By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 21, 2017
The one percent now effectively owns Washington: the making of our laws, the writing of Executive Orders, the running of Federal agencies with the power to put crooks among the one percent in prison – or not, and they are now the overseers of gutting Federal programs that benefit the 99 percent.
One thought comes to mind about this state of affairs. The abolitionist and writer, Frederick Douglass, once said:
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
The majority of Americans, whether they are yet aware or not, now walks in the shoes of Frederick Douglass. We’re all minorities now. The billionaires and their lackeys rule.
How did a society that fought a brutal and bloody revolution to throw off the yoke of one percent rule end up where we find ourselves today?
After a decade of thinking and researching and writing about little else, we believe the major causes are as follows: a highly consolidated corporate media that failed to tackle these issues with regularity and force; a timid Internal Revenue Service that was afraid to take on the billionaire class for setting up faux citizen front groups that drowned out the voice and views of real citizens; and, of course, an abjectly corrupt system of billionaire financing of political campaigns.
Below is a small sampling of articles from our archives which should have warned us that we were rapidly devolving as a democracy and that a full scale plutocracy was in our future.
The Right Wing Group Behind Donald Trump’s Rise Aims to Keep Fear Alive
The Koch Brothers as Newspapermen
Koch Footprints Lead to Secret Slush Fund to Keep Fear Alive
The Koch Empire and Americans for Prosperity
Resurrecting Ayn Rand: Hedge Fund Money Teams Up With Koch & BB&T
Who’s Behind PropOrNot’s Blacklist of News Websites
Washington Post Reporter Spreads Blacklist of Independent Journalist Sites
Corporate Media Blacks Out Coverage of Bill to Overturn Corporate Personhood
