4.Incarcerate white-collar criminals
What I am surprised not to find, in the
first section that includes dissections of Obama, is the notion of
"appeasement," which very well embraces the president's domestic if not foreign
policy [another story that interests the author far more]. The term appears
once in the book, in a pre--World War II context in one of the lengthier
entries, his "Introduction to the Financial Crisis
Inquiry --Report (Cosimo Books, 2010)," with reference to a failed committee
analysis of the causes of the Great Depression.
Blog 6 of t he
first section ends with cruel evidence of the impact of the Citizens
United verdict on the second decade of the new millennium:
"As of last week, House and Senate
campaigns reported taking in more than $1.5 billion, exceeding the total
collected by congressional candidates in 2006 and in 2008, Federal Election
Commission data show. Most of that money already has been put toward
advertising and other expenses. . . . And, here in America, only eight to nine
percent of the people say they have confidence in Congress, and it's not clear
why the pols even enjoy that record low in support. [So what good are the
elections?] . . .
"The Public Campaign Action Fund, a
watchdog group, will release a study Tuesday predicting that House candidates
alone could spend nearly $1.5 billion by the time the dust settles on Election
Day. The calculation is based on previous elections in which about half of a
campaign's money was spent in the final month of the contest."
Elsewhere
the News Dissector blogs that Congress has sold out to its own perks, which
include income for life after one term in office, even if it's a total flop. We
need to reduce the perks, so that those who represent us will better understand
us and relate to us.
"If
we ain't broke, don't fix us," they say. "Fix yourselves," say the Tea
Discarders, refusing to see the forest of an economy unable to support anyone
but the super-rich, who have absconded with it. "Fix yourselves to a degree
that guarantees eternal parasitism," say the top .5 percent. "But don't claim
us on your tax returns."
Among
all of the blogs collected in this volume, the author's star witness, probably,
is convicted financial criminal Sam Antar, who
appears in [his film] Plunder: The Crime of Our Time [and again in the
blog "The Ten Reasons"] , telling
him that the government
"[doesn't]
seem to understand how calculated these crimes and their cover-ups are. . . .
Our laws . . . limit your behavior and give the white-collar criminal freedom
to commit their crimes, and also to cover up their crimes. . . . We have
no respect for the laws. We consider your codes of ethics, and your laws,
weaknesses to be exploited in the execution of our crimes."
Schechter
quotes others, from top to bottom [or both, as immediately above], including
comedian George Carlin ("Who Rules America?"):
"The game is
rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest
hardworking people . . . good honest hard working people continue, these people
of modest means . . . continue to elect these rich !@#$s who don't give
a !@#$ about you. . . . They don't care about you at all, at all, at
all."
The
second section displays Schechter's incisive insights into the raging recession
that has crippled this country since 2007--in several works he warned about and
predicted it and then dissected the reality of this huge explosion of the real
estate bubble, exposing its root causes to readers either aware of it and
gloating or else in no position to do anything about it. (e.g., In Debt We
Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts)
Did
we listen like Ninevites or did we revert to idols like Baal and Plutos the
minute God went elsewhere in the universe to tend to things?
Who's
we?
Unfortunately,
the victims.
The
MSM nod, knowing that he is right but just won't keep their ratings anywhere
near where they need to be. East Coast, West Coast, and Chicago intellectuals
just can't keep them going, as Fox News knows well.
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