Veteran reporter Robert Scheer writes today:
The federal government works for Goldman and not for us.Is Scheer's claim over the top?
Well, the assistant secretary of the Treasury under Reagan (and former senior Wall Street Journal editor) Paul Craig Roberts agrees with Scheer, saying that Treasury Secretary Geithner "works for Goldman Sachs", and not the American public:
Interviewer: Does the treasury secretary work for the people or does he work for the banking system on Wall Street?See this and this, and this parody.
Roberts: He works for Goldman Sachs.
Couldn't agree more with this. The represenatatives and other people in our government that are supposed to be working for the tax-paying citizens are nothing more than corporate shills and sellouts to banking and lobbyists.
ReplyDeleteIt really is disgusting!
What to do about this? Here's Gandhi's take early in his work, in 1903 working for equal rights in South Africa at age 34:
ReplyDelete"One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances. Our duty is very simple and plain. We want to serve the community, and in our own humble way to serve the Empire. We believe in the righteousness of the cause, which it is our privilege to espouse. We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed." Indian Opinion (1 October 1903)
I remind you that American colonists petitioned the British government at first, hoping that they would respond by giving Americans equal protection under the law. It was these trials that created the character of our most cherished Americans. It seems that our current choices of action are at least to adhere to the facts, engage in some kind of demonstration/petition/public conversation, and be emotionally and mentally prepared for some form of revolution. I would prefer the easier path that the US government acts in service of the public good rather than an oligarchy. However, at the cost of our collective TRILLIONS of dollars, at the cost of over a million dead and multiple millions in horrific suffering from our imperialistic Wars of Aggression, at the cost of a million children dying every month from preventable poverty and multiple millions more in agony because the US refuses to fund programs like the UN Millennium Goals at more than a token - even programs that generate profit like Microcredit (I personally volunteered 18 years as a lobbyist for RESULTS and witnessed this), if we want a brighter future it might require much more than we've done to date.
The Naked Capitalist, by W. Cleon Skousen. Summed up this problem 40 years ago.
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