Charles Ferguson: Predator Nation, Global Predator Class

[denjohn]

"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.
If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism...................................
The real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation. For if we don’t, the current pattern of great concentration of wealth and power will worsen, and we may face the steady immiseration of most of the American population...

More at: http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.co ... ation.html

[Amskeptic]

"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.
If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism...................................
The real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation. For if we don’t, the current pattern of great concentration of wealth and power will worsen, and we may face the steady immiseration of most of the American population...

More at: http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.co ... ation.html

This is a sobering and unfortunately accurate assessment.
In today's NYT,
"food stamps to be cut 33 billion, agri-business subsidies reduction voted down"
"Pennsylvania lays off teachers while extending 250 million tax cuts to business"

Addicts cannot heal themselves. Congress is a house of addicts.
Colin

[ruckman101]

They've been working on it since the late 1800s. We the people are sovereign, not corporations. Unfortunately, that legal concept has been flopped. Go ahead, try telling a global corporation they can't set up a factory farm in your community, or remove a mountain top, or place a gas pipeline, or a bit of fracking, or, or, or ... .


neal

[Spezialist]

We choose peace, it's our lot.
As long as we can still think and be human it's not that bad.
When we've had enough, all we have to do is slow down production.
If you want to know how to do that, think about it.