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Published on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 by The Colbert Report
Bill Moyers: 'Capitalism is Out of Control Thanks, In No Small Part, to Citizen's United'
Bill Moyers: "You cannot have a people's democracy as long as corporations are considered people..."
Bill Moyers believes that capitalism is out of control and there can be no people's democracy as long as corporations are considered people.
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Show AllAlthough Moyers says "thanks to the 2009 SCOTUS citizens united ruling corporations are out of control", corporate control of the US Government accelerated during LBJ's reign 45 years ago and has been running at full throttle since Ronny Raygun moved into the white house 31 years ago.
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Yes, that is a good point. The implication, however unintended, that our political and economic systems were "under control" prior to Citizens United is absurd. Our system has always been bought off, particularly over the last 3-4 decades. Citizens United is just further embellishment. In fact, the origins of Corporate Personhood go way back to 1886 with Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. And we also have the key SCOTUS decision of 1976, with Buckley v. Valeo.
Corporate/Wall Street control of U.S. government started long before LBJ. Woodrow Wilson not only set up the Federal Reserve, but caved into banking interests who feared their loans to Britain and France would be lost once German troops moved from the Eastern Front to the Western Front in the wake of Russia's 1917 Communist Revolution and withdrawal from World War I. Churchil, then British Secretary of Naval Operations, said the "neutral" countries (the U.S.) had to be persuaded to suffer some losses to German U-boats so they would have a reason to enter the war on Britain's side. We now know the S.S. Lusitania was carrying arms and ammunition to Britain when it was sunk by a U-boat off the coast of Great Britain. That gave Wilson his pretext to send U.S. troops "over there" and save the bankers' loans.
Let us take an example and go to the very beginning to one of those "Founding fathers" , one often quoted and cited as being of the utmost integrity.
Thomas Jefferson supported the policy of cleansing the Eastern USA of the various native tribes and while he would vocally speak up against banks and the risks banks posed to "Freedom and Liberty" was not above using them for nefarious purposes so as to enrich the already wealthy.
In a letter to a colleague he outlined how this would work> He indicated the Governmenet would offer its hand in friendship to the Native tribes, They would suggest the various tribes could work together with the new nation called "The United States of America" and prosper by offering a helping hand in transforming the Native tribes into an acgricultural/industrial society .
Sounds good does it not?
He then went on to detail as to how the tribes and natives would be encouraged to take out loans with Banks so as to purchase the equipment and other things needed to become farmers and merchants.
They (the banks in collusion with the US Governmnet) would then call in those "loans" and when the natives could not repay demand land in compensation. These lands would then be transferred legally to the landowners that wrote that Constitution. He also stated that tribes that refused this "Helping hand" would be seen as enemies and would be met with Military force.
It did not start in 1917 either. It started in 1776. The same tactics are used today with the IMF and World Bank.
Will Moyers contribute to Colbert's super pac?
Confusion of economic and political systems?
There's really not enough substance in this segment to cause confusion. Perhaps you should watch it a few more times.
q
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The two systems are now increasingly interactive: each increasingly perverts the other. Ultimately a thriving democratic political system is incongruent with a flourishing capitalist economic system. They each have entirely different base objectives.
Right you are, cdresearch.
A fascist political system is congruent with a capitalist economic system. Rule by and for the oligarchy.
A democratic political system is congruent with a socialist economic system. Rule by and for the people.
The MSM, in its usual devious manner intending to confuse, usually means 'capitalist' when it says 'democratic'.
Bill Moyers has done our country a terrific service, perhaps the most outstanding effort of an already outstanding career. I hearken back to several years ago when there was a quiet but powerful tremor that rippled through the blogosphere.
From the late, great Molly Ivins in July of 2006:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060724_molly_ivins_bill_moyers/
"Dear desperate Democrats, here's what we do. We run Bill Moyers for president. I am serious as a stroke about this. It's simple, cheap and effective, and it will move the entire spectrum of political discussion in this country. Moyers is the only public figure who can take the entire discussion and shove it toward moral clarity just by being there."
I'm glad to have Moyers back and in the public eye. If he were to run a primary challenge to Barack Obama anywhere in the country, he would immediately attract a HUGE following. Molly Ivins' advice is as good today as it was then.
http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/
"Moyers, like the rest of the fake left..."
Moyers has never been a leftist, fake or otherwise. He's just an honest man deeply committed to truth, decency, and fairness.
i laugh when self-righteous twits such as yourself make everyone into pawns on your imaginary chessboard. Guys like you have done SO MUCH concrete work in this world to stop the corporatists from carrying out their agenda. Thanks for your brilliant public leadership! We all appreciate your dedicated work, your victories! That's why we applaud your critique of Bill Moyers!
You trivialize his critiques of power: Moyers argues "they just materialized out of the blue?" i mean when you put it like that, how could anyone not follow your logic? Especially when your path forward is so clear, so simple. Um, where exactly is your clear simple path?
Fake.
The return of sane conversation to TV land...
When one uses the word “corporation”, it is very important to clarify that you refer to a tiny, not-necessarily-US-national, minority of demographically identical 'people-with-pulses' who populate the inter-locking boardrooms and corner offices operating behind the fascade of "corporation".
(That's the nice way to say it...insert "sociopaths" and "Anti-Christ" in the appropriate spaces, for the juicy version.)
Seriously, each time we fail to make that distinction, we re-enforce the fiction of corporate personhood. 'We' are up against a flesh-and-blood global oligarchy using the "corporation" as a front to concentrate wealth and power in ways that will result in the destruction of, not only society and all that's been accomplished, but also, the ecosystem itself.
We are in a struggle for survival.
Good point Snydly.
The whole purpose of the "limited liability" construct of the corporation is to provide "limited liability" for... real people who benefit from the corporate facade!