[The USA needs to end this kind of #bribery and #corruption. #EndCitizensUnited and institute #CampaignFinanceReform or #democracy will die and the #US will be a #Plutocracy controlled by #Oligarchs ]
Hey Digit, why don't you talk about #climatechange?
Same way I don't talk about #globalists / #globalism.
These are contorted terms, language of the oppressor.
They want you using these terms because it deprives you of remedy, and traps you into throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
#throwingthebabyoutwiththebathwater #orwellian #languageoftheoppressor #choose #betterwords
* #ecocide #environmentaldevastation #extinction
* #capitalists #corporatists #corporates #thecorporation #fascists #fascism #oligarchs #oligarchy #psychopaths #psychopathiccirclejerk #sociopaths #darktriad #plutarchy #kleptarchy #attercoparchy #kakistarchy
It's all on paper, though.
You can't eat gold and you can't eat diamonds, and their value is still determined in terms of currency, which is on paper. They may hoard it but they can't spend it because if they do, there will be an oversupply of currency and that will devalue the currency. They're a bunch of morons with a hoarding disorder which makes 'em no different than your hoarding cousin living in a trailer park.
♲ DoomsdaysCW - 2024-01-07 17:33:06 GMT
[Paywall] #Billionaires Are Hoarding Trillions in Untaxed #Wealth. They Want the #SupremeCourt to Keep It That WayA new report from #AmericansForTaxFairness found that America’s richest families accumulated $8.5 trillion in untaxed capital gains in 2022
by Nikki McCann Ramirez
January 5, 2024#TaxTheRich #SCOTUS #SCOTUSIsCompromised #ImpeachJusticeThomas #ImpeachClarenceThomas #Oligarchy #Oligarchs #EatTheRich
#Billionaires #Oligarchs #Aviation #PrivateJets #Environment #GlobalWarming #ClimateChange
#consider, my understanding of these two labels.
terrorist : one who causes terror for political gain.
freedom fighter : one who fights for their freedom and the freedom of a people from oppression.
" #or "? the two are not mutually exclusive. can be #both.
introspect #perception, for any #judgement.
and just because one side uses terror for their political gain (and thus are definitively "terrorist"), does not mean the other side do not and are not.
[(...can you see any examples of this type hypocrisy on the world stage? seen anyone "doth protest too much"?)]
#terror #terrorist #terrorists #terrorism #politics #terminology #psyop #falsedichotomy #opposame #notmutuallyexclusive (not to mention the added complexities of #falseflag operations, #managedopposition, #agentprovokateurs, etc., and the escalating horrors of #groupthink (all the way to the #atrocity of #genocide!), and #proxywars for #massdistraction and #polarising #divisive #problemreactionsolution #divideandconquer #ploys of #theoppressor... "THEY'RE USING YOU!", not just "both" " #sides ", but the puppet masters behind them. Many #innocent #lives, and it matters not to the power-focused #ruthless #sociopaths, #oligarchs, #bankers, #cultists, #aristocrats, #fascists, #barons, etc... ... #TheCorporation = #Psychopath. thanks, #racetothebottom and #tragedyofthecommons and #dogma and #fundamentalism. ... maybe we're #now #ready to say #WeAreNotDoingThatAnyMore ... #wecanstillmendthis. )
Anyone looking at the current state of the United States and the United Kingdom – the former bitterly divided with a hooligan running for president again, the latter both literally and figuratively falling to pieces around our ears – would be justified in adding some expletives to the question: what has gone wrong with what were once touted as leading examples of democracies?
It would take an entire book to answer that fully. A short answer is that neither the US nor the UK is a democracy in much more than name.
What should be the exclusive duty of government – to serve the economic, social and security interests and welfare of all the people – is subordinated to what will play well enough for enough voters to ensure the governing party’s re-election.
#democracy #oligarchies #oligarchs #UK #America #elections #DemocracyTheatre #government #corruption #power #CorporateTerrorism #MarxWasRight
Very powerful and very important.
On the surface it's just the portrait of a self-indulgent billionaire trying to keep his international partners happy. OTOH it seems like aiding & abetting the enemies of our friends, if not our own enemies. Giving aid and comfort much?
Then again we know what Pogo said.
