The United States of CEOs
By louisehartmann
Last week, in a San Bruno, California, neighborhood, a natural gas pipeline exploded in a thunderous sound heard for miles destroying homes and killed at least four people. Now, a consumer advocacy group has found that the company that operated the faulty pipeline, Pacific Gas & Energy (PG&E), had classified the pipe as a high risk and did not to use the funds it had collected from a rate hike to repair it. Meanwhile, all over the nation states and cities are increasingly outsourcing facilities and infrastructure to private, for profit companies like PG&E, taking in short term cash to help them through this tough economic time, but turning our infrastructure over to institutions that are set up only to make a profit and not to further the public good. From privatized parking meters to water supplies to toll roads to gas lines, America is increasingly becoming the United States of CEOs, with less and less control, oversight, and influence from We The People.
Comments
#2
I find it interesting that at least three times this morning that CNN radio news reported what would happen if the Bush Tax Cuts expire. . Don't they listen to their own news. No one is saying, let the tax cuts expire. The president is only saying, "let the tax cuts on the top 2% expire". So now, CNN is reporting hypotheticals, as news.
Wonder why? Why now, 4 months before they are set to expire?
Couldn't have anything to do with influencing the upcoming elections; could it? Couldn't have anything to do with trying to confuse the voters, making them think that the Democrats are trying to raise taxes on everyone; could it?
Yes, this is becoming a nation of CEOs.
#3
Incidentally, since CNN reports hypotheticals as news; wouldn't it have been nice if CNN had reported the hypothetical of what would happen if we started a war with Iraq?
But I guess that hypothetical didn't work with increasing their stock values.
#4
Even More suspicious than the timing of CNN, "the most trusted name in news", reporting the hypothetical, what will happen if the Bush Tax Cut expire, as news, they are also reporting that the recession ended in June of 2009, although, I've yet to hear them quote even one fact or one statistic. They are basing this on a report from "The National Bureau of Economic Research". A little "Google" research confirmed my suspicions that this is likely a Republican partisan group headed until 2008 by one Martin Feldstein a guru for the Bush economic team according to the internet site, Source Watch. Source Watch also states that one of the principal funders between 1985-2001, was The Scaife Foundation (Sarah Mellon Scaife).
But go ahead CNN "the most trusted name in news". Report it as news. And they wonder why no one trusts the mainstream media or reads the news papers.
#5
If nothing is done then they all expire. Cool. I say let them all expire. They should have never been allowed in the first place. Remember, it was the repubs that set an end date anyway. Besides, even with all those tax cuts, (more probably because of them), we ended up in a reccession. Let them expire and hire some more teachers.
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Popularization of Ignorance
Chris Hedges has the most concise, eloquent way of summarizing our societies’ issues into one sentence talking points.
We Are at a Moment of Cultural Shift from a Print Based Culture to a Image Based Culture. Losing the value of information that is based on Verifiable Fact. The normal mechanisms to stop the rapid spread of misinformation and hate no longer work or are no longer there. The Media is playing completely to Emotion.
Facts and Reality are Irrelevant. They believe what they want to believe. So People retreat to Intellectual Ghettos, Where they reinforce their own prejudices. With Two Enemies: Internally: The person who asks uncomfortable questions. AND The External Enemy, who is defined by the group as “The Other.”
It’s not what’s true, it’s what people are told is true. There is A Frightening Campaign of demonization of American Citizens who happen to be Muslim. Because, If it’s not Goldman Sachs, then it has to be Muslims who are the villains.
"We are way past Dialogue! The only way to Blunt This Movement is through Re-enfranchisement of the underclass back into the economy." - Chris Hedges
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_on_tensions_between_the_west_and_the_muslim_world_20100919/ Minute 36:30 - Chris Hedges
It’s not about facts or Reality, It’s about a means of reaching people and mobilizing people.