schools
and middle schools of Los Angeles, again
waving Mexican flags, marching in the streets and disrupting traffic. And what
do they want? Equal status with
American
citizens! (When they get what they
are asking for they may be surprised to find out they have lost many
government entitlements - like free medical
care in California!)
Unfortunately for American aristocracy
illegal aliens are no longer
following the road map laid out for them!
In
the summer of 2005 there was a lack of
illegal alien
workers to pick the fruit produced in the
central valley of California. When Jorge Resindiz, an
illegal alien who picked fruit
in the central valley for the last 7 years, was asked why he no longer picked
fruit he replied, "We're better paid in construction. We don't have to
work in the heat. We have shade. We have
water."
Gustavo
Arellano in an editorial piece in the Los Angeles Times celebrating the
half million person
illegal alien protest in March
2006 stated this about Mexican illegal aliens. "They will no
longer accept exploitation!"
Ronald Douglas Herrera
Castellanos, a Guatemalan national living illegally in
America decided he was not going to be
exploited anymore. Hired to pressure wash the back yard deck Ronald Douglas
Herrera Castellanos did some exploting instead by attacking Mary Nagle,
brutally beating her, raping her and | | |