360 Horizon: Privatization

Showing posts with label Privatization. Show all posts

26 September 2012

Unveiling The Tea Party For What It Is: Billionaire Puppet Masters & Corporate Hands Inside The Muppets

The full length documentary "The Billionaire's Tea Party" was finally released to youtube in August of this year. For months, we had been treated to the trailers for this film. Now you can view the entire film for free.

As the film points out early, middle class Americans were seduced into thinking the Tea Party began with Rick Santelli's rant on CNBC on February 9, 2009, not even a month after President Barack Obama was sworn into office.

You will learn how the Tea Party really got its start back in the 80s when the Koch Brothers started their fight for a privatized America which would close down any government agency or social safety nets so that Oligarchs, such as themselves, could reap the rewards of doing business without any regulations or fines, or so they could make a business out of something once done more equitably and better by government- all for a higher price to Americans and for fatter profit margins for Vulture Capitalists on the inside track.

The Koch Brothers, David and Charles, are prominent figures in the Tea Party because it is their money which has funded a 3 decades war against the government inaugurating so-called grassroot campaigns around the country, giving to the lexicon a new word for that which it is not: astro-turf campaigns.

In the 80s, the Kochs preached government is a monster, crippling our Economy, devouring our personal liberties. Their screeds against government and for privatization read like much of the tinfoil hat conspiracy literature which their father, the founder of the John Birch Society, put forth in the 50s and 60s when there were Communists hiding behind every tree in America.

David Koch even went so far as to run as the 1980 Vice-Presidential Candidate for the Libertarian Party with a poster titled "A Monster Is Loose Upon the Land", which was a screed against Government and for Big Business without regulation.

The 1980 Policy Platform for the Libertarian Party as seen on this poster declares:

To Be Abolished:

Department of Energy (DOE)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA)
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Federal Reserve
Social Security
Welfare
Public Schools
Taxation

After reading that list, ask yourself which party, Republican or Democratic, has been captured by the Billionaires who are responsible for the Tea Party?

Without further adieu, here's your history lesson on how the Tea Party captured over 30% of Congressional seats in the 2010 elections. Prepare to learn why this was an astro-turf organization from Day 1 and who is really bankrolling "front" organizations which co-opted the early anger of Middle Class Americans about Too Big To Fail bank bailouts and switched it to a pro-Big Business stance on everything from Climate Change to Taxation.

It's a brilliant look at public suasion using tactics Edward Bernays would have been proud of.

Here it is, the entire documentary. "The Billionaire's Tea Party" runs 54:43 in its entire length. It is directed and produced by independent Australian film-maker, Taki Oldham.

Enjoy!

p.s. A quick addendum. Here's a quote to add to this blog:

"If billionaires were allowed to influence the results of American Idol instead of American elections, there would be rioting in the streets."

- David Borowitz

10 September 2011

Monday, Sep. 12th: Bank of America CEO To Speak. Tens of thousands of layoffs expected, hundreds of branches to close?

Chris Whalen: Bank of America is Doomed

Britain Tries for a Second Industrial Revolution

Retail sales "probably" slowed in August

Ten Swiss Banks Give US Authorities Data On Tax Dodgers

Jim Rogers: Go Hog Crazy Buying Euros If Greece Defaults

Is Rick Perry Saying Social Security Is A Fraud?

Another Disaster In the Making

Greece: Articles On Its Financial Crisis

Margarittaville Video Game For Couch Surfing Parrothead Blobs

Forbes: Classic Bear Flag Pattern On The S&P 500 Chart

Charles Hugh-Smirth: Classic Bear Flag Pattern On the Dow Industrial Chart

Longshoremen back at Seattle Port protest site after Thursday's mayhem

Egyptian Protesters Break Into, Ransack Israeli Embassy . . . Israeli Ambassador Flees Home

A simple example showing what happens when you only pay the minimun monthly payment on your credit card debt

A New Global Economic Order

$31 Billion (Possibly $60 Billion) Spent On Private Contractors Was Lost To Waste, Fraud And Abuse

16 July 2011

The Prison Industrial Complex: Money For Death And Imprisonment; None For Life And Prosperity

