Wall Street and our government are one and the same and are destroying the rest of us

robert scheer talking with amy goodman at democracy now about how the unfettered greed of our super-rich, elite overlords is destroying the very fabric of our society, particularly among those who have worked the hardest to carve their place in it and are the most vulnerable to economic shenanigans...

This is not a game. It’s not a political game. It’s not a mathematics game. They’re real human beings who invest their whole life putting shelter over their family, caring about their family. And when you go out in these communities—and I’ve done some of that—you know, it’s so depressing. You know, I mean, I talked to people in Riverside who cleaned office buildings, you know, in Long Beach and commuted to Riverside so their kids could live in a better neighborhood. And they bought this house, and they made the payments. They made the payments. They did everything they were supposed to do. And the neighborhood went into the toilet, and they lose everything. They lose everything. And that story is repeated millions of times in America.

And the guys who did it to us, they weren’t those vicious right-wingers. And, you know, it wasn’t all the people that we liberals like to attack. It was our friends. Let’s get that straight, you know? When I call this the Clinton bubble, you know, I mean it very seriously. It was our friends. It was people, you know, like the heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who claim to be liberal Democrats. But they were being rewarded with enormous bonuses. You know, enormous bonuses. They made out just as well as the people running Citigroup. These were not government agencies. These were actually traded on the stock market, but posing as government-supported agencies. And the fact of the matter is that the damage that was done to us was done by people who talk a very good game. You know, Robert Rubin contributed money to the Harlem dance group, you know? Jesse Jackson even supported the reversal of Glass-Steagall. There’s a whole chapter in my book, you know? The people who acted in a very bad way, in this book, were people who we would probably be more comfortable talking to, you know, over a drink somewhere than the others. So, you know, my book, you know, it’s called "How Reagan Democrats—Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street and Mugged Main Street." And the Clinton Democrats, who now control the Obama administration, are—you know, this is turning the henhouse over to the foxes. And I would say the record of Obama on this has been abysmal. He has been a frontman for Wall Street, and it is shocking.

my heart has always been solidly connected to issues of social justice and it pains me beyond words to see common, ordinary, decent, hard-working folks screwed over by those who are only interested in accumulating more money and power for themselves... but, sad to say, i see it everywhere... regardless of the country or the culture, billions of decent people are being used and manipulated by those who only want to enrich themselves and don't give a flying shit for the common good...

i visited a friend in macedonia this past weekend and he was showing me photos of the trip he and his wife took to bucharest, romania, to visit his wife's sister... among the photos were several of the palace built by former dictator nicolae ceauşescu... now, i knew ceauşescu was an ego-maniacal despot, but, even with that knowledge, the size and grandiosity of the palace was stunning, only the pentagon in the u.s. is larger... the palace was built with forced labor... all the premier artisans and craftsmen from around the country were rounded up and moved to bucharest and put to work on the project - without pay - just so dear leader could look around and say, "look how great i am and how much power i have"...


Ceauşescu Palace, Bucharest, Romania


View from Ceauşescu Palace, Bucharest, Romania

we tut-tut and cluck-cluck over that kind of person and that kind of excess but it's going on right under our noses in our very own country... but when it's one of our own, we just choose to look the other way...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet