Month: November 2010

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Scary words from Wendell Potter, health insurance whistle blower.

We are in a period of time when I think this puts our democracy in jeopardy. We are seeing newsrooms having smaller staffs. Mainstream media is diminishing and along with that, investigative reporting is diminishing. So, there are fewer watchdogs, journalism watchdogs, than there used to be. We don’t have a Walter Cronkite anymore. People can self select. They can go to Fox News if they’re conservative and have their world view reinforced, or MSNBC on the other side of the political-ideological spectrum. So you don’t have as much of a middle as you used to. At the same time as you’re seeing newsrooms shrink, you’re seeing corporate power increase. You see a lot of reporters who used to work for newspapers go into PR. I did that several years ago. There are far, far, far more PR in America than there are newspaper reporters or reporters of any kind. So, you’re seeing a shift that troubles me. You’re seeing a rise of corporate power when there are far fewer watchdogs watching over what’s going on. – The Hartford Courant

Wendell Potter was a top PR rep for the Cigna and Humana insurance companies until he realized the error of his ways.

Brought to you by the United Corporations of America: Of the money, by the money, for the money.

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Republicans are Protectionists

Protect the status quot…protect the wealth. That is pretty much the mantra of the real Republican party. They are being challenged on the premise of “core Republican values” by the Teabaggers. From what I can tell the Teabaggers and lock-step Republicans disagree on what those values are.

Teabaggers want to “control fiscal spending” to “reduce the deficit” and claim ending entitlements and lower taxes will achieve this goal. Aside from the Dept. of Education I’ve never heard of another entitlement program they would move to end. Instead their answer is a politically vague end to “government waste”. Then they go on to use some comically undereducated talking points such as running the government like a responsible household budget. I thank a Teabagger’s God my family budget isn’t as complicated as the federal governments.

A real lock-step Republican knows only one thing: protect the wealth. This doesn’t mean tax increases or decreases specifically. It means using any legislative method available to undermine and remove regulations on business and industry, including the banking industry.

Real Republicans like having the fox watch the hen house. Their rallying point is limited government and big business. The argument Americans are having right now is over who they want in charge of the country: the US Government or multinational corporations.

I like to believe that an honest government should incur responsible costs while they work to protect Americans from all threats, including those posed by industries chasing profit at any cost, even if the price is human life. That ideal vision of America may be gone soon if it’s not already. Corporate America has purchased the US political system. If lock-step Republicans take control of the executive and legislative branches the poor will be slaves to the 21st century Robber Barons. The middle class will simply be gone.  So the question Republican, industry supporters need to ask themselves is: can America survive without a middle class?

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