Forum Post: Suppressing Democracy 101
Posted 11 years ago on June 24, 2012, 4:52 p.m. EST by LeoYo
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Suppressing Democracy 101
Sunday, 24 June 2012 10:23 By Lamar W. Hankins, The Rag Blog | News Analysis
It is difficult to believe that the Republican effort at disenfranchisement results from anything other than ideology. Leading Republican supporters have acknowledged their disdain for all Americans to be allowed to vote.
Conservative columnist Matthew Vadum believes that registering the poor to vote "is like handing out burglary tools to criminals." Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich is even more blunt: "I don't want everybody to vote." And in the 2008 presidential election, 3 million Americans who tried to vote could not do so because of voter registration requirements. Vadum and Weyrich must be pleased. Both major political parties have been guilty in the past of rejecting democratic values in order to give their party's candidates an advantage. Now the right to vote is under attack mainly by Republicans who reject democratic values. They want to discard the right that John Lewis has fought for all of his life and that Lyndon B. Johnson called "the basic right, without which all others are meaningless."
http://truth-out.org/news/item/9950-suppressing-democracy-101
How the US Government, Banks, Prison-Industrial Complex, Corrupt Officials, Businesses, Law Enforcement, Racists and the CIA Profit From Illegal Drugs
Friday, 22 June 2012 13:49 By Mark Karlin, Truthout | News Analysis
US Banks Love Real Dollars, and Illegal Drug Money Comes in Cash
A recent article in The Guardian UK offers evidence that "while cocaine production ravages countries in Central America, consumers in the US and Europe are helping developed economies grow rich from the profits."
According to The Guardian UK story, the study by two Colombian professors found that "2.6% of the total street value of cocaine produced remains within the country [Columbia], while a staggering 97.4% of profits are reaped by criminal syndicates and laundered by banks, in first-world consuming countries."
One of the researchers, Alejandro Gaviria said: "We know that authorities in the US and UK know far more than they act upon. The authorities realize things about certain people they think are moving money for the drug trade - but the DEA [US Drug Enforcement Administration] only acts on a fraction of what it knows."
"It's taboo to go after the big banks," added Gaviria's co-researcher Daniel Mejía. "It's political suicide in this economic climate, because the amounts of money recycled are so high."
Since Wachovia Bank (now owned by Wells Fargo) was levied a fine in 2010 (but no criminal charges) for money laundering hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of illegal drug cartel dollars, there does not appear to be any large crackdown on the practice in the United States, although lip service is often given to coming down hard on money laundering.
Indeed, more than one analyst has speculated that the billions of dollars in drug cash are vitally important to US banks because so many of their financial assets are tied up in non-fluid assets.
The hypocrisy of how the U.S. forces democracy on other nations and then allows the suppression of voting for certain groups of it's own citizens is important to shed light on.
The ever burgeoning 'Military Industrial Complex' is another factor undermining 'Democracy in The U$A'.
US radio host Dennis Bernstein and investigative reporter Dave Lindorff illustrate just how much US tax money goes towards the country's war chest. "People have to realize that 53 cents of every dollar that they are paying into taxes is going to the military to an astonishing figure there is an enormous, enormous amount of money being blown on war an killing and destruction."
fiat lux ; fiat pax ; fiat justitia ruat caelum ...