[Cin]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Miss Tick,

Thanks for the Huntsman rundown. I expected the conservative religious crap. It was the economics I was curious about. He, like most politicans today, is firmly rooted in the Milton Friedman disaster capitalism farce.

Briefly, disaster capitalism is when you take advantage of or create a disaster whereby you can overthrow the existing government, because is a threat to individual and corporate profits, and impose a certain economic order and laws to ensure this order proceeds unopposed. ( Think 9/11, think of the host of deregulation that has ensued since the Reagan era, think of selling off the infrastructure to private enterprise, think creative investment instrument expansion i.e. mortgage derivatives that caused this current global economic meltdown, think the busting of labor unions, think Iraq and Afganistan, think the Patriot Act and whatever the name of that newest thing Obama signed was). These are not individual, independent acts. It is a systematic and deliberate strategy.

Everywhere this was instituted i.e. Nixon did it to Argentina, the USA did it to Russia as a condition for financial aid thereby handcuffing Gorbechev, Thatcher did it to the UK, etc. it has been proven to be an unmitigated failure. A few people became fabulously weathy. The rest were fighting to just survive in the widespread poverty created by their new economic order. The coercion of the masses using intimidation, fear tactics, imprisonment and "disappearance" of dissenters is well documented. Sound familiar?

Pure capitalism might work as a theorectical construct. It has been an abysmal failure when it has been systematically implemented/imposed on unsuspecting peoples.

So, any politican from any party who continues to espouse the virtue of continuing down this path is a dangerous, freakin fruitcake to me.

And, I still think, all the crap about gay marriage, abortion, health care and all the manifestations of these, is a very concerted effort to keep "the masses" from concentrating on the bigger picture. Cant see or oppose the forest if you are lost in the trees. Cant focus on the forest when you are busy fighting amongst yourselves.

This is scary stuff but it sounds so surrealistic, it seems implausible. But it is very real, and incredibly scary.

I totally agree with you. The reality is though how can we realistically believe that any national candidate can ever stray from the path and get elected or if elected hold office for any length of time. Unless we take corporations, the financial sector, the fat cats with all the money and all the power out of Washington it is a relatively redundant done deal, with a few minor forest for the trees differences just to keep us believing, no matter who we elect (and I use the term loosely). All the candidates are exactly the same because they are bought and paid for by the oligarchy that runs the country. It's like you said all that other stuff keeps us distracted.

I guess I don't see any individual politicians having much power to stray apart from that unimportant stuff.