Praktik
30th April 2009, 07:41 AM
Dick Durbin in a moment of candour: (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/dick-durbin-banks-frankly_n_193010.html)
"And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place," he said on WJJG 1530 AM's (http://rayhanania.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=464814)"Mornings with Ray Hanania." Progress Illinois (http://progressillinois.com/2009/4/29/durbin-banks-own-the-place)picked up the quote. Greenwald's take: (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/30/ownership/index.html)
Nobody even tries to hide this any longer. The only way they could make it more blatant is if they hung a huge Goldman Sachs logo on the Capitol dome and then branded it onto the foreheads of leading members of Congress and executive branch officials.
Of course, ownership of the government is not confined to Goldman or even to bankers generally; legislation in virtually every area is written by the lobbyists dispatched by the corporations that demand it, (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/22/telecom_immunity/) and its passage then ensured by "representatives" whose pockets are stuffed with money from those same corporations. (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/10/dem-pushing-spy/) Just as one example, as Jane Hamsher reported about Bayh: (http://firedoglake.com/2009/03/25/evan-bayh-building-bridges-to-nowhere/)
Bayh's little "lobbyist problem" is considered by many to be what tanked his Vice Presidential aspirations. His wife Susan earns about $837,000 a year serving on seven corporate boards, among them Wellpoint, a health insurance company for which Bayh helped secure a $24.7 million dollar grant. She's on the board of ETrade, even as Bayh is on the Senate Finance Committee.
Bayh wants people to believe he's a "moderate" who sits in the "center."
Center of K Street, maybe.
Meanwhile, the only citizen protests relating to this mass robbery are driven by anger at the government for treating bankers too harshly and unfairly -- one of the most classic manifestations of what Taibbi, in a separate piece, (http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/21289) so aptly calls the "peasant mentality".
"And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place," he said on WJJG 1530 AM's (http://rayhanania.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=464814)"Mornings with Ray Hanania." Progress Illinois (http://progressillinois.com/2009/4/29/durbin-banks-own-the-place)picked up the quote. Greenwald's take: (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/30/ownership/index.html)
Nobody even tries to hide this any longer. The only way they could make it more blatant is if they hung a huge Goldman Sachs logo on the Capitol dome and then branded it onto the foreheads of leading members of Congress and executive branch officials.
Of course, ownership of the government is not confined to Goldman or even to bankers generally; legislation in virtually every area is written by the lobbyists dispatched by the corporations that demand it, (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/22/telecom_immunity/) and its passage then ensured by "representatives" whose pockets are stuffed with money from those same corporations. (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/10/dem-pushing-spy/) Just as one example, as Jane Hamsher reported about Bayh: (http://firedoglake.com/2009/03/25/evan-bayh-building-bridges-to-nowhere/)
Bayh's little "lobbyist problem" is considered by many to be what tanked his Vice Presidential aspirations. His wife Susan earns about $837,000 a year serving on seven corporate boards, among them Wellpoint, a health insurance company for which Bayh helped secure a $24.7 million dollar grant. She's on the board of ETrade, even as Bayh is on the Senate Finance Committee.
Bayh wants people to believe he's a "moderate" who sits in the "center."
Center of K Street, maybe.
Meanwhile, the only citizen protests relating to this mass robbery are driven by anger at the government for treating bankers too harshly and unfairly -- one of the most classic manifestations of what Taibbi, in a separate piece, (http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/21289) so aptly calls the "peasant mentality".