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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums“Our billionaires can beat their billionaires.”
Heinous Waste of Money Officially BeginsWASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)The two major political parties unconscionable waste of money officially commences this weekend, as Democrats and Republicans will soon begin spending an estimated five billion dollars of their corporate puppet masters assets in an unquenchable pursuit of power.
The billions, which could be spent rebuilding the nations crumbling infrastructure, improving schools, or reducing the scourge of malaria in Africa, will instead be squandered in a heinous free-for-all of slander and personal destruction, alienating voters as never before.
The media will inevitably focus on the personalities of the bloated roster of narcissists lusting after the White House, but scant attention will be paid to the Wall Street bankers, industrial polluters, and casino magnates whose grip on American democracy will remain vise-like.
While attention this weekend turns to the Democrats, the Republicans remain quietly confident about their chances of purchasing the nations highest office. In the words of one top operative, Our billionaires can beat their billionaires.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/heinous-waste-of-money-officially-begins
Satire?............ I don't think so.............
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)American financial aristocracy will select the candidates of the two big-business parties, using its vast wealth and control of the media. This will culminate on November 8, 2016, when the voters will be given the choice between two individuals with nearly identical right-wing views, committed to the defense of Wall Streets interests at home and abroad.
A staggering amount of money is required to be considered a viable presidential candidate. Ultra-right Texas Senator Ted Cruz vaulted onto that list by raising $31 million in the first week after announcing his candidacy. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother and son of former presidents, reportedly plans to raise $100 million in the April-June quarter alone, even before announcing his campaign for the Republican nomination.
By one published estimate, Hillary Clinton will raise and spend between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in the primary and general election campaigns, twice the amount Barack Obama and Mitt Romney each spent in 2012.
To raise these vast sums, all potential presidents must thus pass through a screening process that involves a few thousand billionaires and near-billionaires. According to a revealing report in the Washington Post last week, so-called bundlers who played a vital role in earlier campaigns by combining donor checks into bundles totaling $100,000 or more are now generally ignored by the top candidates. Their cash input is considered insignificant compared to what the super-PACs can obtain in one check from billionaires such as the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and George Soros.
The financial oligarchy selects the possible candidates, a process now referred to as the invisible primary, and puts them through their paces, using various media-generated attacks and pseudo-scandals to determine which ones are best able to shake off external pressures, ignore public opinion and do the bidding of their corporate masters.
Those selected are invariably right-wing, reliable defenders of corporate America, usually themselves millionaires or multimillionaires. On the Republican side, the announced or likely candidates include four US senatorsTed Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Grahamand numerous governors and former governors, including Bush, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas.
The Republican Party has moved so far to the right that Jeb Bush, who viciously attacked public education and supported the ultra-right campaign over the comatose Terri Schiavo, is now regarded as the leading moderate. His main competition for that role is Christie, promoted by the media as a moderate despite his savage attacks on social services and bullying of teachers and other public employees.
Those based primarily on ultra-right Tea Party and Christian fundamentalist elements include Cruz, who provoked a partial shutdown of the federal government in 2013, and Rand Paul, who recently called for a $190 billion increase in military spending.
Those appealing to both the ultra-right and the Republican establishment include Rubio, set to announce Monday, and Scott Walker. The Wisconsin governor, now running even or ahead of Bush in most polls, is best known for his attack on public employees in Wisconsin, which provoked a stormy mass movement in 2011.
SNIP
While the American mediaitself owned by giant corporations or billionaires like Rupert Murdochwill portray the 2016 presidential as an exercise in democracy, the US political system can be more accurately described, paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln, as government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires.
There is little or no correlation between the political sentiments of the working people who constitute the vast majority of the American population and the policies advocated by the Democratic and Republican candidates for president.
By large margins, even in opinion polls conducted by the corporate-controlled media, the American people support sharp increases in taxes on the wealthy to fund social programs and provide jobs for the unemployed; they oppose cuts in Social Security and Medicare and view education, health care and other public services as basic rights; they oppose government spying on the telephone and Internet usage of ordinary Americans, as well as other police-state measures; and they oppose overseas military interventions in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates stand on the other side of the barricades on all these issues.
This political straitjacket has become increasingly intolerable.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/04/11/pers-a11.html
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,740 posts)but the truth. And the beneficiaries are mostly the media, who will get to run an avalanche of false advertising.
Martin Eden
(12,881 posts)Billions will be spent on misleading advertising, smears, and fearmongering.
The media will focus on personalities and the horse race.
This is a sick perversion of what our nation's Founders had in mind -- a well-informed electorate engaged in their own governance.
Ultimately, the policies enacted in Washington will reflect this dysfunctional electoral process engineered and paid for by billionaires.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)HRC, Cruz and Paul are all equal evils , you have bigger problems than voting!
zeemike
(18,998 posts)Then the illusion would be self evident.
No, one is evil to one side and the other is evil to the other...that is how the game works.
The biggest problem is to pretend you are not seeing a game in any of it, and it is the simple good verses evil clear choice...and vote out of fear instead of for something...that means they never have to deliver anything but relief of your fear of the boogie men.
appalachiablue
(41,184 posts)Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)Blame People who sat on their ideologies and refused to vote for lesser evils allowed the GOP to take control of SCOTUS which in turn has enabled this ,,,,,, btw it has also insured that a Progressive Democrat can not ever be elected Prez !
So How do Progressives have any influence on policy making now? sit on their ideologies and refuse to vote?
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... that sit home and don't vote; that's a canard.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)I do not see how you could have looked at the people he had around him and come to that conclusion, still I am glad McCain and Mitts were defeated.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)He helped tremendously with alternative energy, aka advanced energy, i.e., renewables. He's clearly been a friend of LGBT rights.
No, he hasn't been a perfect progressive, but he's been the best president I can remember.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)regretted my voting for Obama, but I never considered him to be a progressive.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)McConnell, funded in part by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, is the legislative analog to street-cop assassins.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(99,716 posts)Supporting marriage equality, providing universal health insurance, providing a path to immigration, pushing for stimulus after stimulus, appointing Kagan and Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, negotiating with Iran are conservative positions?
If that's the case the Republicans should push to repeal or overwrite the 22nd Amendment before the 2016 presidential election and endorse him.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... of this guy!
progressoid
(50,001 posts)It's the middle of the roaders who sit out elections.
This pattern is even stronger at higher levels of activism. Consistent liberals and conservatives make up 41% of the people who have made a campaign donation over the past two years double their presence in the public at large.
http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-5-political-engagement-and-activism/
marym625
(17,997 posts)Or pretty close. I thought Borowitz was satirical. Guess that's no longer the case.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,716 posts)I would much rather hang out with Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Oprah than the Koch brothers...
tabasco
(22,974 posts)Pretty much the same situation with professional sports.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)but we got more people that will give $25, $50, $100 and a real reason to take action.....rid our country of the conservative money driven blight
PassingFair
(22,434 posts)I'm not giving a dime to the billionaires club.
Gothmog
(145,722 posts)Stallion
(6,476 posts)nm