Hidden Fascism and the Fake Politics of Left vs. Right

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/20368

Citibank’s recent announcement that it may require seven days notice prior to honoring withdrawals is just the latest small brushstroke on a much larger canvas being painted by the banking system and the US government. The broader picture is shocking for those watching as it comes into view. Americans must heed Martin Luther King’s warning, “today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake.”

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5502/the_corporate_takeover_of_u.s._...

Jan. 21, 2010, will go down as a dark day in the history of U.S. democracy, and its decline.

On that day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government may not ban corporations from political spending on elections-a decision that profoundly affects government policy, both domestic and international.

The decision heralds even further corporate takeover of the U.S. political system.

There is a lot of speculation over the reappointment of Ben Bernanke to continue to head the Fed, with the Obama Administration pushing hard. Of course, Wall Street is also calling in its favors. It looks like a done deal. The Administration has probably got the 60 votes required in the Senate to remove the hold, and the 51 votes needed for confirmation.

Readers: It looks like Obama's banking reform package just went into the dumpster. While it is entirely believable that BHO would confuse the performance of the stock market as legitimate economic indicators, it is also pathetic because the stock market was also developing a bubble based upon the bonuses and foreclosure liquidations. In effect the economics of Main Street have also again been thrown overboard. In the same pass I expect that Volcker's advice as conservative as it probably was, was also chucked.

Corporations, which control the levers of power in government and finance, promote and empower the psychologically maimed. Those who lack the capacity for empathy and who embrace the goals of the corporation—personal power and wealth—as the highest good succeed. Those who possess moral autonomy and individuality do not.

Readers: This is a relatively basic, though imo overly moderated, summary The author does not go to the level to declare that the details of the bail-out and the phony recovery were exactly that way because that is the way that the speculative finance sector wanted the process to be defined. Self congratulatory conceit is what was expressed in the recovery agenda and the economic ignorance of how real economies actually function is equally profound.

from the Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/08/ny-fed-aig-emails-spark-n_n_416...

A batch of internal emails showing that the New York Fed, at the time led by current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, urged AIG to conceal certain terms of the company's bailout from the public is fueling a new round of anger from lawmakers.

Monopoly capitalism exemplifies everything that's gone wrong with American politics, and we need to do something about it -- soon.

http://www.alternet.org/politics/144787/monopoly_capitalism_is_the_root_of_all_of_america's_problems/?page=entire

How Wall Street and Its Backers on Capitol Hill Silenced a Critic Calling for Greater Regulation of Derivatives Tuesday, 29 December 2009

Chairman Bernanke has been praised for his handling of the crisis. Nobody disputes the fact that the massive emergency lending programs of the Federal Reserve helped to stabilize the financial system in the short-term; however, judging the first term of the Chairman purely on this ground is rather narrow minded.