#MuskVirus #ElonMusk #Muskville #oligarchs #billionaires #Skylink #NationalSecurity #treason #power #media
unpaused this around 47 minutes... what's to stop them turn you off?
https://rumble.com/v2rus9k-how-elites-will-create-a-new-class-of-slaves-whitney-webb-the-glenn-beck-po.html
#transhumanism #technarchy #eugenics #neofeudalism #eternaltyranny #totalitarian #neverendinglivingnightmare #powercorrupts #dumbingdown #enslaving #destroying #psyop #gaslighting #othering #oligarchs #fascists #oligarchy #fascism #ppp #neoliberal #neoconservative #sameoldfascists #fear #wef #banks #darktriad #darktriadarchy #orwellianisms #domesticcontrol #populationcontrol #genocide #thenewmodel #noescape #norecourseofremedy #norighttoremedy #hegemony #totalitarianism #homogenisation #totalitarianisation #smartgrid #china #thechinamodel #thechinaconnection #conflictsofinterest #kissinger #pnac #globalgovernance #technocracy #technarchy #antifreedom #manufacturingconsent #manufacturedcrisis #warondessent #censorship #transhumanism #childabuse #childmutilation #totalcontrol #deidentification #governmentislikefire #paternalistgovernment #thecorporation #dependence #deskilling #agnogenesis #pridefullyignorant #dogma #usurption #mainstream #controlledopposition #juststopoil #climatechange #hypocrisy #control #manufacturedscarcity #disempowerment #thisisnotwhatfacilitarianismlookslike #thisisnotwhatdemocracylookslike #feadrivenpolicyacceptance #bytheiractions #divideandconquer #problemreactionsolution #climageforsale #weatherwarfare #terminator #terminatorgenes #deskkillers
Sanctioned Russian oligarchs spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury life in the U.K. thanks to numerous sanction exemptions, the New York Times reported on July 27.
In some cases, the oligarchs were allowed more than $1 million a year in living expenses, while in others, sanctions were removed after legal battles, the newspaper reported.
According to the New York Times, sanctions that are publicly announced by London are often softened by exemptions knowns as "licenses."
Thanks to such licenses, Ukraine-born Russian Israeli oligarch Mikhail Fridman reportedly spent almost $400,000 over 10 months to retain 19 staff members, including drivers, private chefs, and housekeepers.
https://kyivindependent.com/nyt-russian-oligarchs-enjoy/
#RussiaInvadedUkraine #UnitedKingdom #UK #corruption #ToryCorruption #ToryCronyism #sanctions #oligarchs #wealth #ToryScum #ToryFascistDictatorship
#forprofitmedicine #health #oligarchs #cartels https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PNXbzzbuHJI there's a short worth quoting:
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/oligarchs-against-democracy
Why #Oligarchs Don’t Just Want to Be Rich, But Kill #Democracy Too
THOM HARTMANN
— In 1961, the birth control pill was legalized and by 1964 was in widespread use; this helped kick off the Women’s Liberation Movement, as women, now in control of their reproductive capacity, demanded equality in the workplace. Bra burning became a thing, at least in pop culture lore.
— By 1967, young people on college campuses were also in revolt; the object of their anger was an illegal war in Vietnam. Along with national protest, draft card burning was also a thing.
— The labor movement was feeling it’s oats: strikes spread across America throughout the 1960s from farm workers in California to steel workers in Pennsylvania. In the one year of 1970 alone, over 3 million workers walked out in 5,716 strikes.
— And throughout that decade African Americans were demanding an end to police violence and an expansion of Civil and Voting Rights. In response to several brutal and well-publicized instances of police violence against Black people in the late 1960s, riots broke out and several of our cities were on fire.
These four movements all hitting America at the same time got the attention of Republicans who had previously ignored or even ridiculed Kirk’s 1950s warnings about the dangers of the middle class and minorities embracing democracy.
Suddenly, he seemed like a prophet. And the GOP turned on a dime.
The Republican/Conservative “solution” to the “national crisis” these movements represented was put into place with the election of 1980: the project of the Reagan Revolution was to dial back democracy while taking the middle class down a peg, and thus end the protests and social instability.
Their goal was, at its core, to save America from itself.
The plan was to declare war on labor unions so wages could slide down or at least remain frozen for a few decades; end free college across the nation so students would study in fear rather than be willing to protest; and increase the penalties Nixon had already put on drugs so they could use those laws against hippy antiwar protesters and Black people demanding participation in democracy.
…
Why are America’s plutocrats funding efforts to weaken our democracy and replace it with plutocracy and oligarchy? Is it just about money? Or is there something much deeper that most Americans rarely even consider?
An extraordinary investigative report from documented.net tells how morbidly rich families, their companies, and their personal foundations are funding efforts to limit or restrict democracy across the United States.
In an article co-published with The Guardian, they noted:
“The advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, the powerful conservative think tank based in Washington, spent more than $5m on lobbying in 2021 as it worked to block federal voting rights legislation and advance an ambitious plan to spread its far-right agenda calling for aggressive voter suppression measures in battleground states.”
