Americans brag about our “freedom”. Yet we have very little of it. Our founding fathers would turn over in their grave if they knew how our “democracy” has turned into an oligarchy where the public is just a bunch of ignorant happy slaves.
If you are ill, the decisions between you and your physician are over-ridden by the private for-profit insurance companies that waste half our healthcare dollars on increasing their profits for shareholders and corporate CEOs. Whether you obtain needed treatment depends on the OK from a pencil pushing poorly trained nurse reviewing your request for approval for treatment. Your dog gets more rational, loving care from you and your veterinarian than you get from the healthcare system.
If you run a business you will be subject to so many regulations that don’t make sense that your head will spin, so many forms you won’t be able to do any business as you’re spending so much time filling out the forms, and you’ll be in a constant state of worry that you may have missed compliance with some regulation and will end up with a huge fine for being “in violation.”
The cost before you even begin will be huge as you may have to get a license and pay through the teeth for courses and certification and more courses and re-certification even to apply nail polish to someone’s fingers.
From retirement to buying a house, to running a small business selling nail polish we are over-regulated, overtaxed and over-papered. The only way you can avoid this is if you are one of the 1 % who has the means to pay the bribes, find the loopholes, and make your own decisions.
We are at the mercy of our masters and our despotic kings behind the scenes. The Illinois legislature is run by a handful of people who decide who will put their names on bills and which bills will be passed. Who is elected president little matters. The 1% will control him/her.
Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter. The 1 % is a cabal of corruption that have figured out how to exploit our “democracy” and hide the exploitation from the happy ignorant masses.
We must restore our Constitution, bring up our education to a world-class level, and strengthen our checks and balances so that patronage and corruption no longer have the upper hand. Until then there is very little hope for the masses.
We have seen in recent years that the bursting of the housing bubble has allowed the 1% to scoop up much of the assets of the 99 % at record low prices making the 1% richer than ever and in control of more of our property and assets than ever. Tax rates for the 1% in the lst 50 years have dropped from 65 % to less than 20 %. The elite are consolidating their power and wealth.
Our country is a totalitarian police state run by a few rich people and multinational corporations, sort of like the King in Robinhood and the inherited Lordships. In Illinois the King is Former Gov. Jim Thompson (R) and his inherited Lordships are the Daleys (D), the Madigans (D), the Burkes (D), the Lipinskys(D), the relatives of former Sheriff Sheahan (D), the Beavers (D), the Jacksons (D), the Brosnahans (D), and many others.
You don’t get a judicial appointment or get elected as a judge unless you have the stamp of approval of Alderman Burke and have paid a $10,000 bribe to have your campaign signs printed and posted on the lawns of employees of the Secr. of State and Cook County Sheriff’s offices. You don’t get to be a supervisor in these offices unless you post signs and sell tickets to fundraising events. You don’t get contracts with Illinois, Cook County, or Chicago unless you pay a 15% bribe from the income you make from the contract to political funds such as “Friends of Madigan”. Then the money is laundered through phony foundations such as now defunct Save-A-Life foundation, through purchases of homes for $1 where they are then resold using under the table cash (like Lisa Madigan does with a dozen homes in Maricopa County, Arizona), etc. Judges ignore the law with impunity in Cook County and likely elsewhere. I have discovered the above facts from numerous anonymous inside sources.
You can’t keep your job with the Cook County Sheriff or other Cook Count agencies unless you donate 15% of your salary to the election campaign of your boss such as the Cook County Sheriff – this was told to me by correctional officers at Cook County Jail. There are myriad of ways to get you fired from phoney job evaluations to planting drugs in your car (several Chicago Police officers went to jail when drugs were planted in their cars). Unless the masses employed by the State stand up and turn in their supervisors to federal officers by squealing, this will never change.
The gullible masses are brainwashed and ruled by fear – and hate -blinded to their masters’ greed (Corporate CEOs & Multinational behind closed doors oligarchs)
I don’t believe this will change until we have a viable united party controlled by the PEOPLE/UNIONS voting in numbers > 80% of voters to balance the cabal of corruption that consists of BOTH the Republicans and the Democrats.
As long as:
1 – a few media magnets own ALL media & can transform the “news” media into mere tabloids with failure to educate that consuming only biased extremist one-sided #FakeFoxNews or equivalent & one-sided select social media➡ brainwashed thoughtless stupid policies & acts ,
2 – the government can keep our population stupid and uneducated,
3 – the public can be appeased to be like an audience watching gladiators on the news (Anthony trial, reality shows, etc),
4 – the public remains uninformed and willing to accept as “facts” anything fed to them like geese being force fed for foie gras production,
5 – the corrupt leaders can deal with dissidents by throwing them in jail on phoney charges or defaming them as mentally ill without an objection from the public or exposure on the media,
6 – the nation is turned into a prison nation (only jobs available as jobs have been shipped overseas),
7 – our rich are allowed to ship jobs overseas for their profit,
8 – and the rich 1% in this country can continue to get richer during the economic downturn due to the above,
there is no hope.
Dr Linda Shelton 