Who Do You Think You Are Anyway?
By Timothy V. Gatto
15 December,
2008
Countercurrents.org
So you think you have a say in this country? Think that it’s your vote that puts our leaders in power? Do you believe that writing letters to Senators and Representatives actually make any kind of difference? I’m happy for you if you believe that. I used to think that way until I started watching the government doing things that were beyond my wildest imagination. What kind of people dream up some of the schemes that we’ve seen in the last 30 years? How did they get into power? How could people have been so misled? Where are the Americans that just want to be left alone to live their lives and raise their families?
Let me tell you some things that you may or not know. First of all, the Federal government doesn’t give a fuck about you. They never have and they never will. The only thing they need you for is to pay your taxes and to vote on Election Day. If the voting doesn’t go their way they will fix it so it will. Besides, in Federal elections all the candidates have been picked by people that you probably never heard of. You get to vote for the corporate candidate of your choice. The second thing is that there is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. They are two factions of the same corporate owned parties. I know that I’ve written about this before, but I just seem to get through to many of you, especially the so-called “Progressives”. I never believed I’d get Conservatives to think for themselves, but now I find the same mind-set from the so-called “left of center” Democrats that called themselves liberals at one time. Let me let you in on another little secret…you are not liberals. In fact, the people you voted in for “Change” are way right of center. How does it feel to be duped again? You’ve brought another cabal of Neo-Cons into the White House and Capitol building.
How do I get off saying things like this? It’s fairly easy to get to the truth. The best way to get to the truth is to follow the money. Before Obama was a household name he was a favorite of the corporate world. With the Democrats, it was always between him and Hillary Clinton. The powers that wielded the money had just about given up on the Republicans after Bush’s destructive eight years. This was the first election where the Democrats had more corporate donations than the Republicans. Let me prove this to you by giving you some facts and figures. Here are some of the “bundled” contributions that Senator Mike Gravel was so concerned about. It’s amazing that all of the employees of corporations give to Presidential campaigns. It’s also amazing that the management puts it all together for them and delivers the money to the candidates. I’d call that downright patriotic, if someone asked. Imagine all that work these executives have to do and they take the time to collect money for the Presidential race. The strange thing is that companies that aren’t even based in America help out too. That’s awful sporting of them. Here are some figures:
Rank Industry Total
1 Retired - $40,894,380
2 Lawyers -$38,268,411
3 Education -$19,878,736
4 Securities & Investment -$13,092,844
5 Misc Business -$12,296,982
6 Health Professionals- $10,516,205
7 Business Services -$10,299,332
8 Real Estate-- $9,513,456
9 TV/Movies/Music-- $7,668,942
10 Computers/Internet---- $7,432,237
11 Civil Servants/Public Officials---- $7,193,615
12 Printing & Publishing ----$5,608,079
13 Democratic/Libera----l $5,545,705
14 Misc Finance---- $5,205,153
15 Other----- $3,466,376
16 Commercial Banks---- $2,933,225
17 Hospitals/Nursing Homes---- $2,751,524
18 Non-Profit Institutions---- $2,618,458
19 Construction Services---- $2,467,473
20 Insurance----$1,991,588
OK, I’ll go along on the premise that these are “bundled”
contributions and that the employee’s gave graciously and generously.
There is another side of political financing that I would like to
examine if you don’t mind, and that is who financed that all-star
Democratic Convention that was more like a rock concert than a political
convention. I’d like to point out who exactly paid for that
extravaganza, as there are no government restrictions on how much
the corporations can donate. Check these figures out, I was totally
blown away. See what you think.
Agribusiness-----$863,080
Communic/Electronics----$6,704,996
Construction----$1,740,421
Defense---$530,700
Energy/Nat Resource----$3,826,457
Finance/Insur/RealEst----$11,906,132
Health----$5,400,710
Lawyers & Lobbyists----$1,255,894
Transportation----$2,229,360
Misc Business----$8,500,736
Labor----$8,587,110
Ideology/Single-Issue----$880,015
Other----$4,900,060
This is just for the Convention! Why do corporations dish out over 55 Million dollars for a Convention that did nothing but crown the nominee? Notice that the financial sector led the way with the largest amount. You must remember that the financial industry was reeling from the sub-prime debacle and some of the companies that donated don’t even exist anymore!
This brings me to what Stephen Lendman told me on one of my radio
shows. He said that we can consider our votes to be dollars. We each
have one dollar to cast our one vote, while the corporations have
millions of dollars. This doesn’t bode well for our representative
republic. After all, who is represented anyway? I don’t have
to spell it out for you, I’m sure you can figure it out all
by your lonesome.
Do we need to limit how much money corporations can donate to candidates? You bet. In fact, the idea of “corporate personhood” should be abolished. Corporations are things that are devised to make a profit for their owners or shareholders. They don’t vote, serve in the military or anything else citizens do except pay taxes with plenty of loopholes. Right now the fibancial sector of the economy is doing its level best to bankrupt this country. Think about this the next time some courageous legislator calls for Campaign Finance Reform. Let’s stop our government from dancing to the corporate fiddle. So let me ask you again. Who do you think you are? Well, if you really take the time to think about it, you could be one of the many that rise up and stop this corporate run oligarchy.
* All Figures from The Center for Responsive Politics and their website www.opensecrets.org
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