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November 30, 2009

America’s Toothless Democracy - How we Have Reduced Ourselves to a Nation of


Robots

It was roughly a year ago that the American people, thoroughly fed up with George Bush
and the damage he had wrought on the American democratic system, voted in Barack
Obama on the hope that he would usher in a new era of “change”. On the eve of his
acceptance speech, countless supporters huddled together in the cold Chicago winter, crying
(remember Oprah) and cheering for the new messiah, who would heroically step in to
rescue their runaway train hurtling towards the cliff. Even Jesse Jackson came armed with a
continuous supply of fresh tears (fake ones in all probability).

Fast forward to one year later and ask the question - So how did, the Obama produced and
directed “Change You can Believe In” fantasy movie pan out? Pretty good you say…he wove
such a great tale that it out did even the Chronicles of Narnia. Heck, it was so good it even
got him elected!

So now we are stuck with a movie-star President who excels at photo-ops and fantasy
rhetoric, but thoroughly lacks the courage to stand up to the military-industrial-financial
complex and corporate lobbies. If only Obama had the guts to match his oratory firepower.
Now to be fair to Obama, the fault is not entirely his because he has a bunch of toothless
Democrats on this team, who despite winning a majority in both the House and the Senate
are utterly incapable of passing a single decent legislation.

Year after year, the American people continue to be fooled into forcibly dividing themselves
into Democrats and Republicans, on the basis of political ideology laced rhetoric that has
NOTHING to do with reality, or actual governance policies.

The Republican camp votes for which ever candidate spews their jargon: “free-markets”,
“lower taxes”, “capitalism is the best”, “who needs the world when America is a
superpower”, “we support our troops (by blindly sending them in harms way)”, “pro-life”,
“anti-abortion”, and “anti-socialism”.

The Democrats on the other side are programmed to vote for anyone whose speeches
include: “gay-rights”, “women‟s right to abortion”, “no more wars”, “labor rights”,
“environment”, “higher wages” and “socialized healthcare”.

American‟s have reduced themselves to a nation of robots, programmed to react to buzz


words, but completely lacking in ability or intellectual desire to think through, and really
understand the issues facing our nation. Even more sadly, once we have elected our
candidate, rather than holding them accountable, we are programmed to follow him/her
blindly through all their policies, because changing our mind would be tantamount to

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deserting your team. And we are definitely not quitters. No sir, we will choose to go
bankrupt, than leave an unwinnable war, without winning.

And so we have ushered in the rise of Sarah Palin and Barack Obama and all our toothless
leaders in Congress. Sarah‟s right-wing buzz word filled speeches have been sending tea-
party folks in a tizzy. Yes the healthcare public option is socialism - but social security and
Medicare are NOT. Yes we support lower taxes, but we take no responsibility when it comes
to exploring means to pay off our national debt. Yes we want to lower the deficit, but we will
willingly add to the national debt to fund the war.

The Democrats too have reacted enthusiastically to Obama‟s speeches, but have failed to
hold him accountable for escalating the war in Afghanistan, back-pedaling on the public
option, not bringing war criminals to justice and closing Guantanamo.

And so the saga of our sham democracy continues. Despite changing a President and the
ruling political party, there has been scant change in the policies that govern the nation. The
real rulers of this country - powerful corporations continue to sacrifice democracy at the
altar of unbridled greed and profits. They have rendered the American democracy toothless
by:

1) Systematically dumbing down the population via controlling the news media
which in turn controls information. This is best evidenced by the politicization
and tabloidization of national news organizations, like Fox on the right, MSNBC on
the left and Anderson Cooper‟s intense coverage of balloon-boy. Rather than having
intelligent discussions to inform the public of the very real and potentially
catastrophic issues facing the nation, much of the prime time news is devoted to
inane discussions like the Tiger Wood‟s car crash or Glen Beck/Jim Cramer‟s mad-
men rants.
2) Controlling the legislative i.e. the law making process. Through intense
lobbying and by financing the election campaigns of our “democratically” elected
representatives in Congress, corporations have managed to ensure that the nation‟s
laws favor their interests over the individual citizen‟s rights. One only has to look at
the loan shark like practices of credit card industry (retroactive rate hikes and hidden
fees) that trap borrowers into an endless cycle of debt, to see how exposed the
system leaves the average citizen.
3) Controlling the nation’s currency via the Fed. The U.S. Congress no longer
controls the government purse. It signed away that responsibility in 1913 over to the
Federal Reserve. The Fed is a private body answerable to nobody but the banks. The
heads of banks such as Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan sit on the Fed‟s regional
boards - and they are its real masters. The Fed has free access to print money and
lend unlimited sums of taxpayer money to banks, without any oversight.
4) Controlling our security through the proliferation of private armies such as
Blackwater.

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5) Controlling the nation’s food supply via corporatized farming.
6) Controlling our access to basic human rights such as affordable Healthcare
through insurance companies that act as gate keepers to determine what care one
can and cannot receive.

So what can be done? Is the situation completely hopeless?


Not at all. What we need today is a thought revolution that can help usher in a new era of
real democracy. And we can achieve this first and foremost by getting involved. Democracy
is an active process that does not stop on election day, but continues past it. It requires
citizens to stay in active dialogue with their elected representatives, and hold them
accountable for accomplishing the goals they were elected for. It is critically important to
keep the pressure on the folks we send to D.C., so that the laws that they pass are truly
democratic in representing the will of their constituents and not the corporations.

Secondly, the best way to strengthen our democracy is to get informed on the critical issues
facing our nation, so that we have the ability to discern facts from corporate/ideology driven
propaganda. Now much to our delight this is already happening as more and more people
move away from traditional “controlled” news sources such as cable and newspapers, and
look to independent news sites/blogs on the internet.

Lastly we should all support the bill to audit the Fed. It is our money and we need to have
complete and transparent oversight, over what the Fed does with it.

Democracy is a privilege afforded to us by the Constitution and it needs to be guarded with


utmost care.

About the Firecracker Report

The Firecracker Report is a financial and geopolitical analysis blog started by a team of ex-
Wall Streeter‟s with extensive banking and investing experience. We strongly feel that in the
current era of corporatized propaganda driven news the „real‟ news often goes unreported.
We have therefore chosen to lend our voices and join the growing ranks of independent
bloggers that aim to bring insightful commentary and analysis to their readers.

We invite you to visit our blog and would love to hear your thoughts and comments. We can
be reached at firecracker.report@gmail.com

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