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Forum Post: America's Duopoly of Money in Politics and Manipulation of Public Opinion

Posted 10 years ago on Oct. 8, 2013, 7:06 a.m. EST by HCHC4 (-28)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

"Behind the divisiveness lies a deeper bipartisan consensus in which donors own democracy and there are no votes in reform"

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/america-duopoly-money-politics

Read up.

OccupyEverything

18 Comments

18 Comments


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[-] 2 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

you guys STILL buy this shit, right ?

[-] 1 points by turbocharger (1756) 9 years ago

All hail Wall St!

[-] 1 points by HCHC4 (-28) 10 years ago

"As it turns out, their behavior is entirely rational, though for disconcerting reasons. The answer lies in the combined effect of three related forces: America's deepening economic problems; the role now played by money in politics; and the emotions of a scared, increasingly cynical, economically insecure electorate."

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[-] 1 points by HCHC4 (-28) 10 years ago

You may want to go address the radicals in your own backyard before calling me, someone who is 1500 miles away, a stupid bitch.

Do you even realize what site you are on? Daily Kos is the other direction.

Here, get some ejumuncation:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Vermont-Burlington/241564049229609

I support Occupy Vermont. Do you?

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[-] 1 points by HCHC4 (-28) 10 years ago

At what point do people stop supporting the system and start their own thing?

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[-] 0 points by HCHC4 (-28) 10 years ago

Wow, that is a truly incredible statement. We have officially reached a point in American politics where NOT supporting the corrupt means that one is corrupt.

Sounds like more "you want the terrorists to win" spin. Defectors are labeled as unpatriotic and attacked for not supporting the establishment.

Managing ourselves is what democracy is all about Zen. Its not about putting your faith in various elitist institutions to solve the problems that they themselves created, on purpose, for a pre planned solution.

Democrats are so conservative its not even funny. And lacking a backbone. If thats what our best option is, then perhaps self governance isnt for this country.

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[-] 3 points by HCHC4 (-28) 10 years ago

Government shutdowns happen, its happened 17 times since the late 70's. This is just another maneuver for them to enforce some more austerity measures to keep the bankers pockets fat.

There wont be a default, there wont be any huge spending cuts.

Its just a slow nibble away at our economy, our rights, and basically our self identity. I mean, did you totally forget all the hoopla over the last one? They made it out to be SO big, that when they brought in the "sequester"- nice term for cuts- that by the time it was done it seemed like a relief.

Mass psych 101- make the story so absurd that the real details (the cuts) dont seem so bad.

Here, check out Elaine and her incredible story to get to the basic underlying principle- she wrecked the car.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnOn4RIaiT4

Same principle here. I'm not blind. I just don't buy their garbage. I realize the seriousness of our economic condition. The difference between me and you is you think that theres a way to avoid an eventual monetary collapse. There wont be a defualt per say, we can just keep printing it. Greenspan came right out and stated that, I couldnt believe he had the nerve to say it, but he did.

Monetary collapse is what we are living through right now. This is what it feels like. A slow chipping away at everything we hold close.

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[-] 0 points by shoozTroll (17632) 10 years ago

You've already accepted your prefect option.

http://www.rickscottwatch.blogspot.com/

Now say............

Look!!!.......over there!!!...........Obamacare!!!!!!!!

Just like your friend Alex Jones.

By the way. Did you ever follow the money in N. Carolina?

Or are the States and their people of no concern to you?

Just more of the 99% asses?

[-] -1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Stupid is as stupid does, and then there's Odin. And Unicorns.

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Your insipid and tired both-same BS is RW propaganda!

That makes you either a RepubliCon Tool, or just a Tool! Either way it gets Cons elected! And that supports the 1%. OWS is about opposing the 1%, IDIOT!

What does being 1500 miles away have to do with it??

What are doing defining what this site is or is not??

You're the last person who should be edjabicating anyone.

This lameness sounds familiar... Odin, is that you? ODIN!!

[-] 0 points by HCHC4 (-28) 10 years ago

"OWS is about apposing the 1%, IDIOT!"

So OWS is about standing "beside" the 1%?

If you dont even know the difference between "appose" and "oppose", I'm not surprised you've been duped into this rabid excitement of the circus of politics.

Good luck my friend.

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

What ev' crack baby!