Their efforts have had substantial success, as you can read in Documented’s article.
This effort, of course, is not unique to the one think tank they called out. From Donald Trump all the way down to the lowest Republican county official, efforts to make it harder for what John Adams called “the rabble” to vote and otherwise participate in democracy are in full swing across America.
But why? Why are some wealthy people so opposed to expanding democracy in America?
Most Americans — and lots of editorial writers — are convinced it’s simply because rich folks want to influence legislation to benefit themselves and keep their regulations and taxes down. I proposed a motive like that in yesterday’s Daily Take.
And surely, for some, that’s the largest part of it. But that’s not the entire story.
I can’t claim (nor would I) to know the exact motives driving the various wealthy individuals funding efforts to reduce the Black, Hispanic, senior, and youth vote. But history does suggest that many are trying to “stabilize” America rather than just pillage her.
They are worried that America is suffering from too much democracy.
The modern-day backstory to this starts in the early 1950s when conservative thinker Russell Kirk proposed a startling hypothesis that would fundamentally change our nation and the world.
The American middle-class at that time was growing more rapidly than any middle-class had ever grown in the history of the world, both in terms of the number of people in the middle class, the income of those people, and the overall wealth that those people were accumulating.
The middle-class was growing in wealth and income back then, in fact, faster than were the top 1%.
Kirk and colleagues like William F. Buckley postulated that if the middle-class and minorities became too wealthy, they’d feel the safety and freedom to throw themselves actively into our political processes, as rich people had historically done.
That expansion of democracy, they believed, would produce an absolute collapse of our nation’s social order — producing chaos, riots, and possibly even the end of the republic.
The first chapter of Kirk’s 1951 book, The Conservative Mind, is devoted to Edmund Burke, the British conservative who Thomas Paine visited for two weeks in 1793 on his way to get arrested in the French revolution. Paine was so outraged by Burke’s arguments that he wrote an entire book rebutting them titled The Rights of Man. It’s still in print (as it is Burke).
Burke was defending, among other things, Britain’s restrictions on democracy, including limits on who could vote or run for office, and the British maximum wage.
That’s right, maximum wage.
Burke and his contemporaries in the late 1700s believed that if working-class people made too much money, they’d have enough spare time to use democratic processes to challenge the social order and collapse the British kingdom.
Too much democracy, Burke believed, was a dangerous thing: deadly to nations and a violation of evolution and nature itself.
Summarizing his debate with Paine about the French Revolution, Burke wrote:
“The occupation of a hair-dresser, or of a working tallow-chandler [candle maker], cannot be a matter of honour to any person—to say nothing of a number of other more servile employments. Such descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression from the state; but the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either individually or collectively are permitted to rule [by voting]. In this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature.”
That was why Parliament passed a law making it illegal for employers to pay people over a certain amount, so as to keep wage-earners right at the edge of poverty throughout their lives.
It was explicitly to avoid too much democracy and preserve the stability of the kingdom. (For the outcome of this policy, read pretty much any Dickens novel.)
Picking up on this, Kirk’s followers argued that if the American middle-class became wealthy enough to have time for political activism, there would be similarly dire consequences.
Young people would cease to respect their elders, they warned. Women would stop respecting (and depending on) their husbands. Minorities would begin making outrageous demands and set the country on fire.
When Kirk laid this out in 1951, only a few conservative intellectuals took him seriously.
Skeptics of multiracial egalitarian democracy like William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater were electrified by his writings and line of thinking, but Republicans like then-President Dwight Eisenhower said of people like Kirk and his wealthy supporters:
“Their numbers are negligible and they are stupid.“
And then came the 1960s.
— In 1961, the birth control pill was legalized and by 1964 was in widespread use; this helped kick off the Women’s Liberation Movement, as women, now in control of their reproductive capacity, demanded equality in the workplace. Bra burning became a thing, at least in pop culture lore.
— By 1967, young people on college campuses were also in revolt; the object of their anger was an illegal war in Vietnam. Along with national protest, draft card burning was also a thing.
— The labor movement was feeling it’s oats: strikes spread across America throughout the 1960s from farm workers in California to steel workers in Pennsylvania. In the one year of 1970 alone, over 3 million workers walked out in 5,716 strikes.
— And throughout that decade African Americans were demanding an end to police violence and an expansion of Civil and Voting Rights. In response to several brutal and well-publicized instances of police violence against Black people in the late 1960s, riots broke out and several of our cities were on fire.
These four movements all hitting America at the same time got the attention of Republicans who had previously ignored or even ridiculed Kirk’s 1950s warnings about the dangers of the middle class and minorities embracing democracy.
