As soon as there is talk of bipartisanship, whether from Democrats or Republicans, it means they all got the same fax from the Chamber of Commerce. As Sirota points out here, the real divide in Washington is not ideological but people vs. money, as was shown by trade and business oriented bills that get broad support even though they screw the vast majority of Americans. He could have taken this even further and applied it to our foreign policy. Pundits, even many on the left, pretend that foreign policy is a struggle between ideologues and realpolitik types. It is not. It is about money. American oil companies want the profits from Iraq's oil, and we invade Iraq. The elected president of Venezuela wants to keep more of the income from his country's oil, thus cutting into oil company profits, and he is targeted for recall elections (sound familiar?), coups, and assassination. Any talk of spreading democracy at gunpoint is a lie. They want to steal, and they tell a nice story so we go along with it. This not only puts money ahead of Iraqi and other foreign people, it puts money ahead of us. To the degree that these wars affect terrorism they increase it. And a big reason why terrorism exists is because businesses have demanded our government put their profits ahead of the economic welfare and self-determination of people in the Middle East. In addition to paying the cost of seizing that asset for oil companies with our safety, we pay with our tax dollars and soldiers lives. And how do oil companies repay us? They demand more tax cuts, gouge us at the pumps, and pay their PR machine to quash alternatives to their product. I like capitalism. It gives me good tennis shoes and this nice computer. But just as we wouldn't let a nymphomaniac write our sex laws or a drug addict write our drug laws, we should let corporations write our foreign and domestic policy or they will stack the deck and privatize everything to squeeze every last dime out of us, and by doing the same to other countries, make us hated to boot. KEY EXCERPTS:
FULL TEXT: http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/11/23/bipartisans... |
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10 min. and 27 sec. of :
Dave Matthews Band and Warren Haynes in Central Park, New York playing ....
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