A Tyranny by the Minority, Part 2: The Reign of the Cracker Babies:

You remember when there was supposed to be an epidemic of "crack babies"? They were babies whose mothers had smoked crack (or done coke) during pregnancy and would give birth to drug addicted bundles of joy. They were going to grow up to be sociopaths who would wreak havoc on the nation. Yeah, not so much.

However, what we are seeing now is the plague of the cracker babies. These are primarily white people who grew up insulated in communities that had fucked-up beliefs about God, guns, and America, who became resentful of people different than them who might have gotten help from the government, who watched Fox "news" since it started and listened to conservative talk radio before that, who have been pandered to and exploited by opportunists and snake oil salesmen who made them think that their stunted intellectual development is an asset. We are now in the grip of their electoral choices, which even includes some of their own (lookin' at you, Louis Gohmert, you god among cracker babies).

Let's just put it this way: When its new season premiered back in August, more people watched Duck Dynasty, a TV show about crazed, conservative, religious fundamentalists who happen to have gotten rich making a decent duck call, than watched the series finale of Breaking Bad. More people will watch the antics bearded backwoods tree carvers who barely speak anything we might acknowledge as "English" than will ever watch Mad Men, Homeland, or any of those shows that get TV critics all hard and wet.

Is this intellectual elitism? You fucking well bet it is. By pretending that the beliefs of yahoos, crackers, and cousin-fuckers are worthy of consideration in the public sphere, we have degraded the nation to the point that, well, fuck, they have successfully taken over one chamber of Congress by essentially threatening the leadership of the GOP with a banjo-accompanied ass raping while they giggle out their last couple of teeth.

These seeds were sowed back when Ronald Reagan cravenly allowed Jerry Falwell and other charlatans to have a seat at the table of power instead of treating them and their followers as pariahs whose goal was to upend the entire relationship between church and state. As on so many things, Reagan should be dug up and have his bones dressed in rags and paraded about so people can throw tomatoes and eggs at him.

We are a nation held hostage by idiots elected by idiots. While you can say, smugly, "Oh, but that's been true all throughout history," there's a hilarious fuckin' twist this time. These Tea Party fucknuts have no master. It's less Frankenstein's monster being let loose than it is nuclear bombs awaking Godzilla.

See, the teabaggers owe little to nothing to Wall Street or to big business. Oh, no. The pathetic truth about America is that the capitalists, not our pussy media, are the final check and balance to our political system: if they are displeased, they normally can fund the shit out of candidates to oppose those who have not done their bidding. But the anarchists we have now in the House don't give a happy monkey fuck about the backing of banking whores and portfolio pimps. You wanted deregulation, motherfuckers? Here ya go. If we default on the debt, the days of even milquetoast laws like Dodd-Frank will seem like salad days.

But you wanna know how awful the cracker babies are? Two quick examples from their ilk in Congress: Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Texas barked at a park ranger because she was doing her goddamn job, saying she should be "ashamed" for blocking access to the World War II memorial, closed because of Neugebauer. And Rep. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina was asked if she would give up her salary during the shutdown, where millions of government workers are furloughed without pay or working without pay. She said, "I need my paycheck. That's the bottom line."

Somewhere, "God Bless America" is being played by a jug band.

// posted by Rude One @ 2:43 PMShareThis 10/03/2013 A Tyranny by the Minority, Part 1: We Are Living Through an Attempted Coup: The Rude Pundit has been thinking for the last day or so about the extensive use of surveillance by the Obama administration, but not for the usual reasons.

First, kudos to the House GOP. See, the left was fracturing a bit when it came to things like the collection of metadata and more by the NSA. That story continues, and the divisions still exist between those who don't think the government should be tracking everyone online, on phones, all the time, and those who see it as a necessary evil in a time where our enemies exist in the shadows. However, the House GOP's complete and utter disregard for the well-being of the nation and their callous placement of ideology over common sense, compassion...well, pretty much over everything has unified the left once again behind the Democrats and President Obama. So a big thumbs up on strategy, you stupid motherfuckers.

The other thing the Rude Pundit has been thinking is how the NSA surveillance has an analogous purpose to the tactics of the GOP. See, a great deal (or all, depending on who you ask) of the NSA's universal anal probe has been perfectly legal. However, just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right. To take this further, just because it's legal does not, by any definition, mean it's not evil. You can bend laws right to the point of snapping, but as long as it doesn't crack, you're fine, man.

