You are correct. It is because the American people in the generations since the Great Depression have been spoon fed lies and distortions about the system the Establishment calls "capitalism." We have been told time and again how the "capitalists" are for free markets, for the working man, for the expansion of opportunity, two cars in every garage and a chicken in every pot. It has always been the "communists" and the "socialists" who have been labeled as the bogeymen to be feared. Howard Zinn was singled out because he pointed fingers at facts the Establishment would rather remain hidden.Originally Posted by KJ6BSO
The truth is that we have not seen capitalism in this nation since the end years of the nineteenth century, when the Financial Moguls finally wiped it from our economy. It was supplanted by a perverse sort of "financialism" which has seen the Wall Street Gambling Casino (and the Chicago Mercantile, too) emerge as a betting parlor for the wealthiest brackets. They have been clever enough to let fall a few crumbs so that some sacrificed profits are enjoyed by the top levels of the middle classes, to the pleasure of binding middling greed to their own monumental avarice.
True capitalists used to plow their profits back into their enterprises, satisfied to take less with each bite in order to serve a bigger pie at each subsequent meal. Today, capitalism is a dead issue. It was killed in the process of remaking the securities and futures markets over into a gambling machine in which the small investor can make only sufficient gains to be lured into providing ever more money for the moguls to use to add to their own vast profits. They win, whether or not you win or you lose.
All the average working man or woman in this county need ask is who gave us this system? Who created the scam called "self-regulation" that has made possible obscene profits and bonuses on Wall Street while foreclosures and collapsing pension portfolios are the oats that trickle to Main Street?
The answer from the Republicans is always that it is all the fault of ACORN, of Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac. It is the damned Democrats who have given us radical spending and created monumental deficits. All of that is mere lies and bullshit. Ronald Reagan left office bequeathing to the nation the largest peacetime deficit in history. By the time Clinton left office, he had managed to work out a surplus, but Bush and Cheney not only spent every dime of that, but ran up a deficit that would have made Reagan blush with embarrassment. It was Bush and his henchmen that finally pushed the economy into the dumpster.
But, now every one of these Republicans wants you to overlook those FACTS and point the finger at Obama and the Democrats for the deficit.
Never forget Lyndon Johnson's truism: "Trickle-down is when you feed your horse extra oats and the let chickens scratch for theirs." It's their horse that seek to feed, and they feed it in return for funds from corporate sponsors who couldn't care less about what happens here at home because all of the investments are now offshore and the only thing we here have left is the shell games on Wall Street.
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