Three hour visit with Chris Hedges

After listening to the first hour of this video featuring writer Chris Hedges, I'm started by two things. First, it surprises me that I agree with so much of what Hedges has to say. Not everything he says, but much of it, including Hedge's critique of much of Obama's health care program, which he considers to be a bailout to the insurance industry and big pharma. I think he is spot-on with his characterization of the United States as a case of "inverted totalitarianism," ruled by anonymous corporate forces. Second, looking back at what I used to believe only 10 years ago, I'm amazed at how much my views have changed regarding the United States. Occasionally, it still feels like my country, for instance, during the pushback to SOPA and PIPA. But mostly, it doesn't feel like a country that belongs to the People. There is much to love about many of the people and places of the United States, and I suspect that we're going to officially be around as a country for a long time, but I'm afraid that I agree with Hedges assessment that we have "hollowed out" the innards of who we were, and we are now seeing a vast unsustainable empire in the throes of collapse. The people bearing the brunt of this collapse are ordinary citizens who have conned by the corporate elite in ways too numerous to count involving "free elections," warmongering, spying on citizens, banks' purchase and abuse of Congress and much more. If one ware to write an honest civics book for grade school children, it would need to say dozens of inconvenient truths that would cause uproars at the PTA meetings. But maybe that is what we need.

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Cause of the economic collapse: Bank fraud versus bank incompetence?

In this 2009 interview with Bill Moyers, William Black, a former bank examiner and now a professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, discusses the cause of economic collapse. Some have suggested that the banks were merely incompetent. Black argues that many players in the financial industry purposely engaged in a Ponzi scheme that was so big as to make Bernie Madoff look like a "piker." He argues that the banks and the loan raters purposely refused to engage in responsible lending practices. Government officials (under the Clinton administration) destroyed Glass-Steagall. Congress intentionally circumvented the warnings of regulator Brooksely Born in deciding the make CDS derivatives legal. Congress refused to fund adequate staff staffing of law enforcement so as to prosecute ongoing bank fraud beginning in 2001. Under this set of doomed-to-fail policies, a single financial enterprise, IndyMac made more bad loans than were made during the entire Savings and Loan Crisis. The game now is to maintain a coverup--Black points fingers at Timothy Geithner and others.

Bill Moyers Journal: William K. Black from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Bill Moyers conducted this interview on his PBS show. He is now active as a journalist at his own website.

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Why Americans are at war in the Middle East

Glenn Greenwald keeps unveiling stunning information about U.S. foreign policy. The following video by General Wesley Clark is jaw dropping, especially in light of the events that have unfolded since the conversations he reveals. The bottom line is that a pro-war U.S. foreign policy is repeatedly enacted without any national debate. The U.S. considers the Middle East to be U.S. property. How else can you explain that we are operating armed drones in six Muslim countries, and that politicians are actively discussing the "need" to invade Iran?

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What the candidates aren’t discussing

In the video you'll find at this link, Dylan Ratigan, author of a new book called Greedy Bastards, laments that with very few exceptions, the candidates are not discussing the fact that current American banking, trade and tax policy all prevent investments into this country into education and infrastructure. No matter what issue is important to you, the system is set up to prevent you for participating in U.S. policy unless you are pouring large amounts of money into the system to feed the dependency of politicians. According to Ratigan, we should consider that money as preventing good things from happening at a time when we are desperate for good things to happen. In this same article, Ratigan spells out the specific effects of big money awash in American politics: 1) The Candidate With More Money Wins. 2) Congress's Main Job Is to Raise Money, Not Govern 3) 48 Percent Say Most Members of Congress Are Corrupt 4) Voters Think That Cash is King 5) No Trust in Elected Officials 6) Outsider Movements Are Quickly Coopted 7) Faith in All Institutions Collapsing 8 ) People don't like horse race coverage. Meanwhile, distrust in media reaches all-time high. (Coincidence?) 9) Cash Determines Voting 10) The Middle Class Is Collapsing

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More Postal Problems

I am currently fuming at FedEx because UPS couldn't deliver a package because they couldn't locate my post office because USPS had to consolidate because congress put a burden on the post office that any other corporation could have sued to get out from under had they tried to inflict it on them. I explain why FedEx in Who is Killing the Post Office? Current frustrating details: I ordered a new scanner from TigerDirect a few days ago. Today I wondered why it hadn't been delivered. They usually have things at my door within a couple of days. So I tracked it online, and found the UPS reported that the recipient had moved and left no forwarding address. Me, moved? I haven't moved in 21 years, and regularly get deliveries from this company. So I called TigerDee. They only knew what I knew from the online tracking. I called UPS. Several tries at hacking my way through their labyrinthine voice mail system and I finally reached a person who could inform me that UPS now uses USPS for local residential deliveries. But as of this month, my local zip code office apparently no longer handles our zip code. And UPS couldn't figure out where to send the package. So they returned it! Because UPS couldn't locate the post office!

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