Flaws in our systems

"Question everything."

• “…Because people gotta know, whether or not their president’s a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.” Richard M. Nixon
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• “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
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o “In deed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinski.” William Jefferson Clinton
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• “I think that gay marriage should be allowed…”
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o “I do not think that gay marriages should be legal.” John Sidney McCain III
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• “I am honored to be here with Barack Obama.”
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o “So shame on you, Barack Obama.” Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton
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• “Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us.”
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o “Iran is a great threat.” Barack Hussein Obama II
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• “We can end illegal immigration”.
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o “We’re never, ever going to be able to totally control immigration.” Rudolph William Louis Giuliani
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• The Associated Press estimated the total from settlements of sex abuse cases from 1950–2007 to be more than $2 billion. Bishop Accountability reports that figure reached more than $3 billion in 2012.
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Despite the media claiming the two political parties are vastly different, both parties’ histories show that they agree on most economic issues such as private health care, pro-NAFTA, high defense spending, and are pro-Big Business. The only things where the Democrats and Republicans differ is Gay Rights and Pro-Life/Pro-Choice. This masks the degree of a league consensus.

Billion dollar election (2000)

We define whether a candidate is being serious or not by how much money they can raise, not by what ideas they have, or what their record in public service might have been. It’s all about money. We really don’t have an election anymore. We have an auction. What’s for sale?

Every incoming president rewards big donors with ambassadorships and other honorary appointments or some position on a federal advisory panel that might have something to say about approving new drugs or environmental regulation. Is government for sale? I think you suspect that it is. The money flows in for a reason. That reason is not good government.

It is completely unrealistic to expect democracy to deliver representatives who will serve the people’s interest when so much money is involved. Having so much money in politics gives all the power to those with money. Yes, we are free to vote but how free is our choice?

The media in the hands of Big Business will only present us with politicians that will serve their interest. And politicians are not going to change the system that puts them in power.

What kind of democracy do we have?

A polyarchy is a system in which power resides in the hands of those who James Madison Jr. called the wealth of the nation, the responsible class of men, and the rest of the population is fragmented.

Throughout the history of the world, the rich and powerful have dominated it. Very few people had any control of their own governments. Most real power in the world is still exercised by those we do not elect. We’re still far from governing ourselves. The basis of democracy is the belief that we are all born equal and that that equality must be accepted by those in power. But in those attempts to win those rights, many people have been imprisoned and tortured by those who have power and were determined to retain it. No one in power really wants democracy because democracy would challenge their power structures and their authority.

Big business is about making money. That’s what Big Business does well. Governments, however, have to balance the needs of the whole society, including Big Business, based on ethics and social and moral responsibility. But if our corporations have become more powerful than our governments then we have to understand what effect that’s going to have on our system.

The 14th Amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War to give equal rights to black people. The corporations came into the courts and said, “you can’t deprive a person of life, liberty, or property: we are a person.” These are special kinds of persons which are designed, and by law, to be concerned only for their stockholders and NOT for the stakeholders like the community or the work force. They are required, by law, to place the financial interests of their owners above everything else, even the public good.

The Monsanto Company's roles in agricultural changes, biotechnology products and lobbying of government agencies and roots as a chemical company resulted in controversies. The company once manufactured controversial products such as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange and recombinant bovine growth hormone. Its seed patenting model was criticized as biopiracy and a threat to biodiversity. In September 2016, Bayer announced its intent to acquire Monsanto for $66 billion. After gaining US and EU regulatory approval, the sale was completed on June 7, 2018.

We, through our activities, are leaving a terrible legacy. The details here are not vague. We see pollution and industrialization everywhere. Life on earth is showing the effects already.

Capitalism today commands the towering heights, as opposed to governments. It has displaced politics and politicians as the new high priest. Corporate expansion into other countries to get resources has caused much conflict and wars. We need our corporations to bring us our technologies. But at what expense?

The Federal Reserve Bank is not actually owned by the United States Government. It is owned by a private banking cartel. Whoever these men are that can loan money to governments have to be some of the most influential men in the world. Yet, we don’t know who they are.

The one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debt.

Gold is valuable because it is relatively rare. Like gold, the value of money is determined by how much money is in circulation. One would think that the power to regulate the money supply that controls our economy and affects our lives in every way would be in the hands of the government of the people. But, surprisingly, it is not. The power to control the money supply is in the hands of the Federal Reserve Bank. The U.S. government has ceded control of the money, a monopoly, to a secretive bank, an unregulated, unelected group of private bankers. This system of finance is designed to keep the average man on a constant treadmill, living from paycheck to paycheck, never having a clue as to how the system works to keep him that way. Billions of dollars in profits flow into the hands of private bankers at our expense. This is how the system works. Whenever the government needs money, it requests it from the Federal Reserve. The Fed doesn’t just give the money to the government. It loans it to the government which the government must pay back with interest. This keeps the government in a continual state of debt. All of our income taxes are paid back to the Federal Reserve to pay off the interest from that debt. Check it out yourself. It’s a matter of public record.

The founding fathers of America were well aware of the perils of central banks and sought to prevent them. Several central banks were set up but they were removed. But the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Warburgs, the Rothschilds, were determined to set up a central banking system in America at any cost.

In the early 1920’s, J. P. Morgan caused massive panic in the markets by spreading rumors that many private bankers were about to go bankrupt. Everyone started withdrawing their deposits enmasse. The banks had to call in all of their loans to try and survive. The hysteria destroyed the markets and the banking elites, having caused the panic, used it to influence politicians and the public that a central bank would bring stability to the system. Woodrow Wilson, with the money and support of the bankers, signed the Federal Reserve Bill in 1913 that the bankers (on Morgan’s Jekyll Island) drafted in 1910, but later wrote, “Our great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Therefore all of our activities are in the hands of a small group of men who chill and check true economic freedom. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, completely controlled and dominated governments in the world. No longer a government of the majority but a government of the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” From 1921 to 1929, the banks drastically increased the money supply making millions of loans. Then, in October, 1929, having quietly exited the markets, they started calling in those loans enmasse. And, as we know, there came the Great Depression. The conspiring bankers bought up all the rival banks and big corporations for pennies on the dollar. Their position of power and influence had become absolute.

And then, there is the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower feared and warned against. But that’s another, much worse, story. Wartime is boom time for the defense industry. Two Gulf Wars, Afghanistan… Everything is terrorism now. And the public is scared to death, giving away all Constitutional rights and accepting national surveillance and control. Big Brother, as Orwell wrote, is watching. You know who pointed it out to everyone and is now on the run from Big Brother.

Unfortunately, the only solution to the problem for the masses of people is: there isn’t one. And things will only get worse until those in power get too inconsiderate of the masses of people and something happens to change the system. Then, it all begins again.

Anacharis laughed at Solon for imagining the dishonesty and covetousness of his countrymen could be restrained by written laws, which were like spiders' webs, and would catch, it's true, the weak and poor, but easily be broken by the mighty in the rich. Plutarch, Lives, Life of Solon