Yves Smith at Naked Captalism:
The fact that what is good for the banksters is increasingly at odds with what is desirable for the rest of us simply highlights how predatory the industry has become, and how the incumbents are pathologically unable to see that.
We refuse to believe in this new Orwellian America. We prefer the world of magic, myth and illusion.
Democracy is dead. Oh, the illusion will be kept alive in our history books, in the rhetoric of politicians, in the manipulated minds of America’s 95 million Main Street investors.
The propaganda machine works.
Like a child’s fairy tale, democracy has been deeply imbedded in our brains for decades; we prefer believing old, familiar stories. They comfort us, even when no longer true. The real democracy, what so many fought and died for since 1776, is dead.
Lobbyists now run America, own America, rule America.
Forget the 537 politicians you thought we elected to the White House, Senate and Congress to run America for us. No, they’re mere puppets, pawns for the “Happy Conspiracy,” an oligopoly, plutocracy, cabal, monopoly all-in-one — a private club of
America’s richest few on Wall Street, in Washington and in Corporate America.Voters and elections are irrelevant. Lobbyists decide what’s in the best interests of this elite club.