How THEY STOLE America

[Segami]

:smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

" They are not done. Their agenda is known. They will destroy the Middle Class."



" In 1973, before President Nixon resigned in disgrace, Congress passed, and the president signed, "The Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1973" The intention of the bill was to "clean up" campaign funding. The result was the creation of PAC's, and a method for the wealthy to overwhelm votes with dollars. During the decade of the '70s, the U.S. saw an unprecedented concentration of business ownership. Mergers and Acquisitions became the primary activity of Wall Street. We lost hundreds of thousands of locally owned companies, stores and factories. The locus of control moved from a founder who could walk to work to a president who may not have even set foot in the state. We also saw a dramatic drop in the number of owners of media in every realm. The number of daily newspapers dropped, ownership of television and radio stations went from thousands to dozens. Corporations also went from a system of dividend disbursement to a theory of "retained" earnings. This concept kept the profits from operations, and the savings from abusing their workforce, under the control of Wall Street. Harvard Business School began teaching (in business ethics class) that if it was legal it was ethical, and if not, you could always change the law. Wages between 1970 and 1980 were flat.


In August, 1981 Paddy Chayefsky died. Ted Kennedy held up votes on Reagan's tax breaks for oil companies. PATCO, the Air Traffic Controllers Union went on strike, August 3rd. The strike was for safety reasons. On August 5th President Reagan fired the Controllers. The FAA immediately initiated control systems opposed by the Union and brought military controllers to civillian airports. Flights were kept in operation at about 50% of normal. It was ten years before air traffic was back to normal. The tax breaks passed the Senate. For the first time in 40 years American Corporations began a wholesale, declared war on America's working families. One CEO, of a very profitable company, with growing markets, fired all of his union workers. When asked why? he replied, "..because I could." Reagan also abandoned the "Fairness" Doctrine.


cont'


http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-They-Stole-America-by-amos-richardson-110222-862.html



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[disillusioned73]

1. Great article, thanks

k&r:dem:

[FiveGoodMen]

2. K&R

[L. Coyote]

3. They want all the public land, 50% of the country

and they will break up the USA to get it!

[hootinholler]

4. kick for later n/t

[cooolandrew]

5. Not if everyone joins a union while we have their un-divided attention.

[spanone]

6. pitting workers against workers....

[Segami]

7. To ' Divide & Conquer '.

"...A combination of political, military and economic strategies that aim to gain and maintain power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy..."


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[RagAss]

8. Yeh ...well the fight ain't over yet.