The guilty are powerful and free, the innocent burdened and oppressed: that is injustice. There is a fundamental injustice that is poisoning the soul of the nation, and if it is not openly addressed then the nation will face the explosive consequences of institutionalized injustice. Simply put, it is this: those responsible for the nation’s financial crisis and its catastrophic after-effects are not paying for the consequences of their actions–it is the innocent, those who were not responsible, who are paying the price. You can call it whatever you want: the Anarchy of the Super-Rich (as per Paul Farrell), the Financial Power Elite, the financial Oligarchy, Plutocracy or Corporatocracy, or the unprecedented concentration of financial wealth and political power in a financialized post-industrial economy. Whatever you call it, we all know this class of financiers and its minions got away with high financial crimes. Do the crime, do the time–unless it’s “white-collar” financial crime on a vast scale. Then you might pay a wrist-slap fine (a few million dollars from your treasure of embezzled hundreds of millions) and then you’re free to go on your merry way. The after-effects are not just the losses which can be totalled on a calculator: the really catastrophic losses are to the foundations of democracy and the economy. Democracy has been subverted–oh please, spare us the happy-story propaganda about “reform” and “the system worked”–and the economy has been incentivized to favor poisonously addictive financialization and the shadow institutions of corruption, fraud, embezzlement, favoritism, collusion and misrepresentation of risk. This might be summarized as the protection of vested interests, engineered and overseen by the partnership of the ever more intrusive Central State and the nation’s Financial Power Elite. The Central State, designed to protect the citizenry from an oppressive monarchy or Elite, now protects this Elite from the citizenry. That is how thoroughly the injustice has been institutionalized. There is a second part to this fundamental injustice: look who will pay for the bailouts, guarantees and the interest on the borrowed trillions. Not the banks and bankers, to be sure. Who will pay? Those who the Central State can easily tap: taxpayers who earn most of their income from wages, and those politically weak players dependent on government payments. Now that the bills of the bailout are coming due, the State isn’t going after GE for more taxes. Heavens no–if you try that, the Panzer Division of GE’s tax avoidance army would overrun you. No, the politically easy thing to do is raise taxes on wage earners and trim entitlements, because all the government needs to do is send down the orders and it is done: the taxes are withheld and the bennies trimmed. To go after the Power Elite is just too difficult. They have the tax attorneys, the lobbyists, the campaign fundraisers, and all the rest. The U.S. is just a third world kleptocracy on an Imperial scale. I explored the parallels with the Roman Empire in Survival+: the Elites increasingly avoided military service and taxation, the bedrock of Roman power, while the taxes on the middle class rose to such heights that this productive class was basically driven into serfdom. The bottom layer of State dependents was placated and made complicit with bread and circuses–yes, Rome had a vast “welfare state” and much of Rome’s population received free bread to keep them quiet and pliant. That is of course a road to ruin: let the Elite plunder at will, protected by the Imperial Central State, tax the productive class to fund the armed forces and free bread, and then buy off the lower class with bread and circuses. The only successful model of reconciliation and justice we have is the “truth commissions” in other post-oppression autocratic kleptocracies. In countries that were deeply divided and poisoned by institutionalized injustice and exploitation, the healing process requires a public, transparent “truth commission” in which the guilty are brought forth to confess their sins against the innocent and face the consequences of their actions. If a society cannot rouse itself to cleanse the fundamental injustice at the heart of its institutions, then it is effectively choosing self-destruction. So far, the U.S. is pursuing the Roman Imperial model with an institutional zeal unmatched since Rome’s fall. Embedded institutional injustice has a price, a price which rises with every passing day of propaganda and prevarication. Some day the bill will come due and a terrible price paid in full. For those in power, the only concern is that it not be today or tomorrow. Of Two Minds |
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Sebbie Warren Comments: In this I find statements, almost verbatim, to so much that I have personally written for several years to friends, acquaintances, national groups, government fiduciaries and agencies, judges...a long list of deaf ears and co-conspirators.
An experience this week that mirrors what is written below is the culmination of one of several personal experiences which demonstrate all that is said in this article. I donned the cloak of 'Paula Revere' and started my ride several years ago and even then could not have imagined how my fears would be vindicated to the extent that they have and on such a global level. All the elements are there and all the players showed up to play their part. What happened this week put me deep into shock even though I had several prior situations to prepare me. More obstruction, misfeasance, malfeasance and legal malpractice to shore up what I already knew. Normal people, like me, never cease to be amazed and stricken by the level of corruption we are all subjected to now. Some of us don't ever see it personally; but are victimized along with the general population. Some of us have had the lonely, frustrating experience detailed below along with the more global experience that only now many people are forced to see and begin to acknowledge.
I might share the latest, but then again it might just be more bad news in a world so full of bad news that no one needs to hear it. Suffice it to say that the proven and acknowledged assault on me by ConAgra Foods and the neglect of the FDA and the subsequent misfeasance and malfeasance of the judges, courts, attorneys et al has played out like the prior real estate, mortgage, title fraud and extortion experiences that rendered me and many other Americans decimated and devoid of trust. How I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when those dirty deals were struck and the victims were re-victimized by those scum bags.
When I say the level of protection for white collar criminals...high crimes and Treason and all that has entailed in recent years...goes beyond the intrigue and fantasy of a modern day movie; I'm not exaggerating. Proof, witnesses, documentation...files and files of it and there is not an agency or individual left with the authority and ability to do what must be done; what should be done.
The fines and hand slaps are very minor and carried out in secret deals. The public is never informed or warned; so the practice continues unabated. Non-compliance is ignored and goes unprotected. The fines disappear into funds which are never used for the victims but are happily used by the very agencies that failed in their Fiduciary duty to the citizens whose taxes pay their salaries. Our Representatives are so deep in the crimes that no one will blow the whistle for fear of being found out for their offenses.
I cannot recount the number of times I and others who tried to stop what we saw and experienced were told by public servants that they did not have the resources and money to go after some of the major criminals involved and that have now been exposed publicly at the same time they were being handed hundreds of billions of OUR dollars and debt to reward their crimes and mass destruction.
I think some people might have thought I was being overly dramatic...well, now they can think again and ponder the reality.
My most oft prayed for fantasy is that those who are responsible...the power elite and the facilitators who collect our taxes and incur debts that cannot be satisfied in our name...the corrupt government parasites who live very handsomely off our blood, sweat and tears and broken dreams DO pay that bill and soon. I would happily lead the charge and wield the first sword; knowing what I know and which ones ignored or refused to step up when they had the chance to do the right thing.
I've written many times that there have been opportunities to step forward and tell the truth; yet the cowardice is as massive as the corruption.
I AM the quintessential example of what 'they' set out to do to us...to our nation...to liberty...to innocent human beings to fulfill their sick and perverted fantasies. People like me are exhausted; but we have almost nothing left to lose. WE are very dangerous to them. When what you fear losing is gone...well, you know the end of that sentence.
I get up every day and wonder if this is the day that Americans decide they have had enough....really had enough. Is this the day that it sinks in; that old adage "There is power in numbers..." I think it will be when the last few are told they have no more money, no more credit, no job and they have 24 hours to vacate their home and they realize that some flea and lice infested family of invaders will move in with their bed bugs and live at half the cost and fill the kitchen with food stamp groceries. Oh, I could keep going forever; but I'm just too tired tonight.
Debbie Warren
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