Rage Against the Machine

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

The American people, from left to right, are forced to work for change within a culture of money, power and greed.  In my mid-fifties now, I’ve never seen a higher overall agreement level among the masses concerning the power corporations and special interests have over our politicians, our “representative” government.  The steady transfer of wealth to the elite 1%, the loss of millions of jobs, reduced wages and hours, increased health insurance and health care costs, the hegemonic march through the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and the erosion of civil liberties have most of the population in a daze and not liking it.  

We want health care reform so we work within the system to convince our politicians to do the right thing.  The corporations fight back and use their money to convince politicians and gullible citizens to do the right thing for the corporations.  The corporations will most likely win again and health care reform will go the way of torture prosecutions, indefinite detention, and the Patriot Act, absorbed and accepted with tails between legs.  On to the next issue dujour and the next corporate or special interest controlled political process.  All while the politicians continue their 20 day a month fund raising schedules.  

The corporations aren’t just buying off politicians.  They excel at propaganda.  Wendell Potter, the former insurance company PR man turned whistleblower explains how the public relations efforts of insurance companies use conservative radio hosts, thinktanks, front groups, and paid bloggers to spread disinformation.   “One such ad, which appeared in Capitol Hill newspapers, carried this message, “In America, you wait in line to see a movie. In government-run health care systems, you wait to see a doctor.”  You wonder why the town hall meetings became so raucous?  People are being fed information that seeks to cause this exact response.

http://www.commondreams.org/vi…

We want jobs and better wages but our government allows the private institutions such as the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, and big Banks to play shell games with the nations money.  They screw up, lose all the money and the government bails them out.  The corporations win and we lose.  

How long can this go on?  The Military Industrial Complex is another example, you know, the one we were warned about almost fifty years ago by an outgoing President and former four star general.  The worldwide weapons industry is a beast that feeds on itself, always seeking to develop the next most powerful weapon, while selling to friends and foes alike.  It would seem that President Eisenhauer’s warning has completely come to fruition.  

This is an ugly machine we citizens are up against.  I’ve always thought that the best way to address a problem, is to recognize the problem.  The problem is our government is not a representative for the people, it is a representative for corporations.  

So what does that mean?  The hard core activitsts tell us we need to call, write, email, badger, our politicians.  Yet nothing changes.  Activists didn’t put HCR on the table, it was going to be on the table whether it was Obama or McCain.  And now, activitists working within the system, appear to be having little effect on this corporate controlled issue.    

What happens if we don’t get real HCR?  If we escalate the war in Afghanistan and actually go after Iran?  If unemployment continues to worsen and the banks and other corporations want more bailouts?  If the amount of lobbiest money continues to set records administration after administration?  

The machine will have to come down.  Somehow the hold the corporations have over our political system must be changed.  We must Rage Against the Machine.

Also posted at Daily Kos:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/…