27 December 2010

Greed With No Bounds: How Argentina's Mafiocracy Sold Out Their Nation To Foreign Kleptocrats, Plutocrats And Oligarchs

Americans would do well to study how the lower and deconstructed middle class of Argentinian people took to the streets after decades of privatization and giveaways to a global corporatocracy. This once public or common wealth of Argentina, when privatized, was usually sold at low slanted bids to criminal insiders at Too Big To Fail Banks, Big Multi-Naitonal Oil Companies, and the like, while Argentinian "insiders" were paid off. These insiders, called Argentinian Mafiocracy in the film, bankrupted their country and destroyed the pensions and healthcare of their people who were the worker bees responsible for building up the wealth over the years.

In this film, you will learn how the richest 10% of Argentina quickly took control of 60% of that nation's wealth through the corrupt machinations of politicians from all parties, and by using corrupt union leaders, lobbyists, bankers, businessmen, the IMF, the World Bank, and other wealthy and soon to be wealthy criminals to do their bidding.

This 10/60 wealth disparity figure galvanized the students, workers and pensioners of Argentina into a Solidarity which took to the streets for years to protest against their corrupt government and Central Bank. Amazingly, here we are in America, at the cusp of 2011 A.D., with 10% of Americans owning 71% of our wealth . . . which is a bigger disparity than that which made Argentinians angry enough to take to the streets!

Instead of a movement of all American workers, retirees, the under-employed/unemployed and the 99ers we have Senators and Congress People trying to block medical care to 9/11 first responders or trying to cut off much needed aid to people who've been unemployed for longer than 99 weeks, while corporate lobbyists for Big Banks, Big Oil, Big Pharma and more are writing bills which Congress rubber stamps, and Wall Street banksters are raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in bonuses and bitching about it in the nation's media.

As you watch this enlightening film about Argentina, keep in mind the allegories your critical mind will find and overlay with what has been going down in America since the "Reagan Revolution".

In many ways, this film is disheartening as it shows un-regulated greed abetted by a compliant government will soon enough bring a country to its knees. But in another context, this film is uplifting because it shows what a angry majority of lower class and middle class people are capable of when they unite:

p.s. I had no sooner put this post up on my blog when I clicked on James Kunstler's latest from his "Clusterfuck Nation Blog" titled The Moment of Convulsion. Here are the first three (continued below Part 1 of the 12 Part Film)

Part 1

paragraphs from it which tie in nicely with the film you are about to watch:

A little ways off the curb on the Boulevard Henry IV here in Paris, you can see the memory of the Bastille outlined by a course of masonry in the pavement, in particular one of the bulbous towers of the old fortress-prison. It marks one of those threshold moments in history when things got out-of-hand - in the late afternoon of July 14, 1789 - and by the time a mob had detached the head of Warden Bernard-René de Launey from his shoulders and paraded it around on a pike, everyone in the city knew that they had crossed into the politically unknown frontier of Revolution.

Seeing this residue of history put me in mind of a riddle that one of my college professors presented to us one day years ago: why did Achilles drag Hector around the city of Troy three times? We came up with dozens of reasons ranging from conjectures out of the text of The Iliad to lame bits of Hippie numerology, but nobody could furnish the answer that the prof was looking for, which was eventually revealed: Because he [Achilles] was just that pissed off.

This was the idea that dogged me in the winter twilight of Paris late on Christmas Day as I pondered the fate of my own country back across the cold cold sea. A lot of Americans are beaten down and discouraged these days. They've lost not only jobs, incomes, and houses, but also a sense of purpose, and perhaps faith in the essential fairness of the American venture - as the propane runs out, and families try to subsist on Froot Loops, and the re-po squad turns up to haul away the Ford F-150 Raptor. Meanwhile, in their last remaining refuge from harsh reality, TV, they glimpse the likes of Jamie Dimon, Chloe Kardashian, and Jay-Z emerging from limousines looking hopelessly bored with wealth beyond imagination. When will the folks out theremove from shame and despondency to being really pissed off about the disposition of things?

Isn't that a question, though?