What the GOP has done, first through the ludicrous overuse of the filibuster and now through the shutdown and the threat of breaking the debt ceiling if they do not get a law overturned, is to use perfectly legal means to achieve their goals. It is, however, a contortion of the Constitution and the rules of Congress that'd make a circus performer say, "How the fuck did you get your head all the way up your own ass?" The ultimate goal of the effort is to undo the will of the people of the United States by forcing the President to accept the GOP agenda.

So let's just call this what it is: it's an attempted coup.

The Tea Party, having cowed the leadership of the Republican Party, are attempting to stage a creeping coup by using the Constitution against the nation. It's so breathtakingly ballsy it's almost admirable. Fuck, it's even something the GOP laid out in a plan, the Williamsburg Accord. We just didn't pay attention. The nation is currently being wrecked by a tyranny of the minority, and, unfortunately, it's up to the cowards leading the Republican Party to stop it.

And that, dear liberals, dear Americans, is why it's not just economic anxiety that hangs over us like a guillotine blade. It's existential nausea that we may finally reap the seeds of our doom that we planted a generation ago.

More on that tomorrow.

// posted by Rude One @ 12:45 PMShareThis 10/02/2013 Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Turn Dogs and Fire Hoses on House Republicans:

You know, you can have your World War II vets, egged on by the very asses who shut the government down, storming the barricades with walkers and canes so they can have a gathering at their memorial in DC.

For the Rude Pundit's money, Martin Luther King's statue being blocked off, gated, imprisoned, is the more poignant image, especially with African Americans being put in the position of setting up the metal bars.

What could be more symbolic? White Republicans are blocking a black leader from doing good for the poor in the nation.

What could be more ironic? Even in death, King must be jailed.

We are sailing this stinking ship of state very quickly into uncharted waters. A nation that cannot pay homage to its iconography is a nation that is doomed.

(Note: The Rude Pundit is traveling. More extensive rudeness tomorrow.)

// posted by Rude One @ 2:18 PMShareThis 10/01/2013 In Brief: Shutdown Polls That Prove We're Really Not That Insane: Dear World,

Rude Pundit here. We know that right now we here in the USA look pretty fucked-up. And, mostly, we are. Not Greece fucked-up, but still. However, when it comes to the government shutdown over defunding the Affordable Care Act, we really aren't as crazy as you think. Check this out:

According to a Quinnipiac University poll (those of you who don't care what polls say - looking at you, Syria - can move along), 72% of Americans think this is a terrible thing to do. That includes 74% of independents, 90% of Democrats, and even 44% of Republicans. Only 49% of Republicans support their own members of Congress on this.

Yeah, yeah, these are a lot of numbers. Such things matter, though. Because, see, one thing that Republicans in the House of Representatives keep claiming is that they're doing the will of the people in trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. If that's true, if the polls matter, then either the GOP needs to back the fuck off or they are a bunch of cowards and liars.

If you know anything about this country, you know it's the latter.

In fact, when it comes to defunding Obamacare (that's the cutesy name Republicans gave the law), only 34% support that.

See? We're not a stupid country when it comes to this. We're a lazy-ass bunch of fuckers because too many people thought that a candidate who scrawls manifestos in his or her own shit is worthy of being in Congress and too many others didn't vote or run for office.

Yeah, sorry, China, we can't just line the anarchists up against a wall and shoot them. We gotta suffer through this, although it's seeming more and more that people are sick of this shit.

Let's hope the message is received by the bizarre combination of zealots, opportunists, and backwards ass country fucks who are controlling the situation before the debt ceiling nightmare that'll plunge all of us into darkness (perhaps, just perhaps). By the way, 64% already oppose that hostage situation.

All is not lost. Until, of course, it's lost.

Kisses, The Rude Pundit

[-] 1 points by HCHC4 (-28) 10 years ago

It basically says that Republicans were spending way too much, and didnt care about deficits, so the Democrats decided to join em.

Sorry you dont understand whats going on in the grander scheme of things outside MSNBC and FOX.

I have a theory that the older someone is, the longer they have been trying to force themselves to believe that this system actually functioned how they were taught. It must be terrifying, and quite upsetting in regards to one's own self esteem, to think that perhaps for years one has been playing the game exactly how its suppose to be played.