American Oligarchy

Hey brother, can you spare a mil’?

That’s a mil’…as in million.

And that is just what you may see scribbled on a piece of cardboard box held buy a guy in a pinstriped suit standing by the beltway off ramp in Washington D.C.

No, he won’t be hustling you for spare change…

Or even an offer to work for food…

No, the 1% cat hustling you from the side of the road of our nation’s capital for a million dollars just wants to get a ticket to attend this year’s Democratic National Convention.

Why such an expensive ticket?

To get around election rules limiting financial contributions, of course.

Individual contributions are limited to $100,000 to avoid influence peddling from wealthy donors…

Which is laudable; we don’t want a government unduly influenced by the corporate and financial elite—

But if the government is duly influenced by million dollar contributions, well, that’s fine and dandy.

Ah, but wait; it gets better.

You gotta give them their due for cheek and daring…

Because the upcoming annual Democratic National Convention is being billed by them as a “People’s Convention.”

Which is absolutely true; they are, after all, “the party of the people;” and who can argue otherwise?

It just so happens that they are the party of the people with millions of dollars to spend on the re-election of the “middle class president.”

What?  A million bucks a head?

That’s right; the middle class president of hope and change is peddling the Democratic National Convention to ultra-wealthy donors…

Does that sound like democracy in action to you?

Really, this guy in the White House today makes Bill Clinton’s hocking the Lincoln bedroom for spare change look like amateur hour…

And really, why fool around with small change?

If you’re going whore the presidency out, by all means, do it big time…

And this Administration doesn’t do anything by halves.

Want another example?

Then just guess where the President’s acceptance speech at the “People’s Convention”will  be held this year?

According to Bloomberg, convention leaders have opted for a change of location from the convention itself...

It seems that this President is well beyond conventional thinking.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the President’s acceptance speech will be moved to a larger venue to allow “greater participation from all walks of life.”

Uh-huh…

But convention sources admit that it’s because they can “sell more sky boxes to wealthy donors.”

“All walks of life,” huh?

Right.

And which venue gets the nod to host the Great and Powerful Obama’s nomination acceptance speech?

Why it’s Bank of America Stadium, which holds 74,000 seats…Don’t know if that includes the skyboxes, though.

Bank of America?

The one with all the billions of bailout money?

Now, let’s get something straight right now…

I am not against wealth in this country…

Quite the opposite.

Here at Absolute Wealth we are all about pursuing the American Dream…

But the hypocrisy of this Administration is just too much to stomach…

The hand washing between the financial industry and the federal government has led the country into terminal insolvency…

The overtly close relationship between government and the financial industry that they supposedly are regulating…

The same people that have received hundreds of billions of bailout dollars are now being hit up for tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

This should bother somebody…

Because it just doesn’t pass the smell test.

In fact, it doesn’t even feel like America anymore.

But then, having a stock market that is propped up by a central bank—the Federal Reserve--printing money at will without any American oversight doesn’t seem very American, either.

Why focus on the way this president chooses to conduct himself?

Because it tells us about the nature of who’s in power…

And who is really supporting his presidency…

And, conversely, who this president really supports.

That’s it, isn’t it?

This Administration hates the middle class in this country…

Unless, of course, they are unionized…

Then he loves them because he can control them.

But back to the spectacle of the presidency itself…

Remember the Greek Temple stage provided for the “Sage from Chicago” in 2008?

Didn’t such largesse border on…cult of personality?

Wasn’t such a spectacle more suited for those kinds of countries that hold phony, one-party elections?

I knew then that this would not be a traditional American Presidency…

But rather, an imperial one.

And now his coronation—that is, nomination—is to be held in a stadium?

Is there going to be a blimp circling overhead?

We do not have kings in this country, because kings too often run the country as if they own it.

And that is exactly how Obama has run the economy.

That’s what I said; he runs the economy.

This Administration picks winners and losers, Solyndra, et al, not the market place…

And decides which laws apply and which do not, such as preventing GM from re-negotiating its union contracts under bankruptcy protection…

The end result is that this Administration is running the economy…into the ground.

What we are becoming—if we’re not already there—is an oligarchic economy that even someone like Vladimir Putin would be comfortable with…

It will be interesting to see which stadium he chooses to give his acceptance speech.

And those are…The Gorrie Details.

Related posts:

1. American Exodus
2. S&P Downgrades Obama, Geithner, and Congress
3. New Ideas?
4. “Governing” the Economy

Other posts by James R. Gorrie