SEVERAL years ago, Wikileaks' Cablegate helped show the degree of corruption that's used to sign deals like NAFTA. It is all about corporate power and TAFTA is more of the same, only expanding to another continent (Europe) [1]. Over in the US people are protesting against corporate takeover of the government [2] and PR Watch keeps showing how corporations bribe politicians (recent examples in [3,4,5].) It is no surprise when Washington votes for GMO giants [6] and nations which reject GMO or US corporate power get demonised in corporate media. Someone who regularly reads this site supported this claim with evidence; we have been shown examples of spin on US-based television channels like Fox, trying to describe nations without McDonalds [7] as not fortunate or simply "anti-American". Banks also play a considerable role in controlling politics, as Professor Wolff explains in his good new article about austerity [8]. In his personal blog he goes further and explains why the GOP/corporate-driven Tea Party is doing a massive disservice [9] to the nation where capitalism just became "rule of the corporations" [10] (hence undemocratic). Had there been a real democracy, presidents like Obama would have listened to actual people -- not corporations -- and called those pseudo 'trade' deals off, possibly taking legal actions against their conspirators. ⬆
While the second negotiation round of the US-EU Trade Agreement, TAFTA (also known as TTIP), has just started, La Quadrature du Net issues a solemn warning to all negotiators against the risk of elaborating policies that would impact hundreds of millions of citizens without any form of democratic legitimacy. La Quadrature du Net calls on citizens to participate to its effort to expose the TAFTA negotiators and their eventual conflicts of interests, while urging individuals with access to negotiation documents to leak them to the public without delay.
Plans are coming together for the march against corruption in January across New Hampshire.
Wisconsin industrialist Terry Kohler has deeper ties to the controversial United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation -- the beneficiary of a controversial $500,000 “sweetheart deal” cut by a Walker administration appointee -- than previously reported. Kohler is one of the top GOP donors in the country, and his array of political spending raises new questions in light of a special investigation into potential campaign finance violations by third-party groups in Wisconsin.
The Kochs had a hand in numerous local and state races in yesterday's elections. Because the Kochs fund so many entities and because many types of spending are not required to be disclosed, a full accounting of their activities may not be possible. Below CMD runs down some of the known spending, races, and results influenced by the Koch brothers or Koch-funded entities such as David Koch's Americans for Prosperity (AFP).
McDonald's happy image and its golden arches aren't the gateway to bliss in Bolivia.
Here's how the capitalist scam works: let government borrow for crisis bailouts, then insist cuts pay for them. Guess who loses
Ironically, if the New Deal actually saved capitalism from what might otherwise have happened - e.g., fascism as in Germany, Japan, or Italy - a haunting question arises. Does the right's blockage of another New Deal now risk contributing to what was avoided in the 1930s?