Supremely plutocratic
In some change we can truly believe in, the plutocracy of the U.S. just deepened. Or, as one critic puts it, a step was just taken that is ”the most radical and destructive campaign finance decision in the history of the Supreme Court.”
Sweeping aside a century-old understanding and overruling two important precedents, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.
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"And he will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Umm...
US and UK soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq are killing Muslims using guns with optical sights marked with Christian Gospel references, manufactured by Trijicon, an avowedly Christian Evangelical company in the US, writes Craig Murray.
Trijicon’s website states: “We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on biblical standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals.” Peculiarly, having read the Gospels many times, I can’t recall Jesus advocating shooting people from a great distance.”
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Saving all their money for their kids' education while we go large on 100% mortgages and sell debt to the Chinese government to fund our "fantasy island" spending...
“Wat Tyler” at Burning Our Money parses the words of BOE Governor Mervyn King, the silence from the Tories on their plans to cut the deficit, the pregnant silence of the markets ahead of the election, and UK’s living beyond its means as East Asia races ahead. And concludes we are totally fucked and that dark days are around the corner. Or rather, that right after the election, this is what’s going to happen:
The tradesmen’s entrance from No 11 suddenly bursts open and an ashen faced George races in waving the secret Treasury file spelling out the real options:
1: Lean and mean – immediate 20% cut in all Departmental Expenditure Limits, increase in State Pension Age to 70 by 2015, outright abolition of Child Benefit and other working age benefits, 5 year freeze on all public sector salaries and pension entitlements.
2: Siege economy – whack up taxes – double VAT, 30% standard rate of income tax, 60% higher rate, 35% Corporation Tax – manage loss of competitiveness by leaving EU and imposing Bennite tariff wall.
3: Weimar Republic – rescind Bank of England independence, fire up the presses, inflate the debt away
4: Whistling in the dark – do none of the above and hope the economy somehow grows us to salvation before the markets take fright
So corporations run the so-called democracy in the U.S., evangelicals don’t take “thou shalt not kill” too seriously, and the UK economy is a basket case. It’s plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose across the globe apparently…
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