{"id":52284,"date":"2012-01-25T18:50:15","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T23:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=52284"},"modified":"2012-01-27T17:34:22","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T22:34:22","slug":"something-about-south-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/fe-911-2\/something-about-south-carolina\/","title":{"rendered":"Something About South Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s happened is that Washington now works for those who can hire an army of lobbyists and an army of lawyers.\u00a0<\/em>If you’re in the drug business, and you are selling prescriptions to seniors, and you don’t want to have to negotiate over the prices, Washington works beautifully for you.\u00a0<\/em>If you want subsidies to drill for oil, Washington is working for you.\u00a0<\/em>If you run a hedge fund and want to pay the lowest possible taxes, Washington is working for you.\u00a0<\/em>In fact, there was recently a study, just in the last couple of weeks … in which it comes out that thirty of the largest companies in the United States are now spending more on lobbying than they pay in federal taxes.\u00a0<\/em>Think about that. I mean that is the investment, and that’s what they see as the future.
\n— Elizabeth Warren, <\/strong>Democratic candidate for senator of Massachusetts\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the former adviser to President Obama responsible for setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to watchdog predatory brokers, bankers and lenders, Warren has seen enough of Washington to paint its portrait with an elegant and horrible symmetry. And it’s absolutely true.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

In the last few weeks, some Democrats have shown their true colors, or the color of the logos of their corporate overlords. The SOPA\/PIPA vote was a revelation in how many Democratic Congressmen and senators are in the pockets of the music recording and motion picture industry lobbies. It was sobering, especially in light of how many Republicans, for differing reasons, were voting against SOPA. At least Harry Reid had the presence of mind to pull the vote off the calendar and “re-group” his party before a bucket of worldwide disaster dumped itself on the heads of Democrats during the 2012 election year.<\/p>\n

The Republicans are far less conciliatory, let alone apologetic. If the SOPA\/PIPA vote was pulling back the wizard’s curtain in Oz, the current republican presidential primaries have been the trip to an alternate universe. There’s the party’s disengagement from their responsibility for the cause of our current fiscal troubles. Then there’s the doubling down on their patent disdain for aid to the continuing unemployed, and everyone else for that matter, who have fallen off the train because of conservative policies.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These policies were especially effective with a Bush in the White House and enough fear out there in the air to distract the general population from furtive corporate extraction of wealth from the Treasury.\u00a0But it’s ten years late and the bill’s long overdue.\u00a0That the Republicans have no recourse but to double-down against reality and give Newt Gingrich a shot at the Presidency says they have enough security from the 1% to shield them and fund their political aspirations, or they’re batshit insane. I think it’s a combination of both.<\/p>\n

In 2008, when Planet Waves talked about the coming changes that would be triggered by the Uranus-Pluto alignment, some of us weren’t quite sure what the changes would look like or, for that matter, what the struggle would be. But now that 2012 is here, the gloves have come off, as well as the masks, the makeup, the veils and the falsies. It’s quite clear. Corporations, through their politicians, have nowhere to go but face us this election. In many cases party affiliation is no longer appropriate. If President Obama wanted bi-partisanship, he’s getting it — not from Congress, but from those of us who have learned to become distrustful of government in general. If we haven’t said so before, let’s say it as eloquently as Warren. It’s been bought.<\/p>\n

2012 has started in a very interesting way. In the first of the many battles we are about to face, we’ve had our victory in staving off an approval on SOPA-PIPA, and a million signatures were collected in Wisconsin’s recall of corporate tool Governor Scott Walker. Civil war is being waged not between north and south, black and white. The new civil war is one of plutocratic corporate aggression against the country and the planet.<\/p>\n

Last week’s Republican primary in South Carolina — the state where the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter — is another twist to the same story.\u00a0Leave aside the factoids about South Carolina being a low-informed voter state. I don’t believe that’s true. The primary was a wake-up call to the Republican Party that their presumptive inevitable nominee — robot Mitt Romney — was not a shoo-in. Particularly in a rural state like South Carolina. Republicans wanted someone they can relate to, even if it is a known hack and discredited political whore like Newt Gingrich —\u00a0an arrogant \u00a0blowhard with lots of cash, a trophy wife with frighteningly perfect hair and a Tiffany’s account. Romney faces trouble throughout the southern states — not a good path if you want the Republican Presidential nomination. Gingrich may walk, talk and act like an asshole, but at least he doesn’t come across like an out-of-touch zombie CEO.<\/p>\n

Yes,\u00a0it’s great sitcom material and a sad state of affairs for American politics, but Jon Stewart remains gainfully employed, and we are watching with more than interest and much less passivity. Something about South Carolina, the week that was, and wiping away a little of the grime that has besmirched our politics\u00a0and dirtied our politicians is bringing us closer to the point where we’ve worked up enough energy not just to protest but to revolt. Let us pray that it is so. There is so much unreality trying to gloss over what has really happened and what continues to happen to us. Warren is right. The face of the aggressor is neither kind or conservative. It’s impersonal, rapacious and relentless, stopping at nothing and no one to get what it wants. We’re going to need every ounce of energy we have to defeat it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s happened is that Washington now works for those who can hire an army of lobbyists and an army of lawyers.\u00a0If you’re in the drug business, and you are selling prescriptions to seniors, and you don’t want to have to negotiate over the prices, Washington works beautifully for you.\u00a0If you want subsidies to drill for … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1740],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}