Suddenly, he seemed like a prophet. And the GOP turned on a dime.
The Republican/Conservative “solution” to the “national crisis” these movements represented was put into place with the election of 1980: the project of the Reagan Revolution was to dial back democracy while taking the middle class down a peg, and thus end the protests and social instability.
Their goal was, at its core, to save America from itself.
The plan was to declare war on labor unions so wages could slide down or at least remain frozen for a few decades; end free college across the nation so students would study in fear rather than be willing to protest; and increase the penalties Nixon had already put on drugs so they could use those laws against hippy antiwar protesters and Black people demanding participation in democracy."...
Something afoot?
McCain’s Kremlin Ties
He may talk tough about Russia, but John McCain’s political advisors have advanced Putin’s imperial ambitions.
By Mark Ames and Ari Berman
OCTOBER 1, 2008
another piece to the Putin / GOP puzzle.
Over the course of the presidential campaign, John McCain has repeatedly emphasized his willingness to stand up to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as proof that only he possesses the fortitude and judgment to become the next leader of the free world. In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, McCain lashed out at Putin and the Russian oligarchs, who, “rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power…[are] reassembling the old Russian Empire.” McCain rushed to publicly support the Georgian republic during its recent conflict with Russia and amplified his threat to expel Moscow from the G-8 club of major powers. His running mate, Sarah Palin, suggested in her first major interview that the United States might have to go to war with Russia one day in order to protect Georgia—the kind of apocalyptic scenario the United States avoided during the cold war.
Yet despite McCain’s tough talk, behind the scenes his top advisers have cultivated deep ties with Russia’s oligarchy—indeed, they have promoted the Kremlin’s geopolitical and economic interests, as well as some of its most unsavory business figures, through greedy cynicism and geopolitical stupor. The most notable example is the tale of how McCain and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, advanced what became a key victory for the Kremlin: gaining control over the small but strategically important country of Montenegro.
#TheNation #Putin #Russian #oligarchs #politics #GOP #JohnMcCain #Manafort #lobbying #Montenegro #Deripaska #Serbia #Georgia #Ukraine #Balkans #Rothschild #AriBerman #MarkAmes #journalism #RusAl #Yanukovich #OrangeRevolution #Akhmetov #Yushchenko #Djukanovic #Kremlin #Soviet #RickDavis
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/business/amazon-union-christian-smalls.html
#amazon #monopoly #oligopoly #union #labor-union #labour-union #labor-organizing #oligarchs #workers #billionaires #business #organized-labor
https://theintercept.com/2022/03/27/amazon-personal-data-request-dark-pattern/
Notice that much of the information he got was wrong. I've seen this myself. Spokeo and others store "information" that is mostly wrong, and people pay them for it, and no one charges them with fraud.
#privacy #security #surveillance #perversion-economy #surveillance-economy #surveillance-capitalism #safety #stalking #perversion #stalking-economy #amazon #oligarch #oligarchs #plutocrat #plutocrats #kleptocrats
One thought I’ve has as Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and international sanctions in resposne escallate is what the role of the data breaches and “leak journalism” of the past six years might be.
The Panama Papers story broke in 2016, and has been followed by the Bahamas Leaks, FinCEN Files, Mauritius Leaks, Pandora Papers (2021), Paradise Papers (2017), Swiss Leaks (2015), Suisse secrets (2022), and the Secret IRS Files leaks.
The financial world is, it seams, rather draughty.
The cases have also revealed the extent to which the US itself, as well as the UK, play roles as major “offshore banking havens”, or more accurately, holders of what are quite often ill-begotten gains.
One hopes that the vault walls exhibit trends toward transparency and permiability.
And wonders if state-actor based intelligence and law-enforcement might prove even more capabile than a rag-tag band of scrappy journos.
#Russia #Ukraine #DocumentLeaks #Sanctions #Oligarchs #TaxHavens #Sanctions
As of 03/03/2022 text has not been received for H.R.6869 - To authorize the President of the United States to issue letters of marque and reprisal for the purpose of seizing the assets of certain Russian citizens, and for other purposes.
Sponsor is Lance Gooden (R-TX).
The U.S. Congress seeks to exert its Article 1, Section 8 power to issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6869?s=1&r=4
#Ukraine #Russia #LetersOfMarque #Piracy #LanceGooden #Oligarchs #ArrMatey
Of course the #oligarchs never part with their money to help animals that cannot reciprocate. It's all about "RoI" to them... https://www.northsidesun.com/local-content-top-stories/best-friends-offer-help-shuttered-animal-shelter
