Summary"A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it's going to get." -- Ian Williams Goddard Russ Baker in his book, "Family of Secrets", asks...how is it that W , who had an unimpressive record of accomplishment, became President ? Like other books that do not reflect the official story, Baker's book got scathing reviews, but his notes are extensive and his publisher is first class. We know that W's father was well connected and had headed the CIA. The CIA, our secret government with a black budget, is skilled at controlling public opinion, changing the outcome of elections world-wide. It has mob connections, engaged in illegal wars, torture, run drugs, assassinations, regime change, and according to Director William Colby "The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." The vast right-wing conspiracy does exists. See David Brock's book "Blinded By The Right" for some details. Very wealthy individuals (Coors, Scaife, Olin, ... ) funded "think tanks" like Heritage to produce propaganda, that is then fed to broadcasters, especially talk radio. Major US media conglomerates can and do manipulate public opinion and they are a major determinant of the outcome of US elections. Corporate elites are the major beneficiaries: oil companies fund strong messages denying global warming, polluters can do what they want with little regulation, the gun lobby gets no limits on the sale of weapons, the military acts as a security force for multinationals worldwide, defense contractors get most of our taxpayer dollars, banks get free money and permission to charge usurious interest rates, bill collectors get tougher bankruptcy laws, the very wealthy get to abolish taxes on their estates, and the Congress gets lavish campaign money, The wealthy are the winners, and the rest of us do without pensions, decent wages, healthcare, and pay the price for exploding higher education costs, predatory lending, and the largest part of the tax burden. We also get smaller government: little healthcare, downsized welfare, privatized Social Security, ruinous eldercare, and crumbling infrastructure. Republicans, backed by the corporate elite, were responsible for electing Bush. The Bush years were disastrous for the US on almost every criteria. Thomas Frank wrote about it in The Wrecking Crew. We now have a military that costs more than the rest of the world's combined, and we have the most extreme income inequality of the developed world. Our elected officials have done little to assure health care to everyone, to see that higher education is affordable, to fund modern infrastructure, to do our share of foreign aid, or to assure some security for old age. No. They are building an empire. The US seems headed for a two class, widely bifurcated society. US is Facing a Weimar Moment (3/16/2009) So lets face it:
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